The Distance Between Us Diminishes

On a walk last week in East Rock, where Suzanne and I shelter 23 hours a day, we got ready to pass a young family coming in the opposite direction on the sidewalk. Normally, of course, this would not present any sense of panic; sidewalks are meant to be shared. But considering our tenuous circumstance these days, we were careful to keep our distance alongside Orange Street by stepping all over a well-tended lawn.

We were close enough, however, to assess the familial detail: the smallest child, wrapped in the arms of her father; the toddler holding his mother’s hand; and the oldest traveling on a kick scooter and wearing a helmet – she was perhaps six years old – leading the way.

She saw us, and our effort at dodging, a skill we have developed of late along with thousands of other New Havenites, and I could sense the quickness of her mind. She turned to her parents and, with an air of worry but authority, instructed them, ​“Single file.”

They obeyed, as they passed us, acknowledging our obvious if unspoken appreciation for their daughter’s sagacity.

There has been, in all, a new range of communication on our sidewalks, and much of it is both illuminating and pleasant. Strangers seem to be acknowledging each other, waving, going so far as to say ​“Good morning.” This would come as some news to whomever it was who advised me, when we moved here from Chester several years ago, that ​“New Haven has been named as one of the unfriendliest cities in America.”

I wasn’t sure what to make of that back then, and what the source was of that brutal assessment. When I did some digging, I saw the culprit was Conde Nast Traveler, which in 2016 ranked New Haven as the sixth coldest urban area in America, just one spot below our neighbor, Hartford, and several below the most egregious, according to the magazine, Newark, N.J. (The friendliest, in the opinion of the editors, is Charleston, S.C.) But I thought of it over the years whenever I passed someone on the sidewalk who didn’t return my ​“hello.” Is it true? Do we live in a place of cold fish?

I have wondered on occasion. In crowds of Yalies, Suzanne and I are sometimes reminded we are mere civilians. Friends of ours who moved here from New York City and settled in a neighborhood of professors, retired and still active, complained that for two years they weren’t given the time of day by the elite on their street. But they were slow to understand that that slogan of Connecticut, ​“Qui transtulit sustinet,” translated from the Latin, apparently means, ​“He who has the temerity to move here from another place must wait at least 24 months before being accepted by neighbors.”

This is not to say all sons and daughters of Eli are cold. We have among our gallery of pals some very nice Bulldogs. And in East Rock, which is dense with Yale grad students and profs, things are getting warmer, especially now, as the notion that ​“we’re all in this together” seems to have taken hold.

As I have written earlier for this site, Yale has in normal days invited the community to take part in any number of public programs that occur every week, and at these they don’t usually make a distinction between academics and mere civilians.
And one of the nice things about East Rock is that over time pedestrians have learned that they don’t take their life in their hands when they acknowledge another person on the sidewalk.

Indeed, on the morning that I am writing this, I stood on my porch and noticed a family of four walking by, and ventured to shout out a greeting. Two of the members of the family were tiny, enjoying a stroller ride. The oldest, I surmised was about 3, and she was wearing a bonnet. She waved back at me, a complete stranger, and said, “Happy Easter.”

Even in East Rock Park, where the walkers usually keep to themselves, there seems to be more camaraderie than normal, even if it is difficult to refrain from petting their adorable dogs that seem to have no fear of pandemics.

The other day, I made one of our rare appearances at the food market, in this case P&M. As I reviewed my grocery list—I remind myself I must do that because even when there are only half a dozen items on it I have a tendency to overlook one of them, a behavioral glitch not recommended in the pursuit of domestic tranquility—I expanded it to include many items that I decided quite on my own would suit.

Too many, apparently, for my backpack to accommodate, especially for a fellow who on occasion forgets to zip up all the zippers. As a result, I no sooner left the market when one of bottles of Italian fizzy water dropped to the ground and broke in a hundred pieces, the water turning the concrete into, I hoped, a sanitary space. It wasn’t but ten seconds later when two employees of the shop came out to cheerfully clean it up, assure me that all was OK, even as one of them brought out a replacement bottle and wished me a day free of breaking things, and I told them any time they need entertainment to give me a call.

It may be, of course, that people are just as friendly as they’ve always been, and that I, and others, may be just more attuned to our fellow man and woman than ordinarily.

Indeed, we are all in this together, but even that is a dangerous phrase. When people try to assure each other –  politicians are particularly guilty of this –  “We’ll get through this,” they are not speaking for those who have been lost, or for their loved ones. Yes, we’ll get through this, but it will be different for so many, and there won’t be as many of us to forge ahead.

As this crisis endures, though, try to keep both safe and reasonably cheerful, and let’s see if we can give old Charleston, S.C., which after all was pretty unfriendly, slave-wise, in years past, a run for its reputation.

(Speaking of closing the distance … Read more about Chris Randall’s Porch-Ritz project here. Sign up here.)