It’s raining—downright pouring at times.
My friends and I are not together today; there is no Sunday doggie playdate that allows us to catch up on everyone’s lives.
Instead, we are texting our updates to each other. I was sewing, with the March Madness NCAA basketball tournament playing in the background. One friend was “cooking up a storm for Passover.” Another reported: “cozy fire, baking and maybe a nap…” Someone else stated, “Quiche production—using up eggs and all other questionable food in the fridge.”
One was particularly ambitious: “Painting the laundry room and binge watching a show.” Yet another was off to Boston for her son’s soccer game—delayed from the fall, but “all smiles under the masks to finally be on the field.” And the last to check in had just returned home from “a really relaxing and restorative yoga.”
In another year… in another time… in another style of life… we would not normally have checked in this way. I would never have heard about their afternoons. These leisure moments would have been lost by the time we would have been together on the sidelines of a game, or perhaps finding time to get together for a supper somewhere. Now that I think of it, the meet-up on the sidelines of a game is gone for all but two of us in this group: their kids have graduated now.
In an odd sort of a way, COVID has kept this group of friends together. A nice silver lining to remember on this dreary—but relaxing—afternoon.