Betwēonum

Between. The word comes into modern English from the Old English; be (meaning by) + twēonum (meaning two). Between two things. Between yes and no is maybe. Between red and yellow some orange.

We are between the beginning and (we hope, someday) the end of a pandemic, our lives suspended...by...what? The strings of our masks, maybe?

I am between scans, between cancer-free (inactive disease, at least) and possible recurrence (this disease comes back...we just don't know when), in a kind of dangling dance between jubilant and cautious – what I've taken to calling my "little life of living large." And right now, the world is with me on this. We're not making any plans.

I walk around the neighborhood, keeping a safe distance from other walkers (though I long to pet everyone's dogs!), and it seems that all the peonies elsewhere have been blooming for weeks. Wet flowers topple their stems after rain in every yard except mine. My pink peonies are still shy, balled up like big marbles, and just starting to show a little color. In this faint pushing forth, they are between bud and full bloom, with tiny ants busying themselves at the sepals' nectaries and standing sentry against other would-be invaders. Nice gig if you can get it.

I've been in a holding pattern with the peonies. I know better than to fret–or to dream–about the imaginary future. But I fret and dream anyway. The virus. A new front porch. Flamboyant flowers. Kayaks. Scans. Shortages. Hiking for miles and miles through another country's mountains. Stop. I'm not going anywhere.

Grief and loss are strewn about the planet like wreckage after a worldwide storm. Except we're not after. We're now. Which is another way of saying we're in between. Now is always in between. Here. In the muck and almost-bloom of it. Yes, I'm not going anywhere soon. I could get used to this.