Today I went out for a work meeting for the first time, since COVID appeared. That’s slightly over five months of working from home, not having to head out in work attire, to work in some manner. And it’s such a weird experience. I feel like a stranger in my own country. This must be what a hermit feels like when he heads down to the town square for the annual festival. 

Everything seems to happen in slow motion. Even the commute, which during pre-covid days were rushed and forgettable, became an experience. Waiting at the bus stop, I stopped to see the breeze blow over a field of dandelions which had sprouted out due to neglect from the lockdown. This never happened. Is it possible to feel familiar and foreign at the same time? I did. 

There were pangs of regret at familiar shops being shuttered for good, and sighs of relief seeing others still open and thriving. It felt like a war had passed over the land, and I’m going around checking up on old friends to see who’s still alive. With the worst economic recession in our history looming over us like a foreboding monstrous shadow, it’s not hard to believe that analogy. Even getting food, having a meal, was strange. My first meal outside in five months. Still didn’t feel safe, but people didn’t seem to care. Life had moved on, without me on it.

And soon, the sensory overload sets in. Two hours of meeting, walking around town in crowds, was just a bit much for a hermit of five months. In a way, I realized I had taken to the hermit’s life. With almost all my interactions happening remotely, I’d not missed much of the old life. 

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.”

- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Perhaps, this is the season to be quiet. A time to kill; a time to lose; a time to throw away; a time to keep silence; a time for peace. 

So be it.