Meditation 85

4 August 2020

What does it mean not to wear a mask, not to cover our delicate nostrils and mouth, our pointy or fleshy chins, cheeks bruised by the sun? A Midwestern couple checked out at Walmart in swastika masks, got themselves suspended for a year from shopping privileges. Ralph Cohen roared over his yellow jacket, “we don't know process, only product.” Where do handkerchiefs come from, or lounge chairs, or even our newest cat, the flowers we never see but send to those who grieve? As a boy, he made lei alone. That way, no one could beat him up for his limp wrists and the secret aroma of a grandmother in the flowers. Trauma opens doors, but is hardly entrepreneurial. A mask will hide the mouth, if not silence it. We’ll miss the cracked smile, the nun’s dimple on her right cheek, the drama of the southern face. Read eyes instead, as you’re now obliged to look in them. Louvers of the soul: turn a crank to make them smile or weep. A single mother cries in the shower; there’s nowhere else to grieve. My mother refused to, except by proxy: a military man who died by suicide. "He was short, like Fred." That was not my father, but the loss acted like his, behind a mask that doubled as a handkerchief. At least there was a detour, once the dam was built. A friend grieves the murderer who was her student. But she knows better than to talk about it.