The day is silver, cool, like a quiet spoon with which I stir my tea.

It’s raining as I write this.

Not the meek, drizzling L.A. rain I am used to, but the torrential downpour of my youth spent in the Carolinas, where we now are. A small pond has formed in the rolling yard, and I gaze outside through the silvery mist of rain fog, so thick it obscures my visibility of the tree line.

My husband and three kids have just burst from the house, four gleeful bullets hurtling into the driving rain, splashing into each puddle. I watch as they frolic and charge through the yard toward the marsh grass, and eventually plunge into the intracoastal waterway, which is accessible from our dock. Ollie, our dog, is not so sure of this rain. He tucks himself into a ball and whimpers on the front porch.

But the kids are joyful, and as I watch my family from my dry perch on the porch, I am overcome with love. For my children. My husband. Rain. Life. For the strange stillness of this quarantine time.

A tenderness crawls up the back of my throat, swells, and spills like a wave from my watchful eyes. I am in sync with the sky-- both of us, alive, vital. There is so much dance in this stillness: my emotions, rich and bubbling; my children’s enthusiastic bodies, bouncing like buoys through the yard and sea; the rain falling like popcorn; my kids’ vivacious laughter slicing through the quiet, gray day and the months-long stillness of shelter-in-place.

Nothing can stop the dance of life. Not even Corona.

I say this with the tender knowledge that a friend’s mom has just passed away this very morning. And yet, still, there it is: the tender ache of love, even in the loss; the joy in the sorrow, the beautiful dance in the stillness. And should I ever forget how this life is a two-sided coin, my children are there to remind me this morning, as they bound effervescently through the storm. They are not only unfazed by it, but all the more joyful and spurred on because of the storm.

Such a great metaphor for life, especially if you, like me, are nearing the end of your quarantine rope, and need fresh eyes to see the beautiful dance in this stillness. What is moving? What is bubbling up?

If there is one thing I want to model for my children, it is that hope, indeed, does spring eternal. And that during times of loss, frustration, economic hardship, a global pandemic, or even death… our turns and readjustments to life’s storms do not have to be a chaotic mess. If we stay anchored to the heart, we can choreograph our turns and pivots into a beautiful dance of connection and joy. A puddle always welcomes the splasher; a rainstorm delights in the playful spirit that knows how to enjoy it.

When I tuck my children into bed that night, I share a moment of stillness with my son, his big eyes speaking a language all their own. We lay there for some time, in the quiet, in the stillness.

I fall into the world of his eyes and am reminded of the Iyer quote, that sitting still is a way of “falling in love with the world, and everything in it.”

That’s what today was-- those tears on the porch, earlier, as I watched my family in the rain, the tenderness that swelled up inside me. I had fallen in love with the world, and everything in it. It’s the very thing I want to model for my children, especially during this time when the whole world is on pause.

But I realized: I am not modeling that for my children -- they are modeling that for me.

They are beckoning me, daily, to dance in the stillness. To remember, always, that hope. And love. And beauty. And joy. Can not. Be thwarted. They are reminding me daily to find the beauty in the stillness, to fall deeply, tenderly, achingly in love with the world.