It’s not easy to care about strangers.

The Coughs

The smiles?

We’re pretending.

Rebecca is eight days battling Bronchitis.

Wheezing, rattling, hacking, expectorating, and coughing.

Endless coughing.

There was so much coughing I Googled poems about coughing.

I loved “It Visits” by Tivanna with this last stanza:

This rare visit brings
no joy and puts life-on-hold,
changing its disguise
in hopes of finding new hosts;
open door policy? Cough!

In 72 years, Rebecca’s never had a cough like this.

It did find a new host, me.

I hope I live to be 75.

So far, my symptoms are mild, including the cough.

But the hacks threatened to put our lives on hold

During our last week in San Miguel.

Sort of.

The Public Events

In the first photo, we’re sitting in the corner of the El Encanto restaurant, away from the other patrons.

We’ve just come from a concert by this musician playing Beatles songs on two guitars.

He was terrific and a nice guy who didn’t mind when Rebecca left feeling a coughing fit coming on.

While he was playing Yesterday.

Her cough is “here to stay,”

Another day.

Fortunately, we arrived early at the concert to position ourselves inside the exit door for her likely exit.

To a cafe chair just outside the little venue with the door propped open.

All [her] troubles seemed to fade away.

Several days ago, we learned this positioning lesson from another event in the same public venue at the San Miguel library.

Believing our coughs could be controlled by Vicks 44 and cough drops, we found two seats at a lecture on “The Soul of San Miguel” in the front row of the crowded venue far from the exit door.

At Rebecca’s first cough, the man at my left leaned slightly forward and briefly tilted his head toward her. At her second, he added a sigh and a lengthier glare to the repertoire. I wanted to give him a roller derby elbow, but he looked a decade older. Besides, Rebecca was already working her way down the aisle and out the exit door.

Throughout the 90-minute lecture, I coughed four times. I counted 20 or so additional random coughs in a room of 150 people, including one from the guy on my left.

After the concert, I joined Rebecca for a coffee at the library cafe. We sat, sipped, occasionally coughed for about an hour, and noticed two people at a neighboring table get up and leave before their food arrived.

The Conflict

As the first photo suggests, we feel pretty good, even before the Margaritas. I just took a COVID test, which told us what we already knew. Our bodies are fighting a cold virus. Rebecca’s cough is her dominant symptom. I have mild congestion and a twice-an-hour cough. We are operating at about 70% energy capacity.

Because this is the last of our four weeks in San Miguel, we don’t want to be cooped up in our tiny apartment.

We’re managing the symptoms and staying hydrated.

We canceled a dinner with an older couple we’ve become friends with in San Miguel because we didn’t want them to catch this virus.

This experience has brought us back to those COVID disputes. We played by the rules, masking, distancing, and vaccinating. Today, Rebecca and I are among the 22% of American adults who have gotten the latest vaccine. (source)

And we resented those who chose not to do these things, thinking them selfish or wrong-headed. I’m sure I matched that concert guy’s glare more than once at maskless people in closed places in the summer of 2020.

You might ask, why didn’t we wear masks at the concert and lecture?

There are two reasons. We’ve gotten out of the habit even though we have them somewhere in our suitcases. And we both find it difficult to breathe with a mask on, particularly with our colds.

Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I wore the mask. Further, I sometimes resent community members who still wear the protection in public. I feel judged.

Just as Rebecca and I felt convicted by the glaring man and the couple who left the cafe.

However, the glaring man has a powerful point, reinforced by our decision to cancel the dinner with 87-year-old Herb and 81-year-old Adrienne. Despite our hand coverings, our coughs do spread germs. Out in public, we can’t confine the harm to ourselves.

During COVID time, I masked, distanced, and vaccinated for you as well as me. And it became the norm in our community, strengthened by laws.

But that’s a long time ago.

And it’s our last week in San Miguel. We have sites to visit. And our apartment is small. And, if our germs found their way to the stranger sitting next to me, well, he’s a stranger. He’s not Herb or Adrienne.

Caring for strangers is not easy when it costs us.

What do you think?