A few short months ago, back when this country’s quarantine was in its toddler stage, I was driving through my neighborhood past quiet houses with dark windows. The sun was barely up.

I’d been working from home for about a week, but there was an important meeting to attend. In person. We had to address the situation. Precautions, cutbacks, and short-term plans. Questions followed by awkward silence. Are we standing far enough apart?

I left the radio off, driving through the neighborhood. Listening to my tires softly rumble against the asphalt. When I came upon the edge of downtown, right before lawns and porches gave way to buildings and shops, right before my mind switched from thoughts of home to thoughts of work, there was a guy.

People were walking through the streets like we’re living in some post-apocalyptic movie, like cars are a thing from the Old Times. It’s a bit early in the pandemic for all this nonsense, I thought. This isn’t The Walking Dead. Yet.

He was walking right down the middle of the street. Just walking. No worries, no tension between his feet and the asphalt. So I took a right, opting for an alternate route. I didn’t want to bother him or make him move.

Three blocks later, there was a woman. Doing the exact same thing. She was walking down the middle of the road with no worries and no one else in sight. Nothing in her stride said, “I shouldn’t be here.”

Nothing in the way she moved said, “I know this is weird. I’m just gonna sneak by here. I’m so sorry. Pretend I wasn’t here.”

I got to work, parked in the parking lot. And everything felt surreal. And I thought, “What’s going on?”

People were walking through the streets like we’re living in some post-apocalyptic movie, like cars are a thing from the Old Times. It’s a bit early in the pandemic for all this nonsense, I thought. This isn’t The Walking Dead. Yet.

Later on, a co-worker told me he’d gotten up early that same week to shoot some video of downtown Eau Claire at daybreak. He’d set up his camera in the middle of the street to catch the sunrise. And there was a guy. Hiking down Barstow Street, a walking stick in hand. Like he was exploring a ravine in the early morning light.

OK, let’s fast-forward. Months have flown by and melted together and here we are. For most of us, reality isn’t exactly apocalyptic. It’s not great. It’s not not bleak. But there are still cars in the streets. Wisconsin has opened up, for both better and worse.

And now I’m the one walking in the street.

It feels like I’ve taken more walks around the neighborhood in the past few weeks than I did in all of 2019. My wife gets us out of the house and moving. She’s the one who gets me out to see the world. If not for her, I’d just stand in the kitchen eating snacks and grumbling at my news feed.

We’ve developed a new protocol for walking on the sidewalk. When we see someone coming at us, we swing out into the street to maintain a six-foot buffer. In extreme cases, we might even cross the street entirely.

And since everyone is taking walks these days, there are often multiple people traveling in both directions on both sides of the street. And that’s when I find myself walking down the middle of the road – Walking Dead-style – nervous about inattentive motorists.

This is a kindness. As much as I hate it when other pedestrians break the new protocol, and as much as I’d like to carry around a whiteboard so as to emphatically map out the proper procedure, walking into the street is really about respect. It’s a quiet little voice that says, “I respect your safety. And I’m willing to change my own path to preserve it.”

So if someone won’t swing out into the street, I will.

Back on that morning when I saw those people walking in the street, I just assumed they were enthralled by the national vibe. They were taking small liberties in the face of looming darkness. But I really don’t know. It was probably just a string of coincidences filtered through my own anxiety.

Now when I see people strolling in the road, I just think, “Thank you.”

Thank you for caring about me. I care about you, too.

Be safe.