Space Bubbles!

On the outer reaches of comfort!

Before you read this post, go back to the title and subtitle.

Sing them.

Sing them in a falsetto. Make the ‘o’ in comfort a really long one.

Pretend that you’re an opera star. Check the house for broken glass.

Finished?

Good.

Still with me?

Even better.

Three years have passed since I began worrying about the global pandemic. From where I sit, the concerns I have had are receding in the rear view. The threat does not seem as close. The experience, like anything was both good and bad. One of my favorite aspects of the pandemic relates to proximity.

We all have our own space bubbles, our kinesthetic spheres of influence. Every person has a sense of the space around them and how to negotiate this. We all have our outer reaches of comfort. Me? I have a huge space bubble. I do not like being in close proximity to many people. This can be a problem.

When we face people with different cultures and understandings on how we share space, our own spacial comforts can seem strange. For others, it can be do…