Souvent me souvient.

Walking through the Backs, with its newfound daisies and tulips sprinkled around, I remember being back in the foothills of Appalachia where spring was an idyllic time for me. The creeks finally cracked their icy sheets and flowed through the valleys. Bulbs blew up into blooms with their greening stems and bombastic blossoms. Dew softened dirt.

When my family and I first moved from Miami, my only experience gardening was in our backyard: me, age of twelve, trying and failing to grow basil plants and tomatoes that barely reddened. At age sixteen and officially a ‘city boy gone country,’ I hoped that Georgia’s soil offered more. In order to save money and take advantage of the land, I decided to take up gardening again. For the six years I was there, every spring meant driving the beat-up pickup truck to Home Depot, buying bags of fertilizer and conditioner, seed packets and saplings, and spending ripe, sunny afternoons tilling the ground. I even spent time in my undergraduate university gardening for work-study. It felt natural to have grit nestling in the cracks my red beet palms—highlighting life and love lines. It was gardening that helped me grow and mature. To bloom. This spring, it feels like that idyllic toil of tilling soil has been denied. Just as the weather has cleared up, we must stay home. As the river Cam slowly warms up, we stay dry.

On a nighttime walk I saw the rogue cow herd roaming in Midsummer Common. I’m no stranger to cattle, but it was surreal to see them in a city I always thought of as filled with gowns, ivory towers, and red brick palaces. Some of the cows mooed in unison as if serenading the moon—but I may have also been tired from the run. As I snapped pictures, I realized in my confusion and excitement, I was also jealous of them and longed for what they had. I was missing something I never experienced: spring with my friends in Cambridge, walking along the river, singing in the gardens with blooming flowers chiming into the chorus, picnics in the back, and partying till sowing season came in the summer. My hope is that this memory imagined comes next spring. That when growing season comes next year the beets are redder, the basil greener, and the singing louder.

Hope to see you next spring.

Much love,

Alejandro

14 April 2020

This past week began with a series of hard goodbyes. Friends leaving Cambridge to their homes in other countries, continents, and hemispheres. Road trip plans to the countryside cancelled, weekly reunions suspended, and teatime in the University Library taken off the daily schedule. It’s one thing to go our own ways when term finishes, when we get our degrees, or any other proper conclusion to our time at the University, but for our time to get cut short—just as the winter rain clouds have passed and the flowers have bloomed—is difficult and, honestly, gutting.

But just as plants turn, twist, and grow toward the sun, I’m adapting to these new skies and losses the spring has given. As I come closer to the weekend, I feel more settled into the social distancing/lockdown atmosphere. While I continue to keep in touch with everyone, I no longer feel a sense of concern if everyone is safe and in a home space. I think it’s in part because with every ‘Missing you’ and every ‘This made me think of you’, I remember that we are still striving to make the most of being at home in exile, or as a friend called it, ‘insile’. So many people have told me about taking up their hobbies again: painting portraits of relatives, composing music again, getting through the ‘to-read’ books piling on their nightstands. It’s inspired me to find a new home in John’s through spending time messing around with watercolors, playing guitar, and writing poems. And in this cultivation of ourselves, I notice too a cultivation of our respect and commitment to help others. Be it in small ways like mutual-aid groups for neighborhoods on Facebook or in large-scale action like volunteering and working for the NHS. From our windows, we still look outward to lend a hand, a figurative or sanitized one at least, to the people near us.

This past Thursday, I ran into a new acquaintance in the College tending to his garden. As he sorted through his hedges and topiaries, he told me how one of the most important things about this situation is to stay committed to these new practices we have adopted. I understood how discipline and dedication to social distancing and mutual aid are some of the best things we as individuals can do to guarantee others’ safety. While it feels like months have passed in the fast-slow time space of Cambridge, we are still green in our time through the pandemic. But seeing as how quickly my friends and relatives have adapted to these circumstances, I’m hopeful we stay the course, and I’m thankful the sun is shining.

Hope you are in good health and spirits.

Much love,

Alejandro

30 March 2020