I wake up at dawn again after a great night’s sleep. I feel like my body is almost back to normal and I’m imagining a big day in the mountains, but the new reality of the world suddenly brings me back to my senses as I search the internet desperately from some positive news. But there is none to be had, so I sit back with my coffee and thank my lucky stars that I have a safe place to eat and sleep and some very pleasant hikes in my backyard.
The hike is very pleasant, and I linger near my favorite tree and ponder the grand James peak that I wish I was on top of. The short hike is invigorating, but a bit too familiar and short, and It is not intense enough to make me forget about the current reality, so I come back bored and longing for a real adventure.
The book I am reading is quite good, but I’m getting bored with this activity as well, and opt for a lazy siesta in the spring sunshine. This activity is quite enjoyable, but the effect is not so good, cuz I wake even more groggy.
I’ve told myself so many times, that I need to find a purpose if I wish to survive, but this purpose seems more and more elusive, so I quietly drink my ration of wine and read and surf facebook till dinner. I am still succeeding at cooking good and interesting meals, and this one consists of leftover game hen and potatoes with frozen veggies, a bit of wine and ice cream for desert. I sit alone at my kitchen table admiring the almost full moon and the great view and imagining that I am on one of my great former adventures in a friendly cafe in a strange land.
23. Yesterday was full of adventure. The anticipation of venturing out of my safe abode gave me a new reason to awaken, and I proceeded to take my first shower in quite some time. This got my energy going and I proceeded with a careful trimming of my somewhat rustic beard. I had carefully coordinated my activities to include a few tasks and decided to reward myself with a pizza from one of the direly suffering local merchants. A careful mathematical calculation arrived at the assumption that a 16 in diameter was the most cost effective. This would provide about 5 small meals and would be a pleasant change from my current diet. I called Back Country Pizza at 11 AM but there was no answer. I was not surprised to find that the usual Nederland punctuality had not changed because of this dilemma, so I waited a few minutes and tried again. At 11:15 the phone was finally answered, and my order for a Large Mediterranean was finally taken. I was told that it would be ready in 20 minutes, so I dressed in my finest clothes and prepared to venture into the ghost village.
The Boulder County road maintenance dept. had not taken advantage of the lull in traffic to fix the road, so I dodged and bounced through the many pot holes, as my mind wondered and prepared itself for the expected shock. The library was closed as expected, and I wondered past the locked door to the return book deposit in back. The empty parking lot was my first reminder of the pandemic that had so suddenly stricken our quant little village.
The B & F lot was also almost vacant and I wondered up to the locked door of Back Country Pizza. It was almost noon and on any normal day it would have been crowded, but I could only see one human and a dog as I peered through the window and knocked. The lone inhabitant suddenly moved and emerged from another guarded door with my prize. Her beautiful, but obviously stressed out features conveyed the problems that we were all facing as she thanked me from a safe distance and suddenly retreated to her empty restaurant.
The next task was shopping for a few necessary items, so I put on my gloves and donned my very old and dirty carpenters mask. I felt like I was entering the scene of an old Stephen King Saga, as I carefully grabbed a cart and proceeded in the familiar, but suddenly strange surroundings of the local market. The store was nearly empty, and most of the shoppers were wearing masks, so I moved cautiously through the ghostly isles. The experience was obviously less than nirvana, so I threw in quite a few extra cans and stables that would allow me to hide in my mountain shelter for couple of weeks. I recognized another masked shopper, and would have normally stopped to chat, but we both just exchanged glances and rushed away.
The large stack of groceries was carefully bagged into paper bags that could be burned, but I couldn’t help but notice a young very nonchalant gal without a mask who was paying with cash. She reminded me of a backcountry skier who had no knowledge of avalanches and was about to jump into a very dangerous slope, but without the risk of endangering everyone around her.
The next stop was the post office where I needed to send a registered letter, and I waited carefully in line while the stressed out teller strove to preform her duties in this crazy new environment. With a big sigh of relief I drove back up the mountain to my hopefully sterile paradise and unpacked the spoils from the hunt.