What a month! If someone had told me on May 1 that COVID-19 would no longer dominate the headlines by June 1, I probably would not have believed them.
Despite all my skepticism, I sincerely hope that the mostly peaceful protests will enact real, tangible change. In early April I read "Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America." When I heard about Ahmaud Arbery I couldn't help but think that nothing has really changed since the 1940s. Racism is a part of our nation's DNA, from the moment we decided that "all men are equal" meant "all white men are equal." In her book "These Truths," Jill Lepore does a great job of showing the thread from that moment, when some men who knew better decided that artificial peace was a good compromise, to the Civil War, to where we are now. These protests highlight two things: race is still an issue and our police have become way too militarized. Radley Balko has been warning us about the latter for years, hopefully we start to listen.
We continued to spend most of May in a limited lock-down, only seeing a handful of friends of neighbors in what we determined were acceptable risks. We certainly miss our friends that we have not been able to see, church, the downtown library, and so much more.
May is a month of birthdays for us, and we still celebrated, albeit in a very muted way. R1 celebrated her fifth birthday, and C her eighth. It's hard to believe they are getting so big!
We also adopted two young bunnies, Clover and Violet. We are hoping both of them are female and we can limit it to two for now. The plan is to use their manure for the garden, and the girls get to enjoy the new pets. Thanks for my dad for connecting us with these little balls of fuzz.
May is also the month of the strawberry wave. We rode it as well as we could, sharing with neighbors and friends and eating them until I think we're nearly sick of them. 😆 We froze many quarts and will enjoy them over the next year in strawberry smoothies.
The YMCA pools are a staple of our summers here, and they will probably remain closed all summer. Hence, we went ahead and picked up a small 8' pool and put it on the back porch. The jury is out on whether or not we'll upgrade to something a bit more substantial. I have a feeling that pool companies are going to be really busy this summer!
Musical performances have been curtailed, but that didn't stop C from doing an outdoor concert with her fellow students a few blocks away on Forrest Ave (here in East Nashville).
We also got in a few hiking trips. We visited Dunbar Cave State Park, which was pretty but not really worth the 45 minute drive. The cave was also closed due to COVID-19, which was understandable but disappointing. We also hiked at Long Hunter State Park, which we liked better. It's only the second time we've hiked there in the 10 years we've been in Nashville, and I'd like to go more often!
Last, but not least, R2 had her much-awaited heart surgery (CHD repair) a week ago. I'm happy to report she's doing quite well! She is a little trooper and tolerated all of the wires, tubes, prodding, and poking with a sweet spirit. I'm thankful for the excellent care she got at Vanderbilt. The hospital had just restarted elective surgeries so there were a lot of empty rooms. I felt she got more attention than she normally would have due to that, which was nice.
I'm grateful for the very temperate weather we had during May as it allowed us to spend a lot of time outside during the lock-down. Of course, we're all hoping that things will return to "normal" in the short term, but it's still challenging to entertain four young girls when so many of the things we do remain closed (Nashville Zoo, libraries, art museums). I hope we find creative ways to get out of the house in June that don't entail unnecessary risks and also don't involve a whole lot of sweating. 🙂
Stay healthy and sane out there! ♥