It has been called the pandemic within the pandemic.  The first pandemic is caused by a small strand of RNA, now called the "novel” Corona virus because it has never been seen before.  Scientists and health workers don’t know how it really works, why it shows up in so many different ways, and why some get so sick for so long.  And so many have died.

Heather MacKean was born in Toronto, Ontario, in 1953 and raised in the Maritime Provinces in New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Prince Edward Island. (L. M. Montgomery, who made Prince Edward Island famous in her Anne of Green Gables series, is Heather’s mother’s third cousin.) When Heather was in high school, she took the city bus 45 minutes each way to attend St. John’s Senior High in St. John, New Brunswick, because the school had an arts program. After high school, she attended York University in Toronto, as a Visual Fine Arts major. Unfortunately, York’s Visual Arts program in the 1970s did not provide much in the way of fine art training, and Heather left without completing the program.

Like most of us these days, I wear my mask any time I expect to be in a setting that may require physical proximity to others.  

A long long time ago--last month I think it was--when this mask thing began, I remember thinking there were positive aspects to this.  The mask is the great equalizer.   It doesn’t matter what we look like underneath.  No need to worry if I forgot to apply my lipstick.  And wearing a mask makes us a part of the "club" of people who care about each other and ourselves.  So out on the street during a walk, or dutifully keeping our distance at a supermarket, we would say hello to each other with a kind of clubby camaraderie.