The morning belongs to me and to the rising sun – its glistening reflection in the dew on the quiet grass. The silence, which wraps us together, is broken occasionally by two squirrels in a wild dancing ritual, which will probably end with lovemaking. My cat Snuggles is purring in my lap, contagiously happy and thankful for being snuggled. He never gets tired of the opportunity to “shelter in place” there, and every time I move, he dutifully demonstrates it with doggy-like grateful licks. The red plastic spring that Snuggles loved to play with rests useless on the ground, untouched for days now. It was his most beloved toy, together with the bone-shaped tiny pillow that he carried everywhere, until one day they both became invisible to him.
Cozy in their soft bed next to me, the newborn kittens have their blue eyes wide open to the world now. They are absorbing every motion around with curious fascination. The chatty birds are respectfully quiet at the moment. They gather every night around the cherry tree for their uplifting singing competition. Most likely, they are serenading some other yard before returning here, all dressed up in their tidy, colorfully-feathered attire, oblivious to mine and even my cat’s presence, performing tirelessly and selflessly until it’s time for a new tune during the night ritual.
My family is still asleep, sheltered inside the house, hopefully taking what’s needed to wake up with a smile. The tea I make from scratch every morning is purring too, all the roots in it moving in a quiet trance while creating the magic potion of peaceful grounding. I am sitting cross legged on the grass, sheltered under the lean shadow of the tree with the purple flowers, which has been looking like it will never bloom again. “It’s dead,’” the gardener told me casually last week. “We’ll have to remove it.” Instead, I asked him to remove all the plants around it, including the fragrant jasmine, which knows its way around well and spreads its confident greenery with a bit of an attitude all over the patient, old fence. The tree didn’t have a single leaf to assure me that its shy, purple flowers know that it’s already spring. It just stayed numb, with all of its delicate branches rounded in a big, dry hug. Then, this morning, it changed its mind and suddenly returned to beauty.
The serenity in the air is palpable. It’s Sunday, and it almost doesn’t matter if it’s not. We’ll be sheltered at home today, and tomorrow, and also the day after, which somebody will confuse with another day of the week. They mostly look alike now, those days. It’s lovely, because all of them look a bit like Sundays.
