Now I feel starved because there’s virtually no chance of negotiation. People can look at one another from a distance, and that’s it. We can come no closer. Though this is happening everywhere in the country, in Los Angeles it feels like a cruel joke, a deliberate upending of our delicate ritual of interrelating.

That’s not all that has been upended. At the risk of seeming like a Los Angeles caricature, I confess that I also walk to be seen. I walk to catch someone’s eye, even if I don’t talk to that person or if the standard distance between us doesn’t close at all. Because a look can close a distance, and that often feeds me enough; it can restore my faith, if it happens to be waning for some reason. Much can be achieved in a look — equilibrium, agreement, mutual admiration. In a city that operates on minimal contact, this kind of exchange is vital.

It makes sense then that contrary to what I expected, I prepare myself each day in a way I haven’t for the past five years or so. As a freelancer working at home, I was typically scattershot about such preparation, like lots of gig-economy people here who seem to live in sweats or glorified pajamas. Suddenly, though, I feel compelled to put on a face each day — dress in a real outfit, arrange my hair, put on a bit of makeup, even though I don’t have plans to meet with anyone. I feel a determination to meet whatever opportunity remains out there in this sad, strange time with as pleasant and ready a face as possible. Even if I ultimately have only myself as company — along with the six dogs I continue to walk every day, in various parts of town — I feel better about the isolation if I look good. The truth is, I need to feel better about it, need to pretty up the bleakness and the association with disease that aloneness has assumed. I need to make my aloneness more hopeful, at least on the surface.

I think it’s paying off. I walked my dogs yesterday in a small, overwhelmingly white community near the ocean. I walk there a lot but as a black woman, I normally feel quite isolated. People I encounter don’t tend to catch my eye or exploit any opportunity for connection, whatever my appearance. In this part of town I’ve gotten used to a certain invisibility. Yesterday, though, a man called to me from across the street, his voice friendly but also urgent. A woman waved vigorously. A girl leaned out of the window of a passing car that had a sign taped to the passenger door: We Love You. “Love” was written within a bright red heart. The leaning girl looked me in the eye and smiled, in a meaningful way. I straightened up and smiled back, meaningfully. Though she was moving away from me in the opposite direction, she — we — were closing the distance.

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