We Might Be Seeing Each Other’s Mouths Again on Campus. We Already are Everywhere Else.
After two years of lifestyle changes, it's hard to know what that shift will feel like. Here’s a prediction.
By: Thea Rowe
I am hoping we’re all in agreement that masks have been extremely necessary over the past couple of years. Further, they have been no huge burden. I'm coming from the stance that the act of wearing a mask was in no way one of forfeiting one’s freedom. I wanted this article to be a little quilt of interviews. I wanted some controversy, a little debate, a little conversation. However, when I asked the question, all I was met with were various iterations of “I don’t really care.” None of the friends I approached really had any feelings at all about it. To be fair, my sample size was rather small relative to the 50,000 students who attend our University.
What was always more of a discussion was the issue of navigating the moments in which one is not sure whether they should be wearing a mask or not. In the instances when it's ambiguous, one of my friends wears a mask if the employees are as well. When I haven’t put one on by force of reflex, I constantly find myself scanning a store to see whether or not the other patrons are wearing them, but I like my friend’s standard better. It seems we’ve all made up little rules for ourselves. Ultimately, we’ve all come to the conclusion that at this point, in the city outside of the campus limits, wearing a mask is as much about fitting in with the crowd in the pasta aisle as it is about covid precaution.
Not too long ago, one of my closest friends and I had both gotten exposed to covid, so we made the trek to the free testing center in St Paul. The one in the basement of what feels like an empty mall: it’s incredibly liminal. On the off chance that one of us had it and the other didn’t, we kept our masks on in their car. Towards the end of the little trip, we both had to acknowledge that it felt unexpectedly strange to be spending time together with masks on. We only spoke when absolutely necessary and kept the music loud. In short, the whole thing was just a little bit awkward. The situation was funny, once we recognized it. More than that, I was baffled by how much of an impediment to conversation our masks were, even with someone I know so well and love so much. Someone I could and would tell about anything I think, any mistake I’ve made no matter how egregious. I expect, though masks are so normal at this point that I can’t be sure, that this same sense of a barrier has impacted most of my social interactions in public over the past couple of years.
In a similar vein, I’ve found myself looking at faces less and avoiding eye contact more when everyone around me is masked. There's less to see in a face. One of my favorite things about living in a city is the momentary and inconsequential interactions with strangers. The old guys who strike up a conversation at the bus stop, or the mom behind me in line at the grocery store who just has to tell me she loves my coat. Expectedly, I haven’t talked to many strangers since covid began. If there’s anything I’m looking forward to in post-mask Minneapolis, it's the serendipitous joy of marveling over the thunderstorm last night with a stranger on an MTA bus.
Personally, I think the loss of masks on campus is going to be jarring for a moment. It’ll come in a weekend email from Joan Gable and we’ll all bring our masks to class in our pockets the next day anyway. Professors will demonstrate that it is in fact over, for now, merely by being barefaced themselves. The masks will never come out of the pockets. Students will start chewing on the ends of their pencils again, they’ll start scratching their noses, and they’ll start whispering again. We’ll all start recognizing each other from class in the grocery store again, and maybe we’ll acknowledge each other at the checkout. After a week, I don’t think it’ll feel any different than it ever did.