Unlike in Israel, the east coast of the US has a very slow change of seasons. Nature, which has been stagnant under the killing chill of winter, becomes reincarnated: new leaves appear on the trees, another sunray defrosts the cold, and what has survived grows anew.
And like a miracle, in the first sunny day of spring, the people that have long holed up at home with many layers upon layers, peel off the cold months and go out in unison to the public parks and streets, with a look of anticipation for what the sun foretells.
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But this year, when I went to meet friends at a Manhattan park, the feeling I got was one of uncertainty. The governor of New York announced that the semi-lockdown will continue until mid-June, but there will be some easing. T
That's why when I walked down the street, I felt as if people were not quite sure how to conduct themselves in public: They were somewhat hesitant to go out in T-shirts and summer dresses, going in long swerving paths from the sidewalk and road and vice versa.
The bars and the restaurants have reopened and have begun serving takeout beer and food. Groups upon groups waiting in line, unsure where to go, how to drink with a mask, or whether they can hug their friend that had joined them.
I went down to the subway. This was the first time in two months that I had gone to Manhattan. The platform, which would normally be packed with people commuting back from work, was deserted.
Only a homeless man was there on a bench. I wondered how he has fared over the past two months: Did they tell him about the pandemic? Did he have anywhere to go? How did he survive without passengers giving him something, without health care coverage, without a mask? I went over to him and gave him a dollar bill in his cup, as if to tell him, "We shall overcome."
I stepped into the subway car. It had a handful of people. The train shook. I looked around.
Since the masks were covering half of the face, people looked straight at my eyes. The unwritten rule in this city is that you never look at someone in the eye if you don't know them. That is just one of the ways to survive in this massive city, it's a way of being desensitized because there are so many stimuli – too much noise, smells and people.
If you accidentally stole a glance at you have to immediately look the other way. Anyone who is not you, should not exist. The masks that we wear on normal days cover our eyes, but the people in the lonely car stared for quite some time at each other, their batting eyelids showing their concern, and with a small blinking gesture they said, metaphorically, "We shall get through this."
When I get off, I feel that those stranger passengers were protecting me. I got out to the street, the sun was shining.
Winter had passed, the winter that had claimed the lives of thousands, and even though the fate of summer is still unknown, and despite the social distancing that has been imposed on us, on the street, there has been a sense of togetherness over the winter that we had to endure.
The cozy feeling was with me until I reached a newsstand and saw the front page of The New York Times, which had the names of 1,000 people out of the 100,000 people who would die from coronavirus by that day or shortly thereafter. Some 100,000 pairs of eyes.
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