Photo by Chang Duong on Unsplash
In self-isolation, I was staring outside my window the other day and saw what looked like a charity 10K run in the middle of the street and teeming sidewalks below. I understood the situation: everyone was so desperate to get outside for some fresh air during the early stages of this global pandemic. Failing miserably at respecting the recommended two metres of distance from each other, many ?good citizens? of Toronto madly and mindlessly crossed into each other?s path, scrambling to jaywalk across the normally speedy arterial of Bayview Avenue so they can reach the narrow gates of the Mount Pleasant Cemetery, where a disconcerting amount of people jostled to get inside.
I assumed this scene was playing out across Toronto and around the world, as we learn to recalibrate our physical self-awareness in the public realm. A new social contract pertaining to social distance is evolving. In addition to groups and families walking four- or five-abreast, impatient joggers paced each other in the middle of the road, cyclists wove about and young children on bicycles, scooters?and yes, even a self-righteous battery-operated toy model of a Tesla?crowded out the sidewalks. Amidst this new form of mitigated public life, delivery vans intermittingly pulled up to deliver parcels of fast fashion in slower times, while a near-empty TTC bus missed an ill-trained off-leash Golden Doodle by a hypoallergenic hair. ?He?s not normally like this,? declared the mini...