I don’t know about you, but we are more than half way through January and I feel like I’ve run an ultra marathon.
Perhaps it’s the waves of sadness, waves of anxiety, waves of fear, waves of uncertainty, waves of emotion, or waves of tears.
Nothing seems the same, so many people are gone… and, unfairly, gone too soon.
I just want our once-normal life back.
I don’t want to wear a mask or debate the what-ifs surrounding a vaccine.
I want to enter a shop without sanitizing everything.
I want to go to the beach, swim in the sea, lie in the sun, and dig my toes in the sand.
I want to sit around a table with family and friends, or spend time with a colleague – and not fear that the virus is lurking, waiting to pounce.
I also want to stop overthinking all the things that could go wrong this coming year.
With all this said, we have to keep treading water and ride out the storm.
This week I was asked to do a story on the closing of the Anerley Post Office.
It got me thinking about how many of my favourite little shops in our community have shut their doors in the last few months.
Shops that were more than just shops, they were small yet industrious entities that often sold homemade or homegrown goodies to help put food on the table for many.
On one visit to the post office, two women arrived to sell paw paws from the shop.
They were regular suppliers of homegrown fruit and vegetables.
I loved the concept – and since the first lockdown, I moved towards supporting local business.
So, my heart goes out to all those relying on these special hubs in our community to sell their goods to make a few extra Rands.
Will there be anything left when this is all over? I truly hope so.
Things seem to be getting crazier and crazier by the minute.
Amidst the madness, the second Covid-19 lockdown panic has got me replacing my garden flowers with vegetables and the odd strawberry bush.
Planting to eat – transforming oneself to becoming more self-sustainable.
It seems I wasn’t alone – as well as hitting the garden centres, people’s Google searches on ‘how to grow vegetables’ or ‘crisis gardening’ hit an all-time worldwide high last year.
To come to think of it, none of us are really alone in this.
We are all just trying to navigate through the chaos to make it through and out of 2021.
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