Chairs, Normalcy, and Sitting out the Pandemic

While I'm waiting for my latte to be made at our favorite coffee shop one Sunday morning, I look around the usually-busy cafe at all the stacked tables and chairs as I breathe a bit more deliberately through my surgical mask. The chairs have a whimsical look that suggests a kind of four-legged fellowship of shapes, convivial but silent. How many potential customers and conversations could these chairs be supporting if this were "normal" times? Marjorie and I have been coming to this bakery most Sunday mornings for years, and never imagined that such a simple aspect of our lives could change so in such a basic and sudden way. What do we do with this strange normalcy? To start, we can order a medium latte for carry-out, and then walk to a nearby park to sip our lattes and talk with our friend Carol. We adapt. We enjoy the sunshine, conversation, and watch people from the neighborhood enjoying their Sunday morning as we are. It's a beautiful morning. The rest can wait.