Another quiet day and one in which to reflect. My cousin’s son is suffering from a terrible head injury from a bicycle accident. I think about bicycle accidents frequently because we ride so much, and Hubby has had a couple of run-ins with cars and a bad collision with a deer. Also, I learned that a woman I’ve shared the storytelling stage with, Arthuretta Holmes Martin, died a few days ago from covid. Hers was a beautiful, powerful, and important voice of the African-American experience. She will be missed by so many. And tomorrow I’ll be at the memorial service for my aunt’s husband—the second one she has had to say goodbye to. So yeah, life is given to us and it can be taken away. It can be changed in an instant, and we are forced to cope with whatever experience happens.

In the meantime, my life carries on as normal today: giving away items on Freecycle; seeing evidence of more mouse activity in the basement; having another downpour come through the threshold of the new basement door; and also being grateful that the garden is watered from the sky and not the hose, that we are safe and fed and housed. And that I know life is to be enjoyed, love is to be experienced, and flowers are here to make us happy when things seem a little bleak.