4th Wave... but life goes on.

 

Today I found the smaller half of this shell in one of my chile planters. I found the larger piece in my lavender.  It was a wonderful reminder that life goes on, in the midst of all the chaos and worry.

Today was a mixed bag for me.  Cay and I have started meeting up every morning to do a Richard Simmons video workout.  It was good.  We always have a laugh as well as a good workout.   I'm slightly sore, but that's also good.  I'm alive.  A lot of people aren't.

I'm watching the COVID numbers here in Sonoma County, and it looks like we'll be right back to the December levels by September.  The deaths have slowed down (at least among the vaccinated) but the Delta variant is still spreading among the vaccinated as well as the unvaccinated.  Scientists are now worried that a variant will be spawned that's totally immune to the vaccine.  Right now, at least, those of us who are vaccinated have a much much lower chance of illness or death, but no vaccine is 100%

Today we went back into mask mandates in the Bay Area, including Sonoma.  I always wore my mask in the stores, except once in Kohls, when I was the only customer I could see in the entire store.  Now it's always... and sometimes doubled. 

Outside on my second story patio, unmasked, I pulled out my chile plants, which are done for the season, and watered my herbs and my tomato plant, the later of which has both ripe tomatoes and blooms on it, so I expect those sweet little cherry tomatoes for another month at least.  I'm contemplating the season of things... how some things fade quickly, some go on for a long time, and others grow, then go dormant, then grow again.

I am not sure whether this is a metaphor for the virus or humanity. 

A swallow passes overhead just then, and I wonder if it's the mother who left the eggs in my patio garden.  

It doesn't matter.  

Somewhere the baby swallows are getting ready to take flight.  They are alive.  I am alive.  And at that moment, it's enough.