I'm sitting cross-legged in my big leather club chair, which is the best chair in the apartment for writing. I'm trying to finish my fifth manuscript in five weeks by tomorrow night. All five are Dr. Seuss-themed, and all five are scheduled for publication next year, so we're on a deadline.
Four of them, including this one, feature the Lorax. This one is about the joys and benefits of planting a tree, for early readers. The other four are about volcanoes, gardens, beaches, and oceans.
Jo is next to me in our antique rocking chair, watching the latest news about the coronavirus.
Whiskey, the bad cocker spaniel, is at Jo's feet, chewing on a bone. Bailey, the good cocker spaniel, is sleeping peacefully on the sofa.
Ethan is home from college for the rest of the semester. He just poked his head out of his bedroom to wonder aloud whether Socrates actually believed that Greek gods were real.
Sam is also home from college, but is now with her mom in New Jersey; she'll stay there until this is over.
We're not freaking out. But it's stressful in a below-the-surface kind of way. I believe we'll survive the virus, but I worry about staying employed, I worry about the freelancers we've had to cut, I worry about all the shops and restaurants on Amsterdam that may or may not reopen when this goes away. I worry about my parents. I worry about Jo, and Sam, and Ethan.
We will plant a new tree.
We will have lots of fun!
In fact, we may even
plant more trees than one!
I need a word that rhymes with habitat. "Where it's at"?
It's comforting to be sitting in my big leather chair, escaping into Seussian rhymes, surrounded by people and dogs that I love.
