Will line up for food

Waiting (not a) game
London, ON
April 2020
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Surreal scene from a parking lot, another visceral example of how profound the change around us has become.

Every time I step outside the door, I pause and take the the scene in. Everything sounds different - not just lower-volume, but silenced to the point I can feel it inside my head. Everything looks different, too, as if the air has a different tone or color.

Even watching people walk outside is an exercise in wonder, with strangers ducking into the middle of the street to maintain distance, and others waiting patiently to avoid approaching others too closely.

Then there's the grocery store, where 45-minute lineups outside, carefully managed by mask-wearing security guards, aren't unusual. You need to run gauntlets just to keep your life on track. Nothing is simple now.

One word keeps invading my mind: Surreal. Just when I think I've seen everything "off" that there is to see, something else comes along. And I've got some bizarre new thing to ponder.

So I took my DSLR on a shopping trip, because I felt the need to record it in some way, to remind future-me what it felt like to stand in a middle of a parking lot as the world re-arranged itself around me.

This isn't a complaint, because there's more than enough whining going on on Planet Earth, and I've yet to see any data that proves it's even remotely effective. My only goal, then, is a simple one: Tell the story.

Because this IS a story, for some of us the story of our lives. To have no record of it after it is over would only add to the tragedy we're already witnessing.

So if you're inclined, I hope you'll tell your own story, too. Sometimes it's the only thing we can do. Sometimes, it's just a really effective way to find the good in a situation that so many seem content to view through a consistently dark lens.

And in the end, it's up to us to choose the right lens before we step out the door and face the world.

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