My daughter and I go to the park twice daily now, our substitute for the walk to and from school. In addition to the red winged blackbirds’ arrival and the disappearance of the tennis court nets, we’ve noticed a new social ritual: When strangers approach each other, instead of mindlessly passing shoulder-to-shoulder, we veer away, sometimes stepping into the street, sometimes up onto a grassy bank, always six feet apart. More often than not, this behavior is accompanied by a deliberate, direct gaze into each other’s eyes, especially if one or both parties are wearing a mask, and a brief “hello.” Often we add a few words about the weather (because in Minnesota spring is worth exclaiming over); if there’s a dog involved, my daughter fawns over it. We’re desperate for in-the-flesh interactions. Suddenly anyone will do.
Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew is the author of Writing the Sacred Journey: The Art & Practice of Spiritual Memoir, Living Revision: A Writer’s Craft as Spiritual Practice, and other books.
Because eye contact while moving reminds me of the do-see-do in square dancing, I’ve come to think of this exchange as “doing the COVID.” During days fraught with concern, haunted by an unknown future, bleary with screen-gazing, each hour blurring into the next, this brief public dance has become for me both an emblem of our awful time and cause for hope.
The first part of the choreography plays out our grim reality. We move apart, motivated by fear (what if this stranger is infected?) or by consideration for the other (rest assured, we’re saying; I’m not a threat) or by collective care (I need to do my part to flatten the curve or protect the vulnerable) or by obedience (I should follow the government’s orders). What used to be rude—giving a stranger wide berth—has become not just acceptable but ethical. We keep distant for the sake of the whole. This avoidance is tragic, unnatural, and profoundly antithetical to our emotional wellbeing. Our inability to be together magnifies the suffering wrought by this illness. Our hearts hurt. Even if the dance partners aren’t literally scared of one another, our body language communicates fear.
Precisely because we’re hurting, however, we’re now willing to see the stranger whose proximity we’re avoiding. And we want to make up for the distance with kindness. The second step in the dance exercises our indomitable resilience: We refuse to be separated. Eye contact bridges the divide. Smiles and small exchanges balm our ache. No one—not the governor, not the CDC, certainly not the president—is issuing mandates for us to acknowledge one another’s humanity. We do it spontaneously, mutually, of our own volition. Together, briefly, we generate a relationship.
Before the pandemic, our fearlessness in passing inches from an unknown shoulder was thoughtless. Now our connection is purposeful. Those who say hello do so consciously.
Ever since the virus ravaged its way across our country, I’ve wondered, “Will I allow myself to be changed for the better by this?” I’m not alone. The virus is enforcing a world-wide time out, which every parent knows is an opportunity to take a breath, reevaluate the events that led to the crisis, and find a fresh, calmer way to reenter the fray. When things fall apart, yes, the consequences are terrible, but there’s also a rare chance to rebuild. It’s a threshold moment. We’re poised between “before” and “after.” Will we allow this travesty to mark us with bitterness and fear? Or will we use it as an opportunity to create new connections and discover unexpected causes for hope?
I’m not suggesting that we look on the bright side. Intimacy with illness and loss has taught me that the trick of traversing suffering with grace is to do both steps in the dance. If we only do the first, wallowing in grief or withdrawing in an over-abundance of caution, there’s no room for new possibilities. If we only do the second, our rosy outlook comes at the expense of being realistic. The exercise of choosing what brings us collective wellbeing within our given circumstances is itself a hope-filled practice.
Now is the best time to fully experience the pandemic’s losses while opening ourselves to new life. My eleven-year-old daughter does this instinctively. She’s pasted to the screen five hours a day in a sad simulacrum of school, gazing at a moving collage of her classmates who try their best to glean companionship in two dimensions. She misses her teacher and the classroom’s bearded dragon. She procrastinates; she resists the book report. Then this child, who has never enjoyed solitary play without an audio book and has always preferred a device to the out-of-doors, suddenly can’t wait for “recess” in our tiny back yard. She makes fairy houses. She creates a zip-line for her dolls. Secretly I watch from the window as my daughter loses herself under the lilac and discovers that generative inner quiet I’ve always wished for her. Deprived of friends, she finds them in herself and the earth.
The dance is everywhere. From my desk window, I watch a Minneapolis Public School bus pull up twice a week, its route repurposed to feed hungry students. Our airport’s planes are grounded, keeping me from my loved ones on either coast but also clearing the air of fumes and the night sky of smog; the stars now are plentiful. The eerie emptiness downtown signals economic disaster as well as our government’s safekeeping of its citizens. Members of Congress, unable to make laws, must now attend to their constituents’ pleas. Partners locked down in unhappy marriages face hard but long-awaited truths. Institutions we’ve taken for granted—the post office, library, theater, church—are precious now that they’re threatened with closure. We’ve always relied on the farm hand, the trucker, and the grocery clerk, especially those of us who weather Minnesota winters, but today we know our utter dependence. While humans huddle indoors, holding our breath, the earth itself exhales deeply. Greenhouse gas emissions may fall eight percent this year. The pandemic reveals our capacity to tend the planet’s health.
What happens when two passersby transform social distance into connection? We can’t see the internal shifts but they’re crucial. Both parties are aware—of the other, of our mutual circumstances, and of the landscape. Both parties have opened their hearts to some degree, whether to their own hurt, the pain the other might be experiencing, or to the great suffering surrounding us. Both parties desire well-being and human relationship. And, most significantly, both are willing to change. Social conditioning says don’t talk to strangers and cast your gaze elsewhere. Together we choose otherwise. Without these internal gestures we’d continue past, leaving behind a wake of fear. The eye contact and greeting signal shared, intentional change.
Soon enough, “doing the COVID”—or not—will codify into social protocol. Our interactions with strangers on the sidewalk will again grow familiar and thoughtless. For now, however, we’re poised at a threshold. Will we allow ourselves to be changed for the better? The least those of us under stay-at-home orders can do to support those who have been thrust into emergency efforts is to deliberately dance the COVID.
If we return to the way things were, we’ll have missed an opportunity of global proportion. If we only do the first half of the dance, the pandemic will leave ugly scars. But if we do both parts, we can grow more fully human. We come most alive when we receive what experience offers us and, in turn, intentionally choose to make something of that experience. Let’s be afraid, let’s resist, let’s grieve—let’s especially grieve on behalf of others’ suffering. Let’s ache for companionship and lean into this vast web of interdependency that binds us across nations and species. Let’s have the humility to relinquish the way things were in favor of the possibility of a significantly better future.
Each of us is responsible for creating the post-pandemic world we want. Let’s begin today.
Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew is the author of Writing the Sacred Journey: The Art & Practice of Spiritual Memoir, Living Revision: A Writer’s Craft as Spiritual Practice, and other books.