Hello again, and how has your week been? I am going to write here every Friday, as I am able.
After I posted last Friday, I took a 36-hour sabbath from news and social media. It was good for my soul, and I highly recommend it. Originally, I was going to stay offline from sunset Friday through Saturday evening, but I wound up staying away through Sunday morning, when I finally logged back onto the Internet to attend church online. We need rhythms and patterns in life; we're all coming up with new ones these days, aren't we?
Another pattern for me: I have been confining my essential errands to one day a week. I've chosen Thursday, mainly because it's the day when the landscape crew arrives at my apartment complex, high-decibel power tools blazing to wrangle our lawn, trees, and hedges into submission. There's no sense trying to read, write, or think during this time, so I take that as my cue to do the necessary business of reinforcing my grocery supply--and I went to a laundromat, too, figuring it would be cleaner and safer than the unattended laundry room I share with several dozen other apartments.
After the laundry, I drove to my old neighborhood grocery store, a sprawling Fred Meyer. I usually use the self-checkout at this store, but yesterday I stocked up, buying another full two weeks' worth of food and three months' worth of craft beer. (These days, that's two six-packs for me. Everything in moderation, including one IPA a week.) I also wanted to thank the people who are keeping the store open, so I chose an attended line. The shopper in front of me had a mask on. The cashier had gloves.
When it was my turn, the cashier and I exchanged some mild pleasantries as he started ringing up my stuff. I'd heard it was no longer OK to bring my own bags. He said it's allowable, but I'd need to bag my own groceries. Good to know, that makes sense, I said--but I was glad to have him do the bagging of this big-for-me order. I thanked him for working on the front lines. He said he was glad to do it and that he even had a permission slip in case he got stopped on his way to work--but that was unlikely, since he lives around the corner. I used to live just down the block in this neighborhood, too, I said.
No one else was waiting in line, so we chatted even as he finished my order and I paid. He mentioned that his girlfriend is working from home these days, but that she might get a job in Olympia, our state capital, at some point. Well, there are Fred Meyers down there, I said. "But by then, I hope to be a teacher," he told me. What did he want to teach? English. Oh, I said, "I just got back from Mexico. I was down there learning how to teach English as a foreign language." And so on. I'm a writer, I said. He said he is a writer, too, "even if I've never published anything except in my school magazine." Well, that counts, I told him. He thanked me for coming in. "You're welcome and thanks again," I said.
It's a wrenching time for our world, and yet we are actively choosing to connect in ways big and small, mostly via phone and text and Zoom and email and social media, but sometimes in person. I understand why people are ordering grocery and food delivery, having their shipments left on the front porch so there's no contact. But I'll go out for groceries once a week as long as I can. We are all in this together--a cliche, but it's especially true now, when we need to be apart.
I also learned this week that my most longstanding magazine client, a publisher I've written for since the 1990s, is folding. They were my second-biggest source of income last year, so it will hurt. But this news came the same day that the Senate advanced the humongous fiscal package that finally gives self-employed people some unemployment protection. I continue to believe, as the Rev. Theodore Parker once said (and Dr. King echoed) that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Still, my heart aches for my editor at the magazine.
There's plenty of pain to go around right now. I am grateful I remain healthy and that no one in my inner circle has fallen seriously ill. I am grateful for the conversations I have had this past week with my beloveds. I am grateful I can get out and walk every day. And I am grateful for you, reader. See you next Friday.
P.S. I think we need a song called "Handshake Anxiety" right about now, yes? I am proud to say my daughter is the artist. She recorded this before COVID-19 became a thing. The whole album, released a month ago, is worth a listen. Be well.
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