Just about all readers will know what a covid mask and what it is for. A few months ago, that wasn't so true. The business of covid face masks puts me in mind of my wife and of Dr. Amit Sood. Sood is at the Mayo Clinic and aims patients at better living, less stress, more understanding and sympathy with themselves and others. He wrote in "Mindfulness Redesigned for the 21st Century":
Every good product or idea that has helped us humans has been helped in turn by our ingenuity and transformed beyond its original version. Almost everything good comes with a promise that it can be made better. The earliest computers weighed nearly thirty tons and had eighteen thousand vacuum tubes. The first airplane flew for only twelve seconds and covered 120 feet. We thankfully didn't stop there. The same innovation and growth will and must happen to contemplative practices, including mindfulness.
Sood, Amit. Mindfulness Redesigned for the Twenty-First Century: Let's Not Cage the Hummingbird: A Mindful Path to Resilience (p. 50). Kindle Edition.
Note: to modern citizens, especially Americans, improvement can and does happen but don't get too excited over every hoot and holler about "new and improved."
So, what about face mask technology? My wife can sew. She has a big heart and she reads. That all adds up to her sewing many facemasks, about 75 or so. Over the years, she has developed a special sewing vocabulary which includes some "bad" words and is used to express frustration with slip-ups, oversights, misunderstanding and broken needles.
She has learned a great deal about the human face, cloth and paper masks to intercept viruses in the breath, what people can stand to have across their nose and mouth and many other aspects of covid mask making. Being near her and listening to her, I have picked up the need for mask pleats in some masks if they are to fit along the curvature of the face.
I have also learned that many masks include some sort of stiffener across the bridge of the nose and that despite stiffeners of all sorts being available from various sources, the best stiffener seems to be the flexible strip that can be used to keep a bag of coffee closed. That sort of strip seems to be called a "tin tie."
It seems that a quick and inexpensive mask can be made from paper with elastic loops that fit behind the ears and hold the mask across the nose and mouth. Of course, being across the mouth can interfere with speaking audibly and more so with eating and drinking.
Some people work with plastic shields that cover the entire face, objects reminiscent of some welding masks. Masks that have an elastic band across the back of the head and laces from the bottom to be tied behind the head are my favorite so far. Lynn makes them with a layer of cloth for the front, a different layer for the back and she likes to launder them after some use.
