Some Thoughts on Distance

It has taken me about three weeks to admit to myself that I may not be taking the changes to daily life during the Corona virus pandemic as well as I had thought. My ambivalence toward this new normal crept up on me a couple of weeks ago disguised as a couple of nights in a row of terrible sleep that I assumed – because I am in the minority group of people who cannot sleep when they’ve had a couple of drinks – was a result of a glass of wine or two too many. But I noticed that even fully-rested and sans alcohol, a heavy weight had continued to rest on my chest and it wasn’t until a recent trip to the grocery store – my first in two weeks – ended with that heavy weight pressing so unbearably down that I loaded the bags into my car, sat down, and cried that I realized maybe I am not OK.

That thought came as a surprise to me because the consensus in our household is that we seem to thrive in isolation. I’m finding that my children were made for distant learning, we’ve never completed so many creative crafts and activities or spent so much time out in the yard all together. We’ve read countless books including the first in the Harry Potter series, which I may or may not be more excited about than my children. Also, any night when a sixteen, eight, and six-year-old spend four and a half enjoyable hours together at one table is a successful one in my mind. I can’t remember the last time I finished a game of Monopoly, and we accomplished it twice in two weeks! We are incredibly fortunate that my husband works for a hotel/casino and still has a job because living in Las Vegas – a town built on the entertainment and hospitality industries – few people we know do.

The reality is that so much is uncertain right now and it’s scary, and when I stepped out of my little bubble for the first time in two weeks on a fresh fruit run, I felt like I was in a Ray Bradbury dystopia. Like on the outside the neighborhood looks like a picture-perfect advertisement of some new community development on the nice side of town where all the nice families are out riding bikes and smiling together on a nice sunny day, but when you look more closely you realize they’re all robots taking the place of the people. I mean, that is what most Ray Bradbury short stories are about…right? Anyway, after wandering the grocery store trying to keep the proper distance from others in the store, most of whom looked quite on-edge, I breathed a sigh of relief when the checkout woman seemed friendly and chatty.  I was unaware of how much I had missed unexpected conversations with chatty strangers. Human interaction…that’s what most Ray Bradbury short stories are about. She divulged to me an encounter that her ninety-year-old grandfather recently had with someone in the store when he attempted to purchase a package of toilet paper right after the store’s shipment had just arrived. He went home empty-handed because someone had taken it from him.  I thanked her, wished her to have a nice day about five times because that moment when you’ve paid and you’re grabbing all your bags and they’re waiting for you to move so the next customer can begin their interaction is never not awkward and you need to fill the silence and divert the stares, and I walked out holding back the tears.  The woman reassured me that she was able to save some toilet paper for her grandfather and drop it off at his home later that day, but I was already too far gone at the thought of what people are willing to do to other people.  We’re all going through weird shit, I get it, but…take from a ninety-year-old man just trying to pick up a package of toilet paper, is that who we are?

That day my girls and I replanted some small succulents we had around the yard into some teapots and teacups I’ve collected from second-hand stores over the years and set them in a red wagon out in our front yard because I basically live by Mark Twain’s quote written in one of his personal notebooks “the best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer somebody else up,” and I knew they would adore this task.   The girls wrote on the cement beside the wagon with chalk “take a plant and smile.” I had to be honest with them and let them know that many people would be uncomfortable taking anything because of the virus. By the end of the day six plants were gone, and – because I may have peeked outside once or twice – I noticed a couple of people stop, smile, and take a photo. Human interaction is possible in so many different ways, and the will to find creative ways to enable it is a trait I’ve seen in droves these last few weeks.  I have to remember that when I feel like I’m not ok (which is very much ok) there are other people out there also wanting connection who will appreciatively receive a teacup of dirt from a stranger with a smile.