Antics of the Ants

The ants are marching two by two by four by dozens into our house in April, undaunted by the snow. Or they were. They had been very interested in the (covered!) butter dish on the kitchen counter and the flecks of toothpaste on the bathroom counter. But when they appeared en masse, not respecting social distancing at all, in the bedroom near my husband’s closet and dresser, he went into action with bug spray. 

He is usually a very gentle guy, and animals love him. But he does not love ants.

One was crawling up my pajama leg after some floor stretches. I have returned to yoga. Our daughter, who is training to be a yoga instructor, practiced a focus class on lower back pain on us via Zoom on Friday, and it got me back to A.M. Yoga for Beginners with Rodney Yee on Saturday and Sunday. I like Rodney Yee, forever young via video, as I am forever a beginner.

Also got back to the trail, now that the sun is out and the temperature is up. People remain friendly and polite as they (for the most part) maintain the six feet distance from each other. There are “Mind the Gap” signs up now.

I’ve reported on my “loopy reading” of fiction, nonfiction, and children’s fiction. I’ve also been reading poetry—the wonderful books Match, by Christine Marshall (Unicorn Press, 2018), Indigo, by Ellen Bass (Copper Canyon, 2020), and Blowout,* by Denise Duhamel (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013). Next up is Duhamel’s Scald (Pittsburgh, 2017). I got the Duhamel books to read on the plane to Pittsburgh in early April for a reading event there. I won the 2019 Patricia Dobler Award, and she was the judge, and part of the prize was the reading! It was, as you can guess, canceled. The new (May/June) issue of Poets & Writers just arrived, with the announcement of this award in it, and it gave me a brief pang, tiny as ant bite in the scheme of things.

Zoom is helping me in so many ways—the yoga class, work meetings, a library open mic this past Thursday, Zoom Church this morning, and a family gathering by Zoom this afternoon, bringing together family members in Tennessee, Illinois, Nebraska, Oregon, and California. With a baby!!

*I love how “blowout” is a big fight, a big party, and a way of styling hair, among other things. In hair, it’s a desired thing; in tattooing, not. But how about that beautiful body art on the Indigo cover? And that makes this a Random Coinciday, as well as a Poetry Someday in the blog.