Unmasking Day

This is me. Out for a walk early last April. When masks were recommended but not yet fully mandated. That came in early May of 2020.

I am wearing a primitive mask, fashioned - following instructions found on YouTube - out of a linen table napkin and rubber bands. None of the masks I'd ordered (in a frenzy) from Etsy had arrived yet, and my friend Joe hadn't yet dropped off a box of the blue "hospital style" masks for me.

Each day, I tracked the many Etsy vendors I'd ordered from. Everything was back-ordered. Shipping dates were vague - or well in the future.

I made another DIY mask, this time using a bandana and rubber bands.

My sister Trish got out her sewing machine and made me a couple: a nice red plaid and another using a remnant of the blue-butterfly-on-cream-background material my mother had used to make me a cute little cotton jumper when I was in college. Fifty years ago.

Trish drove the masks into Boston, and I had a masked, curb-side meeting with her and my niece Molly. I gave them a packet of off-brand Walgreen's toilet paper I'd managed to scrounge.

I kept checking on Etsy for the whereabouts of all the masks I'd ordered. For the black cotton knits with the ear loops. For the black cotton knits with the grey stripe down the middle. The white cotton ones with the double elastics that reminded me of the scratching bras I'd worn in high school. (My family didn't yet have a dryer. Those bras came off the line stiff. It was painful to put one on, until your body warmed it up.) Everything was backordered. Everything was delayed. I pictured Etsy-ers around the country frantically running their sewing machines to take advantage of the bonanza demand for masks.

On Amazon, I ordered a couple of gaiters for my brother, figuring they would be easier to get on, given that he wears a hearing aid. They weren't. I ordered boxes of the "hospital blues" for myself, my brother, my cousin. Some latex gloves while I was at it.

The Etsy masks began to arrive. And I now had some of the disposables. 

Even in the worst, early days of the pandemic, I took a walk every day. Most of the days, I recall as overcast and gloomy. 

No one was out. Just me and my homemade - and later Etsy - mask.

Other than on weekends, if it were nice out, there was no one on the Esplanade. It was a bit scary. I stopped walking there. No one was in the Public Garden, either. It wasn't as scary, but I mostly stopped walking there, too. Other than on weekends.

When I walked downtown on my infrequent trips to the grocery store, there was no one about, other than menacing men approaching me for money. I took to carrying a supply of five-dollar bills. I couldn't blame any of these guys for not wanting to go into a shelter. They had deathtrap written all over them.

On the sidewalk near Government Center, I didn't step out of the way fast enough, or in the right direction, for the hefty, late middle-aged man barreling towards me on a bicycle. We both swerved, avoiding a collision. He called me a "fucking ho." (He was a white guy, by the way.) Me? A "fucking ho?" Right.

I took to walking only on streets where there was a bit of activity. I paced up and down Charles Street, and when I was feeling more adventurous, I walked on Boylston.

There weren't many people out walking. Everyone had on a mask. When I made a rare sighting of a mask-less person, I thought to myself: out-of-stater, Trumpist.

I bought a nice mask at a gift shop on Charles Street: a scene of the Boston Public Garden. Almost too nice to wear.

I ordered a couple of Red Sox masks. One barely fits. They must have sent me kiddo-size by mistake. The other is high end - made by the same folks (47 Brand) who make all the ball caps.

As fall approached, I ordered a bunch more masks from Etsy: Halloween themed (jack-o'lantern, candy corn). Christmas/winter themed (snowflakes, holly, a fun scene of Christmas shoppers). One with a tri-color shamrock for St. Patrick's Day. 

On Zazzle, I "designed" and ordered some masks with the Christmas in the City logo and mailed them out to some fellow volunteers. (Christmas in the City is a Boston-charity that is primarily focused on holiday events for families living in shelters or otherwise in need.) I made a few more up, which one of my fellow volunteers "sold" in exchange for a donation to CITC, so we raised a bit of money for the cause.

Wearing a mask was a drag. I could breathe just fine, but no matter what trick I tried - a small wad of kleenex, a foam press-on nose strip -  half the time my glasses fogged up and I ended up taking them off. 

I yearned for the day when the mask requirement would be lifted.

Monday evening, I headed out for a little spin around the 'hood to top off my mileage for the day. I was halfway down the block when I realized I'd gone out without wearing a mask. I bolted back home for it. I didn't want anyone to think I was an out of towner, an anti-vaxxer, a Trumpist.

Boston, at least where I am, has been about 99.9999% mask compliant. It has been rare and startling to see anyone without a mask on. But things were starting to crack. I'd occasionally - but still rarely - see people, usually couples, about my age, going mask less on their walks. And they didn't look like out of towners, anti-vaxxers, Trumpists. 

Still, I remained cautious. Compliant. 

On Tuesday, the CDC announced that it was okay (if you were vaxxed, and I am!) to be outside without a mask on. Masks off! Immediately!

For some reason - power move? - our governor, Charlie Baker, decreed that the mask requirement wouldn't be lifted until Friday, April 30th. No reason given. No why it was medically important to wait until Friday. Just because.

But there really didn't seem to be any compelling reason to wait. So on Wednesday, I decided to venture out mask-less. 

It felt liberating. It felt good. It also felt a bit edgy, deviant. That also felt good.

It was rainy and gloomy when I began my walk. I barely passed a soul. Other than for a fellow about my age who walked by mask-free, his mask dangling from his wrist. "Feels pretty good, doesn't it?" I said. "Sure does," he replied, smiling. Later on during my walk, the sun was burning through. On the Esplanade I passed more folks without masks. Most were like me: old geezers who I assume were fully vaxxed. We all smiled and nodded as we passed each other. 

Some of the runners out were going mask-free, as well.

Who cares?

When I got back to Charles Street, where it's more crowded, I did put my mask back on.

Everyone was wearing one, other than this one 50-ish guy - beefy, florid-faced, sockless loafers: looked like a classic aging DB - who was swaggering down the street without a mask on. Trumpist, for sure.

The pandemic isn't over-over. We're still a long way, especially if the know-nothing anti-vaxxers persist in their stupidity and the covid variants take off.  And I'm going to be wearing a mask when I'm in a store for the foreseeable future. Maybe even beyond that. 

But it's starting to look like the beginning of the end. 

So happy to be able to celebrate Unmasking Day, even though I jumped the gun on it a bit.