Peace Offering

Sometimes, just when it seems that Mother Nature is throwing the book at us, I notice that the fruit trees go on producing their exquisite blossoms as they have since time immemorial... Perhaps it's a peace offering. Or an encouragement to try to do better so that we don't lose these moments of beauty we might tend to take for granted.

My niece writes from Italy, "It's funny, anxiety rises and lowers in direct correlation with reading the news. Based on information available it is hard to decipher facts and understand how to behave with regard to the virus. It feels paradoxical at the moment: life looks normal but then we are continually reminded that it's not. I keep asking myself if this is our future? It is certainly the present."

I feel that it has been our present for quite awhile now...

I add in extras, without further comment, a picture from the cover of this week's New Yorker magazine.