My Turn: So tell me, what did you do?

We’ve all gone through awkward moments with fellow "hibernates" in the weeks since our COVID-19 restrictions have been moderately lifted. What do you say to each other? You feel like a bear that has come out of hibernation to meet the eating season and there is nothing out there to consume.

People seem estranged. Seconds tick by before words can be framed to greet them.

"So, tell me [fill in the blank], what have you been doing to keep yourself busy during the pandemic?"

Their eyes telegraph the same question and the silence greets you as you meander an odd road of social awkwardness trying to come up with a response.

Should our greeting be accompanied by a hug? Should distance be maintained?

Their eyes echo a similar set of "new" rules followed by foot-shuffling ahems and pauses that seem to last an eternity.

We greet this world of awakening with trepidation. What are the rules that we need to follow? What paths have gotten us to this moment in time when we feel the need for a hug or see a smile, some long hidden behind those masks?

So, what has occupied our time away from each other?

Let’s see, at the beginning of the lockdown, my wife taught me the rudiments of mah-jongg. We played for a while at the kitchen table until the clink of the tiles and my inability to fully grasp the nature of the game led me to other pursuits.

Let’s see, my books. I had more than enough time to pore through volumes as we awaited the all-clear signal from the powers that be. And I did. I was reading volumes until my back ached with intense concentration and my head kept falling to the side like a wrecking ball as I napped between chapters.

Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, a program for adult education offered at Stony Brook University, early on became a haven from the interminable hours. We were engaged with courses through the wonders of technology, and I could at least see people outside of the borders of my home.

Zooming proved to be a frustrating activity as I watched but could not actively interact with real people. We had all become avatars in a play that had no real denouement. Through freezes and the cross-talking of participants who forgot to turn off the audio, we slogged through the hours.

I even tried teaching myself to play a guitar, an expensive interlude that only proved that the fingers at my age would not engage the strings in any meaningful way to actually produce music.

The days just seemed to nightmarishly pass. Thankfully Sudoku, Cryptoquotes and crossword puzzles, in Newsday, kept me engaged mentally for a few hours in the morning.

Because I could not break the habit of eating early, on my middle-school lunch schedule, which always alerted my stomach with a klaxon of hunger pangs, I set aside an hour for lunch and my e-book reader.

Netflix and Amazon Prime made for a diversion in the evenings. After spending hours watching decent movies at the beginning of the pandemic, I was left with the movie dregs, which provoked wonder at the awful plots and bad acting that prompted moviemakers to expend their time and energy to produced such awful drivel.

So, where, did the year and months go, and what did I do to maintain my sanity?

Tell, me what did you do?

Sy Roth,

Mount Sinai