Despite the fact that I'm not sure I've ever actually felt hungry, a fear of starving to death is cooked into my genes from way way back. Restaurant closures plus these annoying end times vibes have excited this phobia in such a way that each morning over coffee, we discuss breakfast. During breakfast we plan lunch. And as soon as lunch is over—dinner. Never in my life have I had so much time to think about, strategize, and (help) prepare my meals.
I love it. It makes me feel like I'm living a kind of simple, country life (in a good way) in which everything revolves around consuming enough to stay alive, or something.
Katya, who has lived this simple country life (Russian-style) claims there's more to it than that. She tells me about two weeks every summer when she and the villagers would head to the fields to reap(?) grass(?) from sunup to sundown. Everyone reaped. If you didn't reap, you didn't eat, went the saying. Sometimes her dad would catch rabbits and bring them home as pets first and food eventually. At night they'd boil themselves clean in the sauna and feast on fish, salads, and a cold milky soup of radishes and cucumbers. In the starlight, her sister would squish folk songs from an accordion. "Oh, roads, dust, fog, frost, worries, and endless fields," they'd croon. "We can't know our destiny. Maybe we're going to die somewhere in those fields."
I can't speak to any of that, gorgeous as it sounds, but I'm grateful she knows what she's doing. Because I don't. When I explain how my family used to buy groceries, it sort of sounds like we'd just purchase one of everything and bring it all home to browse later, when we were bored.
No such luxury these days. Trips to the store are executed with precision. We get in, we get out. Sometimes we hold our breath. Safe for another week, we head back, laden with the simple, country food of her ancestors—cottage cheese, beets, cucumbers, and brown bread—and mine: cookies, ice cream, and chocolate. Three minutes later and home at last, I can't help but hang up my mask, pick up my guitar (but not before sanitizing it!) and play: "Oh, roads, dust, fog, frost, worries, and endless fields…"