Last weekend I made a journey that I used to consider utterly commonplace in happier, pre-Covid times — but which now seems momentous. With one teenage daughter in tow, I boarded a plane in New York (where I live) and flew to London, to see my other daughter.
To my relief, travel was far easier than I expected: the airports were empty, the plane half-full and the airline staff kindly provided a gigantic gin and tonic, which I guzzled with a straw while wearing the mandatory face mask.
What I did not expect was to be hit with a subtle but striking form of culture shock on arrival in London. In New York, face masks are now an embedded — and embodied — part of life.