Obligatory COVID-19 post

In the last few months I've had the distinct and unique experience that literally every other living human being on Earth has had: there is a global pandemic, the likes of which most people living have never experienced before. The current death count in my country recently passed 20k, a number both so large as to be meaningless on a personal level, and yet so small compared to the whole population, it's still almost possible to think maybe this isn't that serious. By historical epidemic proportions, these are small numbers, but by modern standards, we are really doing a horrible job of handling this. Twenty thousand families now have a gaping, irreplaceable hole. And there will be so much more death to come. Like climate change or a toothache, we tried to ignore the problem for so long that it no longer matters if we make every possible change instantaneously, the impact will still roll over us like a melting glacier sliding down a hill. 

However, this post is not about the global pandemic, or climate change, or the terrible decisions being made from the top of our government down to my idiot neighbors who are currently having visitors. There are plenty of people writing about the big picture, so all I can do, as a record of my own miraculously safe, socially distanced, comparatively undisrupted experience, is write about the thing I miss most. 

Grocery shopping.  Odd, isn't it? While the entire world is sequestered at home, the thing I miss most of all in my daily activities is grocery shopping. Yes, I miss friends and family, but I honestly didn't see them all that often before this, so I haven't really felt the impact yet. Working from home has been a delight, I don't miss the commute or the office in the least, and I've actually just changed jobs so that I can work from home permanently. I do miss running and cycling, as most parks and trails are over-crowded with people trying to get out of the house. I'm lucky enough to have a small back yard and a porch, so I've been getting ample sunshine and even doing some ridiculous running back and forth across the width of the yard, when I can no longer stand the monotony of the treadmill or stationary bike. Overall, I am extremely lucky to have excellent substitute resources for almost everything needed to live a happy, healthy life without ever going within 6 feet of another human. 

But grocery shopping! I never thought I'd so greatly miss the weekly trip to a grocery store, a farmer's market, or the outdoor produce market in Boston. For me, grocery shopping is not simply collecting necessities from a list: I don't go to the store as a diligent worker with a task list, but as an art lover visits a museum, or a bird watcher walks the woods. My life revolves so much around food, grocery shopping is my inspiration, a brilliant display of possibilities and tools and pieces of the next masterpiece.  Shopping for groceries online is like trying to find your next favorite book on Amazon, instead of browsing through library shelves. Soulless. 

I've also realized, unbeknownst to me until its absence, that I enjoy the social aspect of shopping for food. I am generally not a social person (after 6 weeks in isolation, I still don't "miss" people), but part of shopping for food is watching how other people interact with food, which I find endlessly fascinating. What are people buying? What are stores pushing? What mysterious assortments lie in people's carts or bags, where are people clustered, what is it that they're looking for? My connection with people is less about people and more about what is being eaten. My own diet, although relatively unchanged by the pandemic, feels somehow strange and new when designed, created, and enjoyed in isolation. Am I still eating the same, or have I drifted off course without the subconscious collection of other's eating patterns? I guess I'll find out when all this is over.