Hoping the ‘new norm’ doesn’t stick around forever

Like most people I am trying my best to self-isolate. I cannot remember when I have spent so much time in the house as I have done recently.

I seldom go to the store and then but once a week — the last time wearing a bright wine mask my wife made for me. Since going to the store more often or being with friends is not an option, I have turned to walking to maintain my sanity.

While I can walk the streets (now often empty of any traffic), I prefer a walk in the woods. In particular, one trail a short distance from Corner Brook — too narrow and dangerous in spots for snowmobiles, but easy to walk — made firm by snowshoes and the continuous thaw and freeze of the Spring weather.

I go early in the morning — the tall trees quickly hiding the road from view — my dog sniffing and marking almost every tree (no fast walk, this).

Tracks here and there of rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, foxes. The roaring sound of the Corner Brook stream off to the right and now in full flood with the Spring melt. The soul relaxing and the spirit soaring with each step.

At one point, the trail meets a woods road and there (by coincidence) I see someone I had worked with before retiring — a smile of recognition and greeting but no handshake of the “hail fellow, well met” sort — no handshake at all to be truthful — just me telling him (half in jest) to stay on his side of the road.

No resentment, just a quick statement that he (being younger than me) feels like he is in some strange episode of

Netflix while I (being older) tell him it feels more like an episode of The “Twilight Zone.”

We chat briefly and after saying something about our respective dogs, we part — each hoping the other will stay well — a comment once almost meaningless — now made heartfelt by the changing times.

A few moments later, I step off the road unto another narrow trail that will take me in a circular direction back to my car.

A short distance away I see a walker coming towards me. The trail is far too narrow to maintain the appropriate distance between us, so I step off the trail some 15 feet unto a small snowbank — the crust so firm I don’t break through.

The walker is a polite young man. When he sees me through the trees, he takes out his earbuds in order to say hi and make a comment about the weather — not slowing his stride a fraction as he smiles and walks past — nor showing any surprise or disdain that I should so obviously have avoided him — the new norm already freely accepted.

I step back unto the trail and look in the direction I am going to make certain there are no more walkers — the same as if I was cautiously stepping from a hotel in a strange city before proceeding on my way.

Lately, I have read several articles by pundits (people who think they can tell the future based on the present) who have said this is the new norm — that the handshake and the hug have gone the way of the dodo bird — that we will have to social distance in some form or another for a long time to come.

I believe it is the duty of every man and woman (and maybe child as well) to prove them wrong.

While I have never been very demonstrative, (when the time is right and it is safe to do so) there are people whose hand I want to shake and whose hug I want to return if so given.

If simple gestures such as these do not become the norm once more, the virus will truly have won.

It will have left behind a world far less joyful and far more drear than what we once knew — and that cannot be allowed to happen. Llew Hounsell Corner Brook