As Our Veils Slip

I awoke from a dream in the middle of the night about the taking off of veils. But before I get to that, I'm focused on the various effects -- some obvious, some more subtle -- that the pandemic has had on us and is still having on us.

An example is the Black Lives Matter movement that had emerged starting in 2013 but erupted for real in the late spring/early summer of 2020 when Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd by holding a knee on his neck whiles Floyd gasped "I can't breathe."

This happened at the very moment that Covid-19 was raging out of control, sickening and killing millions by suffocation, as they too were drawing their final breath. Yet millions of healthy people took to the streets wearing masks to peacefully protest Floyd's murder and police brutality. 

It was one of the largest mass protests in American history.

As 2020 went on, many of us were forced to stay indoors not only out of fear of Covid but by one of the worst wildfire seasons in recorded history, which filled the air with toxic smoke. Going outside meant that we would not be able to breathe, so once again we turned to masks for what little protection they could provide.

Historically, pandemics have disrupted societies and caused empires to teeter or fall, and this one was no exception. The U.S. found itself under the influence of a man would be its dictator, a raging fool who thundered that the virus was fake, that masks were a joke, that the virus was an Asian plot, that only he could save the world.

He was the most dangerous cult leader America has ever known.

But it was an election year and not everyone joined his cult. In fact, many more Americans voted to dethrone him than to keep him in power, so he summoned his legions of reactionary followers to come to the nation's capitol, where they assaulted the Capitol building at the very moment that the election results were to be certified. 

Many of the thousands who waged what they intended to be a violent insurrection were masked, not against disease but against identification by law enforcement because what they were doing was blatantly illegal and traitorous.

After many hours, injuries and some deaths, the mob was repelled but only after legislators of both parties, some masked, some unmasked, cowered in fear for their lives.

All of these shocks and more reverberated through our society as the duly elected new government shakily took power and issued emergency-use authorizations for the vaccines that finally promised relief. After 18 months, the desperation of an isolation from friends and family that resulted in symptoms of a mass post traumatic stress syndrome unprecedented in our lifetimes began to ease.

Tentatively, we started to lower our masks in public.

But even as we were taking the earliest steps of returning to a pre-pandemic normality, our country's military conceded defeat and withdrew from a faraway land where masks have long been a symbol of suppressing women and holding them in virtual state of servitude. The U.S. had other reasons to wage its 20-year-war but liberating Afghanistan's women was one of the main justifications given for the war to the public.

In the process, that empty promise caused millions of Afghan girls and women seeking to become educated, fully equal members of their society to drop their veils and try to be free.

But those dreams were crushed when the same type of reactionary forces who rushed the U.S. Capitol building took over power in Kabul, pushing women now fearful for their very lives back into their homes, unable to go outside without the veil once again.

Late last night, someone sent me a photograph of a university classroom inside Afghanistan today, where  the students now have to sit separated by gender in a chamber with a large curtain between them. Mixing is strictly prohibited. In addition, the women are all wearing headscarves and their bodies are completely covered in the traditional dress that until a few weeks ago most of them eschewed in favor of Western-style clothes.  (Reuters published this photo -- link below).

I'm not suggesting that  Western clothes are superior to traditional Moslem clothing. I'm saying it should be up to those young women to choose, not the Taliban.

All of these developments have occurred as the pandemic continues. It is under control in some places but not in others. Wearing a mask is voluntary in some circumstances, mandatory in others. I suspect this will go on for quite some time, perhaps forever.

Because all of us have been changed by Covid, for better or for worse. Some veiling is here to stay.

***

I'm just a writer. My tools are the words I choose in my essays, my stories and my letters. Words can wear masks as well; these may be considered veiled references. A common usage is in veiled threats, but veiled promises are an option as well. Like clothes, which cover the body but also uncover the body, well-chosen words can float in and out of their veils, like dancing in a foggy night.

So here was my dream.

It was a foggy night. A masked woman, strange yet familiar, asked me to dance with her. I couldn't be sure of her exact identity because of her veil, nor could she be certain of mine for the same reason. Neither of us lowered our masks as the dance began, but we moved in concert, first one way, then another. We held each other at a distance but ever so slowly we moved closer together.

The dance went on and on. I could feel her breathing and she could feel mine. We locked eyes and arms but we couldn't see each other's lips so we did not know what expressions lay beneath our veils. 

As we held each other more closely, our trust grew, and then, ever so slowly, our masks began to slip.

***

That's it. I don't know how the dream ends because I woke up. But the next time I go to sleep, maybe it will return. I hope so.

***

THE HEADLINES:

* Covid Deaths Surge Across a Weary America as a Once-Hopeful Summer Ends -- Cases are starting to fall in some hard-hit Southern states, but nearly half of Americans are not fully vaccinated, allowing the Delta variant to persist. (NYT)

* Americans Stretch Across Political Divides to Welcome Afghan Refugees (NYT)

* David Weir communes with the ghosts of Balkh, a legendary city in Afghanistan. (Los Angeles Review of Books/Journal of the Plague Year)

* ‘My homeland, my only love’: fleeing Afghans embrace 1998 song -- Lyrics to "My Homeland" strike powerful chord with new generation of refugees from war-torn country. (The Guardian)

*U.S. Citizens and Afghans Wait for Evacuation Flights From Country’s North (NYT)

* A journalist and a former soldier discuss what their experience in Afghanistan taught them about the war. (The Intercept)

* Taliban claims victory over last pocket of resistance in Afghanistan -- The group said it seized control of Panjshir province, a restive mountain region, cementing its total control over Afghanistan a week after U.S. forces departed the country. (WP)

* A curtain divides male, female students as Afghan universities reopen (Reuters)

* Hundreds of health centres at risk of closure in Afghanistan - WHO (Reuters)

* Texans seeking abortions have options — but they are very limited (WP)

* The Texas Preview of a World Without Roe v. Wade (New Yorker)

* ‘Everyone Is on the List’: Fear Grips Nicaragua as It Veers to Dictatorship (NYT)

* The covid endgame: Is the pandemic over already? Or are there years to go? (WP)

* In Florida, a summer of death and resistance as the coronavirus rampaged (WP)

* Republican focus on state, judicial power gives GOP wins on voting, abortion, guns -- Democrats may control the elected levers of power in Washington, but the party now finds itself playing defense amid divisions about what to do next and growing fears that Republicans will be able to preserve their structural electoral and judicial advantages for years to come. (WP)

* It’s a real possibility that our next 9/11 could arrive from within (WP)

* Religious exemptions to vaccine mandates could test 'sincerely held beliefs' -- No major religion opposes vaccinations. (NBC)

* Nearly 1 in 3 Americans experienced a weather disaster this summer (WP)

* The race to rescue Florida’s diseased corals (WP)

* The SF Giants out dueled the LA Dodgers, 2 wins to 1 in an epic weekend series to retain first place in the NL West, as well as the best overall W-L record in MLB baseball (87-50), one game ahead of the Dodgers with 25 games left in the regular season. (DW)

* Report: Average American Worker Replaced Within 10 Minutes Of Taking Vacation (The Onion)

***

"In Dreams" (excerpt)

Roy Orbison

Boudleaux Bryant

I close my eyes then I drift away
Into the magic night, I softly say
A silent prayer like dreamers do
Then I fall asleep to dream my dreams of you

In dreams I walk with you
In dreams I talk to you
In dreams you're mine all of the time
We're together in dreams, in dreams

But just before the dawn
I awake and find you gone
I can't help it
I can't help it
If I cry
I remember that you said goodbye

It's too bad that all these things
Can only happen in my dreams
Only in dreams
In beautiful dreams