“People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.” Sung by Barbra Streisand.
“I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas.” The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock “ T.S. Eliot.
It is tough mentally battling these two diverse realities constantly throughout your lifetime.
Sheila and I just received our second vaccination for the COVID 19 at CSUS. We feel there is a huge weight lifted from our shoulders as we begin the long wait for our daughters and grand children get their doses.I realize how much I missed them.
This is funny coming from a genetically born loner who has lived his life as a” stranger in a strange land” and identifies with Eliot’s Prufrock who sadly realized that he should have been, “ A pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”
When big sister Maria, and I would hop on BART after a Giants game the long journey back to Hayward was spent standing side by side pressed against countless perspiring bodies, clinging onto the dangling safety straps. I would close my eyes and wish them all gone beamed by Scotty to some other universe leaving me in the comfort of my very own seat and maybe one or two SF Giants fans dispersed at the end of the car. Of course Maria would have her own seat.
The past thirteen months under the restrictions of COVID 19 has altered my genetic structure just a bit.I would pay good money (is there bad money?) to stand sweating uncomfortably next to a group of individuals on a Bart car who reeking of garlic fries while weaving dangerously from the results of too many $18 craft beers. I would enjoy all these discomforts if only this damn pandemic were over. Oh to suffer once again on a crowded Bart train.
The thought of standing for ages in a long check out line at Raley’s sends excited goose bumps over my body. Going out to a restaurant and not getting your steak the way you ordered is a minor problem. Paying $8 for a tiny 4 oz. glass of wine at the Gallo Theater is worth it. Waiting in line to gas up my car and someone cuts in front of me won’t stir up my ire.They probably need to be someplace in a hurry. Hell I’ll buy them a tank of gas.
Yes. It will be nice to not only visit our daughters and grandchildren. I can’t wait to drive up to visit my sister Auntie Mame and go to a Giants game,then afterwards stop off at Buffalo Bills for a beer and then enjoy a fine steak dinner prepared by Cap’n BIll.There is anticipated joy in being able to talk to people sans masks and warmth in giving and receiving hug. All these taken for granted niceties have been eradicated by the pandemic.
My moral obligation to myself. Never take things for granted again. OK. I know what your are thinking. After a couple of months of normalcy I’ll be glaring at the Bart riders who are 40 years younger than me sprawling in their seats while my sister and I stand. I will impatiently tap my foot at the customer in front of me in the Raley’s check out line who has way too many groceries in her cart.You don’t need all those groceries! I will glare at the waiter because he brought me the wrong order.
Yes it will happen. I am a creature of habit. But when this happens,I will listen to Barbra’s beautiful voice sing People and compare those meaningful lyrics to Prufrock’s sad lonely life. Hell I’ll be 73 in a couple of months.Maybe I have spent too much time scuttling across the floors of silent seas.Time to surface.
Until April. Read a book, hug a child, pet a dog, stroke a cat, eat a king sized chocolate bar, dance like no one is watching, sing loudly and off key in the shower and IKIRU!