The hidden lives we cannot know in this haunting time of coronavirus crisis

Guest Commentary: Backside the Masks

A Philadelphia mother reflects on the hidden lives nosotros cannot know in this time of coronavirus crisis

April. 06, 2020

Every morning I check the temperature of the earth to find out if the fever has broken. Then I walk the dog and see things I haven't seen before. Like the Prayer of St. Francis spinning through an electronic billboard. "Brand me a aqueduct of your peace. Bring light where in that location is darkness. We are open. Purchase some fresh, hot pizza."

I see a medical mask in front of one of the houses of manicured lawns. The mask tells a story, but which 1? An older couple lives in this house. Have they just returned from a risky trip to ShopRite? Or, is he a retired medico who has volunteered to go dorsum to work? Or, is he on a ventilator? Will she wear this mask when she returns to the nursing home to say cheerio through a window?

I hear the usual sirens that often follow gunfire. But maybe this siren I'chiliad hearing signals that someone has just started gasping for air. Maybe the caller tried hard to avoid this trip just at present there is just non plenty air.

The mask in forepart of the houses of sunken porches tells a story, but which one? Perchance this is the home of a "poorly paid" habitation health care aid, similar the workers described in a Washington Postal service article. (How did I forget the home health care aids? I keep forgetting people. I well-nigh forgot the nutrient trucks until I thought of the lovely woman near Wide and Spring Garden streets who gave me a gratuitous smoothie when I had no greenbacks.) According to my skim of that article, though, the home wellness care aides don't take masks. (Can that possibly exist right?) So possibly 1 of the workers from the City Avenue Target dropped it on his way to stock the shelves before dawn.

Maybe a single-mother nurse comes abode to her two young girls. She discards the mask and puts a fresh ane on earlier she goes inside this firm with no yard. They want so much from her, and rightly and then; they've been on their own all day. But she can only sit on the sofa with a one-half-smile wishing for a few moments of peace.

On these walks, I as well hear new sounds like the fragile click of my dog's nails against the pavement. And a deep quiet that somehow coexists within the commemoration of the birds.

Which reminds me of the chat with an Australian associate who told me about the flights and quarantines of recent months as he navigated his father's death. When our talk turned to the fires, he told me nigh miles of scorched hills and about the exploding glue copse—the native trees that flare-up into flames when the air gets besides hot. They don't need to be touched by fire to become fire. (Should I fifty-fifty be walking this dog? Because I practice feel similar a kind of mucilage tree that might catch or spread the virus just past being in this air.) Every bit if to comfort me, he says that in that location were light-green shoots all over the black hills.

On these walks, I also hear new sounds like the delicate click of my canis familiaris's nails confronting the pavement. And a deep quiet that somehow coexists within the celebration of the birds.

I hear the usual sirens that often follow gunfire. (If you alive on my street, you have to listen very carefully to know but how much gunfire exists, simply I know that less than a mile abroad there is no escape.) But maybe this siren I'm hearing every bit I laissez passer the playground with the yellow tape signals that someone has just started gasping for air. Perchance the caller tried hard to avert this trip but now at that place is just not plenty air.

And at present the ambulance is here. It is headed to Temple. The dr., who is a close relative of mine, doesn't know if a gunshot or virus victim will come in side by side, but information technology doesn't matter to him considering actually he is thinking of his wife who is non well. But possibly the ER is the place where his heed takes a residue from that. Maybe things are not what they seem.

I turn a corner and wait toward the other side of the street. A woman wearing a mask is getting into her car. Nosotros wave. We are pretty far from each other, more like 66 than six anxiety, but still, I tin can feel invisible currents of lite and love, only like those that washed over me from the pizza shop prayer, moving betwixt and beyond our distanced bodies.

Maureen Boland is a ninth class English teacher at Parkway Center City Middle College.

Header photograph courtesy Maureen Boland

mustafalinquy.blogspot.com

Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/hidden-lives-coronavirus/

Share this post