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Nearly every day of this New Abnormal I find myself saying something I never dreamed I would say. A few days ago that something was "Huh. I'm not too bad at making masks for use during a pandemic."
It seemed perfectly normal to be talking about digging out the fabric I had planned to use someday for craft projects and jerry-rigging facial coverings I hoped would keep my family and friends from dying.
I mean, we all see the absurdity of this, right? That the most powerful and wealthy nation in the world doesn't have enough medical masks, so all of us housewives are chipping in as if we were melting our cookware down for bullets like they did in World War II?
Hmmm...someone seems to have a little anger mixed in with her worry this morning.
Part of my anger, I have to admit, is directed toward those who do not seem to take seriously their own responsibility in flattening the curve. Again, I fully own that my part in this effort is easier than most people have it. We natural introverts aren't chafing as much at the thought of puttering around the house and sewing a few masks before spending an hour or so in the back yard picking up the spikey pods our sweetgum tree continues to shed.
Do I have any right to criticize the mob of kids (and their parents) I see playing on the community basketball court? Or the un-masked older folks I see peering over each other's shoulders to watch videos on a shared phone?
Well, yes. I believe I do.
There's a lot we don't know about this virus, but one thing we do know is that you catch it by breathing in the virus an infected person has breathed out, or touching a live virus on a surface and somehow getting that into your mouth, nose, or eyes. We also know that a person can be infected, and infectious, without showing any symptoms. So all those kids jostling each other on the basketball court? Could be infecting all the families involved. And those phone videos? Almost impossible to be head-touching close without sharing at least some breath.
And don't even get me started on the churches that aren't cancelling Easter services, and the spring break trips, and the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
We know that the health care and grocery store workers don't have any choice but to be out in this flurry of germs so that we can get medical care and eat, and we know that those workers are catching the virus and dying.
My dad is 93. Baby Wonderful is four weeks old today. One of my sons has a heart condition. Husband and I are in the age and (for me) health categories that make us candidates for the higher death rate among those who get the disease.
Wear your masks. Cough into your elbow. Keep away from everyone you don't live with.
Do it for yourself and your family, for me and my family, for the health care workers and grocery clerks and pharmacists.
Do your part or I will yell at you. We're all ready to be done with the New Abnormal.
*quick, virtual, germless fist bump on my way to spend another day sewing masks*
ReplyDeleteTurns out that it's a good thing I like fabric more than I like sewing and have collected pretty bits of it here and there because "Surely I can think of SOMETHING to do with it someday!" Hello, Someday; you are not the happy occasion I was hoping for.
I gave all of my elastic to a friend who is sewing it onto masks that a local hospital had in storage for so long that the elastic gave out. The hospital was so desperate for the masks that people had been HAND SEWING new elastic on until someone said something to someone, who told my friend, who has a sewing machine, and she volunteered to sew the rest of them. I am grateful every time I hear of someone doing something good and helpful during this terrible time!
Doesn't it feel like we're Doing Good, like we're World War II land girls or something? I doubt very much that my little effort has saved even one case of the virus, but it's been good for me.
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