http://polaroid41.com/together-soon/
Sunday, December 13th, 2020 - 4:11pm.
I have to be at a studio in the south of Toulouse at 9:30am for a voice over recording.  We are still in lockdown but this time it’s possible to have exceptions for work that can’t be done virtually.  So, here I am on a Friday morning, scurrying out the door with a goal, with a need to be somewhere on time.  (Almost like real life, eh?) I’m changing metro lines at Jean Jaurès, I go up the escalators, through the turn style, down the escalators along the mezzanine where I can see the platform below. I glance at the sign blinking: next train - less than 1 minute. I pick up the pace and round the corner to the stairs leading down to the platform when two digital advertising screens catch my eye.  Together the screens flash images of people hugging, a quick succession of pairs locked in each other's arms, different ages and skin tones, women hugging men, women hugging women, men hugging men, embrace after embrace… I wonder what the ad is for...Benneton? Some brand celebrating diversity? Then I read the words: ‘Ensemble, bientôt,’, Together, soon. My heart clenches and tears spring to my eyes.
I run down the stairs and jump into the train. As the stations blur by I’m aware of a physical ache in my chest that won’t subside.  ‘Together, soon.’  Yes….but when? When? How much longer? When will we be able to greet friends with a hug without worry? Without risk? When will I be able to hug my parents again? My sisters? My nieces? The images of the pairs hugging keep flashing in my mind.
I start to wonder again what the ad was for. I wonder if maybe it was some kind of Public Service Announcement...a sort of ‘hold on, keep going, wear your masks, keep your distance, we’ll all be out of the woods soon.’  Or maybe I missed a sinister tagline reminding us that if we want to be able to hug each other again, we have to follow the restrictions now?
I google it up and am surprised to see it’s an ad by Zalando, a German based E-commerce site for buying shoes and clothes.
Huh.
I’m not sure what to think.
An e-commerce business probably isn’t struggling. They didn’t really seem to be advertising for themselves. I didn’t even understand the ad was theirs. Are they capitalizing on my emotions to try to get me to buy shoes? Maybe. Or maybe they simply needed to make that ad as much as I needed to see it? I wonder if I’m being terribly naive.
I saw a Facebook post asking, “What will you do with your masks when all of this is over?” In the comments someone replied, “Put them in a drawer and take them out twenty years from now to show my grandchildren and say, ‘I remember when…’.” Someone else replied, “Save them for next time.”  At this point both feel almost equally likely.
Together, soon. But when?
Recently I sent a short dialogue to some friends requesting that they start rehearsing their lines. The scene is Christmas 2021, the dialogue centers around us saying things like, “Hey...remember covid? What? Oh yeahhh, that was so weird! Champagne?”
It started as a joke, a way to look forward and feel confident that a year from now this will all be behind us. But underneath my optimism I can hear the little part of me that tries to negotiate with the universe pleading: Christmas, next year. Please give me Christmas next year.
A year ago I never could have imagined that hugging would seem like a radical act, that embraces in an ad in the metro corridor would bring tears to my eyes and make my heart and arms ache. Yet here I am.  Here we are.  Together, soon. I hope.
http://polaroid41.com/together-soon/

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