Ready or not, here we come!

Now that Covid has faked its own death, everyone is leaving on a jet plane. We are rushing out to meet family and friends, acquaintances and neighbours. We are throwing out old shoes, and investing in fashionable footwear. We are holding hands and kissing cheeks. Coffeeshops are packed, hotels fully booked. Sunshine has upped its price, but we are willing to pay! Outdoor is where we are.

There has been no dramatic announcement from the WHO, but the human race is all about hope. And short-term memory loss. It’s like we had been locked in a zoo and someone just left our cage open. We don’t know whether to turn left or right, walk or run…

No one can pretend the pandemic has been a picnic. There is trauma stored in our DNA now, in our blood and bone. This loud bonhomie and donning of party hat is meant to overwrite the recent stress, the losses, the brush with mortality. While we are, understandably, wishing away recent events, we are not yet immune to the aftereffects. We have seen nothing like it before, and hold no roadmap out of this maze. Still, with fingers crossed, we enthusiastically make plans, mainly travel plans.

Changes include addiction to online ordering and OTT entertainment. One doesn’t step out to buy milk or go see a film in a theatre anymore. Tourism brochures have been replaced with website clicks. But by and large, we are asking the world to flashback, to take us back to where it left us roughly two years ago. And after all that hurried socialising, after all that eating out, after all that walking carelessly alongside strangers... now what?