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.

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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.

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