Unworthy

It’s Wednesday night, and I’m sitting on my couch with warm socks on my feet and a very large smudge on my forehead. The socks are neither here nor there. I just wanted to write a neat symmetrical independent clause about one thing and then another thing. But I do need the socks. My feet were cold.

If you’re Catholic then you don’t need to ask why I have a big hot once-flaming mess on my forehead. If you’re not, then I’ll explain. It’s Ash Wednesday, the very first day of the long season of penance that we call Lent. Six weeks without chocolate, and unto dust I shall return. The ashes are a reminder of the unto-dust part. 

You don’t have to go to Mass or receive ashes on Ash Wednesday, but the whole point of Lent is making sacrifices that you don’t necessarily have to make. It's good for your soul, and mine needs all the help it can get. So I went to Mass even though I didn't have to, and now I have a dirty face. It’ll wash off. That’s why we have soap and water.

Speaking of soap and water? Today was not only Ash Wednesday, it was  critical mass day for coronavirus. Yesterday, I could have sneezed right in someone’s face and they would have said “God Bless You,” and gotten on with their day. Today, the whole world is obsessed with coronavirus and what we should do to ready ourselves for the inevitable spread of this newest viral plague. I’m going to do exactly nothing, except to wash my hands as often as possible. Soap and water can wash the Ash Wednesday memento mori right off my face, and it can wash away most of the germs, too. Soap and water solves a lot of problems.

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There are some things that soap and water can't fix, though. Sometimes, you need to see a professional. So I'm sitting in a chair at Nail Club at Plaza del Mercado, as a very kind woman scrubs my scaly winter feet.

It's Thursday night, a busy night for manicures and pedicures, but I was lucky enough to walk in just as they had an opening, so I didn't have to wait. I'm only getting the pedicure. I don't have the kind of life that allows me to maintain a manicure for more than a day, but pedicures last forever.

I don't spend a lot of time getting spa treatments but on the rare occasions when I do, I am never not conscious that another person, a person whom I don't know particularly well, is taking care of me in a very personal way. At work, at my white collar job in a Federal government office, I'm surrounded by hothouse flowers who are afraid that an errant sneeze from three cubicles over will land them in a quarantine ward. Meanwhile, this lady is uncomplainingly touching a near-stranger's feet. Jesus washed the Apostles' feet, too. They weren't worthy, and neither am I. No one is.

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My face and my feet are clean now, and I'm ready to do penance.. It's only six weeks. It'll be over in no time.