Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Mutation in Progress
At the Farm and Fleet pick-up, the delivery guy came barreling toward our truck with his mask hanging like a white goatee below his nose and mouth. He started to speak and I powered my window up. Anticipating his question, I slammed my driver’s license against the glass. He nodded and went inside, coming out minutes later with a couple of pages of paper which he slammed on his side of the window. Yes, I nodded. That’s me. Six bags of garden soil and three bags of bird seed. And a bird seed scoop, that was the deluxe portion of the order.
He loaded up the back of the truck, we thanked him and drove off.
It felt like a dance with death to me.
It is going to take some doing to become anything resembling a normal person after this.
This may be temporary but it’s psychologically damaging, I think. It has become my reflex to shun human interaction unless it’s the guy I live with or people on Zoom.
This morning, I stood on the lawn talking to one of my sons in the driveway. He’d walked over from his apartment a couple of miles away. He was wearing a red bandana to humor me since he believes he has already had Covid-19. But the bandana bothered him because it kept coming untied and then it was too tight. And plus the it covered his mouth which meant I couldn’t sort out his low, burry voice by reading his lips. So the conversation went in a lot of different directions – eclectic, I would call it, with me responding to questions he probably hadn’t asked, that sort of thing. After a good while, he took the bandana off and shoved it in his pocket. When he did, I backed up from my 10′ away to maybe 15′ until I was practically in the neighbor’s yard trying to compare notes on our respective mental health during this quarantine business.
I used to hug him to say goodbye. When will that ever happen again? I can’t even envision it.
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
I’m so glad it isn’t just me. Everyone says the birds, raccoons, squirrels, and flying squirrels are going to eat us into bankruptcy. I buy the food anyway. They have become part of the family. Our son moved home for the quarantine and because we really needed help. Boy did we ever!