I find my emotions are all over the place. I assume that’s the new normal. I woke up this morning feeling okay…yesterday I woke up really stressed and cranky, but I was nervous about going to the grocery store.

Simple things have changed, haven’t they? One day we will look back and wonder how we made it through. I wanted/needed (it wasn’t a need in that we were literally out of food, but there were a lot of specific things we hoped to get ) to go to the grocery store, so I planned to go around 9 am on Monday hoping it wouldn’t be too busy. I was correct, and the store was even well stocked! The last time I went to the store two weeks earlier I had been taken aback by wide expanses of empty product sections, empty pasta aisles, empty toilet paper aisles, etc. This time there were empty shelves here and there still, but mostly they had everything one might need. They even had some toilet paper at the time, which made me feel more positive.

I bought hopefully enough to avoid the store for another two weeks—we’ve been getting stuff delivered as well from Imperfect Foods, and we did Blue Apron last week, so we have no shortage of anything. I’ve been doing a small amount of what some might call hoarding but others would call preparing for the worst as well, and hopefully we come out the end of this ready to go on a week long camping trip somewhere.

I spent the rest of the day teaching, doing a few videos for my students and one to share with the world, and trying to relax.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKtbjR4kJF0

There are a lot of unknowns right now, and it’s very hard to deal with. They say one should just focus on the day ahead, but if that’s the case, each day is just the same and drags on, and I guess that’s really the challenge. There’s nothing necessarily to look forward to: no vacations, no trips, no concerts…I guess I can look forward to the weekend for once, but to do what? They are even talking of closing State Parks since some were too crowded over the weekend, and then what?

As I was writing this, one of my twitter followers did something that has made my day happier. She left a tip in my paypal tip jar, and tweeted one of my videos—the one above, and now I am all warm and fuzzy and feel really grateful. I’m thinking of doing a longer “concert” perhaps streaming somehow. My brother-in-law has done a few cello live performances on facebook and I admire his nerve and the one I saw was quite entertaining, so maybe I can do something like that. I’d love to monetize it a bit, at least with donations requested (seriously, we may not have concerts again this year, who knows?) but I also just want to bring music to people.

In any case, I’d better get on with my day. Time to workout, teach, and practice a bit too. Today will be an okay day.