The Grocery Store Chronicles Vol. 1

feeding the soul through buying food

This week I’ve avoided the grocery store like the plague.

I hate buying groceries just for them to be eaten or go bad in a matter of weeks. It reminds me of how nothing lasts forever. Yet, I will always need food. And so, I will never stop buying it.

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Luckily with my job at the church, there are meetings and conferences and Bible studies leaving the like of 12 baskets of food left over. Whenever I see cars pulling out of the parking lot, I will conveniently make my way to the kitchen just as the food is being given away to any one who’s around.

Because of that luxury, I have successfully steered clear of the wobbly wheels on every cart and long lines for self-checkout. But last night, I had reached the end of my to-go plates and frozen Trader Joes meals.

I tried to do a pick up order, but was told it wouldn’t be completed until the morning. So I zipped up my jacket, finalized my list, and made my way to Kroger.

As you could probably imagine, the aisles were far from crowded as most don’t spend their Saturday nights stocking the fridge.

Throughout the year, I’ve been playing a game with myself to try and make grocery shopping fun. I guess it’s not so much a game as it is a posture. The Grocery Store Chronicles, as I’ve titled this adventure, is a way for me to stay awake to the mundane parts of life that turn burdensome quick, in this case, grocery shopping.

Every time I leave with groceries in my hand, I also try to leave with a story in my mind.

It all started in July when I overestimated how much I could carry without a cart. My arms were overflowing with arugula and limes and cilantro. I walked over to the apples and was trying to open the famously unforgiving produce bag without spilling everything in my hands.

A kind woman saw my predicament and took the bag from me and opened it with ease. When I tried to make a joke about the stubbornness of the bag she so effortlessly opened, I realized we did not speak the same language. Still, she grabbed the apples from my hands, dropped them in my bag and handed them to me with a nod and a smile.

She probably doesn’t remember doing that. But as I went to check out, it hit me. We all need each other, in some way. Some big, others small. This lady saw what I needed and knew she could help me .

From that moment on, I saw the grocery store no longer as a place where dreams come to die and bank accounts drown, but instead, a gathering of people from all walks of life who need me and whom I need too. A place of hungry people looking for food.

Thus birthed the Grocery Store Chronicles.

Week after week as I strolled my cart through the uncomfortably cold aisles, listening to top 100 hits, I became eager to see what story I might encounter.

I remember one time I was desperate to make this pumpkin bread my mom friend had told me about. I was tired and it was probably a Tuesday. I was on a group call with my sisters, making me wildly distracted, as I darted across the grocery store looking for all the ingredients I needed. It look longer than I would care to admit, but I got to the point where I had everything except for the canned pumpkin. And I had become desperate. My eyes were heavy and stomach was grumbling. A terrible combination for the grocery store.

I wasn’t fully aware of how loud I was speaking, until I practically shouted, “I’m about to lose it,” into my phone. I turned to search another aisle and was met with a boy I went to college with. He was the kind of boy that I had lots of mutual friends with, but was never sure if he knew my name. He looked at me with eyes that asked if everything was ok. I pretended not to know him and, as casually as I could, wheeled my cart down to the baking aisle where I finally found the canned pumpkin.

The next weekend, I saw him out, and couldn’t help but bring up the encounter. We both laughed about it, as I explained the plight for pumpkin bread. And now I would say, if I were to see him in public, I would say hello.

All because of the grocery store.

I have learned the secret to a perfect steak and seen a friend I didn’t think I would see before he moved to DC. I’ve watched a dad help his daughter pick out what color pencil case she wanted and learned about the Bible study my cashier has faithfully been going to for years.

I’ve made friends and seen professors and kids from my youth group. And who knows what I have given to the people I’ve seen. I can only hope they walked away feeling like someone saw them when they didn’t have to.

I go to buy food that quiet my empty stomach, but, unknowingly, I fill my starving soul. We get another loaf of bread to replace the moldy one sitting in the back of the pantry. We bake cookies for the recent heartbreak. We buy ice cream for Monday nights. We think we will really eat the kale this time and maybe this avocado will come in handy.

None of us know what we’re doing or where we’re going, but still we move ahead and fill our cabinet with snacks.

Our lives revolve around the food we eat, who we eat it with, and maybe who we see when we buy it.

I still hate grocery shopping, don’t get me wrong. But I’ve come to see how it feeds the soul.

When I get home, my fridge is full and I feel human again.