As we sit hunkered in our homes, losing track of the days, it might seem like this an awful and depressing time. You may be thinking “There’s only so much Netflix I can watch before I go insane.” As humans, we need to socialize and explore our surroundings.
As I was re-reading Walden thinking about what exactly it was I wanted to write about, I came across the chapter called “Solitude.” In paragraph 5, Thoreau discusses… well… the idea of solitude. The few lines that really stood out to me were when he states:
“How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way? This which you put seems to me not to be the most important question. What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary?” (Walden, 16)
In these few lines, I was able to take away a bunch of ideas, especially while living in the world right now. What I was able to extract from these lines was not ideas about solitude and loneliness, but the opposite of that. No matter the distance between us, we should not lose our relationships with people. Although we are required to stay physically distant, our emotional connections should not suffer.
With everyone in a bad situation, there is always a bright side. To me, this bright side is that as a human race, it seems like we are closer than ever. All of us have been made to reflect on things we take for granted. In an effort to stay close and connected with the most important people in our lives, we have all come up with our own creative ways to express our love for one another.
For example, every Easter, my grandparents host brunch with everyone in the family. My grandfather makes a really amazing dish (S.O.S) that all the grandkids look forward to, my sister especially. They waited until the last possible second before cancelling it this year, in hopes that things might turn around. My grandpa, heartbroken about brunch being nonexistent this year, decided to make and deliver his S.O.S, in a safe and socially distant way. Even though we all weren’t together physically, my grandpa made Easter Sunday feel a little bit more normal than it would have been without the food. His effort to keep tradition alive by thinking outside of the box, inspired everyone to get into a Zoom call, while eating their S.O.S. For example, every Easter, my grandparents host brunch with everyone in the family. My grandfather makes a really amazing dish (S.O.S) that all the grandkids look forward to, my sister especially. They waited until the last possible second before cancelling it this year, in hopes that things might turn around. My grandpa, heartbroken about brunch being nonexistent this year, decided to make and deliver his S.O.S, in a safe and socially distant way. Even though we all weren’t together physically, my grandpa made Easter Sunday feel a little bit more normal than it would have been without the food. His effort to keep tradition alive by thinking outside of the box, inspired everyone to get into a Zoom call, while eating their S.O.S. In the Zoom call, me and my sister noticed the looks of sadness still on my grandparents face. So we decided to do something special for them. I wrote a parody of ABBA’s S.O.S song, and replaced the lyrics pertaining to our family’s S.OS. Together with my sister, we shot a music video and sent it to my grandparents. Hearing them laugh and making them happy meant the world to us.
Who knows how long this quarantine is going to last. This is not a time to shut yourself off from everyone. Stay connected, do whatever it takes to stay sane, while practicing social distancing of course. Stay safe everyone!