Somewhere out there

I’m looking out the front window of our house in River Falls, WI. It’s a Sunday afternoon in April, and we’ve been “sheltering in place” for weeks.

It’s no surprise that on a sunny weekend day that’s nearing 60 degrees, there’s a flutter of activity on the street. People walking dogs, families biking as a unit, runners running. I also have a front row seat to our neighbors across the street.

A single mom lives there with her two elementary aged boys. The boys are taking turns falling off the ledge on the side of their house, into soft bushes. It reminds me of the game I used to play in the pool as a child. My friends and I took turns pretending to be casually walking along and then fall right into the pool as though we didn’t know it was there. Hilarious.

Though it’s by no means balmy, we have the front window open because this morning I made overnight baked French toast and the brown sugar/butter mixture overflowed from the large jelly roll pan and dripped onto the oven floor, flooding our house with smoke. We didn’t set the house on fire and the breakfast was delicious.

We can feel the chilly spring breeze.

I can hear birds chirping, kids laughing, leaves rustling.

It’s spring, even in quarantine.