Maybe it's going to be a season of ups and downs. I had been feeling SO MUCH BETTER all this week, but then today I have been a little weepy and worried again. The church music director texted me to say "We love you and miss you and we are praying for you every day!" and I teared up. The dean of students got right back to me to say they followed up with the student I am worried about it, the one who hasn't responded to my email, and I teared up. The dean of my college sent out a beautiful email to all of the faculty -- just exactly the right mix of serious and hopeful -- and I teared up every dang time I read it. (Four times. It was a really good email.) I'm rereading Blackout and in the face of all that loss and bravery I keep tearing up.
"DO YOU THINK WEEPINESS IS A COVID-19 SYMPTOM?" I asked Elwood in an all-caps voice this afternoon.
"No," he said. "I do not."
My mother's birthday was this week and after some dithering I gave her a copy of Doomsday Book. I love the Oxford time travel universe, and I love the author's certainty that you can do your bit wherever (and whenever) you find yourself -- that people of good will must work together for the greater good. Such a big truth, expressed in such a gentle, funny, slightly meandering voice. I do not think it will be exactly my mother's cup of tea, but I suppose we'll see.
Tonight we had a quick and easy saag paneer, made with the last of the onion masala I mentioned in last Friday's blog post. Elwood heated up about a cupful of onion masala together with two bags of frozen spinach, and when the spinach was hot and tender he added about a cup of sour cream and applied the immersion blender with vigor and determination. He fried up the cubes of paneer so they would be lightly browned and slightly crispy, but you could skip the frying if you happened to be feeling either rushed or deflated. Serve over rice with cilantro on top -- it's a Gladly family favorite. A spoonful of butterfat makes the leafy greens go down, just like Mary Poppins always said.
This afternoon one of my children asked me to explain German relative pronouns and I was like "I WAS BORN FOR THIS MOMENT LET US DISCUSS THE MIRACLE OF RECURSION." But then...I proceeded to explain relative pronouns with such enthusiasm that I thought for a moment he might cry. So maybe I was not born for that moment? It was pretty clear that the kid in question much preferred the following moment, the one where I said "Let me slow down and try again," and no actual tears were shed.
Huh, this post is entirely free of narrative arc. Here are some things I have been thinking about today, with lots of capital letters. Hope you are all doing well, friends.
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