Lockdown Diary Six - March 31, 2020

 I woke up at 5:30. At first I felt good, that I had broken my new early-waking habit. Then I opened my eyes. Darkness. My hands smelled of garlic from yesterday’s cooking, in spite of the multiple times that I wash my hands every day. I refused to get out of bed until 6:30 — that’ll show them!

I went up to the roof at 7, but my heart wasn’t in it, and it was getting hot, so I only walked for half an hour. 

I came back down and mixed the ingredients for the cold brew coffee liqueur which I had prepared yesterday, and decanted it into a wine bottle to age.  There was some left over, so I poured it into my coffee and drank it as I washed the dishes. I rarely drink at all, but it sure helped with the dishes.

I was listening to the great On Being podcast, in which Krista Tippet talked to Ross Gay about delight.

There’s a question floating around the world right now — how can we be joyful in a moment like this? To which Ross Gay responds, in word and deed, how can we not be joyful, especially in a moment like this? He is a writer, a gardener — also a former college football player. To be with him is to train your gaze to see what’s terrible but also to see what’s wonderful and beautiful. To attend to and meditate on what you love, even within the work of justice. We practice tenderness and mercy in part because to understand that we are all suffering is one quality of what Ross Gay calls “adult joy.”

— Krista Tippett

I also made kichdi and washed the kitchen counters and swept and mopped the kitchen floor. Oh, what a good girl am I.

(This is the last entry that I wrote as a lockdown diary. Now it is just my life.)

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