Week 8 of Stay at Home in San Antonio, Texas
After two months, one way or the other, we’ve had to adapt to the “next normal.”
We’re not living in the new normal yet, the life that will emerge after the COVID-19 global pandemic is over. That’s a “college career-time” away still.
Our next normal is how we’ve adjusted to living in a world with the potential for infection. The River Whey Creamery van would never appear in my neighborhood normally. Now, they’re helping Parker Creek Ranch with deliveries of its new monthly ranch CSA subscription.
During the pandemic, you can reserve tickets to drive through the San Antonio zoo. Photo credit: Iris Gonzalez.
From arranging for home deliveries of groceries to driving through the San Antonio Zoo, we’re all coming up with new approaches to living our daily lives.
It makes sense that we’re looking for routines to comfort us. Humans crave order, logic, patterns, predictability. It’s why our brains are wired to see faces and recognizable shapes in clouds.
That brain bias also explains why during ambiguous, chaotic situations, some of us turn to conspiracy theories to explain what’s happening.
The danger lies in magical thinking that could lead to someone’s untimely demise due to not taking the pandemic threat for what it is: a global public health emergency.
We’re all doing the best we can. We’re scared and anxious and wishing we knew how this story is going to end and when.
I’m looking for the silver linings like Good News Network or the YouTube episodes of Some Good News.
During the next normal I’m trying to lose some weight, get more exercise, catch up on my hobbies and interests, and keep in touch with friends and families the best way I can.
Oh, and I’m thinking of ways to have safe adventures (on a budget, too) once school ends later in May.
Having my friend’s cheese van show up at my house is pretty cool. (I couldn’t help but think of “The Postman Always Rings Twice.” This was a much more innocent food delivery, thank goodness.)
Here’s to living during the Next Normal, 2020.
Featured image is of River Whey Creamery’s cheese van delivering a monthly CSA box of meats from Parker Creek Ranch. Photo credit: Iris Gonzalez.