quarantine bouquet

It’s week eight. Two months of living separately together. Sixty days and nights. Live music streaming, late night talk show Zooming, a CNN ticker that tells us the hearts that have stopped beating, winter into spring, the rhythm of the walking, masking, gloving. The Costco bouquet I picked up on my last indoor shopping trip. It felt like a frivolous luxury to purchase at a time so uncertain, and yet, I was compelled to spend the $15 alongside two giant bags of pistachios (in the shell, salted) and a cart full of other items I “just might need”, because, quarantine. I was anxious. WHAT DO I DO? WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO? The empty shelves were like a bear on the trail to my reptilian brain and I was spinning out. Round, right round, like a record.

It’s two months later now. I’ve learned our new lingo: Instacart, curbside pickup, six feet. Toilet paper is back, Purell is not. But no matter the circumstance, it has been two important months. In whatever way we have responded, we will never be quite the same. A collective and individual pivot into this new world order.

This is my Costco bouquet now. The roses faded, the lilies bent and withered. There were sunflowers during the first month too. Stems removed, one by one, but not without a judicious and thoughtful look-over. I enjoyed this bouquet in a way that I never would have pre-quarantine. I am so grateful for the reminder of how to deeply appreciate this life. The lesson. And so, now, I do know what to do. I feel it quite viscerally. I need more 59th Street Bridge. Hello lamppost moments. Kicking the cobblestone. Slow down, make the moment last. $15 bouquets. What do you really want in your post-quarantine shopping cart?