Journey of a Braid Logotype

The vocabulary of face-masks.

By Danié Gómez-Ortigoza

April 4, 2020

Yesterday I went to the post-office. I hadn’t been ‘out’ in a while. Everyone was wearing face-masks. I made eye contact and smiled at several people like I always do, but obviously they couldn’t tell I was smiling and gave me cold stares in return.

Danie at The Bass Museum
Danie at The Bass Museum
Danie at The Bass Museum
Danie at The Bass Museum

Vocabulary of solitude is a portrait of a single person’s day represented in 45 acts. They are individually titled in the present tense: be. breathe. sleep. dream. wake. rise. sit. hear. look. think. stand. walk. pee. shower. dress. drink. read. laugh. cook. smell. taste. eat. clean. write. daydream. remember. cry. nap. touch. feel. moan. enjoy. float. love. hope. wish. sing. dance. fall. curse. yawn. undress. lie. Each passive clown is a stand-in for one of these actions. Together they form an endless 24-hour loop.

This is our life right now, with some variants: for me less touching, less enjoying, more home-schooling and less dancing.

Real education comes in unexpected places and for now the imaginary memory of what daily interactions were in the past, must suffice.

Robert Fulgham in a very special book titled ‘All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten’ says that “no matter what you do, anywhere from 30 to 60 percent of what gets wrong with you heals itself if you just give it time and think good thoughts. It’s kind of like staying amused while your body does it’s thing. See, doctors can really do something with only about 15% of what ails you. your body tells the rest. Or else you die.”

So that’s what’s left. Let’s think good thoughts and do what we can to stay positive. As for me, I will continue to smile at strangers under my half covered face, and perhaps one day someone will notice the happy stare in my eyes and smile back.

And the journey continues.

Danie at The Bass Museum
Danie at The Bass Museum

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