LONELINESS IN LOCKDOWN
This past Sunday night, I received a text from “AlertSF,” a mass blast of emergency messages to residents of San Francisco. Instead of reporting the usual urban happening like “fire activity cleared in the Mission” or “power restored on Treasure Island,” it offered some clinical advice: “Reach out & talk to someone. Call/text a relative/friend neighbor who may be socially isolated.”
I thought about that AlertSF team, likely on a brainstorming Zoom call out of their respective living rooms. What struck me most about their message was that it was extremely human. Maybe the text had been constructed by Artificial Intelligence – but it must have been from a robot with a heart.
That one text message made me stop what I was doing, pick up the phone, and call a friend whom I knew was alone. She sounded almost surprised to hear from me, almost an embarrassed ebullience. Then, I made a list of friends and family to call during the week. Every day this week, I have heard a voice of someone I haven’t spoken to in ages.
Before all this, there were only a handful of people I would actually call on the phone, whose voices I recognized, whose numbers I knew by heart, whom I instantly knew were upset or happy by the tone of their voice when they picked up the call.
Everyone else fell into my text message log. Over time, I’ve grown close to many friends through tomes of text messages as we try to outwit each other with words or emojis. But my most cherished moments are in person when I can see, touch, and feel the power of friendship. Although I can’t have all that now, a phone call -- better yet with a video image on Facetime or Zoom -- is enough to make me feel less alone.
Make your list and call someone now. And do this: Every. Single. Day. Whether or not the person lives alone or lives with a family – all of us are socially isolated right now. We are all alone in our thoughts and fears about the future. Hearing someone else’s voice during this period of isolation makes everything just that much more bearable. Whether it’s a friend’s voice-crack or an aunt’s knee-slapping guffaw, a live phone call gives me reason to exhale.
An article came out in The New Yorker this week, titled “How Loneliness From Corona Virus Isolation Takes Its Own Toll,” written beautifully by Robin Wright. She cites numerous psychiatrists and doctors who report the chilling facts and data of those who become highly depressed after being alone for long periods of time. However, the sentence that chilled me was one in which Wright sheds her reporter persona and reveals her heart:
“Psychologists note the difference between living alone and loneliness. I live alone and have no family, and usually don’t think much about it. But as the new pathogen forces us to socially distance, I have begun to feel lonely. I miss the ability to see, converse with, hug or spend time with friends. Life seems shallower, more like survival than living.”
Wright’s words made me think of an elderly woman whom I’ll call Stephanie who lives on our block. She is in her early sixties, shuffles when she walks, and suffers from dementia. She has short, cropped grey hair, wears pearl-rimmed glasses, over-sized dungarees, a zip-up hoodie, and clutches an empty Safeway grocery bag close to her chest. She loves dogs, and harasses strangers with insistent questions, often yelling from twenty feet away, “Is that a Collie? A German Shepherd? A Mutt?”
By now, my kids, my husband, and I have shared with Stephanie on countless occasions our dog’s name and age, and how she came into our lives (see one of my former blog posts for the full story). Only to realize that Stephanie promptly forgets everything we have told her the moment she crosses the street, and she will ask us all the same questions again a couple of days later.
About a month ago, my son ran into her while walking the dog. She joined him on the walk around the block, and said she’d walk him home, keep him company. At that time, awareness of the Corona Virus was only just percolating in San Francisco, and we were all laughing about fist pumps, elbow nudges, butt bumps and ankle kicks that were replacing handshakes and hugs. My son wondered how much Stephanie had understood about all this. When they reached our front door, he extended his elbow to her in a farewell gesture. She titled her head, perplexed.
That SFAlert message made me think of Stephanie. And I want to call her. But I don’t know how to because I don’t have her number and I don’t know exactly where she lives. My son saw her walking yesterday from afar as he jogged around the block, and she waved to him with her rubber gloves. We are hoping that someone is keeping her company, and explaining and re-explaining to her that she must wear rubber gloves, and that a mask might be a good idea, too. Next time we see her on the block, we will stop and get her number. She deserves a call.
