Elizabeth Strout

I mean, I've noticed even if I go into a grocery store, especially now the way things are in America, I think that people are really frightened.

And I've noticed that...

People in a grocery store were, you know, the clerk, I will ask her how her day was and she will tell me, you know, we'll have a real connection for just a moment as we're doing our transaction.

And then the young men in Maine, they have these shopping carts that they have to collect out in the parking lot.

And in Maine, people don't really talk.

And the other day, this young man yelled all the way across the parking lot.

He yelled to me, have a good day.

And I was like, thank you so much.

I mean, it was just extraordinary because people in Maine don't really do that.

And I think that we're looking for these connections in our moments of fear, especially now in the United States.

Yes, precisely.

Yeah.

If you're genuinely asking about somebody's day and you're really listening and they're telling you, that's as real as anything gets.

Yes.

I'm sure I was more optimistic because that was then and this is now.

You know, we continue on with our lives as people do during different crisis, but...

But there's a level of anxiety, and people pretty much know whose quote-unquote side somebody's on, which is just a terrible way to even have to say it.

But the country is very divided, and there is an undercurrent of fear because we don't know what's going to be happening, and we don't even really quite know who it is that we might be talking to.

I just think I think the whole the whole entire country is very divided now and everybody's aware of that.

Yes.