I say fewer words, more carefully chosen words behind the mask.
Sometimes that is helpful, sometimes that just causes more confusion.
I walked into the woods. I did not need a mask. I only saw a few other people and they were distanced. Masks were unnecessary.
After so much talking and not talking and avoiding talking out loud I am forced to examine when I speak and when I choose not to. This is not a bad thing since I can be an insufferable chatter box, just a new thing for my brain to adjust itself to.
When I am not standing around in a mask, I am conducting business and friendship behind a screen, I can control my background. I can make it seem like I am talking from a Hawaiian beach or a library in France. No lip reading is required , no lips, just words, spell checked and proof read and strained through power points and algorithms.
When I sat across from someone in real life recently. an unbidden thought came, insistent. Can't I just email you? A weariness settled down on my bones.
The effort to regale my companion with interesting anecdotes and keep them grinning with one liners like I usually relish doing overwhelmed me. I resorted to poking fun at our neighbour's haircut, complained about the music.
I left having said less than I should have, more than I wanted to.
As I stood on the edge of the forest, the words I wanted to say, spilled out. What I needed to say, what I should have said came rushing past my lips. They rushed out so violently that I could not take them back and they were not filtered by a mask or a screen. They flew with force into the ears of dragonflies and the secret vaults of mushrooms and tree cells, held there in their folds for safe keeping.
I loved! and know this feeling. and worry it like a dangling thread.
ReplyDeleteKate! So nice to see your words. Hoping for the best for you my friend!
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