Watch birds. Geese if you’ve got them.

That’s one small way to cope with social distance dysphoria.

I’m not talking about “bird watching,” in the sense of identifying species, and pointing them out to other humans who don’t know as much as you do about the differences between species of sparrow. As if there were others around, and they weren’t all off self-isolating somewhere.

I’m suggesting you just watch birds in the way that you might watch people in a crowd, in the days when there were crowds. I like Canada geese, because they are a lot like people. They gather and squawk, conducting unknown goose business and gossip. They are very messy. Once they find a spot they like, they ruin it for everyone else.

But any geese will do. Brants or snow geese if you see them where you live. Pigeons will serve, or sparrows, or any other birds that gather in groups and have agendas that we don’t understand and make noise and a mess with little concern for others or the future.