As I sit inside my cottage home, looking out at the hail/snow that is falling, I’m thinking about what might have been. You see, this is the day I was to fly to Scotland for my much anticipated pilgrimage to Mecca… umm, I mean Islay.

Sigh.

Oh sure, I’ve been there before, but not for 15 years.

Anyway, the hail has just turned to rain.

I’ve been sitting here thinking about time. Two months have just passed and what do I have to show for it? Stacked wood. Is that it? Am I going to regret that I had ample free time to finish that novel? To get back in shape? To practice the fiddle? To create the perfect garden?

That little voice in my head is revving up to beat myself up for wasting time. When this prison sentence ends, will I be mad at myself for not accomplishing the things I could have?

No. Rien de rien. Je ne regrette rien.

This unplanned downtime came with so much anxiety, so much we couldn’t know and still don’t know. I’m going to look at the next three weeks and think, “I wouldn’t have seen that bird, that sunset on the lake, the trilliums, if I were in Scotland right now.”

We are very much in the present like never before. So I’m going to give myself a break; I’ll write that novel some day, I’ll sharpen my fiddle and mandolin skills some day, and for now I’ll just settle in with the cats to watch what happens every day.