The horizon
Getting out into nature expands our horizons, both literally and figuratively. It’s something that’s hard to do right now, however. Even if you can make it out to somewhere else, somewhere you don’t feel as stuck as you did, anything trivial (or maybe not so trivial) can snap you back to the limits imposed by the moment.
We’re lucky enough to have found a place where we can isolate in beauty, but just walking down trail to the next beach or two over typically brings us a view of those that are disregarding any sense of distance — bringing along a sense that’s akin to revulsion with it and snapping the horizon back to 2 meters and right now. Going to the market in the nearby village is a hit or miss affair. Sometimes there are just too many people milling about with no idea how to distance. So, we bounce away, and come back later.
The same feeling accompanies making plans for the next few years. Where do we want our son to go to school? Where do we want to be? How do we want to make our living, modulo what’s possible and available to us? Every other paragraph of our conversations, no matter how far in the future we’re looking, we come snapping back to the uncertainties of the moment.
At least the family is adopting my penchant for going to the beach either early or late in the day. It seems like there’s a correlation between the people who have a hard time distancing and gathering in groups that feel way too large and those that don’t pay attention to how high the UV index is at midday. In the late afternoon, at least right here, it’s easy to find a place to drop the worries of the world and let the horizon expand out to the distance, where it should be.
If just for a few minutes.