Why call it physical distancing and not social distancing?

It’s been almost seven weeks now since I touched another living human being. It is a peculiar feeling. Some of you may laugh as you know I spent years convincing myself that physical affection was a sign of weakness, so I ran from hugs and shield away from affectionate touch. Somewhere along the way in the recent past I realized this view was a wall I had built around myself out of a fear of vulnerability and getting hurt. I embraced embracing others and shifted from being an avoider to a hugger. Avoiding physical connection with others is most certainly a learned behaviour, and unlearning has been equally a journey of engaging in physical contact and then reflecting on the experiences. In this time of a global pandemic that has required so many of us to remain in our homes I find myself in an interesting circumstance of contemplating the meaning of physical connection and physical proximity to others.

 

The head physician in British Columbia, Dr. Bonnie Henry, whom I have a serious crush on, has shifted the language in her daily public updates to using the term physical distancing rather than social distancing. This shift in how our current state of being is described is a welcome turn of phrase for a being like me who thrives on social connection with people. I am an extrovert, and have learned to embrace this about myself and make no apologies for it. I appreciate and accept the differences in how others make connections, and that not everyone thrives on being the centre of the party as much as I do! I have only recently learned to be physically affectionate, but I have always been socially fueled energetically. Indeed, it has saddened me as I have gotten older and watched people retreat into routines of societal expectations around work and familial expectations. A world where we determine our social connectedness on societal norms and expectations is a staged existence. 

I am reminded of the passage from Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like it’, “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances”. The passage goes on to outline the seven stages of a man’s life, each stage determined by the role the man must play. Philosophers have been fascinated for millennia on understanding the various stages of a person’s life; from the time of Aristotle there has been a need to give people roles in life in order to understand their purpose. Shakespeare was building on this notion that all human beings are players, who play their assigned roles in every day. Shakespeare did not write ‘As You Like It’ during the Plague which gripped Europe during his lifetime (although he did write King Lear during this time), but it did frame a lot of his thinking, as Covid-19 is and will frame much of our thinking for decades to come. Since the 18^th century and the Industrial Revolution in Europe humankind have created a convenient way of determining roles, a framework based on economic worth or in other words based on the job you have and how much money you earn. I am not sure whether to think of it as a curse or simply a necessity, but as humans we struggle to function without a perceived solid frame of reference. We understand ourselves by what we are not, rather than what we are. We gravitate to people who have similar beliefs and perspectives to us, even if we find we do not like them as individuals at least we agree on ‘who we are’. 

What has all of this got to do with social versus physical distancing? Well, in our ‘normal’ existence of playing out our roles determined for us by societal expectations, we also have a tendency to take things for granted. Things just are how they are, and there is nothing we can do to change it, until they are not. Who do I miss the most in this moment of physical distancing and solitudinal habitation? I miss the lady I go to for eyebrow threading, my pedicurist, the man who makes my coffee, the cleaners in my department. Do I miss the functional role they play in my life? Of course I do, but is far deeper than that. I can carry out all the tasks they provide me with in some form or another, but I cannot replace them as people and the richness they bring into my life. They offer me a perspective on existence beyond my own frame of reference. Their lives existent in the same time-frame as mine, but play out in very different social and economic paradigms. I cannot reach out for a Zoom call with any one of these individuals, but the richness they bring into my daily life is a void I feel very intensely during this time. I am more connected to family and friends across the world than I have been in years. Almost thirteen years after leaving Bangladesh, my friends and I, whom I met there, had a nine-way Zoom call a few weeks ago. I attended the birthday of a Vancouver friend on Zoom a week ago, where some of her childhood friends from all over North America were able to join in the fun, a situation that would not have occurred during ‘normal times’. It is wonderful to be able to reach out to these friends and family and feel so connected during a time when we are all experiencing the very same situation to varying degrees. But I find myself craving more time away from these interactions, not because I do not want them but because they are a certainty and feel safe. I crave the interactions I have filled with uncertainty, filled with discourse of lives I do not relate to or know. I long for the moments where someone speaks to you in the grocery store queue or stops you to ask for directions, the acquaintances who I acknowledge play a profound role in my existence because they make me more human. In past years of grief at the death of my formidable mother, and as my existence turned inward to try to fix a romantic relationship so broken I could not even find the pieces, I neglected the role of these acquaintances and random interactions and connections in my daily life. Indeed, to take a moment here to celebrate the person that Josephine O’Brien was, she saw a beautiful and significant narrative in the life of every individual who crossed her path. It is a trait that I feel so deeply blessed to have inherited from her.

When we emerge from this period of ‘pause’ what will we have gained in our lives? I dream of a world where we see the value of people not for the economic role they perform, but simply for the beauty of their narrative. I dream of an existence where we pause and listen to a person’s story, and where we are not looking at the colour of their skin, wondering what their job is, their hobbies, their religion. I am a dreamer I know, but I refuse to have my dreams determined for me by societal norms, they are all I have which are truly my own. Realistically though I dream of the days when I can reconnect with my acquaintances, learn how they survived this ‘pause’, listen to their experiences. I dream of smiling of the person on the footpath as we walk by each other, not afraid of ensuring we are six feet apart, wishing them a pleasant day. I dream of the banter I will have in my favourite coffee shop. I dream of laughing with a stranger I find myself in the same space with, sharing an experience. I dream of the randomness of daily interactions. I dream of the freedom to socially connect with whomever I wish.