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| Judith Whitehead lives in Amherst New York ( A suburb of Buffalo, N.Y.)
and has worked in the ophthalmology
field of medicine for over 30 years |
Rituals that enrich our lives
My husband and I have a weekly ritual that we perform every Sunday; grocery shopping in the early A.M. We have been doing this for many years.
With our work schedule that starts in the early A.M. and tired evenings that we need to veg out on the couch, we have found that a quiet Sunday morning is the best time to shop for food for the week. Once a week is enough for me to enter a grocery store, if we forget an item, oh well, we'll get it next week. We have found that many have the same ritual and we have begun to make friendships with those we see so often in the same place, the same time every week.
The people that run the deli, the fish market, the meat counter and other kiosks in the store have become familiar faces that we converse with every week. It's nice to frequent a place where people know your names and likes...kind of like a neighbor hood place like “Cheers”...
The timing has to be just right, if we come too early the meat counter and fish have not put the fresh items out yet. The matzo ball soup is not ready until 10-A.M. and the produce is not always loaded until that time.
If we become delayed in going, just one hour can change the whole picture. The store takes on a different face after 11 o'clock; “strangers” fill the isles that make shopping no longer peaceful..
People are in much more of a hurry after that time and are “running” in for a few items and make it more of a stressful time.
No more chatting with the friendly staff after that hour; the goal then becomes “move these customers along.”
Many mornings a week we stop for a bagel and coffee on the way to work. We frequent the same place and once again, they are familiar with our order and food choices. The “breakfast” people are always there at the same time as well. Familiar faces that we now can strike up a conversation with ; strangers no longer. We even have our same seats that we choose...talk about predictability!! When we become comfortable with a certain routine, we repeat it many days.
Most of us become repetitious in our ways, whether you are young or old, we seem to repeat the same acts every day and get into a comfortable groove that fit our life styles. Familiarity does bring some sort of comfort to people. Occasionally we get crazy and mix up our schedule but enjoy returning to our routine. As we travel a fair amount, we enjoy the change but also need to adjust for the first few days until we catch up with the time zone.
We celebrate and bring in the New Year with the same people every year; it is both a ritual and tradition that we are lucky enough to spend our special events and milestones with the same group of people.
We have lost some of those that have joined us over the years but still venture on with new additions to our group while cherishing the past years that meant so much to us all.
We will plan as long as G-D allows us, to continue our rituals that enrich our lives and look forward to '2016' with hope and optimism that it will be a peaceful and healthy year for us all.
My husband and I have a weekly ritual that we perform every Sunday; grocery shopping in the early A.M. We have been doing this for many years.
With our work schedule that starts in the early A.M. and tired evenings that we need to veg out on the couch, we have found that a quiet Sunday morning is the best time to shop for food for the week. Once a week is enough for me to enter a grocery store, if we forget an item, oh well, we'll get it next week. We have found that many have the same ritual and we have begun to make friendships with those we see so often in the same place, the same time every week.
The people that run the deli, the fish market, the meat counter and other kiosks in the store have become familiar faces that we converse with every week. It's nice to frequent a place where people know your names and likes...kind of like a neighbor hood place like “Cheers”...
The timing has to be just right, if we come too early the meat counter and fish have not put the fresh items out yet. The matzo ball soup is not ready until 10-A.M. and the produce is not always loaded until that time.
If we become delayed in going, just one hour can change the whole picture. The store takes on a different face after 11 o'clock; “strangers” fill the isles that make shopping no longer peaceful..
People are in much more of a hurry after that time and are “running” in for a few items and make it more of a stressful time.
No more chatting with the friendly staff after that hour; the goal then becomes “move these customers along.”
Many mornings a week we stop for a bagel and coffee on the way to work. We frequent the same place and once again, they are familiar with our order and food choices. The “breakfast” people are always there at the same time as well. Familiar faces that we now can strike up a conversation with ; strangers no longer. We even have our same seats that we choose...talk about predictability!! When we become comfortable with a certain routine, we repeat it many days.
Most of us become repetitious in our ways, whether you are young or old, we seem to repeat the same acts every day and get into a comfortable groove that fit our life styles. Familiarity does bring some sort of comfort to people. Occasionally we get crazy and mix up our schedule but enjoy returning to our routine. As we travel a fair amount, we enjoy the change but also need to adjust for the first few days until we catch up with the time zone.
We celebrate and bring in the New Year with the same people every year; it is both a ritual and tradition that we are lucky enough to spend our special events and milestones with the same group of people.
We have lost some of those that have joined us over the years but still venture on with new additions to our group while cherishing the past years that meant so much to us all.
We will plan as long as G-D allows us, to continue our rituals that enrich our lives and look forward to '2016' with hope and optimism that it will be a peaceful and healthy year for us all.
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| Judy, Judy, Judy! ;-) |
Hana Hou, (Encore) Shared From Facebook...
1 comment:
I have my ritual of shopping Tuesdays and Thursdays, I go on my bike so can only carry so much, I frequent one store called Cost-U-Less, it's a mini Costco type store, most the clerks know me, in fact at Thanksgiving time the manager gifted me a 13 lb turkey! It's great to go where everyone knows your name and they are glad you came... I too feel like it's a Cheers type thing! wink emoticon
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