House on the Rock

It's week 8. I've ridden more miles on a dusty Walmart bike than I've ever ridden in my life and with every mile I become a little more convinced that I'm probably tour-de-France material despite still falling over on every dismount and being lapped by eighty-year-old Monon Trail Riders who indubitably have more arthritis than I have years of life. That was meant to applaud them but it sounded more like an insult, nonetheless, it's crazy what a community has formed on these trails because it is pretty much the only thing we are allowed to do. I've been a regular at the Sugar Creek Trail since I was in the baby carrier that Mom towed behind her bike, along with seven Thanksgiving Day Pie Runs and about a million walks later, you'd think I would know the trail well. But something about this Spring has Lilly and I convinced that the Parks Department is adding some new landmark every night when the gates are closed. Maybe it's because there's less pollut...

It's approximately week 5 of the quarantine and I haven't smelled fresh air in 427 days. I'm kidding,  but some days this feels like it is probably true. Some days the weather is unexplainably nice for early  April and I sit outside and soak up the sun and go for long walks and smile at my neighbors  and exist in a pleasant state of bubble-like bliss where I nearly forget that anything is wrong in the world. But then there are the days when the temperature ferociously plummets below 40 and snow falls like ice and my whole body feels enraged, entrapped, discouraged, and desperate for an escape. We wear hand-sewn masks over our faces as we sit in the Kroger parking lot and wait to pick up Mom's grocery order and we check our news sources every morning to see whether we've hit our peak of the pandemic. It's truly the weirdest time of my life: more family game nights than I've ever had in my life, online classes that make me publicly celebrate my parents for o...