Being Grateful means not complaining about long waits just to shop at a fully stocked grocery store

On Sunday, March 29 Norene and I went to the Park Slope food coop for our weekly grocery run to pick up some staples: oatmeal, eggs, tofu, chicken, rice, bread, that kind of stuff.

The line of people waiting to Get Food was 1/3 of a mile long

It stretched from the entrance at 782 Union, all the way up to 7th Avenue, down to 7th Avenue and President Street, then half way down President, toward 6th Avenue — in total, about a third of a mile long. I joined the line at 794 President Street (marked on the map above), while Norene parked the car. The temperature was 46º, and a very light rain was coming down. I stood behind a guy who clearly had just returned from a run or a workout of some sort. He was wearing shorts and a tank top, but had a running backpack with a technical hoodie balled up inside. After an hour and fifty minutes of standing, stretching, shuffling a few feet at a time, we made it to the top of the line.

The Default Configuration

I don’t think being grateful is one of the default configurations of Homo Sapiens Sapiens. It has to be activated somehow — compelled. Some people are compelled more intensely, and with greater frequency than others: refugees, combat veterans, cancer survivors.

Those of us who habitually experience low levels of suffering meander through life with the default configuration, getting by with a game plan that takes us from point a to point b along a path of least resistance; using a moral and ethical calculus that prizes comfort and stability, while avoiding risk and speculative position-taking. I’m not judging by the way. I really believe this approach reflects a sound strategy of lowest up-front energy investment for largest ROI, and is surely a reasonable default. But occasionally, people in this category (habitual non-sufferers) bang up against a moment of real suffering — and not of the lowercase ‘s’ variety such as getting stuck with the middle seat on a flight from JFK to LAX. I’m talking about discovering that the plane is about to go down, or that your daughter has just been shot, or that your family’s apartment building is about to receive incoming artillery. When such a moment comes, it can induce lasting change in the form of an increased capacity for gratitude. Before that happens though, there is usually a lot of frantic metaphysical wheeling and dealing involving:

• Prayers

• Expressions of remorse

• Promises to turn over a new leaf

The suffering in New York City is real — but not equally felt throughout the city

Sometimes, the “news reports” give the impression that we’re all living in shattered ruins, bodies just piling up everywhere. That’s not happening. Not all of us are experiencing the “crisis” with the same degree of alarm. The way I see it, a New Yorker’s opinion of how bad things are are almost entirely determined by these factors:

1. Your understanding of the reality inside the hospitals — my wife works as an OBGYN in a large hospital in lower Manhattan

2. Your personal sense of displacement and the quality of your current set of options — our options are good. We’re not kite-surfing in the Hamptons, but we’re comfortable

My family is doing well, but we are extremely concerned

Having a wife working on the front lines in the emergency room sort of puts my mind at ease, only because I trust her reports of how good or bad things really are. When I speak with my mom on the phone, I remind her of how good we have it.

• My wife is a doctor, is in very good health, and has ALWAYS been a neat freak obsessively killing germs, wiping down keyboards, phones, and tablets

• I am gainfully employed, in very good health, and really good at the internet

• We have food, cooking gas, heat, electricity, running water, and a big back yard

• There’s enough room inside the house for all of us to spread out, and not feel like we’re on top of each other

• We have a car (which we drive ~ 10 miles a week)

• My daughters don’t complain, and are excellent students. Their schools generally are doing a good job