Coming Out of Seclusion

This period of seclusion, isolation, and separation during the pandemic and the fears and anxieties that have arisen as a result highlight the lived experience that we are always stepping out of seclusion as we are at the same time always moving back into it. Now in some places, in particular the United States, we begin to move cautiously and joyously out of the physical seclusion and simultaneously back into the gifts, however clear or opaque they have been experienced, that the disruption of the pandemic has provided us, whether they be a clearer sense of the importance of connection, reflection and silence in our lives, or the uncomfortable realization of what it is to be, at some level, utterly and entirely alone.