Yelled at a woman in the grocery store two days ago. I’d been standing in line with my cart at the demarcated line behind the cart ahead of me. For some reason, a woman at the next checkout decided to back out and head toward me. I politely directed her attention to the marks on the floor. She kept rolling closer; I pointed to the marks again. She kept coming toward my right side. Finally, I held my hand up like a traffic cop and boomed out: “Stop! You are getting too close to me! Back away!” Yes, I actually used those words. She gave me this surprised look, and murmured, “Oh! Sorry!” and then backed up. Would I have done that Before? Hell no. Was there another way I could have handled it? Maybe, maybe not. She was not practicing social distancing when she should have. I freaked out.
I don’t know what the answers are – it’s my first pandemic.
Yep it’s the new Now, and we all have lots of time to think about covid 19. And after that, what are ya gonna do with all that time? What answers have you come up with to save your sanity?
What are you going to do?
Well, other than treating strangers as if they have the plague, there have been some unexpected gifts during this pandemic- things I likely would not have time to do “Before.”
The on-line music streams. I spent Saint Patrick’s Day in Boston with 172,000 other good friends watching The Dropkick Murphys. Live from their homes: (among others) the Vaudevillian, Richard Thompson, Irish Mythen, Larry Jensen, and James Keelaghan. What wonderful gifts to lift us out of our quarantined lives for a little time.
I hosted our non – fiction book club on Zoom for the first time. Naturally, I locked myself out of the ‘room’ by sending the link to everyone but me. Got in finally, and we had a great time.
There was the book launch. Or rather, the book launch that couldn’t.
My favourite living writer of historical fiction, Lindsey Davis, lives in England. I’ve been devouring her murder mysteries set in ancient Rome for 28 years – 29 once I get a copy of the latest one. She was set to launch her latest tome, and there she is, in quarantine like the rest of us. So, she had a live stream book launch. She told us about her career as a civil servant before she became a writer; she showed us the room she writes in, and read an excerpt from the new book. She has a lovely wry sense of humour (which shows up in her main characters). And there she was, 70 years old, with hopefully many more stories in her yet. I can’t convey what a thrill it was to spend time with such a treasure.
A couple of years ago I enrolled in the University of Dundee’s “Identifying the Dead” course to learn about the fascinating study of forensics. It was challenging, but incredibly interesting. I have lots of time now to take as many on-line courses as please me, so have to date taken: U of Reading’s “Ancient Rome,” U of Newcastle’s “Hadrian’s Wall,” U of Roehampton’s “Tudor England,” U of Reading’s “Archaeology,” and am presently enrolled at Harvard learning about Giza. Since I have the time, I’ve become a time traveler!
So, here we are, doing what we need to do to as responsible citizens.
It’s been awful (not being able to attend the funeral of a friend’s mom, or hug my grandchild); it’s been challenging; it’s been a gift in ways I could never foresee. And we don’t know how much longer this new Now will go on.
Now that you have lots of time – you will have your own anecdotes, observations, complaints, and, I hope, along with staying safe, you rediscover things you used to treasure- hobbies or surprising delights you might not have had time for- Before.
I hope you’re writing them down.
