The Myth of Masks: diving into the cover for meaning

 “It is the privilege of old people to seem to know everything. But it’s an act and a mask, like every other act and mask. Between ourselves, we old ones wink at each other and smile, saying, ‘How do you like my mask, my act, my certainty? Isn’t life a play? Don’t I play it well?”

― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

 It's Monday. It's 2020.

Our shopper, has come and gone. 

Our shopping list was shopped for

Communication between us happened via emails

Not quite in step/we tried but failed/electronic payment blocked 

We pay using a check. (Old School)

Pete pulled on his mask, handed off payment(including delivery charges and a tip)

 Made sure, "It covers?" (the costs for shopping) "Yup," It does.

We both say, "Thank you, Sawyer."

Pete picked up our DIY 190 proof alcohol spray

Wiped and cleaned packaging.

Used vinegar to wipe down fresh produce.

Isolated some goods for a bit more 'safety'

We're learning/changes made/we note the affects

Are we changing fast enough/safe enough/sure enough/wise enough?

Or is it not about speed, but about willingness.
And maybe, my/your/our defense mechanisms need to be unmasked? 

For years, this is the mask I wore to protect myself from chemicals, smoke, fragranced products and fragranced people. When I was masked I did so alone. A freak. An odd-one out. Children pointed and asked, "Why is that woman wearing a mask?" Mommy pulled the child away. I didn't get a chance to tell my story; didn't have my story straight.The irony of the mask's branding, the  story unfolding while people protest oppression that can no longer be masked?

I sit and write diving for meaning because the irony of what's happening is branding my soul.

“She had blue skin,
And so did he.
He kept it hid
And so did she.
They searched for blue
Their whole life through,
Then passed right by-
And never knew.”
― Shel Silverstein, Every Thing on It

The King of Masks 1996

A film about 1930's China, secrets, value and the legacy of Masks. 

A beautiful but not easy film to watch.

People gather to protest during a solidarity rally for the death of George Floyd Saturday, June 6, 2020, in Tokyo. Floyd died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers on May 25. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
Eugene Hoshiko

Protestors in Chicago 2020

Masks have been ubiquitous at protests over the death of George Floyd, symbolizing civic action in more ways than one.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

"Commentators on the right have tried to paint the mask a cowardly affectation. A flood of masked demonstrators tells a different story." - "The Medical Mask Becomes a Protest Symbol," The New York Times, by Amanda Hess


I am a woman the color of coffee with spoonfuls of coconut milk; I am light-brown. My skin wears thin with circles of even lighter pigment on my arms as I age. Arms lined with webbed netting. I see  the nets I would see at Waimanalo Beach; reflections of sunlight in the aqua-blue ocean.

My blood and my genetics swirl with Ancestors from the Philippines, China and Hawaii. They were many colors, sometimes "almost white enough" or educated and married haole; many flavors of working people with a layer of luna (bossman) on the plantation; proud and arrogant 'border guards' leaning into being Spanish and not Ilocano; and the Hawaiian? In 1950 the 'native' was kuahiwi (too 'country.'), and lazy.

As Aurora Levins Morales puts it in "What Race Isn't" 

"Some of us are dark enough and Spanish-speaking enough to bear the brunt of immediate and constant recognition and unambiguous classification as a target. Others, like me," she writes, " become the tokens, exotic but conditionally acceptable. We are the ones who are told we don't look Puerto Rican, don't sound Puerto Rican, the ones who are always being invited to collude in despising our own kinfolks, the ones people confide their racism to as between friends."  

I've been that "almost white enough" brown woman for so long wearing a mask gave me cover to protect me from something other-than-color and that became a narrative that spiraled out and then back, into the real mush and mean complexity of cover-ups.

While I wore the 'I can breathe mask' my story had to be a good one. Chemicals, pesticides and fragrances re-purposed from chemicals of warfare leveled the playground. Like the protestors today, I could not breathe. To make my way I had a white socialist from middle American laborer stock (Ukrainian-Irish) to flesh out this story. Together we built a myth complete with mask, righteous rage, just enough intelligence, and imagination to access the spaces in between.

We build a home that could technically move that fit between and was at the same time neither here nor there.

The Virus and White Supremacy gone amuck have blown my cover story, and I'm here to witness that as a good thing! See, I've been that 'token exotic conditionally acceptable Hawaiian; the one who people confide their racism to as between friends.' That is a sore and sadistic place to be. That is a place where anger hides behind internalized masks binding the liver until she (the liver) just won't take it any more.

“I know that sometimes people fake on each other out of genuine motives to hold onto the object of their tenderest feelings. They see themselves as so inadequate that they feel forced to wear a mask in order to continuously impress the other. I do not want to "hold" you, I want you to "stay" out of your own need for me." ― Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice

My friend sent me the link below. This friend and I have known each other since we met in the 1960's as college students. A haole girl and her haole friends befriended me. Somewhere between a token and reality, she traded places with me.

"Lucky I live Hawaii," she wrote.

My mask wonders what Eldridge Cleaver would say.

I say, 'Black Lives Matter.'