Making pandemic stock

If stock is what gives your dish full and rich flavour, then I think it's appropriate -- one year into this damn pandemic -- to make some stock from the ingredients I've gathered since last year's A Post a Day in May venture. 

What I am working with for my stock today includes —

• Time - quite a lot
• Understanding - to taste
• Appreciation - a good amount
• Privilege - more than a fistful

So much time. Everywhere I look, there is time to do something -- more work, more chores, more art, more reading...there is really nothing but time. The challenge is to use the time wisely. Oh sure, not every day, not all the time. But, when this damn pandemic is over, I don't want to look back on these days months and wonder what on earth I did with all that time. My friend Deborah has been writing like a fiend, because she doesn't want to not have used the time for creative purposes. For me, the longer this all drags on, the harder it becomes to be an active user of the time. This ingredient is sitting on the counter, ready, but not yet stirred into the stock. 

Understanding is a crucial ingredient for self-care and for survival, I think. Unless we are generous toward ourselves -- and others, of course -- we risk making our way through the pandemic as if these were normal times -- carelessly, thoughtlessly, unawares. But these are not normal times. And, therefore, we owe ourselves the grace of understanding. Understanding about our moods, our lack of ambition, our dawdling through the days. And also understanding about the (occasional) surge to do, to make, to act like in the Before Times. Understanding is sometimes in abundance in my emotional pantry, sometimes it is scarce. 

Appreciation for the dailiness of these times. Nothing big ever happens. The fireworks are silent. The brass band isn't playing at my door. Life just moves along, day by day. If I don't appreciate the ordinariness of these days, I risk missing the point of what I have: safety, security and solid ground beneath me. This ingredient is ever-present to me. Even if I do not always name it accurately, I have it on hand and it adds a richness to my stock.

Which brings me to the final ingredient for my stock: privilege. And that I have in abundance. As a white-collar worker, my job has not been affected. As a middle-class woman, my roof is solid over my head. As a Canadian, my COVID vaccine was administered without hassle by a public health nurse. This ingredient is core to my pandemic stock. I want the pandemic gone, over and done with, but my privilege makes it possible for me to live with it for a good while yet. And for that I have endless gratitude. 

Stock, I am told (for I am no expert), takes time to blend and meld and become its best self. So I'll continue to work with these ingredients to craft a pandemic stock that represents, by its body and taste, these trying times and my own particular experience of them. 

-----

A Post a Day in May No. 1: For the past two years, I have posted something to this blog every single day in May. This year, I hope to do it again. 

Photo by Dan Dennis on Unsplash