Sunday, April 12th, 2020
When Jonathan asked everyone on staff at Pattern to take a turn writing a blog, I froze. I’m not a writer, not a researcher, but as Jonathan refers to me at times, I’m more “the person behind the curtain”. In these times we are all doing things we might not normally do. So when I sat down to write this I realized that you just have to write what you know, so here it goes.
I was thinking about social distancing and what it means and where it came from. When I looked around online, I found that the words ‘social distancing’ first appear in Merriam Webster Dictionary in 2003. The Webster definition is, “the practice of maintaining a greater than usual physical distance from other people or of avoiding direct contact with people or objects in public places during the outbreak of a contagious disease in order to minimize exposure and reduce the transmission of infection.”
Before the coronavirus outbreak of 2020, I had never even thought of putting those two words together but there they were 17 years ago. Now, they are the two words that are being used every day, in every conversation, to tell us how we need to act in a time of unprecedented human uncertainty.
I thought about what it means to be social and went to Merriam Webster again and this is the definition of social: “of or relating to human society, the interaction of the individual and the group, or the welfare of human beings as members of society.”
In light of the two definitions, I think ‘social distancing’ is a misnomer. I am redefining the term and making it “physical distancing” because now more than ever we need to be SOCIAL. In the last several weeks, I have spent a tremendous amount of time “Zooming” , “What’s Apping” and other forms of video communication, with friends and family across the country to stay socially connected. We all need human connection and the best that we are going to get for the foreseeable future is the opportunity to stay in touch through technology.
I am at the point where I do not want to write about what is going on with the coronavirus, for just one day I do not want to hear the words virus, death or social distancing. I want it to be just as it used to be, where families could be sitting around a table laughing and touching. Where a hug was not some far off thought but a reality. Where human contact was not something to be afraid of but something that was welcomed. I know that I am living in a dream world right now, saying that, so I guess I, like everyone else needs to find a way to be creative in these times of “physical distancing” and find a way to give someone a hug.
“Social/Physical Distancing” is working and as hard as it is we need to continue practicing:
Stay home. Stop the spread. Save lives.
