That calm I wrote about last month has gone the way of snowflakes in DC.

I've been working these past weeks to finish a long-term project, but the research topics (Civil War, Great Lakes shipwrecks) delivered more death and destruction than I had the emotional bandwidth to absorb on some days.

We're still hovering around 2,000 daily COVID deaths in the U.S. The pandemic continues its ravages. And then Russia launched an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

So I forgive any you for lacking the capacity of attention to finish this short newsletter, let alone focus on responsibilities at your job and provide support to dependents, friends, and community members. I am heartened only by the sight of early tree buds, the smallest perceptible extensions in the network of life silhouetted against the cold blue above.

Art comes to mind, as usual, particularly work that mocks our divisions. But I've also thought about how my walls serve as a gallery for my aunt's cross-stitching, a new work for every season. Those threads connect me to her in the abstract.

Yet some art sews the physical to the intangible.

The dormant leaves teach volumes, but I hope you smile (or gasp) like I did when I first saw intricate leaves rendered in thread or embroidered lines of color across the living green.

"Things are not unmoving (or else what / is ing there for?)"
 

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This newsletter was written on the traditional lands of the Piscataway and Nacotchtank.