Yesterday we had two training sessions for our baristas. Two months without contact, the first thing they did when they saw one another was race together for hugs. “No hugs!” I said. Unheeded Cassandra. We do not live in the same world.
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Later I moved through an empty cafe, watering plants. Talking to walls. A spray bottle of sanitizer in my hand. A rag for wiping. I sprayed and wiped and arranged the deck chairs on this landlocked Titanic, thought of Nero, who may have fiddled, or strummed a cithara, so much gets lost in translation.
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My music partner and I haven’t gotten together to play since the lockdown started. He sent me a text yesterday suggesting a backyard session, and I almost agreed, until I remembered that I would be spending the day with my baristas, young and incautious and perhaps asymptomatic. Thou shalt not become a vector.
The link is wonderful. I especially loved: ‘A pound sign at the very beginning of the line says each time I encounter an “F,” I will have to actually play the key to the right of it. It’s like reading a recipe, but you have to remember that each time you read “knife” they actually mean “fresh pepper.” ’