RSS FeedThoughts from the Sunny Side of the Street
At times when I have been seriously depressed and feeling like nothing short of oblivion is going to help, I have engaged in the homely task of listing anything I could scrape from the quotidian to appreciate. In this surreal time, optimism can be in short supply. So as a public service, I offer the following small pieces of life to savor:
A person who has a wonderful college roommate who has introduced her to the utility of the word quotidian, can now throw it around in a blog post.
A person can safely make a Fu Manchu with facial depilatory and be reasonably certain her neighbor won’t be recycling his New York Times her way in the next ten minutes.
A person can go to Trader Joes at first light, find the line stretches three blocks down the street, get in line and spend five minutes getting her phone and earbuds organized when a staff person comes along and says senior citizens are allowed to go to the front of the line.
Since all the TV talkers are working from home, a person can see Claire McCaskill’s kitchen, Stephen Colbert’s dog and Chris Hayes’s two small children.
A person has permission (finally, after being raised by a Mother Who Went Through the Depression) to throw away tissues after one (or two) uses and doesn’t feel obligated to re-use them until they are the consistency of wallpaper paste.
Even though a person misses her beloved hairdresser, she owns a pair of scissors and will do penance later.
The streets are safer for bicycling than any time since the late 1970s.
If one is the director of the OK Chorale and has a stack of different colored bandannas for use in chorale performance, she can saturate and contrast balance her face mask with her wardrobe.
Everyone in one’s neighborhood is nice. Not that they were un-nice before but now they are saying “good afternoon” to one’s butt as she works in the front garden.
An endless parade of families, children on bicycles and dogs on leashes stroll past a person’s house at all hours. It’s as though everyone is rediscovering life.
These are all good things.
Thanks for the reminder. And I, too, am getting a lot of pleasure watching TV people work from home. I can just see them cleaning and organising their selfie backgrounds!
You are practically throwing around the word quotidian with abandon!
/// We have the opportunity to really listen to birds sing and to look at plants and trees and insects do their jobs of growing and fertilizing.
Thanks for using quotidian. I did not know that word, Which roommate gave you that word? Also, I have noticed also that others are waving to me and I am waving to them. It is a very nice development, indeed.
Thank you for these observations on the quarantined life, Elena. It definitely adds humor to the situation. Certainly good things can come from difficult times. Hope you are well.