Settling In Gently by R.A.Davis

My kids are getting big. I have evidence for this: today, I decided to make a pot of tea, put some cookies on a plate, and read a book. I got all cozy on the broken (comfiest) part of the couch, put a quilt on my lap, and started to read. And, like cats, the kids quietly gathered. Makani had volume one of Heaven official's blessing-- I silently cheers-ed him with my book, since I was reading volume four. He cheersed back solemnly, and settled into the squashy chair with his tea. Maile appeared and settled next to me to read the I-Ching, and then sat on the carpet, casting oracles with three coins. Yin, Yang, like binary code, conjuring scraps of poetry and fortunetelling. Liko, not to be out-classed, helped herself to tea and cookies (rejected my strawberry kit-kat, thank goodness), and read Junie B Jones And The Stupid Smelly Bus, which is her very first chapter book. The lights were on the christmas tree, the cat curled her tail around her neat toes and blinked at us, the wind ...

For the first week of schools closed and everyone staying home, it was the most beautiful spring weather imaginable. Every plum and cherry tree on the street was a sweet cloud, the sky was clear west coast blue. All the little plants in the yard grew fuzzy little buds, all at once. The kiwi vine and the apricot tree I was sure I had killed through last summer's negligence put out tiny leaves and buds! The daffodils and narcissuses nod their yellow manes on the back hill. I stomped around outside in my pink muck boots and pajama bottoms, listening to Hadestown and Post Modern Jukebox on my headphones, while Liko played with the gravel from the path. The other afternoon I stood outside watering the garden boxes where Maile had just put down the seed potatoes and where the pea shoots just starting to nudge their pale green bent necks out of the cold black dirt. I heard a chirp and a zoom-- and a hummingbird swooped nearby. It paused just a few feet away from me, and levitated in the...