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In the Community
What Makes a Resilient Community?
by Jeff Wheeldon
Novel Coronavirus has changed our lives a sense of timeless disorientation that has made
dramatically this year, in ways we couldn’t have the last four months feel like years.
expected. The things that most frame and shape
our lives — our very sense of time and space — But the amount of disruption in our schedules
have been transformed. This affects us all, but it depends on how much of a schedule we had in
affects us all differently the first place. More than half of Brightonians
are retired, with some having full control of
Our sense of time was already strained. We’ve their own schedules for decades already;
long been free from the tyranny of the TV Guide: and many new parents in our community are
where we once had to wait for weekly television already in a state of timelessness brought on
or radio shows, streaming services deliver by too many sleepless nights (I remember it
content “on demand.” The routine of picking well!). Realtors and artists and many other
up the weekly newspaper from the doorstep or professions already set their own schedules
corner store gave way to constantly updating or work on call or from home, so lockdown
news feeds. The rhythms of nature are not as hasn’t changed their routines much; and for
obvious to us as they were to our ancestors. many, whether they’re the front-line workers
But when lockdown began, almost everything at Sobeys and No Frills, or the factory workers
else stopped: work, school, church, book clubs, who commute to Trenton or Belleville to
sports leagues — all of the things that shaped produce essential goods, the work week may
our days and weeks. We entered “COVID Time”, even have intensified.
The Brighton Beacon 19
