First published in print on Friday, April 17 in the Chronicle & Transcript. This version below is the unedited version due to technical difficulties getting the paper version posted to the newspaper website.
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I’m typing this near the end of week four, staring at, I guess, at least three more weeks, though almost certainly it will go longer.
It’s fine. We’re fine. Though, the SLP (stupid llama puzzle) isn’t done yet despite working on it for nearly an hour a day. Maybe by the time you read this it will be done. Or I’ll have burned it in our fire pit while raising a glass of wine to its flickering, unfinished ashes.
But other than that, things are, what was the word again? Oh yes, fine.
In many obvious ways life is calmer in quarantine. We’re never late to anything, and so far I haven’t forgotten to pick up one of our girls from the living room in order to rush them over to the kitchen. We’re enjoying family walks and our new painting hobby.
In other ways, life is more stressful. I had to get an oil change for the White Whoosh (my fabulous minivan that I was SO right about buying). It felt like I was doing a drug deal at the car dealership as I met the attendant outside, with a face mask and gloves, to grab the keys he handed me in a sealed bag. Then there was the moment last week when our 13 year old daughter possibly broke her toe, and the incident when I almost sliced my finger off cutting veggies; we’ve had to consider at what point, and by what criteria, we’d go to the ER.
But just like in ‘real life’ the one steady beat of the drum, no matter what the headlines scream, or how virtual school is going, and certainly regardless of weather, is the need for food. The now relentless need for food because the dinner fairies have left the building, and all meals, at all times, are consumed within the four walls of Casa Baird and prepared 90% of the time by yours truly.
Regular Readers know that in normal times, if I’m not at my office, or driving kids around, (or, ok fine, at a Starbucks pretending to write), then I can frequently be found at my grocery store, which is the Danvers Stop & Shop on Route 1. I know every nook and cranny, every food by aisle number, and I can tell you which section many employees works in, some by name. It’s not a perfect grocery store, but it’s my grocery store and these days it’s the only public space I see.
Right now lot of the shelves are bare, and the produce, while stocked, is like a giant game of Forest Gump’s Box of Chocolates because you certainly never know what you’re going to get. Recipe called for romaine? How about spinach. Wanted limes? Well you can have two lemons and a few oranges, citrus is citrus, move on . . . and please do so following the one-way arrows taped to the floor.
My Stop & Shop makes me feel both tense and resolved each time I go. The empty shelves and freezers are the physical manifestation of the sadness and underlying anxiety of our towns. And yet the constantly hustling employees wheeling in more lettuce or fresh strawberries or whatever gets shipped (I found Bok Choy last week!), shows determination and grit that we will keep moving forward.
I went on the first day they limited the number of people entering the store. The weather was horrendous with gale force winds and sheets of driving rain – – you know, a typical New England day. I arrived with my list, a face mask and gloves, and walked to the the back of the line that snaked down the sidewalk with taped lines marking where to stand. Many sections were partially covered from the rain, but some were completely exposed to the blight.
We were getting drenched and it was freezing, but no one said a word other than the occasional nod as a person walked by. No one complained that we were being pummeled by ice water. We were all, no doubt, juggling jobs at home, possibly bored and crazy kids, perhaps lost jobs or risky jobs, and certainly fears for loved ones, and yet no one snapped. In fact, as each person was told they could enter and was given a dripping wet cart, most people said a loud and hearty “thank you” to the employee who let us in, and he always responded with, “your welcome ma’am,” or “thank you for shopping with us, sir.”
There are so many things about this time that are frustrating and would have been unimaginable a month ago. A Friday night without a Cosmo? A spring without sports? An April break minus the actual break? New Englanders who are polite and kind while freezing and soaking six feet apart? Yes. The virus is teaching us that anything, even the most unexpected things, can change. And just possibly some of those things are not all bad.