People
by Barbra Streisand
People,
People who need people,
Are the luckiest people in the world
We’re children, needing other children
And yet letting a grown-up pride
Hide all the need inside
Acting more like children than children
Lovers, very special people
They’re the luckiest people in the world
With one person (one person)
One very special person (one very special person)
A feeling deep in your soul (in your soul)
Says you were half now you’re whole
No more hunger and thirst
First be a person who needs people
People who need people
Are the luckiest people in the world
No more hunger or thirst
First be a person who needs people (people need people)
People who need people
Are the luckiest (luckiest) people in the world
People who need people in the world
People who need people (send…
Are we Babs, if I may call you that?
In this time of isolation, self-quarantine, and stay-at-home orders because of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), my need for people seems like a curse. On the rare occasions, I do go out, suffocating under my double surgical masks, barely able to tell if others can tell I’m smiling at them and unable to tell if they’re smiling at me, I wonder. I can’t tell if they can tell my eyes are squinting at them because I’m smirking at them out of friendliness or if they are doing the same.
As soon as I run home from these lighting-quick errands for essentials, I pry off my latex gloves and hear that squeaking sound as I do, immediately throwing them in the trash. I sanitize everything, smelling that wholly inhuman antiseptic smell. I long for what I now realize was a luxury: briefly and unintimidating-ly touching strangers (below the elbow, which is supposed to be an unthreatening way to touch people, especially strangers) touching.
This new world was not good for me at the outset of stay-at-home. It had been harkening back to a very difficult time in my life when I was essentially a shut-in. Then I re-discovered exercise after six-plus months of nothing remotely like it, and it changed everything. The movement, the flow, the activity–albeit at home instead of my local gym–to a streaming PiYo workout (my favorite type) somehow cured me of deep depression, anxiety, and despair at not being able to be out in the world as I had been for the past two-plus years when I threw myself into local politics and got out of the house and among people on a daily basis. These two-plus years of local politico-ing had, in turn, cured me of several years prior of the aforementioned harmful psychological states.
Then came COVID-19, and I was a shut-in again. I relished those mad dashes to perform essential errands even if I couldn’t stand more than six feet from anybody else and was secluded behind my surgical masks, had been like a lifeline to the world–to people–when I couldn’t behave normally, seeing friends at work, going to meetings for local political club, and seeing my friends in person during my free time.
I live with my parents, thank God, otherwise who knows how much more isolated I might feel, Now that exercise has made me able to cope with the isolation of quarantine, I can accept that I don’t know it will end.
My acrylic nails, eyelash extensions, and properly groomed eyebrows, all very important to me, have all broken off, fallen out, and look sub-par, respectively. But I’ve accepted I’ll have to wait to get them attached, applied, and threaded. In fact, it’s probably a good break from the constant glue application and ripping out for my nails, eyelashes, and eyebrows.
But I still miss people. I love talking to strangers, everywhere and any time I can. It’s been a challenge for me to not be able to, except to essential workers behind plexiglass partitions for just a few seconds. But this is all only temporary, I know.
And I realize Babs is right: people who need people are the luckiest people in the world because relationships are what give our lives meaning, deep ones, superficial ones, momentary ones.
Researcher Dan Buettner studied the world’s Blue Zones, those where people are the happiest. He concluded that purpose, pleasure, and pride make these people so fulfilled. I added to this Buettner-ian formula people and piety (while I am a religious Shi’a Muslim, by piety I don’t mean religiosity, just whatever thing larger than yourself you can identify that broadens and makes infinite your perspective).
And, as Babs sang, we are lucky if we need people. For needing them is the basis of acquaintance, friendship, and love. And these are so much of what give life meaning, satisfy us, make us whole.
Also: A poem about County Guy, then and now.
I’m grateful for your readership! Check back with me each week here at politicalpoetrypastiche as my linguistic, literary, and generally loquacious involvement in local politics takes on a mélange of prose and poetry genres. After all: All Politics Is HoCo-al™. Join me on Facebook here, find me on Twitter at @politicalpoetr3, and follow me on Instagram using the handle @politicalpoetrypastiche.