During these days of social isolation I find that I think of friends more often. I'm also thinking more of friends with whom I have not communicated in nearly a lifetime. That part, however, may be a function of my age more than this present pandemic - as in the older one gets the older the memories get that bounce around in the mid-night mind.
It occurs to me that as I age I begin to live more and more in the mind and less and less in the physical activities that have been a huge part of my life in the past. So it comes up for me to realize that if I find that I am bored (and I am finding this more and more these days) the antidote just might be activity. Any activity. Don't think too long about what to do, just do something. It's the motion that counts.
One of my favorite activities is cooking, which leads, of course to eating. But it's the cooking that excites me most - the actual pots and pans projects around the stove. If you're reading between the lines, you are realizing that though cooking is such fun and at some level necessary, it can be devastating to one's waistline. I'm not a great cook but a willing one. I've learned that there is a kind of poetry to cooking - a little of this and a little of that, and don't fret the rhyming.
We're trying to downsize and prepare this house for the market. It has yet to be discovered just how big an impact this pandemic will have on the real estate business. A large part of downsizing and decluttering is getting rid of stuff. Did you know that there are, I think, four or five Goodwill stores open in the state and one of them is about 20 minutes north of our house. Taking things there is more like re-purposing rather just throwing things away as in taking them to the dump, so to speak.
We drove into the parking lot and there was a long line of people waiting, at six foot intervals, to be let inside the building and a line of cars waiting their turn beneath the donation porte cochère. It seemed that the whole town was there. Watching the cars in front of us unload was fun. One woman seemed to be getting rid of a lifetime's worth of Christmas decorations.
Everyone wore masks and many wore gloves. Quite a few employees also had face shields. The whole experience was imbued with calm and orderliness. It was encouraging. It's highly likely that we'll take anther load there today. It's like going shopping in reverse. These days you take entertainment where you find it.
