this is your brain on a grocery list
on shopping, society & sanity 🥬 🧐 🥬
Today’s topic: What goes through your head when you walk into a grocery store? Where do your eyes roam?
You likely internalize your needs, wants and that visit’s intentions. Consider a quick list of some fashion: mental, on your phone, or Gasp ! on a piece of paper you may unearth from your pocket. Yeah, that last one is me. And then comes the eye-catching & often un-natural shine on a big stack of bell peppers and the fact that a new bunch of on-sale organic kale or two would totally be sensible to pick up for dinner this week.
As you may have picked up on if you’ve been here before (Hi! Either way! Ding, ding, ding I live remotely, once more) things are quite different at this point in my life. Let me tell you: this part of Wyoming is far more remote than our years in interior Alaska, especially come the snowy months. It’s only just beginning to melt. Mountain life.
And let me also clarify that this isn’t another treaty on that hashtag freezer life. One of these days I’ll get there. Today’s topic is what goes through my head when I make my fateful “returns to society” that are far more easygoing than our mission-driven day-trips to Bozeman, MT (2 ½ hours north when it’s merely by car, for the curious). This was the case in both January and March of this not-so-new-year, which saw me jaunting off to Brooklyn, NY and then Portland, OR. Those Home Sweet Homes of the past.
I was biking, I was smiling, and I was perpetually looking for the freshest, most interesting produce around and returning to whatever “normal” is. In short, big city stores and year-round options, and all that jazzy fruit & veg. The real perks.
Welcome - ever so officially - to what goes through my head as I return to society and visit grocery stores more than once a month or two (or four).
When you haven’t been to a store in months and find yourself in a back in society for a stint, so much runs through your head. My head. The wonder. The madness. The novelty. Round and round.
An absolute array of emotions washes over me as I walk through those sliding doors.
Shock, awe, fear and fulfillment.
Wondering if I’ve gone back in time – or forward.
Is it heaven / is it hell / oh, it’s shopping.
What do I want? What do I need? What do I ever need? Where am I?
There I go, wandering Grocery Outlet and Trader Joe’s in Portland’s Hollywood District for…fun. I see. A parallel world to the habits of old times.
I find myself studying society and my fellow humans. Eyeing the aisles and the fashion choices. Noticing what’s new, to me.
Are there really plastic-encased packages of vegan hard-boiled eggs that look legit? And they’re marked down at Grocery Outlet?!
(I’m actually told they’re great, btw.)
Thinking to myself: How much pasta is too much pasta for 2 weeks in the big wide world world?
(The answer is 2 bags.)
Wait, which pocket is my KN95 in? Send me back under for a double dose of caution and privacy.
The bigger questions: Where does this all come from? Where does it all go? How much is wasted?? Can I really buy basil right now??? Does Safeway seriously have a pre-cut tray of multi-colored cauliflower?!! Now, that, is not seen in Alaska.
What could I possibly use from this store? Oh, is that new? Is it any good??
Okay, let me text a certain someone who’s an expert on all things nondairy milk + coffee.
Now, let me text the real TJ’s enthusiast. And the other one!
And…while I’m being all communicative and social for a change, let me reach out to one of the friends who are potentially inside of another Grocery Outlet at this very moment about this new-to-me French Canadian “Laughing Cow”-esque chz round (and yes, these friends have overlapping admirable characteristics & grocery-going zeal). They’re all better than ever to know, frankly. <3
Uh, now, how did I go into this Fred Meyer for a tiny bottle of Ibuprofen and come out with 3 avocados for a buck, 2 mangos and another coconut creamer?? Cool, now get me OUT OF HERE.
Ohhhh. Wow. Those are armed guards. Next to the Girl Scouts. Which of these are really helpful for society to function. To flourish.
And now I’m totally being face-ID’d - PASS - let me put my shades and that mask back on. Deep breaths.
Trying to keep my cool and pretend like this is all normal. That I’m normal? Nah.
Reflecting, deep down on when I can garden again.
Should I get another avocado?
Screw these stores and all this bright & shiny & not-so-local produce. This capitalist concussion. I can wait another few days ‘til the next farmers market for the best & brightest!! That’s what I really came for.
Those are my people. This remains fulfilling. The social anxiety and (so many) qualms about the state of the world go out the window as I make the rounds for purple sprouting broccolini & friends. This, I can handle, I think, as I make small talk with the petitioners on the first loop (and horrify the ACLU rep into commiserating silence as I share what state I’m now living in) and duck my way back around for those irresistible kalettes.
Peace of mind and produce restored.
Back to my bike and stopping at every single Little Free Library I pass in the meantime.
Now that’s a good use of time while I’ve resurfaced in the world / as I sorta knew it.
jess’ 5 Super Personal Takeaways on Shopping when “Back in Society”:
Always bring 1 if not 2 tote bags with you for the day. There will be stores.
If one acquires produce, one must cook said produce. That’s one less meal out, and that’s OK when you accept that.
When in doubt, stir-fry it all.
Bring anything (decent!) extra to friends or drop off at a “Free Fridge”.
Return home away from it all, take a breather, assess all the fun shelf-stable “stuff” you acquired from Trader Joe’s & local vendors, open the freezer, and gaze almost fondly at the remaining inventory of frozen peas.
What goes through *your* head while grocery shopping?
References + Relevant Links as of late:
ground control to freezer tom, these scone archives 11/20/23
JPKdesign.co - Squarespace designs
on the road again, scone city archives 4/17/23
~ biking, biking, biking ~
"when in doubt stir fry it all" are the words i'm trying to live by. loved this peek into your grocery shopping brain, mine is similarly all over the place!
I just got back from the UK and Spain, and I didn't have much of a chance to wander grocery stores in Scotland or London. But I did wander some grocery stores in Spain and it was fantastic! I love visiting grocery stores when I travel.
At home I also use a paper list! I used to wander around a little bit more, just in case there was anything new out or anything on sale, but these days thanks to fibro I tend to just stick to my list pretty closely, visit those aisles (I am going to the same places so I know the layout), and get out of there. Alas.