Swamp salad
Hi friends,
The biggest victory of the weekend is that we got the kids outside for a walk at the park near our house with minimal screams of protest. When they howl at the idea of going outside on a soft warm day, I try not to spiral into convincing myself that the pandemic is going to sever their connection to the natural world.
But then! We followed a boggy, low-lying trail edged with thick patches of garlic mustard and stinging nettles. The boys could identify both, and when Ellis swiped his leg against the nettles - ouchie - he grabbed a big leaf off of a nearby plant which he claimed would help the stinging subside. He walked the rest of the way with the leaf wrapped around his leg while we pointed all of the edible plants we could see - staghorn sumac, Japanese knotweed, the aforementioned nettles and mustard, a veritable swamp salad. For now, the connection still seems intact.
I don’t just worry about my own kids becoming indoor cats, I worry about yours, too. I wrote a little about this, this week - including some insight I took from a book I’ve been dipping into called The Nature Fix about how spending time in natural settings can make us calmer, and sharper, too. And here’s a little thing about how we can be more purposeful about our free time (lol free time).
Oh - this too: While I still find pleasure in looking through the refrigerator and making something tasty with the ingredients that need to get used up, I also really miss cooking for people other the members of my immediate family - and I wrote more about it for Together, an online community journal filled with lovely writing and art from fellow isolated Bostonians of all ages.
That essay talked about how important it is for me to feed my people, but in the absence of cooking for you, there’s always talking to you - on the phone, on the sidewalk, through our car windows. I don’t know where I’d be without my friends to talk through some of the tough stuff that’s been coming up these past weeks.
I have questions:
How many parents out there are making sourdough bread? I am not among you. Fuck the bread. The bread is over.
How are the domestic duties are going? Hopefully better than in Japan?
Are you playing lots of Little Richard?
XO
Leigh