saving face
Raise your hand if you still wear your mask religiously wherever you go (and keep a bunch of spare ones in your bag) - yep, that would be me. And my kids, who seem to have grown attached to them like a security blanket. So, I’m not really sure how I’m going to transition into the brave new world, where we may venture outside showing our face in its entirety (imagine that).
Aside from this daunting physical transition, I feel just as anxious to break out of the mental quarantine I’ve been in. I have felt safe, purposeful and focused, while barricaded in my cocooned headspace, with little outside noises to angst about. The simple luxury of putting your head down and doing your own thing is a rare privilege. But, as we begin to shed our socially distanced armor and seek to reconnect with what we used to know and how things used to be, I feel off kilter and disconnected more than ever. Doesn’t it feel like we all forgot how to socialize and interact with strangers?
So much has happened in the last couple of years, yet, so little has happened. It’s like I’ve been running feverishly on a treadmill with my headphone on and when I get off, I find that I’m in a different gym in a different city. How the hell did I get here? I would venture to guess that I’m not the only one who feels this way.
In my little universe, it’s the past, present and future tumbling around together. As I allow myself to feel optimistic about the future (let’s leave mad Putin out of the equation for now), my father is fighting to keep his past intact as dementia slowly takes over. My son is still dreaming of the future when he can go to school like every other kid, instead of having his mom be his teacher, interpreter, and therapist at home. And me, I’m trying to make peace with the outside world while cherishing my life-affirming joy that exists within the four walls of my home.
For those of you who have been asking me, where the hell are your WhiteTable newsletters, I’m sorry that it’s become more infrequent over the months. It’ll get more regular, I promise! I’ve been writing a lot in my head - I’ve just been crap at transferring them into actual written words and pressing send. Yes, it’s totally a lame excuse. It’s not just writing that I’ve been failing at lately. It’s also more basic, like grocery shopping. I went to H Mart the other day for the first time in TWO months. That is a long time to go without our basic Asian veggies like bean sprouts and Kabocha, proper Udon noodles and brown rice that doesn’t taste as dry as American brown rice. My kids are thankfully patient about their mama’s domestic incompetence, as are you, my readers. Thank you for sticking with me.