Special guest post by Jill Yokoyama 

It looks like COVID-19 is going to be with us for awhile and every day the situation seems to get more serious.  I would like you to cast your thoughts back a few weeks to the middle of March, when all these changes were so new to us and we were trying to follow the instructions from our medical experts.

How did your interactions with your family and friends change?  If you are like me, you cancelled planned visits and get-togethers with extended family and friends; cancelled work and music rehearsals; you might have even cancelled a long-planned vacation.

As we all tried to stay home I noticed a change in my community on my daily “physically-distanced” walks. I noticed entire families going for walks or bike rides together.  I noticed families doing activities together in their front yards and on their driveways–barbecuing, making sidewalk chalk designs, playing ball, blowing bubbles.

I noticed messages of affirmation and encouragement written in chalk on the sidewalk or painted on stones. These heart-warming messages of support let us know we care for our communities and we will all get through this together.

In the 21^st century we seem to have developed such busy lives that leave little time for each other. I wonder if one of the positive outcomes of COVID-19 will be a new focus on the simpler aspects of our lives such as spending time with family and friends at home and playing games together.

When COVID-19 is a distant memory, will we return to our busy lives or will we see a permanent shift in how we live our lives? Only time will tell. Stay well, my friends, and most importantly, stay home.

Ed. note: Jill submitted this post without a title. I chose the title, “The return to common decency” for her. It is a quote from Albert Camus’ The Plague written in 1941. Camus wrote, “The only means of fighting a plague is common decency.”