What will you do differently when the hand sanitiser is put away and we can hold each other as close and tight as we want to?
Six months ago, COVID-19 came along. Under a microscope, it looked like a red wedding bouquet but coronavirus turned our little lives inside out. Our mortality and vulnerability were suddenly obvious. Touch and proximity disappeared. Industries and their jobs vanished.
And we were all told to stay home. No school or office. Commutes disappeared, so did most weeknight obligations. No visiting family or friends. No swimming lessons or yoga practice. No movie nights or catch-up coffees. No park play-dates. No live music or after show eats. No leg waxing or window shopping. No street vendors. No travel. No hugs and kisses.
As I pined for connection with family and friends, I also realised how much I needed to get outside. I craved nature, greenery, ocean air, any contact with the world other than the four walls I lived in. We took walks, discovered new pockets of our area and talked to neighbours we didn’t know.
The weekends stretched out to become almost spacious. I had time to walk to the pace of my two-year old and was sad to realise that I usually tugged him along. And how nice was it to see the parks with people in them and families riding their bikes together?
With all the white noise of normal life muted, there was more time to think -not about the bigger picture of globalisation or economic models, but on a personal level about what really matters. I certainly won’t take touch and its connection for granted. I’d like community and kindness to be a bigger part of my life. I’d like to keep the pace in step with my kids and have time to cook and play and walk as a family.
When the world went on hold, my to-do list shrunk and I was liberated from all the other mental ‘stuff’ that constantly hovers on my periphery. Now the restrictions are being eased and I hope that I can hold onto some of my lockdown lessons.
It’s human instinct to reassess when your life has been interrupted in such a dramatic way. What will you jettison and what will you keep when the masks come off?
Nina Cullen 