Dear Reader, Let’s talk about the children, their summer, their entry back to school. Moments when “normal life� miraculously appears. New words now normalized—coronavirus, self-isolating, masks, antibodies, hospitals, and funerals. This column is for families and how history forever imprints itself on what we are living through. July 10 Eight-year-old Nathanial’s composition:  “Nothing Can Take Happiness Away.� Sung to a sweet tune, the lyrics are: “Happiness is a wonderful feeling/Nothing can take happiness away./It’s a wonderful feeling/Everything is great when you’re happy/Happiness is a wonderful thing.� He sings with such sadness it could break your heart. July 14 My daughter, Sarah, and her daughter, Maddie who’s four, are going to the park to play with a little girl who’ll be at school in Madeleine’s pre-K class. Sweet older brother, William, gives her his backpack he’s stuffed with her treasures, especially Maddies’s red velvet purse.   July 29 My engaged grandniece plans a wedding for Spring, 2022. The family’s hoping all the backlogged 2020 weddings will have mostly cleared. “Save the Date� will be mailed in October 2020 for two-and-a-half years out. My granddaughter, Izzy, who’s eleven calls twice today, sensing how much she lifts my spirits. My eyes well with tears. August 8 From my daughter: “The five of us are watching a movie and I tear up. Maddie pipes up, ‘Mommy, are you crying?’ She stops me from wiping my tears, says, ‘That’s a kid job. I’ll go get the toilet paper.’ She runs to the bathroom, comes back with the teeniest piece, clears my eyes, then puts it under my nose. ‘Blow,’ she says. ‘You’ll need a bigger tissue,’ so Maddie runs to get it. Each time we watch a movie, my little one checks to see if I’m crying.�  It’s moments like these that can save us.The Washington Post: In a two-week span, 100,000 children have tested positive for corona virus.French cousin Yves: “About France’s inheritance laws, you cannot disinherit your children. If you remarry and have more kids, they’re also in the will.� August 14 Marsha de la O: “The Child Who Escaped into a Tree.� I still visit that tree sometimes, now that you’re in your thirties,/ the crook of the trunk higher these days than any/ foolish mother could reach. But back/ then I lifted you into the dusk and bright/of leaves, fresh dappled air silkening /one branch up. Was she more sure/ of herself than I thought, or was it/ontological—what new-sprung world/ is this canopy-one, to grass to grow,/ to go home to? I tried to change her/mind, cajoled and commanded, but/ green’s not silent, it speaks its praise/of light and shadow even in a slight/ breeze, and a young primate harkens./Up she scrabbled into small rooms/ of luster, lit leaves, green fire, plush/shadow; she climbed into velvet./ She got away from me—this/soul, this agile monkey-creature, my only one, held in the green body/of the world by a greensound song.�  Ziv in Palo Alto is surrounded by three fires. “Sunday there were 367 lightning strikes with hail and rain. The redwoods are now on fire. Last night the pollution measured 414 so I took the kids to our friends twenty minutes north. Thanks to the crazy microclimates, the air’s clear here. They say the Bay area has the worst air on the planet.� August 29 Andy says at the end of his two-hour undergraduate class in Art, Design and Visual Culture, 58 students turn on their mics and thank him for the class. “That’s never happened before,� he says. September 1 Clare in Alabama, tells me about Nick Saban, Alabama’s football coach who, with his Tuscaloosa team and others, march for an end to social injustice. September 6 More than 20 NYU students suspended for breaking coronavirus rules. Northeastern dismisses 11 students for gathering in a hotel room. North Carolina State University is closing student housing amid covid-19 outbreak on campus. September 10 Cathy reports about the birth of Wes Blumenthal. Just core family members attended the bris and the rest of the invites watched on Zoom. Circumcision brought to you by Zoom.  From my grandson William who’s eight: “What if people could buy Pokemon cards on their computers that I could trade with them?� Salute to Topanga Homegrown and owners, Leslie Carlson and Jane Hoover who opened the women’s, men’s, and babies’ clothing store in September 2000. They’ve since added toys for toddlers. Homegrown keeps us in fashionable Topanga styles at affordable prices. It’s a friendly place to shop where merchandise is artistically arranged. Even the window displays catch my eyes. Leslie retired two years ago but Jane continues making available things like fun kitchen towels, cards for occasions, and a tempting array of one-of-a-kind items. She mentions a line of stuffed animals, or “stuffies,� from England where Jane is from, called “Jelly Cats� that fly off the shelf. A feeling of wellbeing permeates me and others when we cross the threshold. May Jane and Tarra, her helpful employee, survive during these difficult times.