Every few minutes I hear the gentle whoosh of the SkyTrain, whistling through the early evening silence. The SkyTrain is 1km from my home, and I’ve never heard it from here before. Normally the city’s drone smothers it out.
A small flock of early goldfinches gathers in the crabapple tree to pick at the buds, chirping exuberantly. There are crows and flickers and doves and finches. Birdlife is busting out with the spring flowers, and I’m not sure if there are really so many more birds than I’ve ever seen before in the city, or if it is just that it is so, so quiet. Birdsong is everywhere, varied and intense.
There are almost no airplanes. There are very few cars. The air is so fresh and so sweet. This, I imagine, is what it was like fifty years ago – before everything became so loud and so fast.
And how am I, in the midst of the beginning of the viral cease and desist? I was seized by a brief crying jag this morning, but that is not so unusual. It passed. I am well; very well, really. I am well-fed and well-housed and well-friended. Jenn and I walk along the seawall in the brilliant sunshine (with the requisite sanitary gap between us), and we laugh.
Some passersby laugh with us. Others scowl, as if our happiness is inappropriate.
Tears are appropriate. Laughter is appropriate. There is so much beauty in this.
Interestingly I’m also feeling high , for all those things you mentioned. Britain is also going through cloudless skies warm sun and cold sharp mornings . It’s also referred as a high I think. Been out on longish rides on my new semi recumbent e trike , I bought it because I lost the neck muscles making riding upright dangerous.