So much has already been written about how we are all coping in our sheltering places. Articles about parents working from home while trying to be educators to their children. Articles about elderly folks (older than me!) feeling alone and afraid, articles about everyone, everywhere, feeling everything. The New York Times yesterday had an article about what New Yorkers miss about their city, what they took for granted and now cannot have, everything from hot dog stands to grandchildren.
Therefore, I am jumping in with my little article on what I miss, how I feel as a single person living basically in one room, things that are giving me small moments of joy. It's all about me.....
I miss the ability to be spontaneous, to hop in the car and go to the library, to run to the market for a forgotten ingredient, to meet a friend for coffee. Now that we can't go anywhere, road trips are on my mind all the time. Even driving to the ocean seems like a big deal, but the ocean is now closed to all of us because of idiots who crowded there at the beginning of this situation and ruined it for so many. I actually miss going to the laundromat to do several loads of laundry at one time. Now it is one load at a time, one load a week, usually at my daughter's house and I am incredibly grateful for that. There's nothing like a drawer full of clean underwear to make you feel wealthy!
I had a dentist appointment scheduled for April, which obviously didn't happen. Most people hate going to the dentist. I like going, it makes me feel not just responsibly adult-like, but my teeth are somewhat fragile and seeing the hygienists and the doc a couple of times a year reassures me that dentures might not be a necessity. I want my teeth to last as long as I do and thus I miss getting the "OK, good for another six months" validation.
Everything is couched in anxiety now: even pressing the buttons on the gas pump makes you wonder if the last person who touched them had the virus. Going to the grocery store isn't easy, breathing through a mask, avoiding everyone else in the building, it's no longer a time to compare labels, it's a time to get in and out as quickly as possible. And then sit in the car and sanitize your hands before driving away.
I miss the bulk bins in the grocery store, where you could buy a small amount of nuts or dried fruit, a small amount of random seeds and grains. Bulk bins are great for those of us who don't want to commit to storing a pound of something in our cupboards, we can buy two cups, try it out and come back for more. Snacks were so varied in the bulk bins: lime and chili roasted peanuts, salt and vinegar cashews, one piece of English Toffee. A person could cheat the system a little buy getting organic and putting the non-organic bin number on the tag. Will bulk bins ever return?
But I have learned to download library books to my iPhone, which makes me happy. I prefer reading a real book but as long as there is reading material available to me, I will use it any way I can. Plus it is full-on spring right now and seeing the new shoots of ferns push up through the hard-packed dirt is lovely. The pine trees have brilliant green new growth on the tips of the branches, as do most of the plants in the garden. My lettuce starts are getting bigger, radish seeds have sprouted. While people are sick and dying, nature is budding and thriving in some ways.
There is time now to sit and do nothing, stare at the trees, no book in hand, mind in a meditative state. Time to release the ever present anxiety, let it be replaced by calm energy and appreciation of the fresh air. From my small sofa, I can look out the window and see lizards chasing each other across the hillside, watch them do their lizard push-ups on log stumps, see the weeds blow in the breeze.
Yes, all of this lockdown is annoying and it is getting old and some people are now bending the rules about staying in their place of shelter. (Even me, going to my daughter's house to do laundry and share a meal.) But read why countries like Australian and New Zealand and Denmark have so few cases of the Covid-19 virus and it's clear those rules shouldn't be bent. Being bored in your home is better than being sick for weeks or dead.
Be careful out there and be happy.
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