Astronauts

When I woke up this morning, the first thought that popped into my head was: we should bring back singles bars. Dating with apps? What are we thinking? I'm sure it's because I'm (still) reading The Mirror and the Light, and Henry VIII is about to marry Anne of Cleves based on a painting and a description (plus the importance of forming an alliance with Protestant nations, as well as the necessity to find a trade route for alum, which is maybe less relevant on Tinder). As we all know, that was a terrible mistake. And that was 1540. We've had time to let the message sink in.  In a way, the isolation we are all in now is the future that has been predicted for us for a while, where all the shops are closed and all businesses are conducted online, and everyone has forgotten how to socialise in person and we all stay home communicating on our phones, and, look, I don't have to describe it, here we are. I've got a few friends who like it, but they are all of them married with children and, crucially, gardens, and they get all their need for human connection met through their families. Oh, to be an introvert now.  I miss people. My god, actual people, real people, people who are in the room. Zoom is like that powdered food astronauts eat. We are all astronauts now. I've been wondering why it is so different to be physically present with someone. We take it for granted that we have five senses, and if you talk about a sixth sense you are going into the realms of tarot cards and mind readers and crystal balls. But I think now we are - certainly I am - realising that there is a sixth sense, and it's the energetic feeling that you get in your body when you are with another person. It's beyond sight, beyond words. You can walk into a room and know immediately how everyone there is feeling. You can sit with someone, in silence, in the dark, and you are still connected, the communication between you still flows. Sadness, fear, comfort, joy, love, these aren't just solitary experiences that pop up in us independently, they are things that move between us, the music our bodies play when we are close to one another, whether harmonious or discordant. We take it for granted, we ignore and dismiss it, because we can't measure it, we don't have a vocabulary for it. But these days, when I am away from people, even when I can see and hear them on a screen, it's like one of my senses has been taken away.  We've had the chance now, to live in the future, like astronauts, connected by apps, and it sucks. This is not how we are supposed to live. We are meant to be together. We need to remember this afterwards, we need to fight to preserve our shops and cafes and theatres and libraries and pubs and parks and all the spaces where we meet, where the energy moves between us. Even singles bars. So that we can feel each other, before we feel each other.