Isolation by any Other Name

I am going to draw a, potentially seemingly unfair correlation, between a previous experience and the current isolation created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2001, after very little deliberation and an equally insufficient amount of planning, a good friend and I set out on bicycles from Vancouver, BC to navigate our way across seven thousand, nine hundred and fifty four kilometers of Canadian roadways to our eventual destination of St. John’s, Nfld. The solitude, isolation and, quite frankly, painful distancing that came with this adventure were ultimately the greatest challenge we faced.

2001: there was no social media, no smart phones (we didn’t even have a flip phone with us), no immediate communication, no distractions. Contact with loved ones was reserved for periodic calls from pay phones to advise of progress and offer assurances of well being. There were no opportunities for social gatherings through Zoom. Each day we were left to our thoughts, alone on a bike. Each night we were limited to the company of the other.

An important characteristic of both my cycling companion and I, that provides some context to the implications of the isolated environment in which we found ourselves, is that we were/are both tenacious, to a fault. We played university football together, we trained together, we ran with the university track team together and we pushed each other every single step of the way. We were young, driven and too proud to quit, anything.

The natural inclination is to think that the most challenging aspect of the bike trip was the physical exertion. The fact that we would spend, on average, six hours a day pedaling our two hundred and twenty pound frames approximately one hundred and fifty kilometers (on average), while pulling a trailer with eighty pounds of supplies. This was far from the case. In fact, when sharing the anecdotes of this experience in conversations, even years later, my response to these suggestions often resulted in me replying, something to the effect of, “you could handle the biking part”.

As a result of waking each morning, knowing that the time immediately ahead of you will consist of repeating the daily, underwhelming task of packing up the entirety of your worldly possessions, monotony and a misaligned sense of exhaustion begin each day. This is followed by biking. Hours of isolation with only the landscape to appreciate, fast moving traffic only feet to the left and the small mix of music we brought. (I had a mini disc player and around Quebec somewhere the rain infiltrated it. This caused it to be able to only play one disc, containing about 20 songs. For four and a half provinces, I listened to the same 20 songs in rotation.) After a full day of biking, we were not greeted with rest, nourishment and relaxation. Rather, we faced the, at times, daunting task of finding a suitable place to call home for the night. Sometimes this was someone’s back yard, sometimes it was a public park, often it was a ditch just off the highway. Then we set up camp, have something to eat and crawl into a progressively increasing, body odour laden sleeping bag. Just to do it all again tomorrow.

Here I present the parallel to today’s environment. We were alone for a significant portion of this adventure. We had each other, yes; as most of us have a partner, family member or roommate through COVID. Though we were traveling the country, we were confined to the seat of our bikes or the dome of our tent; as most of us today are confined to our homes. We felt a constant desire to just quit. You are thinking, “exactly, that’s the difference, you can just stop biking, we can’t just ‘quit COVID’”. Well, our pride would not let us quit. We created our own forced isolation, just because we were too proud.

This dichotomy ultimately resulted in an internal battle of sorts. The psychological impact of isolation, repetition and social distancing creating, the desire to quit, versus the internally derived pressure of not ever giving up. The outcome, something I have not shared often, was the single most prevalent thought that I have from the entirety of the three-and-a-half-month experience. We were biking through northern Ontario. Two lane highways, heavy with transport truck traffic and shoulders barely wide enough to accommodate the width or our handlebars. I won’t quit. I don’t want to continue. Back and forth through my thoughts. Then, at perhaps the darkest moment, I have a very serious debate with myself. I begin to lay out the rationale and logistics of a plan that would see me not have to continue without quitting. “If I just drift into traffic enough to get thrown into the ditch injured, not dead, I will have no choice but to stop.”

A gruesome thought, at the best of times. One that sticks with me to this day. Of course, acting on this plan did not come to pass. To be entirely honest, it was only years later that I truly appreciated the gravity of the psychological effects the environment we were in created. I worry, that the isolation we are all experiencing today, as a result of COVID-19, is drawing us, our colleagues, our friends and our family members into similar dark places. We may be too proud to admit it, we may be too na?ve to see it and we may be too stubborn to confront it, but it is there.

Of course, this paints a very grim picture of this life impacting event, which is completely unfair. I have seen Canada from coast to coast, in a way that few have had the privilege of doing. We were greeted repeatedly by the kindness of our fellow Canadians and the communities they call home. We bookended each day with breathtaking sunrises and sensational sunsets. Whether over the mountains, across the prairies, around the great lakes, through les villes du Quebec or oceanside villages of Atlantic Canada, we felt encouragement and support from complete strangers, every step of the way.

Perhaps some of us will only realize the psychological impact COVID-19 is having when we reflect on today in a decade or two. Others are very aware right now. I know, firsthand, the positive impact Canadians can have on each other, even unintentionally. This is a time to truly let your Canadian show. We are all in this together and will get through together. For all the ups and downs, I would not trade the experience of biking across Canada. It has contributed to who I am today. Just as today’s isolation will contribute to who we all are tomorrow.