April showers bring May flowers.

But now, with climate change, March showers bring April flowers, and my flowers are blooming with abandon.

I wish I could say that my creativity is doing the same thing. While many are taking this quarantined spring to make dance videos on Tik Tok, or learn new skills (I’ve seen everything from languages to knitting to pastry techniques), I’ve been turning further and further inward.

I’m an introvert by nature, so staying home doesn’t bother me any. But being furloughed from my day job has meant a slowdown in our lives as well. Instead of spending my time split between my keyboard and the hospital, I am now All-Mom-All-The-Time.

My writing career is just as on-hold as my hospital-based career. But it means I notice more.

Instead of a daily alarm to get me out of bed, I have a daily morning walk with my toddler. We walk our rural road, lined with poison oak (I got dosed two weeks ago, and the exquisite discomfort is all-consuming), and peppered with wild turkeys, hares, quail, and foxes. We visit the horses that are pastured at our neighbors’ houses, and listen to them harrumph and whinny.

I miss my writing, that’s true. But it’s hard to compare the triumphs of the page with the moment when my two-and-a-half-year-old waves me over to point out a tiny ant, making it’s way across the driveway. Or a spider trying its best to hide in the grass. Or when he hears intermittent hammering and says, “I think it’s a woodpecker,” and he’s right.

This spring, instead of turning outward, bursting with color and vibrancy, I’m choosing a more pastel palette. Unlike the violently purple irises and bright daffodils in the yard, I am the clover, nestled in the grass. Still growing, still thriving, just less attention-getting.

I’m reading romances and my research books (The Rakess by Scarlett Peckham and Black and British by David Olusoga, respectively).

I’m bingeing TV with my family, and trying to figure out the Marvel movie Universe (they all seem the same to me).

I’m baking with my kiddo and letting him use the sprinkles.

Sometimes we eat popcorn for dinner, and the toddler stays up past his bedtime.

I’m listening.

I’m watching.

And when I need to bloom with vibrancy, I will. Just not in springtime. Not this year.

 

How about you?