Front Porch: Loss of easy socializing sharply felt during pandemic

During our new stay-home lives, I am not alone.

While I do take occasional trips to the grocery store, pharmacy, bank and elsewhere – all properly distanced and face-masked – I still, happily, have regular human contact, thanks to residing with my partner-in-crime of 53 years. We talk in the evenings about the day’s activities, and I can hear him moving about the house when we are doing separate things. It makes all the difference.

I know not everyone is so fortunate. Even so, the sense of isolation is growing. I am a more social person than my husband, in the sense that I need that outside in-person contact with friends to really feel right. He’s fine just cooling it at home when not working.

Of course, sequestering is a small sacrifice, I realize, in light of the monster that the COVID pandemic is … but still, increasing problems with it are real in my life. That need to get out into the world, to mingle and to, well, just do things again with others, is overwhelming.

I don’t want to become one of those people who flees to beaches or other crowded venues where recommended distancing protocols and behaviors aren’t or can’t be adhered to – things which are happening more in other parts of the nation, but still, in our neck of the woods, too.

COVID numbers are on the rise again, due in large part to just those activities and choices.

So here we are in Washington state at Stage 2 of reopening, where some going out, with restrictions and cautions, can be OK, and I am trying to remedy the blues and sense of disconnectedness in appropriate ways. On a pleasant summer afternoon late in June, I met my friend Isabelle in a city park. We sat on a bench in the shade, away from anyone else, she at one end and me at the other. And through our face masks we chatted about this and that for about 90 minutes.

On another day I picked up some dahlias from my friend Kris, walking down the breezeway between her house and garage and directly into her backyard, where we sat in safely distanced lawn chairs under her magnificent spruce tree while we talked for a while. I kept my face mask on.

My friend Marie came over one day, and we had a masked conversation out on my deck, sitting far apart, enjoying the weather and speaking of things in our lives, big and small.

These three carefully metered visits, which pass for true adventures these days, did so much to lift my spirits. Normally, we’d meet over lunch, but that’s off the menu (so to speak) for the time being. It didn’t matter. The conversation and closeness tasted just great.

While I couldn’t see anyone’s smile during these visits, I could see their eyes, body language and their whole selves – in person, right there before me. I never realized how important that was and how much I missed it for the few months we went without.

Of course I understand how deeply life-altering this is for so many, that the lack of in-person visiting pales next to job loss, empty kitchen cupboards, stir-crazy kids falling behind in their schooling, increasing homelessness and all the long-term psychological, social and other damage that is taking place because of this virus. And deaths. The ripples in this pond are going to go out far and wide, probably beyond my lifetime.

Yes, I know that, but I can only speak with confidence about my own pretty-darn-privileged reality, where loss and isolation and gloom are still real, no matter how comfortable the surroundings. And how fortunate I am that I can do these little things carefully with friends to make it feel better.

But there is a thing I can’t do and surely couldn’t or shouldn’t, even if it were possible. It would be outright startling to have an old lady run up to hug a stranger, even if that were socially acceptable, even in normal times, but I so want to go out and do just that – to warmly embrace a nurse, hospital cleaning staff member, a farmer, grocery worker, long-haul trucker and those who have been on duty throughout, and all the people who are keeping some semblance of normal in our lives and taking care of us when we fall ill. They are the stellar ones and they make me feel a bit hopeful.

That … and that guy napping on the recliner next to me with the TV on. And a few hours outdoors, face-to-masked-face with friends.