During the pandemic, masking transformed my world, inside the hospital and out.
A carnival profusion of masks blossomed outdoors in my safely distanced San Diego: outlaw bandannas, Khyber hoods, pets, skull mandibles, American flags, Mexican flags, secret service black — a street quilt of materials and prints. The most disturbing masks slightly distort the human face, seen sideways or zombie-colored.
In the year that COVID-19 killed trick-or-treating, Halloween escaped its bonds and flooded our entire season.
Inside the hospital, bland surgical masks and N95s prevail. Social smiles stay veiled, creating distance, impassivity, disturbing flatness. Ghosts of eye crinkles provide the only clue to a hidden grin or snarl. Our hospital halls, now empty of visitors, enforce a new hush over nurses, therapists, techs. Even the nursing stations lose their bustle, the masks and protective gowns muffling the usual clatter and chatter.
Masking especially dampens the casual social interaction, the little smile at the elevator or when holding a door. Holding a door for someone, so they don’t have to touch a potentially contaminated surface, should garner more credit for gallantry, but masking somehow mutes both gesture and any gratitude.
Acknowledging others becomes more subtle, a raised eyebrow or a quick nod. Without faces whole, many people just look past each other. Techs and custodians no longer meet my eyes; they stare into mid-distance, lost in their thoughts.
Our brains hard-wire facial recognition, so important that newborns come programmed to lock on faces, even two circles and a line if they’re set right.
That annoying bundle must start bonding with caregivers to survive, and eye contact with faces starts the bonding. Soon babies can tell Mom from everyone else. Our right occipito-temporal cortex, in the fusiform gyrus, grows brain circuitry in two interlocking centers, one for identifying specific people and another for reading emotion through facial expression.
We’re programmed to see faces everywhere, even in Viking photos of the surface of Mars.
Masking blocks the gestalt system and forces our brains to break down individual features: eyes, brows, direction of gaze, body language. This less efficient system lets us recognize people who are already familiar, but not the nurse I barely know from another floor, or the patient I see twice a year in the office.
Without the mouth’s distraction, I find women’s eyes lovelier, more expressive. At first, I blamed this thought on my Spanish blood, but it turns out that partially obscuring a face does make it more alluring, whether covering it, blurring it a little, or reducing contrast.
So what are the positive aspects of masking? According to a Japanese survey, pre-COVID, wearing a mask made many women feel protected, less vulnerable. Some Muslim women say the same about wearing a veil. Another virtue for the Japanese women was getting by without makeup, certainly an advantage to anyone in a hurry or with sensitive skin.
Outside the hospital, we can spin personal stories in a mask — sports fans, animal lovers, goths, music fans, foodies. Anti-maskers can choose to undercut their own mask wearing with politics or irony.
Certainly masking supports cosplay, especially among young people. “Plaguecore” embodies dressing like a medieval plague doctor, using the long-beaked mask and other regalia. With the pandemic, this once-arcane corner exploded in popularity, merging with trends in leather and in other period costumes.
Of course, masked-singer contests spread rapidly from Korea to the U.S. and Europe, but an anonymous Milanese has been singing masked as Myss Keta for nearly a decade. Before, only her front row fans wore masks; in the coronavirus era, she feels surrounded by fans everywhere.
Masking can bring mystery and the thrill of fashioning a new self-creation. Yet wearing masks also stands for my solidarity with others, protecting other people from my potential infectivity while shielding myself.
Ironically, the isolation of masking in turn masks a deeper connection, our unity before the virus. Truly we are together, alone.
James Santiago Grisolía, MD, is chief of staff-elect at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego and a clinical neurologist. He is also editor of the San Diego County Medical Society’s San Diego Physician magazine.
Last Updated January 25, 2021
Source: MedicalNewsToday.com
