Day 53
We’re really getting used to the Isolation Lifestyle. We know the menu. We know who gets the internet bandwidth when. We know what our jobs are and what they aren’t. Life isn’t normal, but it is routine.
As it creeps on, though, the days of the week, the thoughts of elsewhere, the certainty of friends as a present-tense phenomenon, everything but the narrow now starts to melt away.
I can’t tell whether we’ve entered the easy days or the hard ones.
At times in my life I’ve pined to live more in the now, without my thoughts on the unchangeable past or the untouchable future. This present focus is in many ways a good practice, and there are lessons I want to carry forward. But maybe I had something else in mind when I made that wish. I recall wanting to cherish the present, not be chased to it by a future that gnashes its teeth, while the past, which must have happened to someone else, offers no sanctuary.
It hadn’t occurred to me this is why America is ordering so much stuff from the internet. I figured it was all about filling empty places in the heart, but really it’s a way of connecting the present to the future. If a package is coming, that’s five to seven days of sweet anticipation. If the package is coming Friday, and has three days yet to travel, today must be Tuesday!
That makes me think a couple of things.
I’m going to fill my calendar with random personal holidays, so I can spend the month looking forward to 30’s Music Day and Learn about Volcanoes Day. “No,” I’ll be able to say, “We made curry on Find a Four-Leaf Clover Day. We had grilled cheese on Alan Rickman Day. I remember because we spent the whole night quoting Sense and Sensibility.”
I need to figure out where I set my wallet down a month ago. That crap on Amazon isn’t going to order itself. Maybe if I pay extra they’ll send it to me real slow.
