A meditation on isolation
By Kendra Jones, commissioned by Convergence Theatre
She sits on her sofa. Resisting the temptation to open her laptop again, to scroll again, to get sucked in to the endless sea of images. News clips, photos of someone’s kid. Memes. So many fucking memes.
/Facebook ding.
Ignore it. Ignore it.
Her mind drifts. . . she catches her reflection in the window.
She smiles.
She wonders, is that weird?
Smiling at yourself?
At your reflection? The vanity.
/Skype sound.
With the alarming digital noise now looping, far too loud into her living room, she realizes she hasn’t spoken to another person in three days. Like actually spoken words aloud. Her cat doesn’t count. Should she answer?
She pauses.
On the one hand, it would be lovely to see someone, even digitally.
To hear someone breathe.
To see them smile.
On the other hand, she acknowledges quietly, in her mind, that she hasn’t showered in those three days either. Her voice will probably be raspy from non-use, then she’ll have to explain that she isn’t sick.
Might just be easier to. . .
/Skype sound stops.
There was this time. . . back, before. . . whatever this is. . . she was on her way to work. She took an unusual route that morning. As she transferred from the streetcar to the subway, she walked past a few homeless people sitting on the ground. She smiled if they caught her eye, feeling sheepish for never carrying change or a granola bar in her bag to offer, suddenly self conscious of her privilege. As she turned the corner, a woman looked at her with eyes that pierced into her soul, immediately seeing this self consciousness, and said aloud, “she knows what it means to dress herself in black”. That sentence rang through her head the rest of that day.
It wasn’t upsetting. It was nice.
Almost comforting, really.
To be seen so clearly, so quickly.
It is hard for her not to wonder whether that will ever happen again. . .
Will we ever go back to real interactions?
Will it ever be comfortable to look someone in the eye again?
To brush up against them by accident, or sit back to back in a crowded cafe?
Will we ever sit in theatres or on transit, near to one another, to strangers again?
She wants to believe we will; that this forced only-online time will make us value real interaction more. Value closeness to those we love. To strangers. That if this ever ends, she won’t see couples on dates in restaurants looking at their phones, but instead looking at each other. Really seeing one another, deeply, honestly.
The weight of unproductivity sits on her shoulders as she realizes she is scrolling again.
She scrolls and scrolls.
How are there people thriving in this time?