Why I Need the Grocery Store--and a Moving Notice

Dear Friends and Readers,

I’m moving my writing over to Tatyana Sussex @ Medium.

Come visit, read, comment, clap, and look around. Medium is an open platform for writers and readers, with a galaxy of offerings for every mood, passion, or curiosity. Below is a preview of my most recent post over there. Thank you for being part of my community.

**

I Need to Go to the Grocery Store—and Not for Food
In the check-out line my humanity returns

Preparing for my sacred outing.

Twenty nervous shoppers, most of us strangers, wheel our carts past the sweet onions, green bananas, early season peaches. I go the wrong way down the soup aisle.

It’s May, still early days in the pandemic. When a woman points out my error I apologize, defensively.

“Oh it’s OK,” the woman says with unexpected warmth. Her eyes are ice blue; they sparkle. She wears a black mask, so I rely on the language of her eyes to fill in the story.

“I messed it up too,” she assures me. “We’ll get it down eventually.”

That’s all it takes: a moment of tenderness, the sound of the word “we” and I feel myself breathe. The brittleness of my posture loosens. The reminder of being a human-among-humans thaws my deep emotional freeze for a little while.

I drive home with my shoulders lower; there’s a smile for my husband, a kiss and a grab of his butt. Kindness returns.

Friends order groceries online; I refuse. “I need to witness humans doing daily life,” I tell a friend. “If not, I’ll get craggy and mean and . . . “ read more