Wait ... What???

Waking on the second day of spring to loud scraping sounds, I peered out my window. I was surprised to see an inch of snow blanketing everything except the alley where neighbor kids wearing wool knit caps with pompoms were skateboarding. Spring … snow … skateboards … a double double-take. I should get used to surreal times.

Before our governor issued a Stay-at-Home order to control coronavirus spread, I went out to two grocery stores. On both trips I thought for sure I would be killed on the roads before I even had a chance to fight someone for the last box of  unsweetened almond milk. At least half the other cars made sharp lane changes as they whizzed past me so fast, if I had had my windows open, my short gray hair would have stood straight up on my head. I felt frightened by these drivers’ aggressive speed and wondered what feeling fueled their furious hurry.

Funny, in the 1980s my youngest sister drove our parents’ gigantic V8-engine 1965 Buick LeSabre whose ripped ceiling cloth hung down in our faces. Freedom and youthful fearlessness fueling her, she often whizzed through tunnels of parked cars in downtown Chicago. In warm weather with car windows rolled down and frayed ceiling silk tickling our faces and tendrils of our long brown hair curling in the breeze, I felt free and confident. 

Last week, after white-knuckling my steering wheel, I felt relief to be off the road in the crowded store parking lot. Inside the store, I was grateful to see that shoppers were not frantically racing carts down aisles and sharply cutting off other carts. Many people’s faces showed worry but people were polite and smiling. Another double double-take.

I love snail-mail. I come by this honestly, as my dad, aunt, and grandma all considered mail delivery to be the highlight of every day. They also wrote great letters, and I was blessed to be the recipient of many of them. My aunt the world traveler sent me postcards from everywhere, and I have tried over my adult decades to give the "I'm thinking of you" gift that she gave me. On my one or two vacations a year, I’d buy enough postcards to share the fun with my family and friends. Often, though, I came home with unsent postcards. These come in handy now in these days of social distancing when I cannot visit my mother in the nursing home, but the United States Postal Service continues. Using my little cache of leftover postcards, I have begun mailing my mom a series of ain’t-goin’-nowhere postcards to add a little personal touch to her days.

Since I have an inordinate number of leftover Indiana postcards, and I have no new news, trying to think of new news to write Mom each day takes me on sentimental journeys. Which is what my grandma called her 1982 visit to Peru, Indiana, her childhood home. Encountering friendly strangers in Peru, Grandma chirped, “I’m 85! And I’m on a sentimental journey.” We went inside what had been her family’s house in the late 1890s, and she told the owners where the fireplace and her mother’s hospital bed had been. She showed us her old elementary school with its huge grassy playground. At recess, the children ran across this field to watch the live animals in the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus’ winter quarters. In March 1913 the Wabash River overflowed its banks, the animals got loose, and according to Grandma, “a zebra chased the mailman.” Definitely my all-time favorite “Wait … What???”