Livin' the Dream: The Quiet Heroes in a Global Crisis

One of the reasons I have even had the time to put this blog together -- though it's been an intention of mine for so very long -- is the international crisis that has left us all -- if we are listening to the scientists, that is! -- indoors and isolating ourselves.  News, posts, memes, rants all about COVID-19 dominate my world right now and, frankly, I have mentally needed the outlet to create and to return to this project specifically; a project that reminds me to look deeper for the love and beauty and strength and kindness around me.  While I am emotionally drained and have committed myself to limit my exposure to all of the talk about the pandemic, I chose this man as today's post.  And I chose him for two specific reasons; two reasons that surpass my need to wrap myself in blankets and squirrel away in my room to simply cry:

1. I'm hoping that this can be a way to confront the fear; take back the narrative, and use the very premise of this collaborative collection to strengthen.  

AND

2. This man deserves recognition.  This moment right here depicted is powerful.  HE is powerful.  The story:  I went early in the morning, while the kids were still asleep, to the grocery store.  There was, in the early hour, moderate traffic amongst the aisles, people hurried to locate their supplies and go.  Most did not even make eye contact and the few that acknowledged me as I passed did so with a compassionate nod or a shrug that spoke so loudly the words in it's place "What the actual fuck is this?"  It was a lonely, isolating experience even amongst those people.  Until I met this man.  He was there, doing his job of stocking the shelves.  Another hero who exposes him self each day to the dangers of strangers entering his world and possibly contaminating it so that the shelves can be full; so that they can supply us and our families.  I joined him in the aisle (at the safely prescribed distance) to get some deodorant (an essential when you are stuck in tight spaces for a while with others!) and I said to him, simply, "Hello.  Are you doing okay?"  And without missing a beat he smiled and replied, "Me?  Oh, I'm livin' the dream!"  And it was so simple, but it made me laugh.  It made me feel CONNECTION.  And it lightened the mental load I have been carrying if only for a little while.

So sick that we may all be of hearing about COVID-19, of talking about it, this man deserved this spot.  He was my hero.