Monday night, from a safe distance, I stood face-to-face with a few dozen people I had not seen in six months. Some of them, in truth, I have only ever met indoors, wearing white karate gis, in our training hall.
Because it was the only responsible choice, our informal reunion took place outside, on a long expanse of grass on Conrose Park, which many of us know as the Horsefield.
The venue — beneath a big sky, near an immense tree where I smoked wine-tipped cigarillos while in junior high — expanded the spirit.
Seeing, after a long absence, people with whom I had spent a couple of hours each week, year in and year out, was great.
So was the ki, the intrinsic energy that arises while performing the predetermined sequences of karate techniques known as katas, in a large group, even if socially distanced.
It’s crazy to argue that there’s anything positive about a pandemic that has killed so many and caused such economic calamity, but at least one thing has emerged since COVID-19 hit that may be good enough to hold onto: it has pushed us outside, where there is room to breathe.
I used to think that time was the most valuable commodity we possess. In our new pandemic world, I think that we should add wide-open space to that small list of things that truly matter.
This is not an original thought: the other morning, while walking up my street, I saw a neighbour in her backyard doing a virtual Zoom workout, while down the road a man on a raised back deck led a woman, on street level, through a lively exercise program.
On the schoolyard next door to my house, some university-aged women performed dips, planks and wind-sprints. Nearby, some aspiring Kyle Lowreys dribbled around plastic cones, came to two-foot jump stops, and then shot what may someday qualify as power layups.
People, as far as I could see, were mostly keeping the mandatory two-metre distance. Some, like at my karate gathering, were wearing masks.
Which is good because now that the restrictions have been lifted our beaches are busy again, the bike trails, I am told, swarm with cyclists, the campgrounds, from all accounts, are enjoying a record summer.
Those are the types of places where you would expect to see a desire to get outside manifest itself.
Yet, the last few weeks, I have also seen yoga classes at Victoria Park in Halifax and at Risser’s Beach, in Lunenburg Count, because why not.
I have glimpsed people like me lacing up running shoes again because exercise is good, but so is fresh air.
I read some good news in this regard recently: exercising outdoors — which reduces stress, and induces something called muscle confusion, which helps burn more calories — has some obvious advantages over elevating the heart rate indoors.
How, in practical terms, we continue to huff and puff outside once the snow flies, is any one’s guess, but when something matters we do tend to find a way.
The last time I went out for a drink I found the interiors of every Halifax saloon I entered all but empty. The patios, where I really wanted to sit, were full.
Luc Erjavec, vice-president, Atlantic Canada, Restaurants Canada, wasn’t the least bit surprised to hear this.
Lots of people just aren’t comfortable eating inside a restaurant with COVID lingering.
“Operators want to extend the patio season as far as they can,” he told me Tuesday.
That means everything from outdoor heaters and wind-barriers to blankets to keep diners and drinkers comfortable.
I like the sound of that.
I like as well, something I saw on Monday night, walking through my neighbourhood, on the way down to the Horsefield.
I have lived in that area for something like 28 years, but that was the first time I have seen a pair of my neighbours — older than university age, with jobs, children and other responsibilities — on their front steps on a weeknight, sipping a pair of nice cold beers.
It was nice to see. I didn’t bother to ask them why they decided to take their liquid refreshment outdoors.
I imagine they just felt the urge to be outside as, increasingly we all do.
