I'm in my 178th Zoom meeting since lockdown. For once I'm not the host. I can enjoy this one in a different way. Twelve of us are arranged neatly on the screen: F from Nairobi, W is in Idaho, B North Carolina and S from what looks like a studio flat in Sweden. Others call in from Germany, Denmark and the UK.
It's 1930 BST. The sun is bright and yellow and low. It cuts in through my office window and hides half my face. On screen I'm very film noir, like most close up shots in Blade Runner.
This is relaxing. The conversation flows. It's guided well by W and in a Zoom reverie I suddenly notice the sun's presence for everyone else. It's on their cheek, or hair, or it's behind them, or streaming in through their own windows.
I have to say this: 'Folks, can you see the sunlight where you are? Can you feel it on your face or your back? Do you feel its warmth? Can you see it in these twelve tiny rectangles in front of us all? It's the same sun isn't it?! We're under the same sun. We can point to the same sun.'
Twelve people disengage from their laptop cameras. Their heads raise a little, their eyes focus elsewhere, to the sunlight. We have turned away from each other but towards the sun.
We are connected in a completely different way. From our disparate locations we are now all looking towards exactly the same place.
