Social Distancing Brings Us Closer

I’ve been making frequent trips to this everglades area, “Hungryland,” close to my home in Florida. On a typical day, I might encounter another person during my hike … maybe. The trails wind through the wetland, slough ripe with wildlife. I take it all in through the 400X binoculars that allow me to view some of Florida’s most spectacular creatures. The notion of distancing ourselves seems only to punctuate the innate human need to be close in the first place. In the past week, I’ve found myself talking to people I would otherwise nod and smile at, a gesture that was more social obligation than an invitation to drum up conversation. I’ve been shown how to tie a fly to catch the local bass, had a map drawn in the sand pointing me to a family of great horned owls, or found myself simply standing together with a fellow human I’d just met, looking out at the sublime beauty before us. This slice of Florida wetlands remains nearly as pristine as when the glaciers yielded.

I spent nearly two years driving by that park, too busy to stop the car and get out. The rush of my pre-virus typical day looked something like this: get up at 5:30 am, be on the road to the kid's bus stop by 6:45, return home, guzzle down my coffee, and do my chores at my farm. By 8:30, I'm at the office and on my computer for the next 7 hours before I make the afternoon "bus route" and do it all again.

This New Normal has given us all a reason to pause. A collective reckoning and hopefully a purging of the social, political toxicity that had infiltrated the fiber of our lives. A refocus on what is important and most essential. Acknowledging what we cherish and protect above all else.

I believe we would all like this to go away as quickly as possible to resume "normal," but I think we need to heed what we have to learn and take with us for the road ahead. For what will inevitably define our "new normal." That this is happening on a global level is unprecedented, but it also means we can't turn a blind eye as we tend to when things happen elsewhere. And we are all still finding the path and coming to this realization in our own way and time. Learning to live with less, learning what a reasonable share is.

I'm still "checking in" with the news. Still, I am now selectively curating what and who I allow into this more precious world I have carved out — precarious and uncertain but relying on an innate sense that there is more that connects us than divides us and that we are here, more alive than we were yesterday.

— Kim Grijalva