Though I live near San Francisco, my area is called Little City Farms, and feels rural. I live on a non-county maintained road, which means we pave the part we use, and the rest is a continually devolving landscape, a receptor of water’s flow.

Saturday I walked around the “hood” participating in a patterned pause and movement of social distancing. 

Ahead of me was a family with two children on foot-driven scooters.  The parents and one child turned a corner, but the other, a little boy about three, dropped his scooter in the middle of the road, and ran to the far side of the road.  I stopped, keeping my distance, as did someone coming the other way.  He dropped his pants and unselfconsciously peed into the weeds by the side of the road.  Then, he pulled up his pants, picked up his scooter, and off he went.

It was a moment, sweet and shared with people lined up behind me, like planes on a runway, each with distance, but able to see.

Before sheltering-in-place, families around here were busy and well-scheduled.  Now I hear children playing in their yards, and I see and hear families walking and biking together.

Cars sit and batteries run down, and in this moment, I pulse softly with peace and calm, intimacy, .

On another note, this morning I read Ocean Vuong’s poem, “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong”.

I’m struck by these lines.

Your dead friends passing

through you like wind

through a wind chime.

I receive, believe.