I needed groceries today.

So, like any other grocery trip day, I prepared a list. I washed up, grabbed my mask, and headed for the store.

What used to take me 30 minutes now takes me 45, or more. What used to be a place I never “worried” about visiting, is now a place I will admit, I worry about going to.

I think we are all kind of tired of hearing about the pandemic negatives. We all remember quite well: the toilet paper crisis, the homemade face shields, and wondering if we would all have to give up meat.

Yet, here we are. Our bathrooms are stocked again. We can purchase masks, shields, visors, goggles, gloves—heck, we can even get a pattern coordinated wristlet for our masks! Meat, it’s all good, no need to worry about your hamburger substitute this summer!

The virus is still to be respected though.

Life has somewhat returned to normal in that stores are open, we can dine, drink, buy new outfits, and even go to a drive-in movie now! If we can afford it, that is.

Financial insecurity is real right now—for millions of people.

What can we do about this?

When I was a little girl, I remember walking the muddy rows of my grandmother’s vegetable garden. I remember watching her, carefully and mindfully, picking beans. We cleaned many stainless steel bowls full of green and yellow beans together. My grandmother loved to talk while she worked. So, while cleaning beans, I learned a lot from her about “the basics.”

As people were walking the wrong way, confused, some disgruntled and not following arrows in the produce department, this conversation popped into my mind while I was choosing beans to buy.

“We just did what we could with what we had,” she told me.

My grandmother told me about the second world war. She told me about a dozen ways to use a cabbage, and that if you keep focused on the things you can do and what you do have, it will always be enough. It might be hard, but it won’t be impossible.

I feel like much of the world can relate, at least a little, to how important keeping focus on what we do have and what we can do provides.

Something we can all do is reach out and lean in to support one another.

>> We can share recipes.
>> We can offer suggestions or tips for ways to make things stretch farther (money, food, clothing).
>> We can have sidewalk or patio chats with our neighbours to let them know if they need something, they can ask us.
>> We can spread kindness in the stores, online, in our neighbourhoods, and mostly, right at home.
>> We can be there.

We can do all of this while washing up, masking up, and getting back to basics.

What is something that you have learned you can live with less of? What is something that you have learned you would like to do or have more of?

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