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FROZEN WORDS
Eating From the Past
Should we try to remember what it was like?
This is a Wordle prompt, so if you haven’t solved today’s Wordle, then you might want to move on and read this tomorrow.
Today, I opened the freezer and took out some soup. That soup had been prepared in 2018 because I put dates on things when I commit them to cold storage.
This soup was made before the pandemic. When I cut these carrots, I had not heard of COVID-19. When I opened the can of prepared broth, “taking a test” meant an exam at school. And when I peeled this onion, chopped this celery, and sautéed everything in a little but of butter, the only people who wore masks were doctors, construction workers, and a few other professions that I can’t think of right now.
Is it possible to taste some of that pre-COVID soup and remember what it was like before the world went topsy-turvy? Can I feel what it was like before we had a President who advocated using bleach as healthcare, and before we had throngs of people who wouldn’t get a vaccine mostly because the “other guys” said they should?
As I was making that soup, probably on a weekend, I would never have imagined teaching a whole year virtually. I would never have thought about zoom-based doctor visits and not being able to see my…
