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I'm not sure whether August actually was "the windy month" when we were growing up, or whether it just had a reputation for being "the windy month". It could've been both. But either way, I remember the anticipation as July came to an end. It was almost as if people were nailing down their valuables and (literally) holding onto their hats. And with the wind came its side effects: dust in the eyes, sand in the eyes, and sometimes simply having wind blow wind into one's eyes. Considering the redness and irritation, this should probably be an article about how to protect your eyes from the (allegedly) windiest month of the year. But it isn't. This is something a little more symbolic, with pretensions towards becoming poetic. It's about the things that the world has blown into our eyes. The things that have caused irritation and scratchiness. The things that have made it difficult to see where we are or where we're going. We started a new decade - most of us anyway - with a clear vision of what 2020 was going to look like. And then? A gust came up that nobody expected. We didn't even have time to hold onto our hats. This gust (to stretch the metaphor to its breaking point) blew things into our eyes that made us uncomfortable. We've struggled to see what's right in front of us, and there's no chance of seeing what lies in the distance. We squinted our way through total lockdown, wondering whether we'll ever see another glass of wine again. But sometimes, the wind blows everything clean. Like the Indian skies when there was no pollution during lockdown, or the canals of Venice that could show off their ocean life because no tourist boats were making the water all murky. Sometimes the wind blows our eyes clean and we can see things in new ways. Just like you'll hear on every ad on TV: "new normal", "far apart but closer together", "connected in new ways". It's tempting to make fun of all those super-cheesy ads. Except that in many ways they seem to be right. We didn't expect to be here in August 2020. But as we've done all our lives, we waited for the wind. We knew it was coming, and it did. And with it came some scratchiness and uncomfortableness, giving us no choice but to power through it. We've struggled to see through misted-up glasses but we haven't given up. And until someone finds a solution to COVID Mask Lens Fog, we'll fumble our way through. |