“It’s hard to believe that anything we knew about our life as it was, still is. Each person has had to dip closer to their nuclear family, create a fence, possibly a haven, to soldier on through the crisis. The ones most deeply separated or alienated from family, we are the lost demographic. Yet, hardship leaves an imprint, and a lesson, if we’re lucky. The raw handicap of living alone cuts a path of humility and sometimes, anger. I feel a stab of remorse, recalling the recent visit of a close. out-of-town friend. She initiated contact; I enthusiastically accepted her sincere wish to meet. How can I describe to you her mixed messages? Getting out of her car, she kept her distance, and had brought all her own glassware. She admitted, she hadn’t entered anyone’s house but her own for months. I was so happy to see her, I didn’t care what she required to feel safe. We bypassed the house, to find a place on the back porch. What can I say? She seemed interested in having a conversation that allowed us both to speak our truth, separate but equal. Now, as I continue my quarantine of solitude, it’s her eyes that still haunt me. By the end of our bottle of wine, that mostly I drank, she had pushed her mask up a hundred times, as if to protect her eyes. Her fear bled out, coating every forced word, every polite reassurance, that nothing had changed between us. How I hate these times. I know what I know. That we are hearts in a fix, but with a chance to surmount the awful programming that is now strangling our very humanity. Dear friend, how I love you. This will take some time to sort out. I am no danger to you, and you are no danger to me. Whoever told us otherwise, is a horribly flawed individual. But seeing the wreckage of our relationship lying in the driveway as you drove away, I will say this: come back when you are ready, and we will start again.”
