These months have passed quite slowly. For the longest time, I kept thinking I had stepped into another plane of the universe, as in the movie Contact. Perhaps if I looked closely enough I could find the wormhole to return to pre-March 14, 2020.
What didn’t happened was actually a life-changing happening. The quarantine extended and persisted, despite my soul’s longing for it to end, thereby setting me free to pursue adventurous travel and routine friendship encounters.
After all the trips were canceled and the refunds secured, I became acutely aware of the lack of personal contact, particularly with my friends of many years. What followed was a period of emotional and social drift. The majority of my friends were over 65 years of age, limiting in-person contact between us. Some were a card a year friend, and that seemed just fine.
But then there were the “sisters-by-a-different-mother” friends. I slowly realized that how to keep up contact became critically important to my emotional well-being. Through the years and proximity, shared commitments had sustained these friendships, what Vellos describes as “seeds of connection,” bonding us through these many years.
So instead we found time to meet for a walk, masked, along the ocean walkway. Daily calls became our ritual, substituting for leisurely social engagements in our homes. Surprise cards and remembrances of those special dates in our lives and our families have had to suffice.
These worked, for now.
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