Хроники самоизоляции: social distancing (En)

Remember all those motivational posts/articles and whatnot plastered everywhere on your social media accounts, persuading you how walking makes us healthier, stronger, more creative, productive and, overall, a better person? Yeah, me neither: sometimes I have a special (not so special, but anyway) lens in my eye that helps me to miss positive bullshitting.

But of course: deep down in our hearts we know how essential is for us to get this chance for an unexplainable endeavour, simply because we can. Well, not that freely anymore: you have your right to exercise, but your inner captain needs to be on duty pretty much all the time. Too long? Too far away? Potentially crowded? Check the risks.

Do we check them though? We know about “the thing”: but we are wandering around, enjoying lovely weather (oh the irony: it’s a glimpse of spring in paradise—too gleaming to be Truly British), seeing those other people on their bikes or in their sweaty sport outfits relatively far away, and think: but it’s normal, right? In a way it is until you proceed on the narrow path, with a charming little stream with cartoonish ducks on the left and bushy lilac on the right, and suddenly spot in front of you a family of three, a woman of your age and complexion, an old lady next to her, and a grumpy looking teen behind.

She, that other forty-something-year old, looks tense and timid. She’s staring at you anxiously, as if you are a potential supervisor of her kid or worse, a headmaster with some grim news. “You can go now,” she said, “we will wait,” but you can see how she’s squinting her eyes towards you—are you too close to her herd or not yet?

You want to switch on your bitch-mode: you don’t like her gaze at you, neither do you approve of her impatience. Yet you understand: nope. You can’t. She’s trying to protect hers and desperately counting the risks to her Mum, or mother-in-law (doesn’t matter). She doesn’t know anything about you yet you are a hazard. And understanding this thing is unpleasant and sad.

And you comply. And go as quickly as you can, trying to keep the bloody distance as far as you can. Because everything is not quite right. Yet.