There is no doubt mask wearing is the least we can do to help prevent the spread.
But who could have dreamed that we’d still be donning them two and a-bit years following the first alert, with still little hope that the smiles that follow recognition of people we see in neighbourhoods, in supermarkets, or anywhere else in town will ever return?
The thought struck me last week at the supermarket when I recognised an old friend I used to meet up with at a weekly gathering that many of us have abandoned since Covid. I knew it was her only by her coat and hairstyle.
On approach, she looked at me with eyes completely blank. “It’s Lois,” I explained, discreetly lifting my mask a little, hoping no-one else saw.
“Oh, so it is,” she replied.
Keeping the required social distance we chatted briefly, then went on our way. How sad life has become without the regular meets and greets we once took for granted, including the hugs when meeting someone we hadn’t seen for a while.
And how much sadder for people who live alone, with family members scattered elsewhere.
I am lucky with offspring and grandchildren in the same city.
There are close friends to share an occasional coffee or lunch with at a local restaurant where one can at least shed the mask while seated, but still somewhat uncomfortably aware that someone at the next table could be unknowingly carrying the dreaded virus. Hence, the coffee sessions are not as regular as before.
Spending time in town, leisurely looking through the racks in dress shops for that “must-have” or hunting out a present for someone, has also lost its appeal of late.
Shopping in the city is now more a necessity than the pleasure it once was.
How I feel sorry for some of the shop assistants, with whom one could often have a lively conversation if they weren’t too busy — and still can. But from behind masks, again, it’s not the same. Without facial expressions, how can one judge a reaction to what you’ve just said — and how can they judge yours?
As I was once advised when remarking on someone’s glum face: “If someone doesn’t have a smile, give them one. It costs nothing.”
How true. It works every time … at least it did before Covid leapt in to spoil the challenge.
And as an old friend, philosopher and poet Mark Steele once wrote: “If I can even generate one flicker of a smile, I will have briefly touched a human heart”.
Here’s hoping this almost “new normal” we all have to grin, albeit invisibly, and bear turns into one we can still find something to smile about.
■ Lois Galer is a former journalist and author of books about Dunedin’s built heritage. Between 1986 and 1996 she was the New Zealand Historic Places Trust’s regional officer for Otago and Southland.