There’s a tradition Maine island people have perfected. Porching. Visit a Casco Bay Island or a summer lake camp and you’ll find impromptu invitations from neighbors for stopping by just long enough to say hello and hear neighborhood news.
Some might say the tradition, requiring a front porch, is as old as the American front lawn, an art form born before air conditioning, when idling on the verandah was a hallmark of the newly-created leisure class. Once lawns became communal spaces designed to connect a neighborhood, the porch became the vantage point to “see what was coming” along the street.
Perhaps that’s useful guidance for helping us all get back to re-entry and a qualified happily-ever-after, where we begin to define what safely distanced and #alonetogether means.