Uncharted emotional territory in this new pandemic reality: a rapidly oscillating sense of longing and dread, both generated by the same object – being together with people in person. I am experiencing both a longing to connect with people, and a dread of connecting with people because of the health risk. I know this is hitting a nerve in me, because lately when I hear of or see a social media post of people getting together – at parties, demonstrations, vacation spots, workplaces – I feel tears rising. Longing and dread... and the related emotions of envy and anger. And there’s something else I’m feeling in my gut today which I am having trouble articulating. It’s something about division, separation – along lines of race, class, and now age too. The flip side of the privilege that permits Alan and me to protect our health by staying home is that we are increasingly separated from those who do not have this privilege – while we are simultaneously even more dependent on those people in so many ways. The heart is troubled by the divide, and the mind cannot reason its way out of the distress. Uncharted emotional territory, borne of cultural systems far beyond our individual control.