Last night at 8pm, like every 8pm since the confinement, we went to the window and clapped. Sometimes it’s rowdy, sometimes there are cheers, sometimes a person down the street plays along on the trumpet and makes us all laugh. This time there was nothing immediately extraordinary, the trash collectors had already passed so they didn’t honk us into an encore. The trumpeter was quiet, nobody hollered or yelled. 8:01, rhythmic, steady. 8:02, it seemed like it would stop but it didn’t. Seconds ticked by. Strange, I thought, to keep going, but I did. 8:03, the moment felt solemn somehow. I realized we were still clapping because we weren’t ready to move away from one another. Stranger’s silhouettes staggered in their windows held us captive, a collective comfort in the movement of our hands, leaning out into this shared space in the middle of all these walls.
Finally, it came to an end. Hands began to lower, cigarettes were lit, someone turned on music and curtains started to close as one by one people disappeared back inside, calling “bonne soirée!” and “à demain!” I wondered if they too were struck by the weight of these typically unremarkable words. The greater context and this particular night -- just a few hours after Paris’ confinement had been extended -- seemed to lend them a strange gravity. And yet I somehow felt reassured. Yes, we’ll all be here tomorrow, for another 15 days or more, in this act we’ve named “distancing,” miraculously more with each other than ever before.⠀