Behind the Mask by Cheryl Harper

I'm a smiler. Around here, it's a thing we do. When you meet someone coming toward you on the sidewalk or down the hallway, you smile. It's not quite as common here as it used to be, but it's one of those habits I can't quit.

I can't quit it, mainly, because I have resting sad face otherwise. People worry. They ask me what's wrong, and I'm only making my grocery list in my head. So I smile.

Thanks to the pandemic, our rising case numbers, and the governor's better-late-than-never-but-sooner-would-have-been-smarter order to wear masks, I've gotten comfortable wearing one of my growing fashion mask collection at work and when I have to go out for necessities like dog food and Diet Coke.

The only problem is that I have trouble recognizing people I know sometimes with the mask on and no one can see me smile.

So now I've gone audible. I consider counting how many chipper "hey" greetings I make every day, but I'd never be able to keep that count up all day long.

I'm including visual evidence of my:

1. No expression behind the mask. This is what you might see if I'm trying to do math in my head and I forget to do my greeting smile.

2. Smiling with mask. Difficult to distinguish between this and number 1.

3. Me, "smiling with my eyes" aka smizing a la Tyra Banks. It's scary. Small children would run away in fear.

This is why I've settled on "hey" as an indication that "I see you. I acknowledge you. I am not crying on the inside or plotting to steal your liver (option 3 has dangerous undertones, like why are your eyes doing that, lady, and where is the nearest exit? I was not meant to smize.)

I hope you're all healthy where you are. What about you? Are you making changes to fit behind the mask? Got a cool mask collection going?