So in order to ‘stay safe’ we need to protect ourselves from

• the air we breathe through nose and mouth,
• the air that we move through that might have Covid 19 moving through it too, looking for wet  mucous perhaps in our eyes
• the surfaces we touch on which Covid 19 may have landed and which we may inadvertently transfer to our eyes,nose or mouth

In short sensory organs that impact on communication

• smell
• taste
• touch
• sight

Only hearing is left and we need to listen carefully, having possibly lost information from those other senses as we put on masks, face shields and gloves. How hard it must be to help the sick and dying, the isolated and lonely, the confused and frightened. But the sense of hearing can be honed. As I listen now to the sounds around me, it changes my breathing and stills my busy mind.

A small space opens up for, using Dylan Thomas’s words, to maybe let another thought to ‘creep or flash or thunder in’