A two-car, socially distanced Frisch’s lunch–it was fun-ish

“Touch is a social glue, and without it, we’re in danger of becoming unglued.”  Gregg Levoy*

About five weeks ago (I first typed “five years”) my friend Susan and I sat on two park benches on opposite ends, putting us at least ten feet apart.  Before sitting, we had each swabbed down our benches with Clorox wipes.  This was back when only nutcases were wearing masks.  We were wearing our spring jackets and Isotoner gloves.

We did what we always do when we’re together:  talk.  Talking about our husbands, kids, and grandkids, mostly.  Talking about our creative endeavors—she’s a textile artist, and I’m whatever-you-call this.  We sat for an hour and a half before we both had to go home to make dinner.

“This was really nice,” she said. “Thanks for planning it.”

“Really, it’s no different than what we always do, there’s just no goetta and eggs between us.”

Susan laughed a little, like it was a not-too-funny joke and a not-too-accurate observation.

I have thought about that a lot in the five weeks that have passed, and I think I was wrong.  There was something different besides not consuming breakfast while we talked.  In any case, we haven’t repeated it.

On the way home that afternoon, I stopped by Teri’s house. She sat up on her porch.  I sat on her sidewalk, at least twenty feet away, in the folding chair I brought.  We talked about her plays, my blogs, her dog Deusy, the men in our lives (Mike DeWine and Andy Beshear).

“This was nice,” I said.  “Just like always except we’re not in recliners, right?”

I’m not sure she answered me.  She probably had already figured out that, no, this social distanced socializing was very,very different.

Once a week, my husband and I drive to Greendale, Indiana, to visit my stepmother, Maryanne.  We set up her large deck or her two-car garage for Instant Fun (just add a baby), putting a blanket and toys in the middle.  My daughter Stacey, her husband Nathan, and my one-year-old granddaughter, Danielle, arrive, bearing plastic playground equipment.

Danielle throws a ball and slides down the slide and scoots on the wagon.  We applaud whenever she does something exceptional (like, walk or breathe, or use sign language to say, “I love you.”).

Rick takes pictures from a distance

Maryanne, Rick, and I remind each other to stay a safe distance as Danielle walks around.  (Did I tell you she walks?  She’s very advanced!)

We go into Maryanne’s garage to eat from our individual LaRosa’s carryout boxes.  And for dessert, everyone has their own little baggy of my homemade cookies.

“Isn’t this nice?” my ever-ebullient bonus mom says.

I think, but don’t say, I guess it’s better than nothing.

But I am not sure it is.  Danielle reaches out her chubby little arms to me, and I will run away and say, “Can you catch me?” and of course, she can’t, she musn’t.

There are so many ways we can connect socially from a distance of six feet or more.

On Wednesday’s, my step-mom and I have two-car, socially distant lunches at Frisch’s.

Yesterday Rick and I had a sort-of picnic with friends at Mt. Echo park.  I picked up sandwiches, which we ate at a 10-foot distance from each other.  We talked in the sunshine, and it was nice.

There is Zoom, the video app that, as their advertising says, brings people together in a “frictionless video environment.” They claim to “deliver happiness” through “elevated experiences.”

The Zoom technology is amazing, and learning about it has been a teeny, tiny, whisper-thin silver lining to the pandemic.  I meet up with friends and family in Zoom writing classes, happy hours, birthday parties, Sunday dinners, church services, book clubs, class reunion meetings.  As their advertising states, Zoom is “frictionless” – in fact, -less in every way, without touch.

Again, it’s better than nothing, but it’s not the same as being there.  Of course, if you’re “there,” you’d have to wear a bra and pants, so there’s that.

Anthropologists say that humans are ultra-social animals.  Humans have been social creatures since the Stone Age.  Hunter-gatherers formed “bands,” as a way of survival, and this was even before there was a toilet paper shortage.

Among primates mutual grooming and food sharing is common.  (And yet my husband will not allow me to cut his hair, though he feels free to sample food from my plate.)

In the 50s, a study of baby rhesus monkeys, our close evolutionary relatives, raised by surrogate mothers preferred ones made of soft terrycloth that offered no food to wire “mothers” who had food.

Premature infants that receive just 15-minute sessions of touch therapy a day gain 50% more weight than babies who don’t.  (Maybe if my husband stopped touching me, I’d stop gaining weight.)

NBA teams whose players engage in celebratory touch like high-fives and chest bumps win more games.

Alzheimer’s patients who receive gentle touch have reduced depression.

Touch is our social glue.

It is the first of five senses to develop in utero and the last to go before dying. And in the interval, we want it, we need it, we expect it.

We are all grieving the loss of free-range touching.

Over breakfast with Susan, before Covid, we passed our phones to each other to admire pictures of grandchildren.  She might touch my hand if I was sad.  We would hug before leaving.

Before Covid, I gave my granddaughter raspberries on her belly and pinched her chubby thighs as I changed her diaper.  (Yes, I miss diaper-changing.  She has outgrown the diapers in my diaper bag since “this” all started.)

At book club we normally noshed from communal platters of brownies and bowls of chips.  We cozied up on couches together.

I have been telling myself that this isn’t such a big deal.

I mean, we aren’t dodging bombs like the British during the Blitz.

We aren’t swimming through sewage during Hurricane Katrina.

We are not searching for bodies at Ground Zero.

It’s not the Depression or the Dustbowl or the Vietnam War.

But what we are doing—really, not doing—during the pandemic is hard.  We are not touching, and that goes against every evolutionary instinct uber-social human beings’ possess.

We must not touch.  We must not get close.  We will grieve this loss, and we will go through those classic stages of grieving: denial; anger; bargaining; depression; and, on good days, acceptance.

It’s just that my skin aches for that touch; every nerve ending is standing at attention.  But I will learn not to expect it.  For now.

This won’t last forever.  By the time “this” is over, Danielle won’t be wearing diapers anymore—not because it will be so far in the future, but because she’s very advanced.  Did I mention that?

And when it’s safe, she’ll still want to hold my hand.

*The Pandemic and the Pain of Losing Touch” by Gregg Levoy

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