This is one instance when nothing happening actually is news. While not exactly nothing, it does seem that the cumbersome directive to Stay Safe Stay Home has resulted in a slow down of reported cases, hospitalizations, and deaths statewide enabling us to believe that some semblance of normality could return.

Governor Ned Lamont’s cautiously phrased announcement on April 30 that come May 20, Connecticut residents could see some businesses putting a foot in the door to reopen to the public served as ray of hope.

With small businesses shuttered or scaled back in production, including this very newspaper; with school doors closed; with most houses of worship offering spiritual guidance virtually; with hospitals and health care centers tackling physical and mental distress on the parts of patients and families; with funeral homes helping the bereaved to grieve in a never before distant manner; with the world as we knew it when the year was new tipped into a surreal surrounding, we had transitioned into an environment of self-preservation and containment. A return to the human need for contact beyond a square of technology transmitting a picture seemed so far away.

But maybe we have done it.

The cautious reopening has sown seeds of possibility. Our spirits are lifted just at the idea that businesses we have sorely missed, those that support not only our needs but that support the people behind them, have opened doors and welcomed us in. But these are baby steps.

We must remain vigilant, with masks remaining our best friends; compulsive hand washing must not become a lost art; gatherings must be limited in numbers; and those who have been most at risk for getting the novel coronavirus must adhere to the more rigid safe practices for a longer period.

Those of us fortunate enough to not have faced illness and loss because of the pandemic have been given the gift of time to reflect on what and who is important. A slow return from our lives on pause may not be such a bad thing. Here is the opportunity to continue a reboot of living that honors who we are, who we would be, who we can be.

We have come to realize in this simplified society thrust upon us that much of what we took for granted — and many of those workers we took for granted — are more essential in our existence than we realized. It is the small things that ease us through days and when they are subtracted, we are humbled.

We can support our local businesses as they carefully invite us back, knowing that our economy depends on their willingness to accommodate us. But deliberately, with purpose, as society reopens, we can choose the pace at which we will return to what best nourishes us.

There is no rush.

“The hurrier I go, the behinder I get,” a phrase from author Lewis Carroll, may have hit it on the nose.

We can get ahead, we can be safe, at our leisure.