Life in the Age of Corona
A Daily Diary
Sunday, March 14th, 2021
Wednesday, March 25th, 2020
Minimalism
As the world is shrinking so I find are the things we “need”.
Confined to my home I find myself wearing the same four or five pairs of pants, sweaters, and shirts and there really are only two or three pairs of shoes I need for the walk around the Hood or the bike rides.
To think that only two weeks ago I thought the variety of clothing I had was not enough. I was so fed up with the choice of black or navy blue pantsuit or blazer skirts combinations. I do miss the opportunity to wear my heels though, especially now that I have stowed away the winter shoes and am bringing out the spring/ summer collection, none of which are useful for hour-long walks. I suspect in a week or two I will be yearning to dress up at which point in time I might organize a virtual cocktail hour. Did anyone see that meme making the round on FB of the guy cheering to himself in like 4 different mirrors? To funny, and maybe me in a week or two. But for now, things are good the way they are.
It does make me reflect on material possessions though (and I can hear some of my friends say, I told you so a long time ago, you know who you are). Looking at all I have accumulated in this house begs the question: How much do we really need? Maybe it is time to go through it all and start giving away, lighten the burden. For instance, I digitized my entire music collection a long time ago, so why not throw out all the CDs? Normally I go on a purge only when I move, downsize.
But, many items like the artwork or the furniture bear testimony to where I have lived, are interwoven with memories. So throwing them out raises the question; will I not throw out a part of myself? Then again, I did more or less stop photography as I find there are things better remembered in heart and mind than in print.
I will need to look into the minimalist movement which my friend Dorothy recommended to me after their wine farm in Paarl burned down within four and a half hours, leaving them with nothing but the clothes they were wearing.
#Stayhome provides an opportunity to declutter and we have started with the basement; namely EM’s art room and the stuff in the garage. Seems people in the Hood are doing the same as the Listserv is exploding with items on the curb for pick up.
Speaking of Listserv, we had another shitstorm today, caused by someone sharing that the Pope had invited the world to jointly pray. Seems this simple announcement offended a lot of people not of the Christian faith. I have a bit of a hard time understanding this as it was not a call for everyone to join, just a notification that this was happening. The dust seems to have settled on this though and discussions have moved on to what is available in which grocery store. Seems eggs and milk are the new toilet paper and pasta is still hard to get. Luckily, we are long on pasts which we do not eat anyway. Also, I have a plan to try and make pasta myself - all hand made, no nifty little pasta machine.
My online grocery shopping has also not really moved forward and what people report of their experience is not encouraging. Seems if something is out of stock the replacement items are nowhere near what people expect. I guess come Friday - when the milk runs out - I will decide which store to hit: Harris Teeter, Giant or Wholefoods....
In my search for potential distance learning in Aikido, I found that my Turkish Sensei Ayhan Kaya is posting classes on his FB site – a happy day! Will see if I can follow some of the practices.
As to the virus spread – it is clearly picking up pace in the USA. On day 12 there were ~39.000 cases, today, two days later, the tally is ~61.000, which means there are probably some 150k undiagnosed infected out there. Very scary.
On the bright side: Motivated by the need to get together (virtually) and share, students have created a new show: Social Distancing TV (SDTV).It screened on "Montgomery County Public Schools Channel" yesterday. I am so proud of these kids and so grateful to Mr. L.! You can watch the first episode here. Episode 2 will screen tomorrow.
