Shelter in Place, San Francisco, California, July 16

It seems like yesterday that the agapanthus bulbs were opening like fireworks all around the garden. Their bright blue accent among abundant green cheered me up immensely, and I’m sad to see them getting to the other side of fresh. With a Covid sense of time, it’s hard to track the weeks these days, and though you’d think that such doldrums would slow things down, they seems to make it all go faster. Hence, my surprise this morning at seeing not a single agapanthus flower without a drooping bud.

I remember decades ago when my Minnesota father-in-law growled on the fourth of July that summer was nearly over. I thought it funny at the time. But this year, I imagine that teachers, parents and students must all be feeling a terrible dread as decisions about the fate of school semesters hit the headlines every morning. Knowing educators as I do, they are frantically working out the safest way to handle things IF politicians insist on opening, and they’ll put their own safety to the side; parents are calculating and recalculating every day the danger to their kids. And this year both are probably joining the students of every age in wishing that the summer would slow down.