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The Little Griefs and Little Joys of Pandemic Life

Embracing it all, and seeing that this is life, too

Beth Nash Bruno
6 min readSep 5, 2020
Photo by Aaron Doucett on Unsplash

As I am writing this, I have my windows open to fall, which happily blew in on a breeze overnight. A fledgling Cardinal just landed on the porch rail outside my window, cocking his head in curiosity when he caught a glimpse of me. There is no sound but the breeze, the birds chirping and the occasional cicada singing its chorus of summer’s end.

These are the little joys of life during a pandemic. The sun still rises, the moon sails high in the velvet night and the birds still visit the feeders, emptying them out as quickly as I fill them.

When I walk out to the chicken coop, there will be 3–4 lovely brown eggs nestled together in one nest, even though there are six nest boxes for 5 hens. Just this morning one of my girls was complaining loudly to the entire neighborhood that her sister was sitting on the nest she wanted. The chickens could not care less about the pandemic. They make me laugh, and this is a little joy.

The sheets are on the line and when I take them down and put them on the bed they will fill the room with the perfume of sunshine and autumn breezes. We made a trip to the appliance store today to buy a new dishwasher, since the old one flooded the kitchen floor one too many times…

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Beth Nash Bruno
Beth Nash Bruno

Written by Beth Nash Bruno

Human learning to be human. Writing in hopes of getting there.

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