Do I dare to eat a peach? That, my friends is, and always has been, the essential question. And the answer, of course, is no. Don’t fucking do it. That way lies madness. It also lies downhill as all madness does, which is why I went wheelchairing down the lower slopes of Twin Peaks this very mid-day, ostensibly in search of groceries, but actually in search of life. As everyone knows, there simply isn’t enough about. Why this is remains unclear. But that’s the general lay of the COVID-19 land. The day-to-day normalcy has been forever altered, certainly reduced, and if one isn’t careful, there is a deadening effect.

I stopped outside Perch, a gift shop just down the hill. Not to buy anything, just because I noticed a couple of local merchants hanging out in front. The truth is that the people I know in the area work in the area. Like these two. The gift shop woman I don’t know by name. But I greeted Tony who is proprietor of the pet shop and made small talk. Nothing about it seems small to me. This is neighborhood chatter. It is comprised of almost nothing but the obvious. My preferred topic being “when will this pandemic end.” It is banal as banal can be. No apologies. Don’t care. If we don’t talk about nothing we don’t talk.

So there we stood, briefly, and I note my inadvertent choice of words…for I was sitting. Didn’t occur to me then. Barely occurred to me now. Which says something wonderful about my life. He also serves who only sits and sits. Not to worry. Tony of the pet shop was not attired in something eye catching today. He has a way of wearing dresses to work, diamond chokers, sometimes pearl necklaces, and so on. This is San Francisco. By now I barely notice. Today he wore a couple of mismatching pendant earrings, which I also barely noticed. What I did notice was that he isn’t much of a conversationalist. I don’t know why this is. Whatever. Next stop was just next-door.

Cheese. Rashid and his wife run a pleasant neighborhood operation. I needed some grated fontina. Jane is making something wonderful tonight with butternut squash. Cheese figures in it somehow. And there you have it. I placed my order and hurtled on to the next stop. Canyon Market, a small haute bourgeoisie emporium that offers things like small $12 boxes of granola. I didn’t buy anything like that. Just some prosciutto, the aforementioned butternut squash, and a few other bits. Thing is, when I roll in the door of Canyon, help jumps out of the walls. The young man in the produce section who grabbed my basket, immediately went in search of my shopping list’s 10 ingredients. His English is not good, so we made small talk in Spanglish. How do you say cucumber? I have already forgotten his answer. I told him the French, concombre, feeling very pleased with myself.

I did notice that he understands the universal language of human service. He knocked himself out to get the obscure ingredients, such as Castel something-or-other olives. Turns out they had them. Fresh. As for the sour cream, to prevent me from having to go back one more time into the dairy section, he brought out three options. All of them creamy. All of them sour.  

It so it went, and so I headed home.

Charging up the street, however, someone ran out of the cheese shop. It was Rashid’s wife. Had I forgotten? Of course, I had. She placed the small bag of grated fontina on my lap. I thanked her profusely. I thanked the world, then rolled home.