For weeks on end now, much of the country has endured a kind of home-bound miasma that the poet William Carlos Williams once described as a “sluggish, dazed spring.” But as warmer temperatures arrive and many states cautiously reopen public spaces, thousands of stir-crazed Americans are flocking outdoors. Last weekend, images and reports of glutted beaches and parks have spurred several governors to roll back access to parks and shorelines for fear of a surge in new COVID-19 infections. At a certain point, it becomes physically impossible to pack so many people into six-foot intervals.
