Being in quarantine is reminding me of how my parents lived.

Simply.

Without fanfare. Or computers.

Cooking. Three meals a day. Making a list and buying the food for a week or two at a time. Then , in the morning, making a decision on what you’re going to pull from the basement freezer.

I feel fragile.

Fragile

Not a complimentary word.

Women for centuries have been accused of being fragile.

Having vapors. Waiting for the guy on the white horse. Needing to be kissed awake after eating the dreaded apple.

But I’m ok with it.

I’m fragile.

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of poetry.

I want to see the world as the poet sees it.

Up close.

Writing about the glint of sunlight as it passes across the kitchen table. Fading, as it reaches a place setting for one.

The poet sees the world in doses of what is before him. The things we pass over.

He holds a bigger perspective by thinking small.

Snowing outside. Thirty-four degrees.

We just got a food delivery. Gordon disinfected the exterior boxes. The interior boxes. Two heads of broccoli, a package of chicken breasts and a cauliflower. While wearing latex gloves.