It’s niece H’s 26th birthday. I sent her a birthday card with an Edward Hopper painting on the front. Hopper is fantastically good at painting silence and isolation…yet somehow, to me, his paintings aren’t sad, exactly. I think they somehow illustrate an inner life while outer life is going on…https://whitney.org/collection/works/873.
I am currently having a problem that I was actually expecting to have the opposite of. Too much food. For the last 20 years, our milk and orange juice has been delivered by the milkman. For anyone who doesn’t know what a milkman is, it’s the person who used to drive an electric milk truck from a depot and deliver milk to everyone’s houses, in glass milk bottles, every day. Husband and I decided to use this (still existing) service in an effort to reduce plastic use, since supermarket milk comes packaged in said material. In fact I remember as a child that you could take fizzy drinks bottles back to the shop and get 6d in return….waste consciousness was built in to everyday life, not least because parents had lived through the war. We also get deliveries from marvellous organic veg box company, Riverford, https://www.riverford.co.uk. They have been so overwhelmed with new orders they have had to temporarily shut the website but are delivering set boxes to existing customers…so we ordered a weekly box of veg and a box of fruit…and …it’s too much. It may well be a few weeks before I can change this…so….I have to cook..and freeze. Husband is having to cook, and freeze. We will not go hungry. But this is a trial for someone who does not like cooking. The upside is, my cooking (and husband’s cooking) is improving…something I’ve tried to improve for years. A covid-19 silver lining…although we may grow a little more than we would like. Can’t let up on the daily 10,000 steps then….
I think many people are starting to feel isolated and anxious…the elderly in particular, who watch the TV a lot, will be absorbing news saturated with coronavirus. I think the answer to beating this virus and feeling good during lockdown, is to connect with others via regular phone calls, social media and even by post….and just get on with things as usual (if you can) but in accordance with the current rules. The news will always be the same, we don’t have to watch it all the time.
Thank you God for the abundance all around me. I have no problems and no worries. I am provided for. Amply. I have no idea why I am picked out for this great fortune when others are not. I am aware because of my work that others are very worried – unable to pay mortgages or rent in the short term, and uncertain in the longer term.
There is always a lesson in everything…so maybe my lesson is to be fearlessly generous with whatever I have.
jx
Spicy tomato soup in progress
Ain't we got it made? 