Tomorrow someone will inevitably ask me how my weekend was. It was ok, I will say, we stayed home.

At which point they will lose interest and leave alone, because it is a truth universally acknowledged that nothing interesting ever happens at home.

At home

Sunday starts with a rain so grey that we turn on the light. We make Sunday crêpes, as we do every Sunday, I call my parents, we play, we make lasagna. I usually hate to have people in the kitchen when I cook, but today I make an exception. I bask in their warm presence, in their delightful anticipation of our future meal. I even let them sprinkle cheese on top.

Then the sun comes out and children run off to see their friends up the street and I decide to go for a walk.

In the forest

The geese are performing some kind of ballet or a musical: there are dozens of them up in the air, they circle, crisscross, change ranks, pair up. They accompany their aerial dance with long cries.

Not a single flower is out yet, but the mosses are luminous green, the fungi are sprouting from every tree stump and fallen log and the stones are painted green and silver with lichens. It’s amazing how once you know that everything alive, you start noticing that everything is alive, more than noticing – you start feeling it. And once you start feeling the life in everything, you start opening up to it, letting it pour into you. And you no longer look for a moment of breathtaking beauty, a catharsis, because you feel every moment. As Richard Wagamese said, The center of the universe is everywhere.

On my way home I notice some old trees, I assume maples, with wet patches on their bark. I touch one wet patch and lick my hand. It tastes sweet.