(This post is part of a series of daily letters from me to my future children reporting from the emerging paradigm.)
Dear Kids:
Since my last letter I’ve really gone down the rabbit hole of curiosity trying to figure out what is causing people to be reckless about mask use and social distancing. This is my methodology as an artist, leader and healer. I get curious about something and follow those curiosities while seeking to understand.
Yesterday I went out into the world. First to the closest town, about a half hour away from my forest home. Then I drove an hour to the closest Trader Joe’s because it had been 4 months and I needed Everything But the Bagel seasoning.
Washington State’s leadership has been committed to data and science to guide their regulations and I’m so glad. We recently went to 100% mask requirement in public establishments. Which is fantastic because it helps prevent transmission.
I was standing in line at the local food Co-op waiting for the water filling station and had the opportunity to observe who tried to come into the store without a mask. Within the 20 minutes I was standing in the foyer, masked up and social distancing in line, I heard two different white women argue with the person at the door.
The person at the door was so polite when she told folks coming in without masks that they are required to have one or a face shield on in order to enter. They even provided a face shield or a mask if folks didn’t have one–free of charge.
Neither of these women was willing to wear a mask. One woman kept going on and on that she spoke to the Governor’s office and she “had their number” and the Governor said she could do what she wanted to because she’s disabled.
The woman at the front offered that someone could shop for her in the store, but the non-mask wearer refused so the woman went to get a supervisor, who took the woman outside of the store to tell her whatever she did that made the non-mask wearer give up and leave.
The second time it happened the objection was, “My mask is my immune system.” And she said, “I guess none of these people [gesturing to the masked shoppers] has an immune system.”
Wildly ignorant. I also saw a video of a third white woman at a dentist’s office refusing to get her temperature taken or wear a mask.
I am loathe to believe in binaries, but I do think that we’re in a spot in our society (at least in the US) where we’ve got folks who are masking and socially distancing and folks whose personal autonomy is more important than the effects their choices have on other people.
My friend and brilliant herbalist Colelea said that she thinks the enormity of what’s going on is greater than what people can accept. It’s kind of like not wanting to feel the pain and stubbornly refusing to understand what’s happening.
At the outset of the quarantine I felt a lot of compassion for folks in active addiction that requires being out in public like sex/love addicts, gamblers, alcoholics who go to bars. That kind of thing. Addiction is frequently about distraction from pain and being forced to be at home… there’s nowhere to go but inside.
I have to wonder if that’s the same inclination that’s getting people to break quarantine? I’ve already known folks who had folks in their quarantine pod put them in danger because they were sneaking off and tindering.
You don’t wear a mask for yourself you wear it for other people. It’s like avoiding drunk driving–obviously you’re putting yourself in danger but folks who didn’t make the choice to drive drunk don’t deserve to die because of your poor decision making.
Anyway, I have no grand answers except that what these whiny white ladies have in common is a level of panic and self-righteousness in their voices that screams to me their pain at a loss of control.
Here’s to being a “people first” person and being part of collective work so we all have a better shot at staying alive and keeping the most vulnerable around us alive.
xoxo,
Mom
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