Thinking Allowed: High Bar, Low Bar

Our time in California was active and busy. In addition to a flurry of beaches, parks, museums, friends and school work we also delved into some hobby sport. Sophia was overjoyed to be part of a gymnastics team that was both welcoming and trained hard. We were thrown into a gymnastics culture of taking things more seriously. Sophia loved the work hard, dream hard ethic of the gym. I was astounded by the precision, form and skill level of the six year olds in Sophia's group. We went to one of their competitions - It was large and impressive, involved dozens of gyms and took place in a rented out convention center, and Sophia's gym crushed the competition. I was nervous about dropping Sophia into this kind of competitive gym experience but the girls and coaches were all so nice and she thrived. Tova was thrown into some martial arts classes. She took it very seriously and improved dramatically within a handful of classes. The coaches were serious but fun and interspersed banter with choke holds and pep talks on what it means to work hard and be a good person. I got all of us a monthly pass to a group of climbing gyms and 'climbing then tacos' becoming a bi-weekly ritual. I must have made quite the picture with my troop of girls all clambering the walls, hopefully a good picture. We all got a little stronger and a little more tan.

And now we have been mostly cosied up indoors for about three weeks now. Our time here in Ottawa has been more existentially somber (what with world pandemics and the death of loved ones) and sedentary but also pleasant and relaxing. We don't expect to go places or get anything done. We occupy ourselves with different tasks, complex meal preparations, music and games. Zadie has taken a shine to domestic duties and washes the dishes multiple times a day and is now able to not only be adorable but also wash jam stains out of her pants. Tova has attached herself to her grandfather and is benefitting immensely from his attention and endless patience and now knows more bible stories than me and can play chess surprisingly well. Sophia binge reads books until we make her do something else and practices handstands and cartwheels in the space between the bed and the wall. Aurora is taking up morse code and learning to type properly. She is about 1/3 of the way through the middle school math curriculum and researches facts about countries with her cousin. The days are somehow busy and full and the girls have done an awful lot of math. We arrived here in time to get to embrace winter briefly, skating and romping in the snow, before the Spring thaw began. We are here now for some unknown period of time for slightly bleak reasons but it is offset by the bursting through of Spring and by the unintentional and impressive fact that this is our fourth Spring - on three different continents - in the past six month. The flowers will come through no matter what restrictions are in place and we have all the time in the world to enjoy them.