Yellow

Sometimes, Clementine asks me to sing her a song before bed. Usually, the best I can come up with is "Yellow", sung in whispers across her pillow:

"Look at the stars

Look how they shine for you

And everything you do

Yeah, they were all yellow

I came along

I wrote a song for you

And all the things you do

And it was called Yellow

Your skin

Oh yeah, your skin and bones

Turn in to something beautiful

Do you know

You know I love you so

You know I love you so"

We had a long talk with the kids about motivation, success, life, and the fact they won't always have things handed to them on a silver platter like they sometimes do now. If they want something, they'll have to work hard to get it. If they have something, they'll have to work hard to keep it. We've made a lot of allowances for the pandemic, but this is their life, and they can't stop living it or doing the best they can. All in the context of getting them to stop complaining about going to their tennis lesson. 

They were good last night, and two out of three of them played really well. After sitting in front of a computer all day doing online school, they need to do something outside, and they were all in a much better mood afterwards. On the drive home from the rec center, as they all three chattered away about opening a restaurant where Sam catches the fish and Clementine cooks it, Sam suggested if they weren't married they should live in a camper van together. 

When I got home from work last night, I ran upstairs to take a quick shower. Elise followed me into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. 

"I just got this message from Grace," she told me. Grace was a co-worker from my office. "'If you take tennis lessons with Gihan, send me a message about tomorrow's lessons.'" Gihan was the kids' tennis coach. "What do you think it means?"

"Maybe he's not allowed to coach anymore." Colombo has been ratcheting up restrictions since the start of the Sinhala/Tamil New Year surge.

"You don't think he has Covid, do you?"

"I don't think so."

"He's so careful.  He double masks."

"Send Grace a message and she what she says," I suggested. 

Elise tapped on her phone screen. A few seconds later, she let out a relieved sigh. "He lost his phone."

Our thoughts have been in less dark places than of late. 

Elise has been painting more, in between helping the kids get through the long days of online school.  It's fascinating watching art grow around you. It become a living thing, changing every day. Like a house plant or a pet, something organic, more than a companion, a marker of the passage of time as it takes on a life of its own, spreads its nurturing tendrils throughout the house. 

When Elise is not at the easel, I will sneak peeks at the unfinished product, drawing peace from the slow, purposeful process. 

When she is in her studio, Elise will spend hours hunched in front of the easel, earbuds in, listening to podcasts as she wipes her brushes through paint, mixing it, creating colors yet without names. 

Some.of them yellow.