/data/universe/

At 7:45 this evening I stepped outside, and it was fall.

Not by the calendar, of course—the equinox is still a few weeks away.  But the soft, cold drizzle in the gloaming made it unmistakably clear that Seattle’s summer was ending.

What did we make of these last few months?  We spent as much of it as we could outside, knowing that bleaker days lay ahead.

We got some guidebooks and spent weekend mornings at regional parks, discovering that our 6 and 2 year olds can handle a hike of a mile or so, and will tolerate it–even if their appreciation for the beautiful forests of the PNW didn’t match our own.  (After six years in dry, scrubby SoCal, green feels like a gift.)

We found beaches of rock and sand, river and lake.  We biked and scootered, walked and ran.

We stayed—no trips to see family, this year.  I watched on Zoom as my brother got married.  We FaceTimed and Skyped and called and texted; but it wasn’t the same.

We worked, of course—with our minds, and with our hands.  We repaired and planted and rearranged and reimagined.

And we watched, and read, and talked, and worried–about school and the kids, mainly, but also about the country and our society.  The pandemic surged in the South and West.

First grade starts online this week.  Violence is spiraling after yet another police shooting of a Black man.  And there is still no end in sight.