Quarantine Diary #22 4/4/2020 Talking More?

I have noticed that I am talking more than usual and generally, I am talking about something pandemic-related.  I live with Len plus I often talk/email/text with kids or friends throughout an ordinary day. So sure, I converse pretty often. But I am noticing that I am interrupting Len and myself more often to say stuff – often crazy, scary, outrageous news I’ve just read.

Being in the house 24/7 with another person can slowly turn one into a living radio who takes in the new news and then broadcasts it back out to whomever is closest. Which is another way to stew in perpetual anger and to live right on the surface of this crisis.

I’m going to pay more attention.  I don’t want the agenda in my head to be set by the agenda that’s out there.   

What about you? Are you talking/chatting more than usual ? 

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All my adult life I have paid a LOT of attention to how we buy groceries. You know, buy less, cook simpler foods, buy things when they are on sale. Pay attention to prices, pay attention to the total one pays per grocery store trip and then per week or month.

Three weeks into this quarantine and Whammo! Decades of shopping strategy out the window.  We are not shopping inside stores like many are still doing.  Pick n’ Save will shop for us if we make a list a few days ahead. Then they will deliver it or we can drive to the store and pick it up curbside. The cost is minimal, so we do this. We tip well. We are grateful.

But this means a person we don’t know takes our list and puts our stuff in a cart and rings it up. We can ask for one kind of flour but if the store doesn’t have it, we are grateful for whatever ends up in our order. Sometimes the eggs are organic and free-range. Sometimes they are the eggs from tortured chickens. We eat them. Gratefully.

Never eating “out” saves so much it doesn’t really make much difference if the bag of carrots is one dollar or two. We are buying the same ingredients as ever, but we are not paying attention to the price.

I finally understand what it feels like to be wealthy. We know what we want, we can get it without harm, we know how to cook it, we eat well.

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Tomorrow is Palm Sunday and next week is Easter.  In case you have a boatload of traditions around one or both of these holidays – and now those traditions are kaput – let me suggest you celebrate these days the way Jesus’ original disciples did.

Go outside. Pay attention. Later, write down what you witnessed.