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“I send you greetings from afar.” That is the opening salvo I have thought of to try to engage neighbors and unsuspecting strangers I encounter at the park during the current state of crisis and stay-at-home orders.
Health advisers and our government are telling us to stay in our homes and to avoid physical contact with other people. And, I am trying, dutifully, to do my part. Though, human beings are social creatures. It is so hard to go through the day with my only contact being my husband (who is often working from home) and my two-year-old.
In the past, at the supermarket, I might smile at someone who crossed my path. Or, I might even start a conversation with someone who was buying the same odd brand of bread as myself. Now, as soon as I encounter another shopper, there are so many questions and fears running through my mind, I often forget to even smile. How am I supposed to figure out the dance of which way to step aside, when I am thinking about if they could be sick, if they think I might be sick, if I should have put brighter lipstick on to look healthy and put people at ease, and how am I ever going to suppress this cough?
When I take my
daughter for a walk in our neighborhood, I have similar feelings,
sometimes made more awkward by the fact that there are some people
who you kind of know and usually stop to chat with. Is it safe to
talk now? How will they know that you are not going to foolheartedly
walk up to the beginning of their driveway (much closer than 6 feet
away from them) like you have in the past?
On neighborhood
walks, and at walks through the park, I started to notice a lot of
feelings when I saw someone approaching me. One feeling is just
desperation to connect and to chat with another human being. Another
feelings is not wanting to frighten that other person by taking a
step in his or her direction. How will she know, that I know, and
that I respect the fact, that I have to stay 6 feet away?
So,
as I encountered people, I started to feel words well up in me, and
an urgency to shout to them. It is like two boats passing in quiet
waters. You want to acknowledge their presence and to see if they
want to exchange pleasantries. The words I felt I needed were simple
words, to be shouted out in a hopeful manner. I was longing to say
something between “Land Ho” and the words of an Easter sermon I
heard, describing the back and forth call of Christians of old at
Easter.
So, I tried to see if I could figure out these
words and if they could be a useful, new, social contract for people
during the quarantine. When you are walking around at the
supermarket, or your block, or a park, you would call out to someone
from 7 feet away (a hint, that you know you have to stay far away):
“I send you greetings from afar”. And, the person, showing that
they, too, are interested in pleasantries – and that they, too,
understand the 6 foot social distancing rule and promise not to get
too close to you – could shout back, “I thank you and accept from
a distance…” followed by the start of a shouted
conversation.
Can you picture it? Could you do it? Or,
maybe the words need some refining before being put into general
use…
I send you greetings from afar!
I
thank you and accept from a distance!
To me, it sounds
like the start of the kind of warm, friendly exchange that we need
more of during quarantine. When I posted my idea to FaceBook, a
friend’s adult son said it sounded like the Vulcan salutation:
“Live long and prosper” which can be followed by the answer,
“Peace and long life.” I would not mind people going around
saying those words, either. I would just enjoy something to say to
ease the tension of life under quarantine and to reach out to the
other people stuck here in it with me.
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