Virtual Chorus post 4

Sudden Telehealth in the Time of Coronavirus

I wake early on the first day of telehealth
And realize how much I will miss
the physicality
Of where you sit in the waiting room
And how you look up when I open the door
How you gather your things and rise.
No one does it just like you.
How you enter as I hold the door,
Passing unavoidably close
To cross the threshold into shared space.
This greeting
No one does it just the same.
For you the first glance is motionless
except for that sardonic eyebrow.
For you, a little shrug and smile.
You, though, raise your chin and forge ahead,
And you have a little swagger that claims the space and time.
Each one so different from the other
In that moment of encounter.
I'll miss my own anticipation as I reach to open up the door.
                - Marguerite Dingman, LCSW
                  Durham, NC