I reshelved some books onto my bookshelf upstairs this week and came across a little notebook full of my sketches and watercolors. I’d forgotten entirely about the artwork. I flipped to the last sketch – a mixed-media sketch of a dandelion – and was thrown back in time to June 2020, the season of Covid, when I was home with nothing much to do, like many others around the world.

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It was a time of letting go in many ways because our plans were not our own. Our local and national governments put many restrictions on our comings and goings in hopes of keeping people from becoming sick.

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So, for us as a family, we made our own fun. We gardened, painted rocks, hid them around the neighborhood, howled like wolves off our deck, and my daughter and I painted and sketched.

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I remember one beautiful summer day when my daughter and I sprawled out on the grass with our colored pencils and watercolor paints. We’d tied our two dogs nearby, and they enjoyed the summer day with us. We’d hear the buzzing bees as they darted from flower to flower, gathering pollen and shoving it in the pockets on their knees. We’d lie on our bellies to get a closer look at black ants marching beneath the towering weeds. We’d roll over on our backs and gaze at puffy white clouds as they drifted effortlessly overhead, creating pictures in our minds from the floating wisps of vapor.

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I remember spilling water droplets onto my dandelion masterpiece and seeing the water scatter across the page like tearstains on my picture. It’s as if I can hear our laughter about my lack of artistic ability. It’s a simple moment frozen in time, and it reminds me that even during our most challenging times, there are moments of clarity, simplicity, and celebration.

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Today, I looked out my window into my front yard, where we sketched and laughed. It’s unspectacular right now because of off-white skies, the cooler temps, the breeze, and the damp earth that’s supposed to be my grassy lawn. In reality, it’s a carpet of thick moss.

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This afternoon, at the tail end of winter, I see my flowering currant bush showing off her pink blossoms despite the blackberry tendrils that try to choke the life from her. It seems like that towering plant has always been in that corner of my yard, but I know I put it there myself after the King County Bare Root sale several years ago. It’s now likely ten feet tall and probably the only plant in my yard without sharp thorns to strike me, and it’s one of the first signs of spring.

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I spot the chipped Fiesta Ware plates that decorate my secret garden, but they didn’t fare well this winter. The baubles and beads that had once been secured to my grandmother’s dinner plates with Gorilla Glue have let go and lie like dead bugs on the piles of sticks and leaves beneath.

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Today, I marvel again at the swiftness of time. In just five years, we’ve had so much change. The pandemic is behind us, but its aftereffects linger. My daughter has graduated from technical college and manages an emergency veterinary hospital, with plans to go for her nursing degree this summer. Both dogs have passed away, and we are sadly pet-free. My husband and I have both had significant changes in our work lives.

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Today looks gloomy. No blue skies. No puffy white clouds to observe and capture with art supplies.

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But this I know. No matter what’s happening locally or in politics around the world, the sun will rise, the dandelions will bloom, and the bees will buzz on, collecting their pollen with ease.