Last day of the second month. I want to get away. We walked to Sunset & Seattle and watched this ferry heading across to Bremerton. Everything seems so quiet.

Over the under bridge. Usually, we walk on this wonderful path under the Admiral Bridge, but sometimes I run over it and then down...never stopped before to notice this view as West Seattle empties out into Elliot Bay and across to the Space Needle.

This is normally our workspace and retail shop but it’s also where we do other things. We’ve been doing yoga here since long before the coronavirus changed our lives, but it just seems more appropriate these days. And yes, it’s a part of our routine here at Qamera. Trying to make it a daily part.

Sorry to disappoint, they have a frosted glass window. But I guess that works both ways. The existential question of the day: should we put our shower gear up on our windowsill? Is it offensive to others? Or is it Art?

Our excitement of the day was the replacement of our front shop window that got shattered five weeks ago by a ‘midnight ranter’ who we suspect was freaked by our black cat, who likes to hang out by that very window and taunt humans with her glowing green eyes.

Mother Mary in the Bamboo Grove at Harper. Yes, we are supposed to be sheltering, staying home, and staying healthy, but we interpret the latter to mean “get over to Harper as much as possible!” I’ve started doing longer runs while over there, taking advantage of having fewer people to encounter especially compared to the throngs at Alki. Well, not throngs in a pre-March sense.

Earth Day. I remember the first Earth Day, I was in 9th grade at St. Martin’s Protestant Episcopal School In New Orleans. It seemed like such a quaint idea. We were all aware that we should not litter, but that was pretty much the extent of our awareness of the earth’s situation (well, speaking for myself).

Harper has become the go-to place for escaping. Today we celebrated Jon-Erik’s birthday with our first ‘large’ group. Physical distances were kept. Monica did a chocolate cake. The sun was shining. Covid-19 was nowhere to be found. Not that we were looking.

Sunday - morning walk out to Sunset Point. We walk past this home almost every day and sometimes run into the owner and tell him how much we love his garden. Everyone here is practicing social distancing, but few are wearing masks outdoors - myself included.

Saturday - cleaning day! 🧼 🧹 🧻 five weeks in. Reading the paper, trying not to get triggered by the news but failing. Well Fran is triple-tasking, reading about Celtic Spirituality (Anam Cara) and checking out cooking and gardening videos, and studying the I Ching workbook that I also want to delve into - so she is doing a better job than me.

Socially Distant Delivery: the bread was baked by a close friend, Dave, who then got on a bike and rode it over to me all the way from Bellevue, 30 miles round trip! Sometimes this thing is amazing. It’s certainly brought a lot more meaning to our lives.

Thursday - nothing to report but it’s 66 degrees out and everyone is outside, keeping their distance as much as possible. Feels like we’re in a Steven Spielberg neighborhood; kids drawing hopscotch with chalk on the sidewalks, riding their Sting-rays in circles in the street, couples walking around the high school track, individuals doing laps, people working out in the infield (lots of ab-building!) alternating with fast laps. Then there’s me. Sweating, red face, trudging on my intervals. No wonder everyone is steering clear of the old man. Down at Alki Beach, it’s crowded as well, but some have taken to the water anyhow…

My Outside World. From about 10 am to 1 pm, the sun shines onto our tiny back patio which Fran has turned into a virtual tropical 🌴 jungle for Mochi 🐈 and us. It’s the perfect place to savor our late morning deep-pulled espresso or to have a chat with my sister in Santa Barbara, who sent me a sing-along video that was so kooky it made me slightly worried (she doesn’t usually do that sort of thing). So I called her from our secret garden. She’s fine.

We took another walk through the neighborhood. we walked through the neighborhood and observed all kinds of street and home art taking place, simultaneously, throughout our community. I am sure this is happening everywhere. This example of the indomitable human spirit raising its collective hand makes it so clear to me that there is something much, much bigger than us. Certainly bigger than the individual.

We found a beautiful corner of the neighborhood that looks out to the west across the Puget Sound and the Olympic mountains. Fittingly, it’s the intersection of Sunset and Seattle.

Two weeks ago, this was the day that Trump said we could all be out of his mess. As it turns out, deaths here in the U.S. are doubling every few days. Jack (87) and Rossie (85) snuck out of their retirement home and drove over to Marion’s on Queen Ann where we met up and enjoyed Easter Pizza with a magnificent view of the city. We all wore face masks.

Leaning Tower of 🎂 . The cake was extremely well-architected, but the cut was a bit off, hence the leaning. since the pandemic started we have all been paying a lot more attention to each other (granted, sometimes with mixed results!) and I hope we all keep this up when we get to the other side.

This arrived while we were out. The security cam has a video of this poor guy trying to leave it sitting on the chair on our back stoop, and it shows him coming back twice to check that it’s still there. Guess he didn't want it to fall over. It didn’t. Fran has some serious friends. What are we going to do with this?

Four weeks since we flew back from Phoenix and went into shelter-in-place. Sort of. So this photo depicts what we do at about 11 am. The previous one is what we do at about 7 am. It’s a beautiful day. How do we, and the rest of Seattle, resist luxuriating in the sun?