Leon by CADO @noise_explosion Facemask by Rachael Lever

BY CADO @NOISE_EXPLOSION BY RACHAEL LEVER

Facemask

I got my first facemask in April. My mother-in-law made it. She spent two months sewing facemasks madly, as if her frenzied cutting and stitching would tuck the virus away forever into seams and elastic. It’s a pretty mask. Blue floral fabric, two layers with a filter, and I feel like I’m suffocating behind a bed of flowers, but at least it’s pretty. She made masks for me, and my husband, and all my kids, and all her kids, and their kids, and, and, and. She was so sweet to do it. That was before I even knew I needed a mask. That was before I had to wear a mask to the grocery store. It was before. Now, my son and his friends sell cans of soda, and cut cornstalks and bumpy squash on the corner of our street. And people stop and buy it, often giving more than the price, smiling. I walk to work at the elementary school every morning and the crossing guard, with her smiley face mask, wishes me luck at school and we smile with our eyes through our masks. A nothing. An everything.