As the weeks cascade into months of avoidance of our human kind to save lives, new norms are settling in. How strange to think that not so long ago seeing people with their faces covered by masks in the grocery store would be markedly odd yet now it’s expected and nobody gives pause. Teachers, kids and parents thrashed their way through figuring out online schooling. Those who were able to transition their work online have been doing so. Zoom calls and other meeting apps are familiar to us all and are a valuable life line for connection with our family and friends. We are learning to broaden the scope of how we entertain ourselves, the initial resistance possibly telling us that it’s “boring” or not fun, gently yielding to the possibilities. Our routines have drastically changed, including sleep patterns, leading many to have intense coronavirus dreams. The world has stopped in so many ways and we are on the inside peering out our windows.
This is hard. And there are positive shifts happening for some people too.
The forced down shift is allowing people to reap the benefits of all good things that come when you do just that…slow down. BP (before