“Zoom, Google Hangouts, House Party are all so clever. We can chat away to as many heads as we can fit into our screen (albeit with the same time lag the Apollo astronauts had with Houston). It’s incredible on FaceTime that someone on the other side of the world is in your kitchen. You can see with your own eyes how well they look, they can show you their view, introduce you to the parrots they are feeding on the balcony. It’s amazing.

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And yet. And yet. It’s funny what you miss. The little aside. The reaction you sense rather than spot. The smell, the actual warmth of a person. I don’t mean the fake mwa mwa kisses but I do miss proper hugs. This is why our isolation is so isolating. It doesn’t matter how many gizmos we have, nothing beats the touch of a hand and the thump of a heart.”