How am I supposed to breath today? And tomorrow? Where is all the air? It feels stuck in the air. The air is too heavy? Too thin? The air is not air? Is it even air? How do we even know? Is it full of the virus? Is that what it is? We have all been breathing so much we have exhaled a virus that we are all inhaling? Then exhaling? Are we just breathing the virus in and out now? Where do the little droplets settle when we exhale? On the things? Or in the air. Are the studies of a human breathing showing us moving particles less than six feet away a real thing? We study this? We like to study. To guess. To not know but to know. We like to project so we can project some more. We study air and no air.
Isn’t that where we are getting this? The air? Is our air this dangerous now? Just because it is in the air does it mean that’s the way we are getting it? A mask keeps those droplets from landing on things? So now my mask is full of virus? Maybe? My mask has spaghetti sauce and dirt on it. I touch it all day long and try to eat through it if I have to be in a place I can’t keep away from the people who think I am afraid of them. What if we all wear masks and it still spreads? Do we stop wearing them? And all of this was for not? Then what do we do to stop doing? Study more? What happens to all the masks? They float in rivers and storm sewers? They are on every corner. One at the bottom of a lake in South Carolina. I struggled not to retrieve it. To dive in and clean the bottom of this lake of masks. Who’s was it? Why was it there? Did they throw it off in reckless abandon after a long drive to this lake? Disregarding the 1000 dollar fine for littering? I don’t care they will say, I can breath air and not no air.
They aren’t ever going to be able to make people wear them? Some will not and so we never gain control? But if we all did then it still spread so what do we do then? Until then how do I breath this messy air we call air when I can’t even breath air and now I have to breath through something to get my air when I could barely get air to do it before? I’m still adjusting to mask wearing rules. How do some of us breath that couldn’t anyway? That felt it was always the last? Each one taken as if was it? Why cover it up if that’s the last one you get? And how do I even do it anyway? It is too thick. Too thin? Too dangerous? Too no air.
Everyone is afraid of me. Yet I am not of them. I get it. Let’s all be or not be afraid of each other. When the whole world is wearing masks and social distancing and no one is touching or loving or trusting again, then when this point is reached and no one is dying. Then I will get it. We did it. Right? Stopped the spread of the virus and everyone is going to live? What are we fighting? Who? And why? When all the control is achieved and everyone survives forever then I will get it. I get it. Let’s just wear them so everyone feels safe. But I am not afraid. And don’t tell me to be afraid when I need to eat a chip in a moment when no one is around me and afraid of me for a second. When I have a second I can breath my air not my no air.
I was yelled at by a customer for taking my mask down to eat a chip. Approached then yelled at. I was told to leave my place of business or to eat in the back. Where I work. It was delivered as an angry message of hate towards me. Of fear of me? She is keeping me safe so I should her? Yet she is so far away from me I can’t seem to think even for a second how I could give her my air? Or even want to. As soon as I knew she was there I put it back ups In case she tried to get into my air and leave me with no air. She thinks I am selfish for taking a minute to eat when I was the only person to be around to answer phones. How dare I eat after months of not eating from death, Lyme and river parasites. Should I tell her these things? I finally did.
My dad died and my brother died from the virus. To back off. I was 8-10 feet from her and needed to eat. She wouldn’t back off. She told me well then you should know better. Today wasn’t the day to not back off from me. To tell me to know better. I do know better. I don’t wish anyone to know better and that’s why I follow the rules when I can’t follow the rules. If I can’t keep away from you then I will protect you from me. When you say I have to wear a mask to protect others yet don’t tell all the others to also protect me I will do it. I just say nothing. For too long. I have stayed silent for too long. Not about masks. About my thoughts. I have them. I can write what i think for hours but unless you read what I write, i say almost nothing to people unless it’s about plants. I don’t let this stuff out. My voice. Years of being told not to by someone: years of being told to stay quiet.
Once I was even told before a meeting that this was the kind of meeting we don’t ask questions at. I was perplexed and said. So this is exactly the kind of meeting we should be asking questions at? He then cocks his head in that disappointed and don’t push it manner and his head wobbles like a bobble head on the dash of a car. I then picture him in Hawaiian prints and a grass skirt for some reason. I cock my head back and say without saying don’t tempt me by telling me not to. I cross my arms to match his crossed arms. We finish our little head cocking arms crossed and bobble head game and bobble head in to the meeting where I promptly raise my hand and ask if we can ask questions. There is then a lot of head cocking and bobbling like maybe we should allow some questions. No one has ever asked. I am then told to sit. Which I need to be told to do or I will stand. I was never asked back to a state budget meeting again. I prefer to be outside where there are no questioning rules. No bobble heads. No grass skirts, just open air.
I have suffered a lot of loss specifically from the virus and she wants to tell me a mask is going to protect who? My dad? Too late. My brother? Too late. All those gone? Too late. Anyone about to die? Too late. Anyone who could die? Also probably too late and yet not here. They did not save them. They are gone. She tells me that I should get it then. But I don’t. She doesn’t know me and I don’t her. It’s why we both wear masks yet we don’t really know why we are. But I can’t eat chips through a mask. But she demands me to leave. I am eating and 10 feet from her and her alone. No none else. I have 3 other customers not wearing them and won’t force people to so I don’t get my legs bashed in by angry non mask wearing patrons. Yet now I’m worried I will get my legs bashed in by my angry mask wearing patrons.
Rules are getting tighter. Rightfully so. Except it will never work. We will never get control of a world we have no control over. So we should let it go. Everyone look out for themselves not each other? I can’t look out for others anymore. I don’t know where the homeless man went I keep giving money to. I do know there is a lady in his place holding a sign saying she is homeless because of the pandemic. I didn’t want to feel bad for her. Why do we even have medians? So people can stand on them? What is the point of the extra concrete raised between lanes? If we had no medians where would they stand? Why have them? Not just for the homeless people but they keep trying to also make Beech trees live in them. Let’s just be real here. We don’t need medians. I take an entirely different way to avoid medians, homeless people and dead Beech trees. I struggled not to water them somehow, then to prune the dead branches now I struggle to not remove the dead Beech trees and maybe even the median itself. If I were homeless on the median I would water trees and prune. No tree wants to live in 3 feet of soil with concrete on top it’s root system even if it stays super skinny. Especially if no one is going to water them or prune them. I love a good Beech tree and admire the perseverance for trees but let’s just all agree it isn’t working.
None of it. No beech trees on the median.
Aspenleaf 