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NORMAL EXPIRED

Tuesday, Mar. 31, 2020
 
 
Normal, as we’ve known it, is fading fast.
 
Every tomorrow brings more news, mostly bad news, and we soldier on.
 
In my window today: birds, squirrels, a gopher, and a couple of deer strolling through our empty parking lot.
 
I feel so lucky being where I am, knowing our numbers are low, and our system is coping, and most people are self-isolating.
 
Normal expired, and sadly so have many thousands around the world (over 36,000 and climbing), and the epicenter of rising infections and danger is no longer half-way around the world; its grip on New York and area is scary, and not quickly solved – it must be endured. My thoughts are here, but my empathy is there.
 
While people struggle to balance coping-diversions with real efforts to make things better, we are left to sort out our lives and households because the only answers our officials can give us is to isolate. We are isolated by choice, by circumstance, and by government decree …
 
Beyond our imaginations, we are isolating. For those of us without symptoms, it’s a change but hardly a hardship as long as grocery store shelves are stocked and ‘Skip the Dishes’ can deliver. Seriously, food, time, streaming entertainment, and every other form of interest or entertainment is only a click away, or a simple as pulling a book off a shelf.
 
Seriously, is this hardship, or fear-management?
 
It depends on our circumstances, our vantage point, and whether we in a cozy place.
 
This economy will snap back. Shopping will be robust. Lives will not ‘return to normal’ – every government dollar of relief will multiply as it is spent and spins through our economy. Cash flow is horrible, but nobody stole our assets. No resources have been depleted – crops will grow this year, trees will grow, every barrel of oil in the ground is still there and belongs to us.
 
An old adage, the best way to succeed is where you are, with what you’ve got, seems to be apropos, so valid for so long in good times and bad, I won’t give up on it now.
 
If you need inspirational quotes on success, click here.
 
If you are less optimistic right now and want more inspirational quotes on survival, click here.
 
 
Reader feedback:
LITTLE ENGINE GRIT, THIRST, and ZEAL
I just found some yeast, which took time and some intense searching! People who have never in their life baked with it, cleared off the shelves. My jar, coincidentally, just happened to hit low at the wrong time... So maybe we could chime in with ideas to your challenge...I am going to bake cinnamon buns and do a delivery run to friends’ steps...thus honouring...quarantine dynamics and social distancing and acts of kindness...If you had ever tasted my cinnamon buns fresh out of the oven...you would know what a prize this is! To those who hoarded the yeast...avoid bad karma and get baking!, SF, Lethbridge, AB




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Mark Kolke, Realtor, MaxWell South Star Realty


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