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No Barbara, you do not have Coronavirus! Then, how do you account for this endless fatigue? And the stunning way that time slides by. Where has the day gone? One thing’s for sure. Not only is this Quarantine our best defense against the pandemic spread, if ever there was a case to be made for what happens when we lose a relational approach to life and work, Social Distancing provides us ample proof.
I see on my computer screen that Josie’s face will soon appear. First a nose … then her eye … two eyes … bobbling … “Here I am,” I coo, almost gleefully, “See!”
Josie breaks into a smile, “Hi!” and settles back in the seat of her car.
That’s not how we greet each other in my office, I think, slightly put off by myself. We aren’t long-lost friends, we see each other three times a week! But only head and shoulders now, mere images of who we are. Are we compensating for the cut-off? Framed. Psychoanalysis under glass.
It occurs to me that maybe part of my fatigue relates to this. We’re shut away from the actual energy exchange of bodies that once enlivened us.† Shut away from the variety of living, breathing, moments that punctuated time.
“So how are you?” Josie asks. And we go on like that awhile.
Josie is wearing a quilted jacket zipped to the chin, and her blue wool cap with the pom-pom. This is the first I realize it’s cold outside (that inside and outside still exist). I am struck by this picture of my patient—a therapist herself, beginning her career—mother of two, looking so vulnerable, so different from the young woman who entered my office two years ago.
“We went for a long walk yesterday,” she’s telling me, “the four of us. Good to get out of the house.” Pause. Then, in a lower register, “It’s hard … really hard for the both of us to be doing our separate work and taking turns with the little ones.” Another pause. “Yesterday afternoon I saw my patients in the bathroom!” she laughs, embarrassed. “I mean, they didn’t know where I was sitting but … The only place in the wh