grocery store therapy

Today I took the boys to Whole Foods. I don’t shop there much. It’s all the way across town and expensive. But today I needed a little grocery store therapy. My heart felt very tired and I guess I needed a pick-me-up.

There is a silence in me these days—the kind of silence that comes when there’s an area of my life in serious un-balance, but it’s not quite time to right it. It’s time to let things settle, time to carefully, slowly choose the next step. Time to rest in the in-between. Which can be such an uncomfortable place. Which is why I needed a chocolate croissant. And about eighty-eight dollars worth of other comforting food items.

The boys were a dream in the store. The baby slept in the sling and Caleb sat in the cart and protested only once, when it was taking me an excruciatingly long time to select salad dressing. I settled on a Thai ginger lime vinaigrette. It sounded so good I almost wanted to drink it.

I made my way leisurely. Two Satsuma tangerines. Two Honeycrisp apples. Six Shitake mushrooms. A not-yet-in-bloom purple hyacinth. I was trying to forget the sadness in my chest.
“Owie?Owie?Owie?Owie?Owie?Owie?” Caleb asked, as we passed a couple dozen cacti for sale. “Yes, Buddy. Owie…” I said quietly, repeatedly, distractedly.