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Change

Last week I delivered my grandson Benjamin to his guitar lesson at the music store. It is a pleasant walk from our house with most of the walk along the main street in town. Going for a walk has always been my exercise of choice and since the pandemic I pass many of my neighbors walking a similar route.

When we arrived at the music shop he put on his mask and started a conversation about the various guitars in the shop until his instructor was ready for him. 

I walked across the street to the Walgreens to kill the half hour and I needed toothpaste.  Before March this would have been a very ordinary task.  I never considered myself a shopper but during the lockdown I realized how many errands I would do.  I could motor through BJ’s like it was a lap in the Indie. I’d take the baby for a walk to library and the playground pass by the bakery for a loaf of bread, wander through the dollar store for…well there is always something that we need.  I liked those errands.

Then at my daughter’s insistence Instacart replaced me. Instacart shoppers shopped the best they could for our list of items.  There were the illogical substitutions such apples instead of apple juice and the confusion about the color of lemons.  There were the predictable shortages of toilet paper, Clorox wipes and Lysol. Although I’ll never understand why croutons disappeared from BJ’s shelves.

Mostly I would past by these old haunts gaze longingly into to window and decide that I could wait another day. On this day, I had to go inside the Walgreens. I needed toothpaste.

The store was as I remembered it, neat and orderly.  I checked the overhead directory for the aisle. I passed the cosmetics.  What’s that I wondered?  Nail polish was a rainbow wall of color. 

Ohh. Ahhh.

Candy, my favorite. Swedish fish, Snickers, Twix, there were big bars and bags of small bars.

Ohh. Ahhh.

There were greeting cards for anniversaries, weddings and birthday parties.  Parties?  I think I remember parties. People gathered around tables and had cake. There would be presents.

Ohh. Ahhh.

There were potato chips, pretzels and Tostitos. Clustered in a rack were magazines about home decorating and travel.

Yes, Yes! I want to visit another city, an island, the moon!

I was bursting with excitement when I reached the toothpaste. So many kinds so many sizes. I made my choice and went to the cash register. By now my facemask was fogging up my sunglasses. I used Apple Pay and left the store.

Is this what it would feel like to be an alien dropped on earth? Is it a measure of gratitude for simple things of life? It’s the continuum of 2020 extremes.  All of us started this weird journey with a ‘we’ll make the best of it’ resolve.  The social media was full of crafty projects for the kids, witty memes and clever song parodies. There’s not much of that any more. My world has shriveled up.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I can sit around and dwell on it.  I’m virtual schooling three of my grandkids!  That’s the topic of another blog post.

I miss doing some of the little things, picking up the kids from school, meeting a friend for coffee and waiting for the bus. Each conversation with my well-traveled friend would always start, what trips do you have planned.  Now, the question has reached beyond what trip have you canceled to have many times have you canceled the same trip. I only got to use my TSA-Pre once!

Back at the music shop, five year old Benjamin had a black electric guitar on his lap as he talked to the owner about his dream instrument.  I wonder how Mary Had a Little Lamb will sound on an electric guitar.  I don’t want to go to the moon. I want to enjoy the silly errands that make our every day lives. I want to turn the van into the Dunkin Donuts and tell the kids to pick their favorite donut. I want to hear what they have to say. I want to go out to dinner with my friends and look at a menu and take hours to catch up.

AND, there are a couple dozen cities and countries I would like to visit.