Friday, April 10th, 2020, was a beautiful sunny day around Little Traverse Bay, except, with the wind off the lake, the temperature barely climbed above thirty degrees. Governor Whitmer held a press conference on Thursday, and she handed down new guidelines for sheltering-in-place that will last until May 1st, adding to the chill in the air. With added restrictions, local health department officials concluded we all need to start wearing masks. Now, I’m no arbitrator of policy, but I have in my past life, wore a lot of masks. As a clinical instructor, I had to instruct students on why and when masks were appropriate, what types to use, and make them understand they are not a hundred percent reliable. Then I thought about my other masks. The ones we wear when we aren’t authentic with our moods and emotions. I’ve lived in a depressed/dissociative mask with a smile that needed to be pinned at the corners. I’ve had spiritual awakening masks presenting an inner glow others around me noted. The worst is the passive-aggressive mask I’ve donned when I can’t get the courage up to say what I want. I act out or pout, holding back feelings and needs for confirmation of my authenticity in this world. Life in recovery has pre-empted that dismal mask more often than not, but recently I have felt those strings behind my ears. On a positive note, not everything needs to come rattling out of my brain. For instance, when angry, I reflect on why, then I repeat: Is it necessary; is it kind; is it truthful? I don’t like to get angry, because I can do it rather well, so, I hold back, churning the emotion into something creative. Unless I can have a civil discourse with the person or entity I’m angry with or at, then I can release the ire – quietly. But back to the passiveness. There are things I would love to cogitate on and disseminate onto these pages, but I’m not sure what that would do for me. Sure, I rant, and if you peruse the years of writings, I rant quite a bit; but for some reason of late, I’ve wondered if I rant, how will I be accepted as a writer? I’m not in New York, where ranting gets high marks in the New Yorker and in the coffee bars; I’m not out west where a chic epitaph of emotion corners empathy and sympathy and a lot of kumbayas. I’m in the upper Midwest, the Great Lakes region to be exact, and in a very, ultra, conservative county. My town is very progressive, but surrounded by zealots. See? That word, zealot, is a passive-aggressive stab at a population of people that I interact with. Do I worry those friends and acquaintances abandon me? Shun me? I found myself wearing a mask at Meijer’s as we shopped for ourselves and a friend. My previous projections of believing people were fearful and agitated on previous trips up and down the aisles, suddenly hit me, myself, at warp speed. I was agitated walking around shopping and couldn’t wait to get home to my safe house. Granted, the day was weird all day. We ventured to the river and retrieved my fishing kayak and the bike rack but couldn’t visit with my eighty-five year old mother. Worse yet, she wouldn’t even come to the window. I have never just pulled up and left before – not in the forty years we’ve had the family place. But behind the mask at Meijer’s, I was safe in my solitude of affect. No one could see, maybe sense, but not casually pass by and see my angst. Once home, it took a couple of hours for me to sit with Christine, play Dominoes, have a martini, and wrap my head around the day. My mask is hanging up in my SUV. My other mask is brighter today because I’m gaining some courage and insight into becoming brave again – to face ideas and ideals that effect my affect. I believe I should grow into my sixty-one year old scarred body and not be afraid to do what most zealots do, yell and scream to be heard. Except, instead of building a wall excluding most, I will build a tunnel so that we all can prosper in our differences. E Pluribus Unum.