If I asked my mother what she was looking for, she would always look around startled, and say, my lost youth.
I always found that amusing, and, when I was studying psychology and teaching dance in a center for elderly people, I thought I would never follow that path.
But today, as I fought my way through a supermarket, having given up on the totally incompetent update of the Shufersal website, I remembered that line. It’s not a matter of remembering picking flowers in an aromatic meadow and sharing my lunch with a loving schoolmate. It’s human relations I’m missing.
It’s not that people are not kind, or care about each other. They just don’t know one another so how can they be kind or care. At the cheese counter, one little round Russian woman was carefully concentrating on an order. Her devotion surprised me, until a very fancy young man arrived to pick up his order, and said, “Thank you, my soul. I am very grateful.” and he made off for the meat counter. My SOUL!
I pass people all the time at the supermarket who no longer recognize me, and there are probably a few who wonder why I didn’t say hello. But they are masked and preoccupied and so am I.
And this is just a normal day! What will we do when the variant proves an enormous monster. Spend our days at home looking for our lost youth?
december 3, 2021 – nostalgia Read Post »
