Furlough journal, day 4; connections lost and gained

In today’s edition, a longtime education reporter describes fears of losing connections during the COVID quarantine and her weeklong forced absence from work.

By Linda Borg

Of all the things that the coronavirus has stolen from me, friendship remains.

If anything, it has deepened relationships, made them more real.

My friends ask “How are you?” and I know, now more than ever, that they really mean it.

The question becomes, “Are you lonely?”

“What do you need?”

“What can I do to help?”

What I have learned most about my coronavirus isolation is that I am more connected than ever.

What I have learned most about my coronavirus isolation is that I am more connected than ever.

Before the pandemic, I was panicked about my best friend Ken moving to North Carolina to be close to his mother. I fretted and cried and tried selfishly to persuade him not to go.

Now we talk almost every day. Sometimes the conversations are desultory. Other times we speak of the past, our shared history, first as lovers, then as friends.

Most importantly, we talk about the future, trips together to the Outer Banks or the Blue Ridge Mountains. These conversations imagine a life beyond the tightly bound present.

The best part of my day is when the phone rings and it is Janice, checking in from Florida, where the beaches are closed, or Judy, showing me (online) her latest still life, an orange chair against a gray brick wall.

My favorite was the Zoom cocktail hour that assembled a half-dozen friends from my 20s, people I haven’t seen in 25 years. We caught up with this one’s battle with cancer, that one’s new post-retirement career.

But the most touching was the stranger who called from Florida. I met her once on a beach on the Cape, where we spoke briefly about Osterville, its pleasures and its conceits. It’s a very fancy town now, but wasn’t when I grew up.

We talked for 20 minutes about this and that. I asked why she had called me and she said, “You were in my address book.”

I said I hoped to meet her again on the beach this summer.

Before the pandemic, I was panicked about my best friend Ken moving to North Carolina to be close to his mother. I fretted and cried and tried selfishly to persuade him not to go. Now we talk almost every day.

With no work to fill my days, I turn to the sounds of the human voice, to Mary Oliver’s spoken poetry, to the songs of Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen.

I recall my late mother Nancy’s favorite expressions.

“I don’t have time to get into it,” she would say, before launching into a long story.

“I just watched ‘Larry King Alive.’ ”

“I love you so much.”

Today, as I struggle with another gloomy day that keeps me inside, I look forward to that first phone call, that first conversation.

See also:

Furlough journal, day 3; missing the daily video calls
Furlough journal, day 2; losing the newsroom
Furlough journal, day one; staring at the screen