Together, Alone: Community Voices Documenting Life in the Pandemic

Become part of this historical record, created in real-time documentation, by submitting an entry here. Submissions can be poetry, fiction, non-fiction, memoir, ruminations and reflections, or art and photography; all forms of expression documenting how we cope, survive, and live as our lives change. This blog will be a living document of these experiences, and will become an historical record that we will be able to look back on. Help us record this time through your personal lens.

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Mar 30

Kindness at Safeway submitted by Emilie Vardaman

Posted on March 30, 2020 at 8:08 AM by Jason Macoviak

As I waited outside Safeway at 5:58 am the other day, five of us carefully distanced ourselves from one another. But one younger woman sort of laughed, said she’d be fine; she’d decided she wouldn’t get the virus.
I told her I hoped she was successful in staying well. Then the store opened and we all walked in, ready to shop.
I went straight for the flour and yeast but was disappointed yet again. So I dashed to the frozen aisle in search of mixed veggies. None.
A man I’d spoken to out front walked by me carrying toilet paper, a huge grin on his face. I congratulated him.
To the fresh veggie aisle— nothing there on my list.
So I roamed back through the store and picked up a few things I knew I’d use and unsuccessfully searching for the other items on my list. Then I got in line behind the woman who’d said she’d be fine.
“Get what ya came for?” she asked.
“No. Nothing on my wish list is here.”
She grabbed her wallet and pulled out a business card, handing it to me. She said she was headed to Sierra Vista and would be glad to look for the things I wanted and deliver them to me.
A stranger, a stranger who didn’t quite believe. And still, she was willing to help another in our sweet community.