The sooner we heed the premier’s command and stay the blazes home, the sooner we flatten the curve, and the sooner, no matter how distant that day might be, we get to go out again, just like we used to.
I see that happening on a Saturday because, though the old age pension beckons, I have never gotten over the childish notion that it is the day of freedom, when you do whatever you want.
So, in my mind, it will be with the pandemic lockdown, whenever it finally ends.
The loved ones I’ve been separated from during these social distancing times will be there to greet me that day.
Maybe they will even join me as I do the things I’ve vowed to do when the door groans open, and we all step, blinking, back out into the sunlight.
It’s going to be a different world as Andrea Gunn detailed in these pages the other day, but I will deal with that when I get there, because there’s no room for what-ifs in my imagination.
In there, I will be able to walk out the door right up to old friends and neighbours, close enough to see the whites of their eyes, and shoot the breeze at an unhurried pace.
I will again be able to go to crowded places that have brought me joy.
I will be able to walk across a beach where, right now, plovers, but no human beings, may tread.
So, on the Saturday morning of my imagination, I will stand there for a second, letting all that sink in.
Then I will just start to walk, because it will be great to freely put one foot in front of the other, along a path that I haven’t been tromping a couple of times daily since the trouble began.
I know just where I will go: through the old neighbourhood streets, across Robie Street into the now-closedoff Camp Hill Cemetery, a strange destination for post-pandemic, but one which never fails to comfort me, because it underscores that everything is ultimately out of our hands.
Free to go where I please, I’ll amble next through the Public Gardens because by then everything will be lush, and I’ve missed that.
Then I’ll cross South Park Street, go through the fence, and start circling the outside of Citadel Hill, as of Wednesday also closed to the public, because the weather, at that point, will be warming. Down below, everyone will be drunk with freedom.
The city, from that vantage point, will be as we glowingly remember it now in our self-isolation.
Imaginative leaps like this are unbound by time and geography. So, from there I will be able to go where I want, depending upon needs, and time of day.
If it were morning, that first day back from quarantine, I might head north for a cappuccino at Espresso 46, or Java Blend, or amble south to Trident Booksellers & Café, because in the future I envision all of these places will emerge unscathed from the shutdown.
If it was a little later in the day, all that walking would have given me an appetite, and I would surely want a meatball hero at Salvatore’s Pizzaiolo, an order of eggplant parm at Rinaldo’s, or a bowl of pork ramen at Studio East Food+Drink, in each case, sitting outside so, in my euphoria, I can nod at strangers and make funny faces at kids in passing strollers.
I’m not, by any stretch of the imagination, a shopper, but on such a day I would want to stroll up and down the racks at Atlantic News.
I would walk through the door at Bookmark Halifax, because by then my bookshelves will be pandemic-depleted, and because my pulse quickens ever so slightly whenever I go in there.
I’ve missed walking where bandy-legged pirates and privateers once swaggered.
On Day 1 of freedom, I’d want to step for a second into the Central Library, on a minute-by-minute basis the liveliest building in all of Halifax. When I exited there, I’d gradually make my way down to the waterfront.
Somebody I pass will probably say hello, because Halifax is a friendly town, and because all of humanity seems to congregate down along the harbour boardwalk on a fine day.
It’s not the crowds that draw me. I’ve missed walking where bandy-legged pirates and privateers once swaggered. I’ve missed that harbour funk and the creak of rope, old wood and salt water.
I see myself just standing there for a minute, maybe watching a tug, or somebody in a kayak, go by. Not for too long though, because, in real life, I like to take some refreshment late on a Saturday afternoon.
Maybe outside at the Stillwell Beergarden on Barrington, or maybe inside my friend’s bar, Bearly’s, which has been on the far end of Barrington Street for a long time, and which I hope will be there for a long time longer.
The way I see that day some of my friends will be there. Because the day the lockdown of 2020 ends will be a day to celebrate, a day we will never forget.
And, it will also be a day where people who have known each other for a long time can sit around a saloon table, just like they always used to.
I’ve missed walking where bandy-legged pirates and privateers once swaggered.
