One of the Corona paradoxes has been that in order to survive together we must stay apart. We’re practicing physical and social distancing but still need to maintain social connection in ways old and new.
We’re desperate for it – on phones and online chat rooms, on balconies, across driveways, on the other side of a window or street or world – we’re reaching out with space in between.
And the converse is also happening. Those of us who’ve been living at warp speed, powering through business deals, banging out the extra hours on the job, zipping through meals, skipping family time and cheating ourselves out of sleep, are now seeing advantages on the other side of hurrying. We’ve had to slow down the pace, and experience really being with ourselves and our families.
We’re noticing what “essential services” really means, and how those who give and receive those services have been operating across the chasm of a class divide all along. Of course I’ve observed the first line of essential service workers at hospitals, emergency services, public safety, transit, grocery stores, bank tellers and local delivery people of all kinds.
Next are the people all along the supply chains – from farmers, manufacturing plant workers and packers to truckers, shippers, motormen and pilots ferrying everything around the globe.
Then one morning, I was awakened by the sanitation trucks wheezing and rumbling in the pre-dawn quiet and thought about how much easier their routes probably are without cars clogging their path. That caused me to think of other people hard at work maintaining the services I’ve been blissfully taking for granted.
There are the people at the water, gas and electrical plants making sure that when I turn a faucet, flip a switch, and dial a knob on the stove the utilities flow without a hitch. And what about the services I’d been mildly impatient about – folks at the cable and the seriously overwhelmed internet companies, struggling mightily to keep up with the instantly increased demand for virtual meetings and our insatiable need for TV programming?
Farther down the stream of my unconsciousness are the people on guard against bad actors who would use this time when our collective guard is down to attack our borders by land, air or sea, our power grids, financial networks, web servers and any of the vast invisible systems we share as a society.
Beyond that are the countries that rely on ours for support in the form of human, technical and material resources, or are following us on the pandemic timeline, ratcheting up their own legion of coronavirus victims.
We are intrinsically, internationally interconnected. We need to remain mindful of those who make our sheltering in place happen, those who have to venture out in order to survive, and those who have no space at home or at work to practice social distancing.
What ultimately binds us is cognizance, hope, appreciation and love of humankind.
On my desk is a card with a quote from my dear friend, the award-winning poet and writer Peter J. Harris. It is especially timely now.
Love is our nationality.
We disregard all borderlines when we are together.
We are delicate continents clicked into place.
We are uncharted territory,
Home to the wanderer in each of us.
