Wednesday, May 20, 2020

In the early morning, a friend on Twitter tells me the name of the trees with the purple flowers: Jacaranda. As I pass the flowers on the way to work, the word rattles around in my head like a mantra. Jacaranda. Jacaranda. They call the trees Jacaranda. When I get to work, I look up the word in Hebrew. It’s the same. And that tells me that the J is pronounced as “Joseph” is in English, not as J might be in Spanish or French or German. I don’t remember if I’ve ever seen a J in Italian, or how it would be pronounced. I walk to work a little earlier than usual. A notice had appeared, taped to our mailbox, a week ago. Whoever is in charge of electricity would be shutting off the power to our neighborhood for a few hours today. Fortunately I work in a place with good air conditioning. I worry about people who might be stuck in their homes in this heat. During afternoon prayers, the door lock on the office next to ours beeps randomly. None of us are good enough at Morse code to know if it is beeping out the prayers. We wonder if it would count for the quorum if it were. Since more than enough of us have gathered, though, the question is moot. When I come home, it looks like no one actually cut the power. My alarm clock shows the right time. When there’s a power glitch, it restarts and counts the time beginning from when it comes back on. I switch on the devices that I had shut down in the morning and watch them catch up with whatever else had happened today.