#Melville

It’s Day 55 of the South African lockdown. Today was a better-than-average lockdown day for me because I was out and about doing meaningful things.

At 9:00 a.m. I walked up to 3rd Avenue, where Melville residents Tanya and Sean Gardiner have started a food parcel distribution program for Melville residents in need. Tanya and Sean have always had a policy of giving food to anyone who comes to their gate asking, and the need has grown so fast over the past few weeks that they decided to start a more formal program.

Today is Day 50 of the South African lockdown. This week was really hard overall. But I think today was the best day I’ve had since the lockdown started.

Around the two-week mark, when the president announced the lockdown would be extended from 21 to 35 days, I was trying to decide if I should continue numbering my lockdown posts. My friend Kate said I should. “You’re gonna want to know what number you’re on when you start to hit the 50s,” she said. I took her advice, but I also laughed because at that point I truly couldn’t imagine “hitting the 50s”. And yet here we are.

It’s Day 45 of the South African lockdown. Happy Mother’s Day.

I started the day by doing what I do on most Mother’s Days: Opened my laptop and ordered an Amazon gift card for my mom. It’s not the most exciting present, but I know it makes Mom happy because she’ll receive it first thing when she wakes up and she can use it to buy exactly what she wants. Mom almost always knows exactly what she wants. It’s a quality I respect and envy.