I actually did write this on Day Nine.

Author’s note: I’ve neglected the blog for a while, but considering everything, I’ve decided to put out there the few creative things I’ve managed to put down in writing. It’s not curated, or even properly edited; it’s certainly not cohesive. But I feel a need to connect more than ever, so maybe someone else (possibly a therapist) can help me figure out what the hell I mean.
Also note: on Day Nine, my family and I had all just returned from travel out of the country, so I was in quarantine for you, not me.

I’m low on olive oil. 

I’m not crafty at all. I don’t usually make things with my own two hands. But this past Christmas, I gave out handmade gifts of rosemary olive oil. I had a lot of rosemary still thriving outside beside my deck, so I decided to be creative for once.

Then I looked up a slow-cooker recipe and proceeded to buy gallons and gallons of olive oil. First I bought one giant bottle off of Amazon, then I decided that wasn’t anywhere near enough so I went out to the grocery store and bought a dozen small bottles there. I packaged them up in cute little bottles and put buffalo plaid material on top and tied them with twine. (My sister, the one with actual talent making things, gave the material, and she also taught me what buffalo plaid means.) I put a little sticker on them saying something like, “From Monica’s Kitchen. I will never regret giving you this.” I don’t remember how many bottles there were, but there were a lot. I did keep one for myself.

Tonight, when making spaghetti during Day Nine of social distancing, or quarantining, or whatever I’m supposed to call it, I realized I’m low on olive oil.

This is a travesty. Olive oil is a staple of so many meals I make. I need it for sauces and cooking meat and vegetables and putting on bread and for dipping stuff in. I can’t live without olive oil. I really should not have given away all of that olive oil, even though at the time it made me very happy and fulfilled to do it. 

But wait. It did make me really happy and fulfilled to do it. And right now, when people are hoarding things they actually don’t need, I’ve been silently calling them assholes for being so selfish. It feels so good to give, I actually would give away my last bit of remaining olive oil to some sweet person who was in need of making a really good sauce. It would actually make me so happy.

But that’s not actually the point I’m trying to make. I sit here and say that I can’t live without olive oil, but I literally never owned a single drop of olive oil until like eight years ago. And right now I’m forty-nine, so you do the math. That’s a lot of years I lived without it. Prior to the discovery of olive oil (by me, not by the world, duh), if I wanted something to put on my bread, I used butter. If I wanted something to put in my spaghetti noodles to keep them from sticking, I used butter. I thought to myself, I have plenty of butter! 

Then, as soon as I was feeling gratitude for butter, I realized something else. I haven’t always had butter. I didn’t start using butter until after I got married, seventy-five years ago. Wanye’s mom introduced me to what I still sometimes call “real” butter.

I grew up on Country Crock. We called it butter, of course, but it never was. You will think I am completely full of shit, but I actually had no idea until I got married that butter was superior to Country Crock. I legitimately believed that Country Crock was invented to save us from butter. My granddaddy, who was taught this by his doctor in the 1980’s, passed this idea on to me.

So yeah, I have lived without olive oil. I have lived without a lot of things in my life, and I know everyone else has too. We lived without computers and smart phones and other technology that enables us to look at our loved ones while we’re separated from them. We are really, really lucky right now. We are also scared right now. 

For example, I’m afraid to go to the grocery store and look for more olive oil. Not because I’m afraid of getting sick, but because I’m afraid of hurting someone else. And because, come on, olive oil isn’t a necessity.

Actually, neither is toilet paper. I have lived without that too, believe it or not. My mom, just like me, absolutely hated going to the grocery store. Please don’t ask me what we did instead; that’s a whole other story.