The Best and the Worst, with Muffins

My oldest daughter is now of the age where she texts of an afternoon to be picked up at Barnes and Noble at 5pm, rather than school at 3pm. And since I’m a big fan of brick and mortar book stores, and appreciate her appreciation of the same, this week I picked her up at 5pm at Barnes and Noble. She had purchased a Classics edition of A Tale of Two Cities, which is one of the many reason I love her (she spends all her money on books).

I’ve read A Tale of Two Cities. Or more technically, I had it read to me, chapter by chapter, in Mr. Roseberry’s 9^th grade World History class. There are a lot of details I don’t remember about the story, but I do remember pretty vividly that it’s a complicated story line with a lot of double-crossing, and people who look like other characters, and are in love with the wrong people. If you haven’t read it, it’s not really worth summarizing here, and I couldn’t, as it’s been way too long, except to just reiterate that it’s a story about revenge and redemption and love, as so many good stories are.

Probably the one thing we all may remember about A Tale of Two Cities, if we remember nothing else, is its opening lines, It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…

Seems pretty prescient. I guess the world has gone through some hard times before. Since my daughter brought the book home, I’ve been thinking about those well-known lines. How everything seems to be at opposite ends of a pendulum lately. There is incredulity on both sides of our political spectrum. One side of our country is engulfed in fire, and the other in a stream of hurricanes. Even specific to this pandemic, some people have lost everything, and some people have been only modestly affected.

One thing that seems universal is that we’re all stressed out. We’re on edge. We’re not coping quite as well as maybe we’d like. I’ve been searching for balance lately, so I thought I’d put a little effort into what isn’t apocalyptic lately.

I have taken more walks with my youngest daughter than at any point in our lives. And we’ve made more meals and baked goods together. And practiced more Beginner French conversation. And just in general shared more time together. In the past, I admit that I couldn’t have said for sure what topics my children were studying in the majority of classes. But this year, I know. And I know what’s been challenging, and rewarding, and frustrating… because we know each other’s lives better. Just as I no longer disappear into an anonymous office, their day also unfolds in front of me.

Our dog now thinks that he gets four walks a day. This has been an easy thing to accommodate through this amalgamation of mostly warm weather months since COVID. This quadruplication effect may be tested as it gets colder and darker, but I specifically bought a winter jacket with that silver polka-dotted thermal reflective layer just based on how freaking excited the dog gets every time his beseeching puppy dog eyes win out. You just can’t have the power to grant that kind of joy to another living being and not use it for good. He’s happy, we’re happy. It’s win/win.

Now, this may seem like a small thing, but it brings me great joy – a large percentage of both my leggings and dresses have pockets now. So that’s amazing.

Autumn is really just a gorgeous season. I went outside today at lunch to go for a walk and it was that perfect 80-degrees where it feels like you’re in a perfectly regulated sunbeam and the trees were in peak autumnal turn. I made pumpkin muffins last week and pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting this week, both of which are delightful treats that somehow don’t fit quite so perfectly with any other season but fall. Give me all the spiced apple cider and baked apples and pumpkin muffins and I’ll imagine that I’m living in a farmhouse in Vermont with an orchard outside and a fire in the hearth.

For sure, this has been the worst of times. I’ve seen the worst of me during it. The me who is angry and brittle and despondent, despairing of the world ever bending toward justice again. But it’s also been the best of times. I’ve been gifted more memories with my family than in any other season, more time to drink hot tea in my pajamas before rushing into the morning routine, more honest conversations. How are you? means something more now than it did a year ago, and I’m really glad we’ve been given societal permission to say, “This is hard.” May we not lose that.

It’s the best of times, and it’s the worst of times. We have pockets in our leggings, but we’re hanging on by a fraying thread. It’s not exactly balance –but it’s something, and there are pumpkin muffins to go with it.