How Far?

While our "president" continues to admonish reporters for asking him questions instead of lavishing him and all those great workers out there with praise, the people who actually know things are giving the first mild indications of hope. Not actual hope, mind you, since people are still getting infected in record numbers and dying by the hundreds and thousands, but "a glimmer of hope." In an interview with CNN, Dr. Anthony Fauci said, "What we're starting to see right now is just the inklings." 
Inklings. Glimmers. Okay, not actual hope, but it's something upon which we can build. 
In the meantime, we continue to keep our distance. My wife likes to refer to it as "physical distance" because she would like to believe that the distance she and I are currently keeping is "social." It is that magical distance of six feet that we are all attempting to maintain. Because that is what we have been told. In my mind, I imagine squadrons of germs preparing to leap from the outstretched hand of a neighbor waving hello. I can see the microbes squirming and preparing to launch themselves from children, dogs, horizontal and vertical surfaces. When I go out for a run on what feels like empty streets, I inevitably encounter a human. I squeeze to the right, or sometimes step off the curb to the left, giving wide berth for us both. I weigh the dangers of stepping out into traffic with those of becoming infected. I figure that if I am five feet nine inches tall that if I could fall down and not land on the person or persons in my quadrant, I am staying safe.
As long as I don't pick up any litter.
Living in urban Oakland, I have made a habit of picking up the odd bit of trash as I wander through the streets in my attempt to stay exercised. Those cans or scraps of paper or shopping bags get dropped into the closest waste receptacle. Which I don't want to touch anymore. Not the trash or the trash can. I just keep running along the sidewalk with the hope that none of those virus molecules are clever enough to lay in wait for hours at a stretch, ready to jump up and attach themselves to my ankles. If only we could teach the germs social distance. Or maybe I can keep trying to outrun them.