“These are my gardening gloves,” my nephew Tate announced over FaceTime, holding up his colorful wrist-guards. “And these are my knee pads…and elbow pads!” he proclaimed, proudly showing me his blue camo protective gear. “Can’t take them outside, though, ‘cause it smells like barbecue.”
“Yeah, you’re right, buddy. Gotta wait until the air is better, huh?” I replied.
“Yeah!” he agreed. “Here, I’ll put on my gardening gloves. This one is the right hand,” he said solemnly, as he proceeded to place the glove on his left hand.
My sister Lisa, Tate’s mom, came to the rescue when he grew increasingly frustrated about the “gardening gloves” not fitting properly. I laughed on my end of the FaceTime call and wished I could be there with them, helping put on his knee pads and elbow pads, and keeping him engaged indoors while the air quality up in Northern California is just too terrible to be outside for long.
Poor buddy, I thought. First school is cancelled, and now he can’t even go out to play for a little while. Of course, this time will pass (as fire season always does), and eventually our world will recover from this pandemic — although I suspect things will always look a little different. But this cooped-up cabin-fever feeling is no joke. For three-year-olds and thirty-somethings.
a sign that something is wrong. Perhaps, my ability to turn off the news points to an imbalance. I can shut it off because I feel like it doesn’t affect me as much. But what if the person I saw on the news was my sister, or my dad, or someone else that felt really close to me? What if the issues presented in the political arena seemed more critical to my day-to-day life?
ENOUGH 