Saturday night, right on the dot of seven, there was a great clamor and clang of pots and spoons off over the rooftops somewhere, a cacerolado the likes of which we haven’t had since the first few days of lockdown. The reason? Just general disapproval of the government’s handling of … well, you name it, as far as I could make out. Then, punctually at 9 p.m., when the PM began his briefing, the racket started up again. Not our monkeys, not our circus: we didn’t even bother to turn on the television to hear what Pedro Sanchez had to say; I figured I’d just read the summing up in the newspaper in the morning. What new info could there actually be at this point?
A lot, actually. If Spain’s numbers continue to go down, we may all, young and old alike, be allowed out for an hour of individual exercise a day starting next week.
¡Ojalá! If only.
Also on Saturday, El Pais created an interactive map to assist in figuring out a 1 kilometer radius from home. Ours takes us right to the edge of the huge Parque del Oeste. Not in it, but at least at right there, within sight of it.
Younger daughter is 14, and it’s been opaque whether she’s considered a child or not. Since I don’t understand Spanish very well, I’m sure she is.
Yesterday afternoon, she and I walked past the shuttered shops. To turn off our own street and see balconies we haven’t seen in a month in a half, draped in plants, was glorious.
We could literally smell the park before we saw it, from 2 blocks away, floral and perfumed, the scent of spring; nothing you would have ever been able to smell in Madrid, pre-Corona, full of traffic.
We took the deepest breath imaginable, walked the two blocks to gaze out at its heartstopping, achingly beautiful greenness, and then walked home.
Katherine L. Hester 
Here in Austin, it’s been the greenest, coolest spring imaginable. The in-homing began for us around March 9 and it’s not unusual by then for Central Texas to be awash in the second wave of wildflowers—post-bluebonnets—and for the heat to be with us. Although I haven’t been doing much home improvement or self-improvement, I have appreciated the crispness of the air, the way my genoese basil is getting bigger and bolder, the many different leaves I see on the rose vines, garden plots, trees, and bushes on my walks around the neighborhood. For Katherine to be so happy to breathe in green in the absence of automobile pollution, this makes me fear for our return to the previous life.
Laura, thank you for conjuring up your spring for me, I can practically taste it. Ojalá also that we can learn something from this and our future normal be a better one.