"It even makes you happy when you're feeling blue..."

20 March 2020: Ventured out to a store for the first time in days, heading to Walgreen's to get some allergy medication. (What a time to be sniffling and sneezing!)

While walking through the aisle filled with Easter candy, I heard "The Locomotion" (the 1987 Kylie Minogue version) come over the radio. Another song, by the way, with very bad advice for preventing the spread of COVID-19: "Now that you can do it, let's make a chain now" and "Do it holding hands if you get the notion."

That strange juxtaposition--Easter candy, a fun, silly song from my childhood, the world in crisis outside--well, I started to get a bit weepy right there in Walgreen's.

A woman walked by, her arms full of products. She wasn't panic-buying--just that typical "I picked up more than I thought I would" kind of haul. And she was quietly singing along. Even dancing a bit. She felt some sense of joy in that moment--I could see it.

Seeing her didn't lift me up, but it did remind me that such moments are complicated, with endless permutations. What makes one weep might make someone else dance.

Back home now, I'm still thinking about it. And about the woman at check-out, whose demeanor was a cheerful "business as usual" even as she wore gloves, and who, when I joked about it being a bad time to have allergies, agreed and laughed. And about the guy at the McDonald's drive-through (really wanted a fountain Diet Coke) who knows me by now, and who smiled and asked, "You being safe, right?" "Yes, and you do the same, okay?" I asked him, feeling the words catch in my throat.

And now I am weepy again. Maybe I ought to give "The Locomotion" another spin...

"There's never been a dance that's so easy to do
It even makes you happy when you're feeling blue..."