This morning: scones. I found myself awake before Adam and the baby, so I leapt on the opportunity. Baking and solitude, it turns out, is an excellent combination. Before we decided to stay in full time, I couldn’t differentiate between the two big jars of AP and whole wheat flour in the pantry. Now I can make scones with my eyes almost closed, heavy-lidded from a night of so-so sleep—and before coffee! Which makes me wonder the same thing a lot of us are wondering right now: Who. Am. I.
The truth is, I’m seeking a cure for the mundane, trying to create a semblance of rhythm, to keep the days from feeling like one long, cruelly expansive stretch of time. For that, I’m relying on hunger—not just physical hunger, but the kind of programmed desire that makes you want to start the weekend with a glass of wine on Friday night and finish it with something homemade and soul-satisfying on Sunday, something that possibly simmered on a hot stove for hours. That kind of hunger shapes time, marks moments and celebrations.
I’m embarrassed to admit that I felt sorry for myself at the beginning of all this. Our nanny had to stop coming, so she too could quarantine. And I had to reduce my work hours as a result. I’m working when I can, during the baby’s naps and late at night or on weekends. Our days have no real beginning, middle, and end unless we take extra care to recognize their progression. At first, I mourned the loss of forward momentum, the loss of personal time, the pause on my career and creative goals. I told myself it was just that—a pause. I would put on blinders and get through it until life as we know it could resume, until we could pick up where we left off.
That kind of flawed logic is obviously short-lived, especially in the presence of a six-month old—a constant reminder that time is rushing forward at the same pace it always has. Olivia now has her two bottom front teeth and wispy baby bangs, which have grown so long that you can push them to the side and pretend she’s in a tiny emo-punk band. She can also sit up on her own. All of this has happened in the past four weeks since we’ve been in quarantine.
I’m slowly loosening my grip on perfection, or rather, the idea of it. You can’t pause a growing baby, or birthdays or holidays or anything else, really. This week, the first two nights of Passover came and went regardless of our inability to run to the market our usual three-or-so times to get everything ready for a big Seder. Instead, we roasted a chicken, made a salad with apples and parsley and toasted walnuts and actually sat at the table together, just the two of us (no TV! or baby!). Not to be sacrileg, but there’s something about a really good roast chicken, its skin crispy and kissed with butter, that sanctifies a moment. It felt like enough.
In the past two days, the tree in our backyard has burst soft green and white blossoms from its bare lace branches. Spring seems like an abstract concept at the moment, a consequence of being fairly disconnected from the outside world, I guess. Yet. In the next week or so, the whole tree will bloom, fluffy and cotton-like, it’s branches heavy from all the tiny flowers. Life will move on, regardless of how much control I try to exert over it, regardless of the messy apartment. I can either shut my eyes in protest, wait for a return to the status quo, or I can bake scones and roast chicken and pour myself a glass of wine every Friday night, and show up for all of it.
