Quarantine Diary #41 4/23/2020 What we do at home

Today it finally happened. Len asked if today was Wednesday or Thursday. I looked at him, opened my mouth to answer, and realized I did not know. I opened my phone to look at my calendar app – and I could not remember what my calendar app looks like.

It’s Thursday.

…

We made a grocery order this morning and one of us will pick it up this evening. We’re making an order for a lumber yard so we can do a yard project, we’ll have that one delivered. I’m figuring out how to order from a garden center. This morning I called the butcher shop, said what we wanted (including the fresh Polish sausage Len didn’t get to have at Easter this year), walked there, got and quickly paid for precisely what I ordered and then I came back home.

I miss shopping. I miss checking out what’s new or interesting. I miss harshly judging cool and unnecessary housewares at Target. I miss endcaps. I miss the Whoo-hoo items at Pick n’ Save (super cheap discontinued items). I miss wandering in acres of plants, finding a lonely $3 perennial with wilted leaves and a true green heart and adopting it.

But this is Wisconsin and the numbers of people with Covid-19 are on the uptick. As of today, 5052 have it (confirmed). 257 have died. Staying in my house and yard are as important today as it was weeks ago. Maybe more important as there are more people now shedding the virus. Coronavirus is BOTH catch and release.

We will keep on figuring out how to order what we need and want, and I will not look to Ancestry.com to tell me about the lives of my ancestors. I will pay attention to what this feels like; to find and define happiness, satisfaction, and sometimes even joy by what I do and not by what I shop for.

And now I know why I come from a long line of cinnamon bun bakers. When you can’t have so much of what you sort of want to have – you begin to realize you could wander into the kitchen and a few hours later have mounds of baked goods. Not too shabby. I am the scion (scioness?) of women who triumphed at wrestling the meaning of life from sugar and flour.

…

I watched a movie several weeks ago that I am still thinking about. “Edie” is about a woman somewhere in her 80’s or early 90’s, I think – who sort of backs herself into accomplishing a goal she gave up decades ago. That goal is to climb the mountain Suilven in the Northern Scottish Highlands. It is not impossible to do this, but it is extremely hard. To accomplish it she needs to believe in her own desire to do it. She needs to face the lost years of her life when she didn’t pursue her own happiness. She needs the help of an athletic young man who needs the wisdom of her. She needs to not be such a grouch.

I like a movie about an old person who isn’t dead yet. I like a story that challenges one to keep pursing goals even when we aren’t sure what they are. I respect how tricky it is to figure this out when we can’t exactly leave our houses.  

Then again, I don’t like easy questions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edie_(film)

PS: The scenery is gorgeous.