A Breath of Fresh Air
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: Still busy in Bangkok.
A breath of fresh air
Most days, this nomadic life is a dream fulfilled. Once in a blue moon, though, I find myself missing my home country. During the pandemic, we’ve been unwilling to go to the US because it seems unwise to unnecessarily expose ourselves to some of the highest virus transmission rates in the world, but this has caused me a little cognitive dissonance. I tell myself that what I’m missing is my home as I remember it, and anyway, realistically, what does the US have that the rest of the world doesn’t?
The other day my brain slipped into that familiar worn loop, as I was skimming the headlines. Something struck me about a series of photos, of covid testing lines. The people standing in the lines cast long, sharp shadows over concrete and green grass. Even in a newspaper photo translated into pixels on my iPad, thousands of miles away, I could see the crisp contrast between light and shade. I realized what I was seeing: the photographic evidence of sunshine.
In a lot of the world, that’s a rare sight. (So are long covid testing lines, but that’s a different issue—or is it?)
Bangkok is currently stuck under a ‘pollution dome’ that has draped the city in haze. The sun, when it breaks through, is weak—an uncomfortable combination of hot and sort of fuzzy. My eyes have been irritated for days; a mild burning sensation has taken up residence in the back of Lee’s throat. Toby gets on my case if I take my mask off outside, not because of Covid, but because of the air quality.
When we were in New Delhi a few years ago, we witnessed one of the worst pollution crises that country had yet experienced. It was epically awful. The education minister, sitting in the back of his chauffeur-driven car on the way to work, saw children vomiting out of the windows of a school bus, and promptly closed the schools. Cars had to keep their headlights on in the middle of the day. The train system shut down because of low visibility.
On a scale of 1-500, with 500 being the most hazardous, the air quality measurement got up to about 700. Literally, off the chart.
That was when we purchased our first face masks, and learned to wear them. Every time I took mine off so I could breathe more easily, Lee nagged me to put it back on. “You have to keep it on,” he said. “That’s the whole point—stop breathing this air!”
He was right, of course. Eventually, I adjusted. And eventually, of course, we left India. We’re lucky—we don’t have to live with that air.
Many (most?) of the world’s inhabitants are not so lucky. Bad air, intangible to me until I saw it for myself, is a fact of life for babies and toddlers and preschoolers and children all over the world. In India, we saw entire families (so many) living totally outdoors—little encampments everywhere—next to the sidewalk, in the median. I truly can’t imagine what 24/7 exposure to that air does to tender little baby lungs.
Hopefully the current smog cloud that is trapped over Bangkok will dissipate in a few days, but still—while Lee and I will leave at some point in the next few months, the 11 million people who live in this city will not. Some of this week’s pollution may be coming from Cambodia—pollution, like viruses, has very little respect for human delusions like borders.
When we left the US, back in 2015, there was so much we didn’t know. Since then, I’ve learned just how much I took for granted about my life, right down to the very air in my lungs.
When you read this, wherever you are, step outside and take a deep, cleansing breath on my behalf. And be grateful.
Take care,
Lisa
P.S. Thanks for reading, and feel free to share. If you have feedback, I’d love to hear it. And if someone forwarded this to you, thank them for me, and go to https://bookwoman.com/ to subscribe.