Enforced shelter in place rules are onerous for some but not for me. Of course, I am careful. The unusual thing that happened this morning made me aware of how a few things have changed during my time here. Today I had to go to the bank. In order to do that, I had to make an appointment with a banker. He opened the bank door for me so I did not have to touch anything. The whole time I was in there I did not touch anything except for a pen which I sanitized first. The banker congratulated me on not touching my face even once during the entire meeting. Amazing, isn’t it?

The new normal includes watching to see if a person touches their face. And we care about others following the rules even if we only see them on TV. The other day a woman was criticized for licking her finger before turning each page in the speech she was giving about NOT TOUCHING YOUR FACE! Poor woman. It is hard to break an ingrained habit.

As I drove home from the bank I was directed to “go slow” by a man in an iridescent vest who was the point man for a road crew fixing the potholes in the road. We all drove on the wrong side of the road for what seemed like a mile or more suddenly a white truck came sailing along over a hill on OUR side of the road (which was the correct side for him) and the car in front of me veered suddenly to the right and missed hitting the oncoming car by only a few feet. I saw the car and reflexively cut to the right as well. But it was pure instinct. Scary. After that, we drove more slowly and on the correct side of the road for a bit, but then had to go around two trucks stopped behind a steamroller. And after that, we continued and yet another set of trucks blocked the right side of the road.

I wanted to ask someone “who let that white truck through?”, but I did not do it. Who was there to ask? Those people working on the road would not have known. It was the men on some sort of radio who were coordinating the traffic which was only allowed one lane going one way at a time. Anyway, nothing happened. But I could not help wondering what would have happened if we had crashed. This is not a time to go to the hospital if one can help it.

So then I tried to turn in my road and found it too, blocked with about six trucks. Let me tell you, road crews are definitely working, virus or no virus! They asked me to wait and then were able to make room for me to drive down the lane carefully.

And that is when I saw my own driveway. (Really my daughter and son in law’s driveway). It beckoned with an open expanse of pea gravel. The flowering trees are all in bloom. The sky is as blue as the purest sapphire today with little white puffs of cloud scudding by.

My heart expanded in my chest and I sighed with relief. It is lovely to be home. To find peace here and have many grateful moments is priceless. I am so lucky to be here. Later I went for a walk down the driveway and back which is a mile. And a beautiful mile at that, no one but me, the dogs and some geese as I took the air and increased my daily exercise. Early this morning I did an exercise video online. It is called Walk at Home and I just love the many different videos available mostly for free.

No one knows what the future holds. But being “in the moment” is such fun these days. There is nothing I have to do except take care of my health and enjoy my dogs and write my blogs. This is contentment.