We are so many months into this pandemic, and the relentless pressure and loss of it all weigh. On me, on many. On most? I suppose it depends on where you live, what you choose to believe, who you have lost, and what meaning you put into life, community, “freedom,” and duty.

I suspect you all know where I come down on this, but in the meantime, I spent a meaningful few hours on the Mall last Friday with my friend M in service of a local artist’s installation regarding Covid in America and the scale of what we’ve surrendered.

Some of you definitely saw this exhibit; others read about it. I couldn’t fathom its impact until I was there. I had volunteered to transcribe online submissions from people who wished to honor their loved ones. M and I sat at a Cosco table, armed with fresh Sharpies, white flags on metal stems, and printed cards to copy onto them. The volunteer to my left lost her brother to Covid last year; other volunteers didn’t share, at least to me, but some had helped for many days, and if I’ve learned anything at 45, it’s to never assume you know what someone is struggling with, processing, or feeling.

After more than an hour of transcription, M and I offered to tend plots of already-planted flags. Part of me hated to leave the writing tent: there was something so powerful and important about bearing witness to grieving people’s testimonies. By writing their final tribute, we, too, honored the dead they mourned.

But carefully, tenderly straightening flags felt almost like tidying a graveyard. Watch your step, provide honor where honor is due, memorialize.

While we were there, the artist, Suzanne Firstenberg, changed the number board to reflect the updated official death toll: 700,327. I mean, the sadness-rage cocktail became a frothy, shaken mess laced with ice chips. New Zealand’s count was like 14 (see tiny patch in above photo). This could have been different, the numbers could have been infinitely lower, perhaps we’d be done with this masking, distancing shit by now.

But no! ‘Murica. SMDH.

I am so glad M and I volunteered, but at the same time, it was a sad cap to a shitty week. A poo bonus, if you will.

Now, I am in WV. I drove out Monday morning after getting the boys off to school and finagling a childcare logistics schedule that any mother could do while sleeping but which would likely boggle the mind of most men. Because there are no longer llamas here, our pastures are overgrown and in need of serious mowing. I have spent many hours trimming, but this is beyond the scope of one woman and her motorized weed whacker. I priced brush-hogging it before asking about renting a herd of goats. Goats are half the cost.

And, goats are the answer. They are darling, friendly, make amusing sounds, require no gas, need to eat, love to eat, and poop liberally which amends our rocky “soil” in fabulously beneficial ways. Sixteen arrived Monday around noon, and I have loved every minute since. Well, I have loved everything except smelling the billy who is the sweetest animal but who smells so foul that it cannot be articulated. He is as if an ancient fraternity-house carpet, sodden with years of spilled beers, decided to start asking others to pee on it with abandon. And never washed. Holy shit.

Anyway, I love them, and it is so healing to be here by myself, including without Nutmeg and Ruthie, and to have no schedule and no one to feed or talk to other than the animals. To garden until I can hardly move another muscle. To order mulch and sifted soil. To eat a donut. To indulge the barn cats. To think and simply be. To acquire a Neighbor Account at Tractor Supply Co.