Turns out, even when wearing a face mask (okay, so it was a tank top I repurposed), you can still notice the heavenly scent of lilacs when they first start blooming.
This bush was just before the Buffalo Bridge (many of D.C.’s bridges are nicknamed for the animal mascots guarding them). I didn’t finish up work until after 7 tonight, by which time the sun was below the tree line. So instead of wandering in the sun, I walked over to the Mt. Zion/Female Union Band Society cemetery, figuring that there might be fewer people there than on the sidewalk (which aren’t wide enough to accommodate the pedestrian crowding during a time of social distancing). Mostly, that was true, so I got to call my folks surrounded by the long dead, which seemed comforting. (For those of you who’ve actually read it, from that cemetery, you can see across the ravine to the cemetery, still used and gated, where Lincoln in the Bardo takes place.)