There’s a certain baseline comfort at home, which is where most of us are spending our time these days. It sort of had an ability to absorb some of the strangeness of the time, sleeping in the same bed, coffee from the same coffee maker every morning, the pets and family members. The chief strangeness about the place is that you seldom leave it. Even when you do leave it you stay within your neighborhood. I suppose there’s some comfort in that, some space for gratitude.
Today we went grocery shopping at that was jarring. I think this was the first time we’ve been out of the house since the mandatory face mask order went in place, so as we pulled into the parking lot, everyone was masked. Walking into the Albertsons the floor was covered in more taped markings. In addition to the 6 foot markings in front of every register, the aisles themselves now had arrows and signs designating them as one-way, and only allowing a maximum of two carts per aisle. I didn’t quite realize this until we were halfway through our shopping and realized that we could just quickly grab something from a familiar spot, we had to approach it from the right side.
Leaving the store, a line had started to form (our timing was good today) and looking at its masked constituents, I was struck by how dystopian our world has become. As much as I try to keep a perspective of abundance, it was clear that the scarcity mindset was winning this battle and I just wanted to go home, to my safe refuge, where I can continue the illusion of familiarity.
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