Social Dis-connection

I like to walk - to feel the breeze on my face before the chill of winter hits, and to see the glittering blue sky, gem-like over the eucalypts - I am aware that I am not alone: dozens of people are feeling the necessity to do exactly the same thing that I am. Escape from the isolation, and yet strangely, the isolation lingers because we have been told that we cannot interact with other people.

We must keep our social distance.

If there is any one phrase that I want to deliberately scratch from my reality, it is this one. Social Distance. Social disconnection.

Let's be honest, we've been socially distancing for years, we just called it something else. We called it take away food, or conference calling, or even connecting via social media. Each of these carries with it a sense that being in physical presence of others is a dangerous thing - we could catch something.

We could catch something, all right. We could catch on to the fact that relationships, although fraught with possibilities for difficulty, are the only things that truly make life worthwhile. Have we sublimated personal, physical touch, or verbal communication for efficiency and expediency so that we can maximise the time that we have managing information and resources? Have we lost a grip on meaning?

I'll give you an example:

Before this 'New Normal' (another phrase which causes me to gag) of social distancing (retching sound), I drove to the airport to pick Christine up from her flight. As I was turning onto the airport drive, an elderly man was crossing the road in front of my car. Because he wasn't really watching for traffic (and seemed not really to care about the inconvenience for me), I had to step on the brakes quickly so that I didn't hit him. My first response was one of impatience and I almost honked the horn at him. How dare this old man get in my way? I'm in a hurry! I've got things to do! He's lucky I'm such an observant driver.

It is the monologue of our pre-COVID 19 (Ugh, gag reflex) culture that anyone who is in the way of our efficiency and expediency is an obstacle to be removed. As I drove by myself, isolated in my own car, listening to the kind of music that I wanted, I wanted that old man out of the way so I could park and walk quickly and briskly to the terminal. I knew that once I arrived there, I would be surrounded by similarly impatient people, ninety-nine percent of them impatiently awaiting the arrival of impatient fliers. We would stand next to each other, but we would be separated by an immeasurable distance caused by our phones. I knew that I wouldn't be talking to anyone. I would find a comfortable social distance.

And yet, God decided my eyes (and ears, and heart) needed to be opened.

After parking my car, I walked briskly to the airport along the path. Lo and behold, in front of me was the elderly gentleman I'd almost run down at the roundabout.  Truly, I wanted to pass on the right with efficiency and expediency. I wanted to, not run him over, but run by him - I was a man on a mission.

Then, I got a message from Christine saying that her plane was delayed forty minutes. Rolling my eyes in frustration, efficiency and expediency were now bound up in the fickle ETA of Qantas, I slowed my pace. Suddenly, I found myself almost parallel with the old man. Looking to the skies, I waggled a metaphorical finger: I see what you're doing, God. Very funny.

So, I strolled up beside him and inquired about his day.

He looked at me as if I had spoken in some kind of Martian language. As if unaccustomed to conversation, he cocked his head and stopped. He asked me to repeat the question, and it became immediately apparent that I was speaking a different language. He was Greek. Through the next ten minutes of walking, of asking questions, I found out a lot about Tom - or, Anastasi as he was called in Greek.

Tom and his wife, who suffers greatly with dimension, had lived in Australia for fifty years. Recently, they had celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary, but because of his wife's illness, and the fact that they had been 'jailed' in a retirement/nursing home village, the celebration was difficult. As Tom pushed these words from his mouth, his accent, thick and beautiful, caused me to listen intently.

Because Tom was translating his words from Greek into English, and this process was very difficult for him while walking, he would stop every ten steps or so, put a hand on my arm and bring us to stasis.

We had to stop moving so that we could communicate in the same language.

"No one ever talks to me in English," Tom said. "I live with Greeks, I am surrounded by Greeks, my children live a long ways away, but when they come home, they want to practice their Greek... You are the first person who will talk English with me." This sentence took almost a minute to come out and be translated by me. He smiled and said, "You have an accent. You must be from England."

Well, there's a first time for everything. I've never been accused of being English before.

Tom's journey around the airport was a nightly occurrence. Escaping his 'jail' and the struggles with his wife's disease, Tom would circle the airport perhaps subconsciously wishing that just one of these days, one of the planes would fly him back home - back to a place of comfort and safety, where he knew everyone and things made sense. He wanted to go back.

We reached the front footpath of the airport and I made a snap decision to invite Tom to wait with me and another friend for the arrival. Unsurprisingly, Tom agreed. "But," he said putting a hand on my arm, "You buy the beer."

I wasn't prepared for my encounter with Tom. In fact, I would have been more comfortable in pushing past that encounter to get on with my speedy life, but as we sat in the airport bar, sipping large schooners of pale ale, Tom listened intently, smiling and nodding (whether he understood the English conversation around him is beside the point). Occasionally, he would put his hand on my arm and ask me to repeat (because of my thick English accent!), and we would pause the conversation.

We were socially connected, not distanced.

At the end, I placed my own hand on his forearm - he looked shocked, as if he hadn't been touched in a long time - and I gave him my business card. He read it, smiled and flicked it against his fingers.

"Okay," he said, "I call you. I call you and say, 'This is Greek Tom. You come back to the airport.'"

We've been extrapolating at length how God is teaching us new things in this New Nor... (I won't write it) new period of human existence. Yes, some of it is slowing down, but I think the greater priority for us is to stop and ask questions, be blessed by, and value the stories of others - stories of people who may normally be overlooked.

I feel like going back to the airport.