Spring is here

by Dimitri C. Michalakis

For the past few weeks I have seen my two daughters (who also live in Brooklyn, minutes away) only in passing—from the car. When we drop off food to them my wife cooks, to help them, and keep herself busy, and pick up and drop off their laundry, to help them, and keep both my wife and me busy and get us out of the house.

It’s surreal to see your kids, but only see them from a distance, not to touch them, not to have dinner with them, not to share an evening with them, to Zoom them—little boxes on a screen. We Zoomed for Easter, after dropping off food to the girls, and taking food in return—a communal meal where everybody cooked something: spanakopita there, tiropites here, gigantes there, fasolakia here, oven-roasted potatoes and karidopita from my daughter Ashlyn that were out of this world, baklava and tzatziki from my daughter Alexis that were out of this world, a tsoureki from my wife that was phenomenal. After the pickups, we sat down afterwards in our respective homes and had dinner by Zoom.

My wife and I ventured out a few times to the local markets to buy food, standing in line with our masks on, being allowed into the market a few at a time, making sure to check the arrows on the floor to make sure we were only going one way, moving along so others could follow and we could keep our social distance, waiting in line to check out, at a cashier with plexiglass in front, a mask on (she better), gloves on, a credit card that we made sure to disinfect in the car, a receipt that she gave us with her gloved hand that neither my wife and I wanted to touch, groceries that we took home and then sanitized backwards—groceries, boxes and bags, floors and surfaces, hands, knobs, keys—did we miss anything? How far back in the process do we have to go?

Sitting in front of the TV and watching Andrew Cuomo clicking his little board of statistics and prompts and inspirational quotes—but mostly waiting for him to unload on people like McConnell and have a spar with the President, New York-style, two New York boys, before it becomes a “good working relationship.” Trying to watch movies and shows, that somehow don’t have any relevance now, commercials that don’t have any relevance, except when they feature “no-contact” pizza pickup, and cars that get delivered to your door, but mostly listening to the drone of the news, though when we can’t stand that anymore, my wife and I put on the Hallmark Channel, like a screen saver, and don’t pay attention, but those sunlit shots are occasionally soothing, the small towns they feature in spring, summer, fall and winter are a refuge, and the pretty dramas of love remind us of a world of social closeness so different from our own: how quaint.

But Spring is here again, the flowers are blooming again, the leaves are sprouting in the trees, the birds are singing in the morning, and now we have the leisure to listen to them. And the Resurrection did come for us this year, as every year, and it did remind us again that with sacrifice comes a new beginning, like every spring flower struggling to sprout from the dirt, yet ultimately becoming so beautiful and gracing a brand-new panorama of our world every Spring.

Keep the faith and be safe.