Holding On

      

       It was two weeks ago today I thought I would go to the library to drop off some books and pick up a few juicy novels to help tide us over the coronavirus. At that point in time, people had already been social distancing somewhat, schools were out, many businesses had closed. But I myself had been doing my regular jaunts to the grocery store, the post office, a restaurant or two, and their parking lots all looked the way they always did. Life was not that different.

      

out the front of my Kenville apt

But two weeks ago today, when I got to the library, it was closed. The sign in the window said it would reopen April 5^th at the earliest. Even the crew that had been working in the parking lot for months on an environmental project connected with the library was absent – their big trucks were sitting there empty. It felt eerie. Two other cars were parked as two people walked toward the book return slot. And I think I might have just been imagining the tumbleweed rolling by.

       Well, a closed library should not have been too surprising. I decided to stop by a used bookstore for my juicy novel fix. The sign on its door said CLOSED with no mention of when it might reopen. Then I opted for the bookstore at the mall – I would get one or two novels maybe from its bargain table. Wow, the parking lot of the mall looked as deserted as the library! It was closed. The Twilight Zone theme music played in my head.

       I drove home. Later I told Mike a story about Buffalo. A story of how Buffalo once was when I lived there and how I imagine its people still to be.

       When there is a big, humongous snowstorm in Buffalo, when the roads become impassable and transportation is at a standstill, Buffalonians stay home.

       For a day.

       Maybe two.

       The storm is over, and the sun comes out. Buffalonians go out too. It might be days before any traffic can get moving again. But we go out.

       We may have to scale tall drifts of snow. We may hurt ourselves slipping and falling on the ice. We might go no further than the nearest convenience store for something we were convinced we absolutely had to have. Those who are more adventurous than I play in the drifts, dig and create in the snow, revel on the ice. We may freeze our appendages getting back home again. But we go out.

       One winter when I was living at the apartment on Kenville, there was a storm with several feet of snow. Businesses were closed, people were told to stay off the roads, and even the buses stopped running. We were home from the lab for one day. And the next day, I announced I was going to the store. It was bitter cold, but the blizzard had stopped its dumping, and the sun was shining. My plan was to walk, not to the convenience store, which was closer, but rather to the grocery store less than a mile away. My husband said good luck – he was staying in. He was not a native Buffalonian.

mild winter, bedroom window Kenville

       Of course, nothing as yet had been plowed or shoveled. I walked on top of the snow where I thought the sidewalk was. The route was cold, slow, and slippery.

       Before I got all the way past the apartment complex, a woman called out to me. She looked to be about my age and was all bundled up. It was so weird. I could not imagine why she wanted my attention. We did not know each other. She motioned for me to come over to her at her apartment door.

       And when I got close enough to understand the woman more clearly, she said that she needed to get groceries, but she did not want to go alone, and she was afraid of falling. Could we walk to the store together, and could she hold on to me the whole way?  

       What a sight we must have made – two crazy women in the snow, one with a firm grip on the heavy winter coat of the other, both chatting with chattering teeth as we made our way down the street!

       And now it has been two weeks since I thought about that day in the snow. Two weeks since I reflected fondly on Buffalonians who do not stay home when life comes to a seeming standstill. After a day or two they go out.

       But in those two weeks so much has happened. Closures and cancellations will continue through the whole month of April. We should not be on the roads. The grocery store parking lot no longer has its usual number of cars. The tumbleweeds are rolling through.

       I sit on the front porch in the afternoons when the sun is shining, with the unread novels I have found around the house. People walk, jog, stroller by and say hello, or wave, but of course, no one asks to hold on to me to walk to the store.

       And I’m hoping my fellow Buffalonians have figured it out too. No, it is not a blizzard. But it is something! Something much bigger. And this time, we need to stay home!

20200402 45 Holding On