Art Heals: Boarded Up

Every day that I take my afternoon walk I choose a different part of the city to explore. It’s fun the see Spring springing up in urban tulip gardens, people on stoops social distancing with people on the sidewalk, each holding a drink, and  local restaurants creatively addressing the universal closures with clever delivery and takeout options, such as that from our local pizza place offering a roll of toilet paper with every order.

But I also saw many businesses, forced to close by decree of the mayor, boarding up their windows as if we were preparing for a hurricane.  While I can understand the impulse to secure the premises from possible break-ins, it saddens me to think that we have come to that.  I am not unaware of history, that pain and frustration and anger at injustice in many cities led to riots and destruction.  I pray that we are not there yet,  that relief measures can flow to those in most need quickly and that the extraordinary  kindness and  self-sacrifice of so many, from doctors, nurses, orderlies,  firefighters,  police,  grocery clerks,  postal workers,  delivery  people and so many others, can mitigate some of the frustration and fear.

But I worry that as more time passes and confusion reigns about a path to that light at the end of our tunnel, we will board up empathy, walling us in to our isolation.  Fear of the “Other” is primal in the human psyche, an ancient survival skill buried now  under layers of civilization, but as we have seen too often in religious and ethnic conflict all over the world,  easily brought to the surface in times of scarcity or perceived crisis, pitting brother against brother and friend against friend.

Listening to the news, which tells us that no one knows who is a carrier of this virus, that asymptomatic people could spread it unknowingly, that we are still not sure of transmission vehicles (cardboard? plastic?  metal?  the air?)  instills that ancient fear of the Other so damaging to our better instincts.

So while we wear gloves, and stay 6 feet away, and communicate virtually, we can still smile, and make eye contact, and sing from our balconies or front yards. Physical isolation, not emotional isolation.

Here, from photographer and minister Katie Archibald-Woodward, is an image from those forced to board up, remaining open and hopeful.  Art Heals.