Community in slipstream
Community coming into view. Photo by Shubham Dhage on Unsplash For a full year after the worst of pandemic restrictions eased, I was an extrovert unmoored. My social skills, put on ice thanks to social distancing, remote work, and the all-consuming duties of parenting a toddler and infant in "unprecedented times," went into overdrive. Except they didn't reemerge as "skills" necessarily. They were more like retrainings, a reversal of atrophy, and as a result I was awkward AF. Whenever I was in a social setting of more than three people, no matter the gathering's tone or context, I could feel a maniacal grin plastered on my face. I shoved past small talk and went right to Big Feelings and Vulnerable Moments. I was so desperate to hold hands, touch shoulders, and hug people that I had to constantly remind myself how, Covid notwithstanding, polite society requests I respect people's personal space. The weirdest part of this moment in time was that I ...
