Love conquers all, with help from dino, unicorn
San Franciscans D.J. Slaughter and Brynne Henn could bear the isolation no longer. So D.J. hopped on Amazon and made the purchase: an adult-sized inflatable T-Rex costume to be sent to him, and an inflatable unicorn costume destined for her.
The layers of polyester would have to suffice as makeshift hazmat suits when they met up for a longoverdue date at Grace Cathedral last Thursday. It was a location equidistant from Slaughter’s house in North Beach and Henn’s home in Nob Hill.
“I came up with the idea because, hey, I want to get close to my girlfriend,” Slaughter said.
While they reconnected on Grace Cathedral’s stairs, a San Francisco police car drove by with an officer yelling out a warning. “Practice social distancing!”
It had been 12 days since the couple got close enough to hold hands — or, in this case, hoofs — as they practiced the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommended 14-day self-isolation and social distancing to help curb the coronavirus.
Henn, 29, has asthma, a condition that makes her especially vulnerable. Slaughter’s roommate had recently traveled to San Diego, which they figured could be worrisome. When news of a lockdown and fears of a rapid viral spread surfaced, the couple decided they must spend time apart.
“In this kind of situation with your partner, someone that you love, it’s really weird,” said Slaughter, 30. “There’s a natural divide, it almost feels like a breakup.”
But instead, this was just a painful break. Love in the age of coronavirus is a matter of sacrifice, adjustments and creative communication.
The couple love to cook together, so they’ve each been choosing the same recipes, individually buying the same ingredients and cooking the dish together in their separate kitchens, connected only by video chat. Most recently, they’ve whipped up some Southern-style fish. Another night, they made a steak salad.
“We’ll graduate to baking soon,” Slaughter said.
They’re watching the same television shows together from their respective couches.
“Right now, ironically, we’re watching ‘Love is Blind,’” Slaughter said of the reality show that asks couples to fall in love without even seeing each other.
But, Slaughter and Henn missed that physical interaction. More importantly, they’ve missed the outdoors. They first fell in love exploring nature together. Slaughter took Henn on a hike to Mount Diablo nearly a year ago on an outing that first started out as two Mapbox colleagues looking to destress far away from their desks. The outing turned into an all-day date with dinner and drinks to follow.
To reconnect outdoors during the lockdown, Slaughter and Henn tried taking a walk around the city together — with the proper 6-foot distance between them throughout the entire trek.
“It was weird,” Slaughter said.
The couple knew their polyester costumes weren’t CDC-certified when they went off script and met up at Grace Cathedral. But they said they felt safe from the elements insulated head to toe, face and mouth covered.
Saturday marked the end of their 14-day quarantine. They returned to the normal real-life versions of cooking and TV watching at each other’s apartments — even if nothing can be truly “normal” in the shelter-in-place era. But they say when it comes to outdoor adventuring as a couple, they will stay conservative for now.
“It’s not safe to go outside,” Slaughter said.
With or without T-Rex and unicorn costumes.