June 1

June is here! The last two and a half months inched along in a flash. This will truly be a spring to remember and one that some people would just as soon forget.

We have reached a milestone and another stage in the reopening of our economy. More pubs and restaurants have opened their doors. We have more choices to eat out or go for a drink. Tonight to celebrate some happy news from the accountant we walked to Whiskey Jacks.

Whiskey Jacks Pub is a local watering hole that I have gone to since it opened twenty-six years ago. It hasn’t changed much in those years; some of the staff have been there since the early days. I enjoy the local, welcome feel I get when I enter. Tonight the entrance was the same. It was the exit they had changed. They had the tables spaced apart and only two waitresses on duty. Unlike some of the other locales, our server didn’t wear a mask, she stood back and gave us space. The new normal is starting to form. We will be washing and sanitizing our hands and people will respect each and their space.

At least that’s the plan.

The plan didn’t work that great. I stood up in front of my table and these two guys came up behind me. They touched my arm! And the other guy touched my back! It was only brief and very light, they even said sorry as they walked by. Still, they touched me, and now I felt violated. My skin tensed up at the thought of being touched by another person. Crazy after two months of limited contact and being trained for social distancing, I got touched and felt violated.

I shook off my uneasy feeling and sat back down at the table. In the next month, they will look at opening up more and going to phase three. I hope we can recover emotionally from the societal retraining we have endured. I hope we can recover our sense of fun and adventure; our willingness to take a risk.

We walked home from the bar and it was just about fully dark outside. We were taking a small risk walking beside the road, there were no sidewalks once we left the immediate downtown area.

The night sky welcomed the darkness as the sun was setting beyond the horizon. Stars appeared brighter and the moon lit the night. Walking in the country was uplifting as we climbed the hill towards home. Gazing up at the stars I felt tiny. We are specks in time. Two and a half months feels like a substantial amount of time. In the clock of the cosmos, it is not even the blink of an eye.

One day when I look back at these entries, when I read these words, I hope that I can laugh at how close we are to the end. Somehow I doubt we are that close. I hope in the end we can laugh and smile when someone bumps into our space.