It's driving me out of my mind.

(Insert music’moji™ here.) 😉

"Never trust no N-95… that girl is poison."

No, no, nah…

How about, "Never trust a lil' cough and a smile… that person's poison."

Bell Biv DeVoe had more for you than unsolicited relationship advice and an etymologically composite band name. Having emerged at the outset of a two decade period that was post 80s and pre 2020, their "hind" sight is more than just flawless…it is timeless. Who knew that one day … hygiene would be less about cleanliness of culo and more about fidelity of face coverings? That the presence of smile was more threatening than the seam of posterior regions. That the modern day face condom has absolutely nothing to do with the 1990 intentions of one B.B.D … save for the precise reason that I happen to have this precarious amount of time on my hands (literally typing this on my phone) in order to meander down this "pop fiction" rabbithole on a week day.

I have COVID.

I have COVID for the first and only time in 27 months. My wife has it too. Not even a full year married, but fortunate to be quarantined together as opposed to apart, only after being effectively sequestered together for the past 27 months. Yes, we still choose get married … TO EACH OTHER. How's that for trial by fire? 

I digress. 

Where was I…?

Oh, we were home. Just a pair of lepers confined to our bedroom suite and bath for five days. Then paroled to the rest of the house (as long as we wore our masks) for five more. Our eldest son had COVID five months ago … back then he was a late stage teen forced to social distance more than usual from his Mom and I for someone of his age appropriate behavior. This time, it was the elders in self imposed domestic exile … on his 20th birthday.

To add insult to infirmary, my mother and godmother went to great lengths to organize a "better late than never" wedding reception for the extended Bellamys in South Jersey. We were scheduled to fly to the East Coast in the days after Max's born day. When Francesca and I decided parent and siblings only "bubble wedding" in September of 2021 (a reluctant compromise from the original idea of July 2020) we knew that we were exchanging many of the fringe benefits that come with big weddings for the health and well being of those same loved ones who have always been in our corner for life's biggest milestones. The the memories made, the gifts given, the intentionally embarrassing stories, the unsolicited marriage advice and all that good stuff.

No less than 60 Team Frakim (Francesca + Hakim) faithful RSVP'd that they were willing to stage a belated reception/roast in our honor ten months after our vows had already been exchanged. As luck would have it, Francesca and I tested positive for COVID five days before the party. Almost a year after making tough decisions in order to protect family from COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021, it is in 2022 that we ultimately had to protect family from us.

As we racked our brains trying to identify where it was we slipped after two and a half years of extreme caution and statistical rarity of having successfully dodged raindrops to date, we took inventory of our interactions the week and weekend prior. We recalled every unmasked public interaction with brutal suspicion. The "long time no see" at the theater show. The waiter at the restaurant. Each other.

Living in this new era of modern pandemics is an exercise in inevitability. Inevitability at the most inconvenient time. An inconvenient inevitability, much like death. We are fortunate to be alive. Despite the scientific certainty and societal uncertainty of beng triple vaxxed (AKA "3X Pfizer"), we were still exposed by our biological predisposition to be communal creatures. It's in our nature, just like a virus. Wondering if doing less of the things that make us feel human, makes us more human in the end.

Smiles have become cause for panic and paranoia. Anxious laughter the new soundtrack of nonverbal communication. The showing of our teeth is a PTSD that reminds us that we are none too far removed from the pack animals we pretend we never used to be.

Boyz II Men. ABC. PPE.

The East Coast Family.

Revisit the wonder years of Bell Biv Devoe here. #OurMusicIsMental