How could I anticipate that a work by Martin Buber, which I read as a young person growing up in South Africa, would come back to me so forcefully now, in this time of the virus? Waking early to greet Remy, my five-month-old grandson (my daughter and her husband have locked down with us), I am aware that the rhythm and beat of my life has changed utterly, perhaps forever.
In I and Thou, Buber suggests two fundamentally different ways of being in the world: I-It and I-Thou. The former is the way we live day to day, and the latter is about inhabiting the present in all its overwhelming fullness, in relation to people and objects. In these changed days I am plunged increasingly into I-Thou moments and notice a collective yearning in this direction. Who could have imagined, a few months ago, exchanging poems with strangers through chain email or listening to music on the Today programme? And this doesn’t touch on the midnight depths of Remy’s blue eyes – amehlo amakhulu aluthlaza as they might be described in Zulu. Time itself feels different. As Buber writes:
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