With the weather warming up to near-summer
temperatures the last couple of days, people are becoming more and
more restless about staying cooped up inside. I could see this plainly this
afternoon when I visited Allison Park,
an eight-acre park in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, not far from where I live in Bergen
County.
I came to behold and photograph the spectacular cliff-top
view overlooking the Hudson River. Plenty of other people did, too: By the time
I got there in mid-afternoon, there was only one parking space in the whole
lot.
While most people seemed careful to give others a
wide berth on the paved walkways winding through the grounds, they were not
quite as careful about practicing social distancing in their own groups, as you
can see here on the park benches (or, not shown, couples on blankets in the
middle of the grass). But most, if not all, were careful to wear some sort of
facial covering.
And, lest anyone disagreed, a “Parkway Police”
vehicle entered the parking lot to make sure everyone knew where they
stood.
A writer friend of mine told me she was
continuing to jot down her thoughts daily, in what she has come to
see as a diary of COVID-19. While I have never been disciplined enough to
maintain a diary (and have never been crazy about anyone somehow getting their
hands on my innermost thoughts), I realize now that for the last two months,
with my “Photo of the Day,” I have, in effect, been creating a
photojournalistic equivalent of Life During Plague Time—with even pictures taken
several years ago now acquiring a different meaning in the light of this catastrophe.
Today’s post is squarely in that vein.
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