Covid-19 Distances

We live in such strange times.
Housebound. Isolated.
More germ-phobic than Monk.

Characters on TV amaze with their casual attitude
Towards being physically close to each other.

Were we too once brave enough to be close?

Was there really a time when we didn't shrink
At the thought of being in close physical proximity to
Other human beings--whether family, friends, or strangers?
Did we really once crowd together in groups?
On elevators, in airports, at weddings, and everywhere?
Did we really once share the same airspace?
And not worry?

Was there really a time when we didn't shrink
At the idea of touching something--
The same buttons, doorknobs, handrails, cart handles, and keypads--
 That another (we're not sheltering with) had just touched 
And not worry?

Was there really a time when
Doing these things didn't seem wildly brave?
(Or stupid?) 
(Or a thinly veiled death wish?)

It seems a long time ago already.
Another world.
Another lifetime.
When we did these things freely.
Everyday.  
 
It is hard to image 
That we could ever live that way again.


Will we ever do these things again 
Without worry?
Or will we be forever changed 
By these months of pandemic sheltering?

In our separate realities
In our shared reality
The distances between us 
Grow.

The distances between us 
Are greater than the spaces between the
The houses in which we shelter.
Sometimes it seems that infinity itself could not span 
The distances between us.

Politically, and in our worldviews,
We can't close these distances
Which grow larger, the longer this pandemic rages.
And the longer we shelter apart (together),
We bounce off each other like Superballs.
The forces that keep us apart
Are stronger than those
That work to push us together.
These forces are multiplying at an alarming rate
Despite a common enemy
That itself multiples. 
And whose multiplications we attempt
Unsuccessfully, it seems, to track.

This enemy is microscopic
Threatening us all.
It is a worthy opponent.
Stealthy, complex, unpredictable.
By turns overwhelming, merciless, and deadly 
And then underwhelming and harmless. 

We stand apart because of the virus,
But we are also kept apart
By our failure to refocus
And see and hear each other.
We look, but we refuse to see
What the other sees
And would describe to us.
The others' landscape.  World.  Fears.
We see only the landscape from 
Where we stand.
And hear the echoes of our own voices.
Within our own fortresses.

We stand like blind men around the common elephant
Unable to grasp the whole.  
Our data is unreliable.  Incomplete.
The denominator is almost always unknown.
Like the common denominator 
That should make it possible for us
To understand each other.
That we should be grasping for.  But aren't.
We are mostly taken with our own perspective.
We call our incomplete data complete.

Meanwhile the array of incomplete
Data on an enemy most of us
Know only from others
But have not yet encountered ourselves.
Continues to confuse.

We shrink in fear.
Or stand boldly.
Depending on our perspective.
On our data.

Apart,
We are alone.
Together.


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