March
28, 2020
Today’s
observation – The morning traffic on 174 West has been thin – mostly
18-wheelers. I am among the scant
population of passenger vehicles. I see
no buses. The land has been cloaked in
ground fog; the sky is overcast. This scenery reminds me of TS Elliot’s poem, The
Wasteland.
April is the cruelest
month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead
land, mixing
Memory and desire,
stirring
Dull roots with spring
rain.
It has been interesting to witness how open
businesses implement safeguards again infection for their employees and
customers. Stopping for a coffee at the Circle K, the lone employee/cashier
greeted me from a side room, only showing her face again at the register when I
was ready to check out. I had grabbed a
cup and pressed a few buttons to get my freshly ground brew. Once at the checkout, I stood behind a taped
line on the floor between two safety cones, leaning in to set my cup of Joe on
the counter. The cashier really had no
contact with my goods, holding her scanning toward the can of dog food, I’d
grabbed too. The transaction was settled
with my plastic bank card and my gratitude for them being open at this crack of
dawn hour. Later, when I topped up my
tank at a Love’s station, I went into the store there for another coffee and
found that the self-service area were roped off, with a sign announcing that
now they offered full service in this area.
Employees stationed there took my drink order and passed it to me over
the rope, then returned to sanitizing surfaces.
Once back in my own town, I decided to grab some groceries before
returning home to my quarantine. For the most part, all was the same as before
except for the check out register procedures.
At the head of the conveyor belt was a sign asking us to wait before I
loaded my groceries on it so that the cashier could sanitize between them. Also, I could no longer use my own bags – all
groceries went into one use plastic ones.
At home I employed the methods for bringing groceries into the house
that I’d watched on the video which a Michigan physician had shared, wiping
each item with a disinfectant wipe before putting it away. It looked like my place had already been deep
cleaned and sanitized, so I was very happy to return to this. This new regime takes time and attention and
we seem to be all in, from my observations.
Once again, America does what's necessary in a crisis, we can be good
citizens. The pathogen appears to be the
great uniter.
Today’s
idea – I believe we are in a shift brought about by a pandemic that
necessitates a united, definitive response. We are not fans of pain, suffering
and death. Well, most of us are not. Our response has come incrementally and
defined. As we follow mandates from our
health avatars, we agree to new expectations of ourselves and each other. I remember that it takes 66 days to form
genuinely new behavior, and think how the longer we maintain our new
prophylactic lifestyle of social distancing, super sanitizing and obsessively
mindful interactions, the more likely they will become the new normal. By Mother’s Day the shift will be within us,
inherent and complete. We can call it
Evolution.
Today’s
image – I imagine this disruption of the many “normal” ways of being – be it
economic, governmental or social – as a stress test for our capitalistic,
consumer centered society. We will find
what is resilient and what is unworkable or just erodes away. What serves us and what must be replaced or
removed. The cream rises, the valuable
shines among the shards, the light fills the cracks of worry, fear and
dysfunction.
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