He’s also the first person, in my two years of hiding indoors everywhere, to wonder why I still do it.
“’Supper with the mask?
“We are in a pandemic.”
“Yeah, but your breath must be warm under there.”
I have read and heard stories of people on trains and planes, in restaurants and department stores, who have been questioned, teased, teased, harassed, threatened and even assaulted for wearing a mask. I have theories as to why this kind of confrontation has never happened to me. (There are certain privileges to being 6-2, 210 pounds and Black. One is that random people usually don’t mess with you.) But mostly, I think people don’t care enough about what the others do to say anything, even if they don’t agree.
I don’t like wearing masks. But I’m immunocompromised, so it’s a necessity. I had to negotiate and make concessions with myself to resume some pre-pandemic activities, and going to the gym is non-negotiable. If you find yourself at an LA Fitness or YMCA in the greater Pittsburgh metro area, you might see me playing ball or doing curls with a mask on. And you’ll know it’s me, because I’m the only person younger than Methuselah to have one.
It’s actually not really an obstacle. Breathing can be a challenge when I’m tired, but like any other accessory, I end up forgetting I’m even wearing one. But sometimes I remember, and I look around the gym floor and I see dozens of maskless people of all ages, doing their thing and then I feel so fucking… dumb.
Yes. Dumb. I feel stupid. Stupid because I’m starting to calculate: if Ethel, 77, on the StairMaster, isn’t masked, why am I? The county’s positivity rate is low. If even three out of 100 people here have it – which would be very high – the chances of it spreading to me in this warehouse-sized gym are very small.
Stupid because I’m starting to question efficiency (Am I really doing a full workout with an N95 mask swallowing my face?) And efficiency (This basketball court is a shoebox. We’re 10 nearby, breathing and sweating on each other like brolic pigs. Does the mask really do anything?).
And then, mute because I begin to question my motive. Wear a mask, at the gym, awareness signaling? Am I doing this just to communicate my righteousness? This question is the messier one, because it pits my brain against itself. We are still in an active pandemic, with stable infection and death rates, and variants developing and evolving faster than vaccines. But if that’s true, why doesn’t anyone else here seem to care? Am I doing this to show that I still care about you? Or because I sincerely believe that it protects me?
A predictable result of the pandemic is the gradual erosion of my concern about whether others are masking up. In the spring of 2021, after getting the shots and starting to do things indoors with strangers again, masks were a necessity. If I walked into a place and the majority of people didn’t have one, I walked out. Now, with a few exceptions — I always ask my hairdresser and my Uber drivers to mask up — I just don’t care as much about what other people are doing. If I let other people’s feelings about masks dictate my activity now, I would never leave the house.
Of course, there are people who have never masked themselves. But I know people who did, and now they don’t. Maybe the worry is still there with them, and maybe that feeling has been overwhelmed by the desire to return to some semblance of normalcy. Either way, expecting this level of mindfulness from everyone today is like peeing in a cyclone.
I feel stupid. Stupid because I’m starting to calculate: if Ethel, 77, on the StairMaster, isn’t masked, why am I?
The last time I met Brandon, he asked me about the mask again, like we hadn’t had the same conversation twice before.
“So you’re going to keep wearing that mask?” »
I had fun with him. “What do you care? Do you just want to see my face? My teeth? I know I look good.
He’s laughing. “Never mind man. I know you old. I don’t want you to pass out here.
He took a beating and came back, “The pandemic is over though.”
“According to the WHO?”
“Everybody.”
“People still catch it and die though.”
He took another beat and replied, “You’re right, I guess.”
The game started soon after. And I watched the rest of the guys communicate freely, with instructions (“Screen left, screen left”), affirmations (“Good look!”) and taunts (“He doesn’t do that” ) – the standard speech of a basketball game – while my voice was mostly obscured by my mask. Being right has never been so wrong.
