THE ROADS NOT TRAVELED
I would like to be
reporting from a tranquil beach, or a yacht, or an unfamiliar city, or a new
promontory, or a crowded bar. I’d settle for a movie theater, or a restaurant,
or a museum, or, well, anywhere other than this middle-class garret we now call
home in Collegeville, Pennsylvania.
That ain’t happening
anytime soon though.
Your favorite traveling
tandem has been knee-capped. Oh glorious and faithful readers, you have followed us for over a
decade now, living vicariously through us as we sashayed around the world sipping
adult libations in romantic locales espying new vistas and reveling in our good
fortune of being a perfect couple, but we have been humbled and remain homebound. For a long time now,
we cannot be called Vacations From Home… BUT Vacations AT Home.
PERMA-GLOOM
This unending pandemic,
this incessant doom and gloom, that despite the good news about vaccines the
fear-mongering news about mutations and death from COVID being almost certain
if one drives through a town with an asymptomatic carrier going past in the
opposite direction has grown so debilitating that our pub crawls now consist of
having a drink in each room of the house.
We do go out, we do
walk our dog, but even our favorite route at Ursinus College, just up the
street from us, has been taken away as the school has asked everyone to avoid
the campus now that classes are back from the winter break. By the way J.D.
Salinger, of Catcher In The Rye fame, went to Ursinus for one whole
semester in 1938.
With inspiration
through osmosis now taken away we are left to walk incessant laps around the
block.
We go to the market,
our glasses fogging as we meander the aisles looking for more bread flour so
Janet can make MORE bagels, and cinnamon rolls and chocolate babka, all the while
perfecting her sourdough bread baking techniques.
Heeding the sage advice
that “It’s not what you weigh, but what the weight looks like ©,” we go to the
gym. Janet is off to her semi-private Pilates studio while I gauge the Planet Fitness
capacity by the number of cars in the parking lot before I enter. I have to say
I’ve gotten used to running on the treadmill while wearing a mask.
Though intrepid in
spirit, we remain sequestered and close to home.
We are safe, but long for
somewhere else. Hopefully this sadness will end soon and we can get back to the
business of making you jealous we’re traveling somewhere exotic.
Love, Janet and greg
©2021 by greg dunaj
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