[GR02.02] roses, outdoors, Venice

70mm 1/800 sec f/4.5 200

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June 25, 2020. From one of many, many walks around the strange little neighborhood I lived in Venice, California, deep in that first pandemic summer. (We were at least allowed to go outside by then. Do you remember that? They told us, "Don't go outside.")

I miss that part of the pandemic. People look at me like I'm crazy when I say this but I have to be honest about it. Sure, I was going insane, worrying about dying and worrying about my friends dying, social isolation and an acquisition and the "gestures broadly at everything" of it all, but, also: I lived in a neighborhood with a lot of green space. Every day I took my dog a few steps outside my door to a cul de sac that had been filled in with grass, and he played with his little dog friends while I talked to my neighbors from six feet away. Once a week I got a box from Farm Fresh to You with caviar limes and fennel and eggs and in the evenings I made citrus salads out of Salt, Fat, Acid and Heat. I grilled a lot of fish and drank a lot of wine. About once a week we would eat outside with a friend from the before times, or drive an hour to San Diego in a convertible with the top down to get a surf and turf burrito at Karina's Ceviche and More. My life was very, very simple.