May

The horrible virus that Tristan brought home more than two weeks ago has now laid everyone low. I got sick while Tristan was still in the early stages, then Dane started to feel bad, too. Duncan was next, then my Dad succumbed. Dane's mom, Sherry, came to stay with us for two nights and a day last weekend. I barely got out of bed while she was here, and both babies kept her up both nights. After Sherry went home, the babies got slowly better, Dane mostly recovered, and I got worse. Sherry is now on her fourth day in bed, very sick. My dad has "relapsed." I'm on antibiotics for a spectacular sinus and ear infection, tottering ineffectually through my days. Dane's dad isn't feeling well, and my step-mom thinks she's got the disease. I considered making a joke about 1918, but on reflection, that would be tempting fate.

The nurses at the clinic in town assure me that this sort of thing happens every year. Still, it seems cosmically bizarre for everyone to be sick in these early weeks of May. Day after day the weather and views are like something ripped out a Maxfield Parrish calendar. Anyone with an ounce of sense or motivation should be outside weaving flower chains and basking in the golden light. I, however, have been inside, shuffling behind my children with a box of tissues and seizing every possible opportunity to slump onto the couch. To sleep. Or read a novel. Or watch an episode of Doctor Who. Or fret about all the work I haven't done. Or sleep. Inside, May has not been particularly glorious.

Outside, of course, May is the thing that inspired the romantic poets. Today I was well enough to creep out into it a bit. I took Duncan for a walk on top of the mountain. The woods are older up there, and I know the nooks and crannies better. It was a grey kind of day, with rain that came and went. New mountain laurel leaves crowded along the paths and sprinkled us with water droplets. We played in the creek. I floated beech leaves down the stream for Duncan and they were like bright green boats on the dark water. Duncan sat on a rock and scooted himself closer and closer to the edge, until shoes, pants and diaper were soaked. All the while he signed, "Fish! Fish!" and laughed when the leaves went through the fast water. We saw mayflowers, painted trilliums, lilies of the valley, and one perfect pink lady slipper. Duncan greedily ate damp teaberries with both hands.

Really, it was the kind of day that could put a person in sympathy with crazy poets. Even John Keats, walking in

"A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed
So plenteously all weed-hidden roots
Into o'er-hanging boughs . . . ."

Of course, I have a sinus infection, so I have to remember crankily that Keats also wrote Ode to a Grecian Urn and died horribly of tuberculosis. Duncan is free from this sort of crankiness, and besides, he makes his own poetry. As we walked along today he sang out, "Trees! Trees! Trees!" He signed, "Wind!" "Water!" "Fish!" "Flowers!" He smiled from ear to ear. He licked raindrops off the trail signs. He called to the birds and growled at the orange newts. He squished his soggy shoes. Warm and cozy at home, looking at a picture of a parrot, he signed, "Bird. Pear. Carrot. Pear-carrot." And smiled, so pleased with his tiny self.

Mr. Keats said:

"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."

Crazy, sick, dead at 23 from a hacking cough, Keats was still quite right. Soggy diapers and a few thousand used tissues are forgettable. Babies playing in the woods are a joy forever.