I don’t have any time. This is one of the strangest thoughts a person could have right now when time is all there is. Consider that I have no job. Consider that I am home, forcibly, 24/7. And now tell me that I don’t have any time.

Thing is, I have way too much, course. And finally, having gotten involved in a thing or two, I have less. This is good. Everyone needs a schedule or, if not a schedule, a larger purpose or at least a task. And larger purposes are pretty thick on the ground these days. After all, the heat death of the planet is imminent. The neoliberal economy appears about to burst simultaneously from gluttony at one end of the organism and starvation at the opposite end. No, not the best metaphor. But who cares?

I do care about certain issues. Public transportation and natural environment, vis-à-vis survival, being the heart of the matter. So dammed if I haven’t cranked up some of my sociopolitical activity. This committee, that group, a task here, a phone call there. And it’s all getting me out of my introverted bubble.

Out is good. I went there today for the first time in months, on my own. Cup Café down the hill used to be my regular haunt. And it has been haunting me that, having not been there in months, theirs might be one of the many businesses going under in this burg. And since the restrictions on sheltering in place are gradually lifting, I decided to have a go at the new world of coffee to go.

Sam, the proprietor, greeted me in his usual warm and generous way. He said he had been worried about me. Was I okay? Since we had shared more or less the same worry, we also shared some basic information. How was he doing? Had he applied for a relief loan from the government? His answer issued from behind a facemask, which does make communication difficult. He told me that, in essence, these relief monies were loans, unless one did certain things. He wasn’t interested, in other words. But he was still very much in business and going back to normal hours next week.

The café’s tables are crowded together in a corner, various objects placed on them to make sure they aren’t used. Which was why it seemed odd that Sam cleared aside some of the junk and insisted that I sit at one of the out-of-use tables. He brought me my cappuccino. His daughter brought me avocado toast. All this had me slightly worried that he would get reported, but as I say, the rules are relaxing. It was certainly relaxing to sit there, even totally alone, and feel something like normalcy. I read the New York Times. I finished my toast. And I wasn’t entirely surprised when, as he has done before, Sam refused to take my money. It was so good to see you, he told me.

Well, it’s that kind of place. He’s that kind of guy, Sam. And it’s occasionally that kind of world.