Part of an early quilt top before going out for quilting. Watermelon Sliced.

written yesterday: I should be weaving just now, and I have fabric pulled for a quilt of ordinary cotton, other block-printed fabric waiting for my attention, and an impressive stash of batik cotton. If I put my mind to it, I could have a couple of quilt tops done before summer. I could do three. A month and a half of steady work.

The catch, of course, is actually completing the work.

Putting my mind to a task and plowing ahead. The shawl I began weaving yesterday should be almost done, since I worked nearly until dark yesterday. Today, we walked long, and when we got back I felt tired and managed only a few inches of weaving. I worked on the end of “Butterfly Fontanelle”  and know how it ends. I read a long article in The New Yorker that contrasts how two states, Washington and New York, dealt with covid19. I was wondering how long it would take for that story to be written. Almost a million confirmed cases and over fifty thousand deaths in the U.S. alone—the disease is a lot more destructive than anyone realized at first, and I do not expect that isolation is going to end anytime soon.

Some people can see all this disruption from a calm perspective, but I do not seem to be able to manage that. As our governor allows non-emergency surgery, family members may soon be able to have surgery they need. We have family and friends out of work, and several neighbors in their seventies with additional health issues. Not everyone I care about has been in touch or responded to emails, so there is that too. None of this “inconveniences” me, of course. We walked where there is no one within a hundred feet and we venture out only once a week. We have income. We are healthy, the two of us.

This morning on our walk we talked about the food we ate as children. Neither of us came from well-to-do families though we have friends who did. Our childhood foods included Jello and Velveeta, iceberg lettuce and ground beef. My mother was capable of making a great meal, but mostly she didn’t. Canned corn, canned fruit cocktail, canned peas and baked beans. Instant rice and mashed potatoes, a roast for special occasions. Mostly the cheap, over-processed food of lower middle class America. Bologna sandwiches for my lunch every single day for a couple of years. No chips, no cookies like other kids in the cafeteria.

When I bake bread, I remember my mother baking bread until she decided she could save money buying the cheap stuff at the store. She baked pies from scratch and cakes from boxed mixes. Maybe that’s why I like pie better? Mom always made me a lemon meringue pie for my birthday because she knew it was my favorite.

It is foolish to dwell on sad memories from my childhood. Decades past appropriate. Chalk it up to over six weeks of physical distancing, self-indulgence, and general irritation. So much suffering out there and I cannot pretend it doesn’t matter to me.

I need to shift gears. Revise. Bake something. [And I did: cranberry bread, three loaves.]