Silver Linings

-



Growing up I remember the older folks around us saying frequently, “Count your blessings.” This came back to me recently because the news is so bleak. It’s all the sky is falling, the sky is falling. Oh it didn’t fall yesterday but today for sure. Or maybe not today but definitely in the Fall! Everywhere folks are lamenting “the COVID-19 outbreak has changes lives ways that were previously unimaginable.”

This week I decide to both count my blessings and look at the unimaginable ways life has changed, all with an eye to the silver lining of this all.

Counting blessings…

I wake up in the morning next to a man who has been at my side for twenty-four years, in a room flooded with sunlight in a house I love. Birds sing on the other side of the window as the dogs snore gently.

Life has changed…

When I go outside, there are kids learning to ride their bikes up and down our street. This seems to be strictly the domain of dads. Some of the kids we’d only ever seen as they waved hello or goodbye from the child seat in the back of their parents’ cars. And I’d certainly never seen a kid riding a bike up and down our street before. On our walks, we’ve met dogs we’ve known for years but only ever saw alone barking in fenced yards. Now they riotously drag their reluctant owners down the street exploring sights and sounds they’d only witnessed through squares of fencing. I see young people, looking bewildered and slightly bored, holding hands and walking around the neighborhood staring at houses and stopping to examine gardens.

Everything has slowed down. In the mornings, our walks take longer; I can stop chatting with neighbors instead of waving and shouting, “I have a train to catch,” before running off dragging the dogs behind me. The dogs seem to have picked up on this new leisurely pace, stopping to sniff more and walking slower.

A few year back our neighborhood saw a bitter dispute between folks who wanted to put a playground in our open park, arguing that kids needed equipment to play, and others who argued kids simply needed open space and their imaginations would furnish the equipment. At some point an agreement was reached; a “natural” playground would be built. Then as so often happens, the project stalled because, well money. Playgrounds of the imagination cost nothing but playgrounds with equipment cost a bundle. Now the playgrounds are all padlocked. As I walk by and see scores of kids running around playing games in the park, I wonder if their parents see the irony.

Silver linings...

I have had the same twenty-dollar bill in my wallet for nine weeks. With nowhere to go and no daily trip to the office, I have nothing to spend money on. Also, I have an additional $105 a month because if I’m not going into work every day, so I don’t need a SEPTA rail pass.

We have two sets of new neighbors. They moved in the middle of the pandemic. A gentle reminder that life goes on, that life shall continue, maybe different from before but continue it will.

My husband cut off all his hair then took apart our washing machine to replace a part—after watching a video on YouTUBE. It didn’t work out quite as he’d expected. Silver lining? Because I’m working from home, I was able to capture it all. He’ll never live this down.

See life is full of silver linings. We just have to look for them.

 

Photo by sydney Rae on Unsplash


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Catching Up With...Stacey Thomas, the Philadelphia Wedding Chapel

-
Image
If you read this blog regularly, you know that I recently married my longtime partner (see Musings Stanley (left) and me with Stacey Thomas of a New Husband, June 29, 2014 . Ever since I was a kid, I dreamed of marrying some bright prince. And as a writer of gay romance, I’ve written gay weddings into two of my books, brilliant, extravagant affairs both. The wedding in What Binds Us ,  included a groom on horseback and “Ten thousand pale pink roses—an entire crop from Holland flown in that morning,” while at the comparatively simpler wedding in Unbroken “it seemed everyone in the world was there” including a flock of startled peacocks. Yet, when it came to my own wedding, panic set in. I didn’t know where to start. I knew I didn’t want to get married in a church and I knew there wouldn’t be hundreds, or even dozens of guests in attendance. In desperation—at that point we only had two weeks to get married on our 17 th anniversary—I goggled “weddings in Philadelphia.” The Phila
Read more

On Writing Part Two: (You’ve Got to be) Ruthless

-
Image
I remember when I first started writing seriously, I would come across all these articles where writers talked about “honing their craft.” That would immediately trigger an eyeroll and a metaphorical flipping of the page (after all most of these articles appeared online). Now seven years later as I begin work on my fifth novel, I’m rethinking that. I still dislike the term, sounding as it does as if one was practicing sorcery. Though, now I’ve come to realize that when we write, we create something out of nothing, which is kind of a neat conjurer’s trick; you (hopefully) pull gold from straw like a literary alchemist. And sometimes, too, being a writer can feel like you’re playing God playing house. You breathe life into your characters after all and give them companions and adventures. The story itself is the Universe you created for them. The characters are the bones of the story; the plot and the conflicts are the capillaries and veins and arteries. And the words are the skin. T
Read more

A Fatherless Father's Day

-
Image
Max as reluctant to let Dad go as we were. I remember the accident as if it was yesterday. I had been living in Washington, D.C. for three years. That particular morning, a Saturday, I was running late for work. It was a gray, wet morning at the edge of Winter. Heavy rain, like molten white gold, fell from an aluminum sky as I blazed along at 80 mph. A gray car merged onto the roadway from the right, then proceeded to move into my lane without signaling. The car was moving so slowly it looked like it was moving backwards. I pressed the brakes hard, pumping steadily with increasing pressure, my right hand tight on the gearshift ready to down shift. Realizing collision was inevitable, I glanced at the speedometer: 60. The impact sent my little car spinning towards the concrete divider separating west-bound traffic from east. The world seemed upside down. I remember thinking, I’m going to die and I never got to be friends with my father . I glanced up at the sky, oddly unafraid,
Read more