It started this morning with the milk. Which is to say, we were running low. No milk means no cereal, and more importantly, no coffee with milk, no London Fog tea. Unacceptable! Instead of deciding to muddle through until I go pickup a grocery shopping order on Saturday, I decided I would be bold and go out for milk to the convenience store.
There it is, sitting on the front seat of my car. Hello, milk.
I felt like a rebel as I got in my car. I hadn’t gone for a drive like this in a while. For weeks now it’s been grocery store runs only. This felt decidedly weird, a combination of thrilling, odd, and slightly foreboding.
I decided, pulling out of my driveway, I would do like back in the old days (you know, a month ago), and even avail myself of the luxury of some drive-thru breakfast from McDonald’s. I whipped out my phone, ordered it up, and got on my way.
At the convenience store, when I parked I noticed a few other cars in the lot. Everyone I saw behind the wheel was wearing a mask. I definitely scanned the front windows of the place, to see just how crowded it was. There was a scant handful of people, less than 4, so I ducked in, went straight to the refrigerated milk section and then made for the counter. Where now there was a giant set of plastic sheets across the counter, hung from the ceiling. It was like a giant sneeze-guard at a salad bar. I paid quickly, using my watch to do so, so I could minimize the amount of touching of anything I was doing.
I got back in the car, and headed for the McDonald’s. Along the way I started to notice some things.
For one, not only were the local roads really, really quiet, but there was no traffic whatsoever on the highway. I could tell from the GPS in the car.
When I got to the shopping plaza where the restaurant was, it was like a ghost town. So eerie.
I went through the drive thru and quickly got my order. The drive-up speaker-signboard had several COVID-19 advisory notices about changes in hours, restaurant policy, and safety plastered on it, as did the windows of the store itself.
I tried to put it out of my mind. Tried. Of course I noticed how everyone I could see through the windows of the place had on masks, and gloves.
I collected my meal, and my bottle of water, and, trying to emulate something I used to do all the time, pulled around the side of the building to park, and briefly sit and enjoy my meal, while watching the early morning sky and traffic around me.
Try is the operative word.
As I sat and ate, I noticed how few cars were on the road. And I began to feel a certain horror, a creeping dread, as I realized that nothing in this world was quite the same, including me.
Something had my hackles up.
I figured out what it was a moment later.
Out of my peripheral vision I had caught a police car with its lights on, in the lot. It was slightly across the way, where something bad had happened.
I couldn’t tell exactly what, and at first struggled to see what it was the car was even parked by.
But as I munched on my McMuffin, it became more clear to me that it was a motorcycle, or rather the remnants of one.
I sat there, thinking about it. Was there an accident? Was the rider drunk? Did anyone get hurt? The rest of my brief short foray out snapped into a sharper focus. Everything was different now. I thought to myself if I had some small fender bender in this post-COVID world, how would I deal with it? Would I be too scared to trade insurance info with the other guy? What would going to the hospital post-accident be like? Even the notion of it felt ponderously heavy, and filled with extra complexities and complications.
I got out of there, and drove home. The closer I got to my house, the more safe I felt. When I parked in my garage, and closed the door, I felt almost normal again. Almost.
I’ve had some big, scary things happen to me before in my life. In college, I was mugged at gunpoint. Several years ago, I was in an accident that made my airbag deploy, and totaled my car. I’ve dealt with severe illnesses and surgeries of loved ones.
But this thing, it’s different. I feel like long after there’s a vaccine for the disease, this lingering fear and unease will be with me.
More than ever, I’m resolved to be kind to myself, and to others. More than ever, I see the need for my mindful practice. Because right now, it’s pretty easy to get freaked out.