Pandemic points to ponder
Sitting around social distancing has given us all a lot of time to think; at least when we’re not making masks, washing our hands for the twelfth time or wiping down the groceries. It also has me wondering how much of this isolation routine we have in common.
Just as a matter of curiosity, with all of the barber shops closed, I wonder how many men out there look into the mirror each morning and find themselves staring at Bernie Sanders? Many, I know, have thrown caution to the wind and let their wives have at it with scissors or the garden shears. For my own part, I’ve decided to let the locks fall where they may and as a result now resemble a cross between Keith Richards and Ebenezer Scrooge. I call my new look The COVID Crop.
I’ve also noticed, for the most part, that people in general have little or no concept of what six feet, or two metres if you will, looks like. Whether this is a built-in spatial dysfunction or a failure of our educational system’s teaching of mathematics is not clear. Nevertheless, the streets and stores are full of people standing anywhere from two feet to fifteen feet apart. Walking my dog, a necessity even during a pandemic, I continually encounter people who either make no effort to allow for the requested distance when passing or those who scurry to the other side of the street as if the ‘distancing’ also required being out of sight.
An interesting side effect of the pandemic of 2020 is our increased knowledge of what a virus is. Future generations will be in awe of grandma and grandpa who, thanks to the CBC and every other twenty-four hour news service, will be able to describe in detail the composition, size, shape, mutation probabilities, potential life-span and colour of standard viruses. They will also be a wealth of information concerning everything from ‘air-borne” propagation to ‘contact spreading.’
With time on our hands, many of us have taken up gardening with a vengeance. Not content to do a little trimming, hoeing and spade work, as per usual, we have spent enough time in the yard to turn even the most modest of plots into a miniature version of London’s famed Kew Gardens.
Just a side note: as a result of this new-found horticultural energy, I now have a lovely slate path around my bean box.
When all is said and done will we ever again be comfortable in large groups? As social as human kind is, how likely is it that we will experience lingering doubts about being in close proximity to someone who might harbour a pathogen that could kill us: even though this has always been a risk? Will we continue to carry a handy box of sani-wipes? Will we wear masks to hockey games, concerts or to our child’s wedding?
In the end, becoming used to having our pharmaceuticals, groceries and even restaurant meals delivered, we run the risk of becoming a world of Greta Garbos, adopting her off-quoted plea, “I vant to be alone.” Personally, I vant to haf a dinner party with friends.