White Lily (Home of the Brave) (Live) by laurie Anderson
There is something about this clip from Home of the Brave that strikes me every time I hear/see it. The question and answer. The sense of days going by, pulling us into the future. It is almost a month since we’ve been asked to shelter in place in Massachusetts. Spring tosses its head, allowing rain, wind, gust, and sun, without pattern. The trees are budding, first pink, then in the diustant cardinal red. There are green leaves, and have been appearing since March began. Somehow, the garbage men still arrive to take away the bins every week, and this always reassures me, somehow. So far, in my town, anyway, we still have recycling being picked up as well. A headline caught my eye: it’s not all cooking and quality time. A poem by teacher and writer Jessica Salfia composed of first lines of emails she received while in quarantine went viral: https://twitter.com/jessica_salfia/status/1249000027198033922
I spend more time on instagram and face book than before. My schedule each day is wake, eat, read, eat,write, eat, television, sleep, punctuated by a conversation on the phone now and then, sprinkled with social media throughout.
There have been happy discoveries: Goldie Hawn silly-dancing on instagram. A breathtaking video of steamed bread-making:
Recipes that turn out well.
Roses that arrived in the mail, now planted, which might grow well, maybe.
Zoom meetings with friends.
The occasional egg cream.
The cats who interrupt my staring into space.
These are a few of my favorite things during this period in time, our 2020.
Indira Ganesan 