Dear 2020...don't let the door hit you...

Dear 2020, 

Well. What a difference a year makes, eh?

• A year ago, I was all about “the end of a decade and the beginning of a decade” jokes.

• A year ago, I was worried about the state of the world, but felt distant and safe from where I sat.

• A year ago, I felt at peace with myself in a way I hadn’t before and felt so fortunate to feel that way.

• A year ago, I was working out with others in a space that I loved and doing things with my body that I could hardly imagine doing.

• A year ago, I felt safe and happy around my bustling school and loved that feeling of belonging that came with being part of a community.

• A year ago, there were gross inequities in education across our country, lack of technology that was a given for others, but only a few really talked about it.

• A year ago, people could pretend that civil rights battles were a thing of the past, even though deep down they probably knew better.

• A year ago, a global pandemic was the stuff of horror movies.

• A year ago, it would have been laughable to think that the idea of protecting fellow citizens in the name of public health was something that could be politicized in such a way that people would deny there was anything wrong, or worse, use a laughing emoji as a reaction to a post about a fellow countryman’s death.

How was I to know what you had in store for us all?  In my world, as excited as I was to welcome you, by the end of the very first day, I was ready to send you back. Fear and trauma in my own family gave way to grief and sadness for friends, big losses in my community, and finally so much loss, anger and anxiety in the world. I’m honestly not sure rehashing the year is the direction I want to take, since just about every other person who has something to say today is already doing that. Instead, more and more lately, I can’t help but think there’s a reason we all (collectively) have experienced this hard year together. 

Brene Brown refers to the big events that people experience together as “collective effervescence,” an “experience of connection, communal emotion, and a ‘sensation of sacredness’ that happens when we are a part of something bigger than us.” She writes that she got the term from a Dutch social scientist and ever since I read it a few years ago, it’s stayed with me and I come back to it. A lot. Usually thinking of big, happy events. A great rock concert attended as a teen and finding out that a current friend was there that night, too. The day it snowed in Miami. The day your team won the big championship (looking at you, '72 Dolphins). But sad ones, too. 9/11. The Challenger explosion. The day John Lennon died. And now, 2020. 

There has to be a reason, or a lesson, or even a moral to this crazy story. So many times this year, I’ve thought, “No. Seriously…this isn’t really happening. Right?” And then, of course, “Oh. Yes. It is.” Maybe it was the message to slow down. Maybe it was that we need to take a time-out and figure out what our priorities are, as individuals, as communities, as a country, as a world. Maybe we’re supposed to fix the things that are wrong. Maybe we’ll never really know because we’re too busy fighting. With each other. With the messenger. With the message.

2020, when I look back at you, I know that part of your lasting mark will be the memory of loss, tears shed and anxiety. The year we said goodbye to our beloved dog, the year of "virtual" graduations and everything else. The year of curbside pickup and words we'd all probably prefer never to hear again (looking at you, Unprecedented, pod, pivot and hoax). 

But I don't think that tells the whole story. I think your legacy will also be the beauty noticed in everyday things. A gorgeous sunrise on an early morning walk, or an equally as gorgeous sunset on a different day’s later walk. Cooking dinner at home, night, after night, after night. People met in my neighborhood during daily walks; different “regulars” depending on time of day, most ready with a wave and "Hello." And when you stop seeing someone, having a little tug of concern, even if you don’t know them well enough to check on them. A global explosion of creative expression and compassion in a world that so often feels less than kind.

I’ll look back on you as the year you almost took my love from me, but then didn't, and we found new ways to live and be grateful for what we have; the year you brought my immediate family together, under one roof, for a time. At a time when, while getting used to and sort of digging the empty nest, having us all together felt safe and right and like a gift that was most unexpected. Realizing, as an extrovert, that I might actually just prefer being at home with my people and that might not be a terrible thing. And really, maybe the biggest take away for me is how much the things I need the most, the things that sustain me the most, have been right in front of me all along. And I didn’t have to get stuck in a twister and go on a journey to a strange land with a scarecrow, tin man and lion to figure it out.

I don’t know what your successor has on tap for us. I certainly don’t harbor any illusion that 2021 will magically put us in a happy place where we’re all singing “Kumbaya” together. I’ve spent enough time deep in thought over  the past 10 months, trying to imagine how others in past eras responded to their own hard times. They pushed through, they found the strength and courage to do the tough things. And that’s what I hope we can do, too. 

Happy New Year, 2020...don't let the door hit you on the way out!

Love,

Jen

Random thoughts six months in and about RBG...

Six months ago, this felt temporary. “Honestly? If it means being holed up for a couple of weeks while this blows over in order to stem the spread of this virus and protect the more vulnerable among us, then yes,"  I wrote in a blog post on March 12th. "Isn't one of the things that makes us so great as Americans the ability for us to pull together in hard times to do the right thing? Even if it makes us uncomfortable? Is disruption to daily routine annoying and a pain? Sure. But wouldn’t losing loved ones because we didn’t do everything we could to slow this down be a lot worse?” On March 12th, when I wrote that, 38 people in the United States had died. Today, six months later, that number is just under 200,000.

Six months ago, the president of the United States was recorded telling a Pulitzer Prize winning author that this virus was deadly. More deadly than terrible flus. Yet in public press briefings, he downplayed it, saying it was no worse than the flu. I just watched a news story from somewhere in the US where people protesting mandated mask wearing parroted those words, “It’s no worse than the flu,” said a little boy. 

Six months ago, the pandemic poem by Catherine O’Meara, In the Time of Pandemic, was passed around as a relic from a past pandemic, but was actually written at the beginning of this one. The sentiment was lovely, evoking images of pioneer women slowing down, meditating and enjoying the beauty of a slowed down world. It was lovely in March, as the Internet pulled together and people shared and families enjoyed time together and life slowed down for a little while. But now, six months later, for some, that idyllic moment has passed. People want their travel ball back. They want to go to bars. This odd politicization happened and it’s hard to imagine us all finding something in common to pull us together again. But I sure wish we could.

Is it normal to still be in a state of disbelief about where we are right now? I see a commercial on tv for face shields and I have two thoughts: 1) smart, the opening is at the top and not the bottom, and 2) how is it that we’re living in a time where the reality is that there are commercials on tv for devices to protect us from each other? (and I guess 3) how is it that that IS the reality, but roughly 40% of our country doesn’t believe any of this is necessary and refuses to take even the most basic measures to protect anyone?

I don’t like feeling “not okay.” I prefer happy go lucky me. I know now, what I didn’t know six months ago: there isn’t going to be a "new normal." We shouldn’t even want a new normal. Wanting a new normal would be settling. Because the old normal really wasn’t so great for everyone either. In fact, it wasn’t great for many. Systemic problems that were right there always are still there. Wouldn’t it be something if we could actually learn from this period we’re in and really tried to fix things? 

Friday. Friday was a good day at work. Parents had lunch brought in for teachers as a teacher appreciation gift. As I grabbed my boxed lunch to take back to my room to go eat alone, I realized many of my colleagues were out on our patio, safely distanced, eating and chatting with each other, so I went and joined them. People! My extroverted side felt gleeful! Later, we celebrated our seniors as they drove by in a car parade. Again…more people. It felt right, it felt good and I felt happy for a little while.

Until that evening, when news of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s death broke just as I sat down to watch live-streamed Rosh Hashana services. Utterly devastating. The Rabbi, seeing the news in the Facebook Live chat, didn’t miss a beat, changed the course of his service and talked about her, her legacy, what a hero she was and reminded us all that in our own grief to remember her family was grieving, too. 

As the weekend has unfolded and the battle lines drawn regarding this sudden gift to the president and his supporters and the potential loss and fear for those on the left, I’ve thought a lot about this. How much we have to be thankful to RBG for. Her fierce tenacity. Her fight for equality for women. Her five time fight against cancer. What an unfair burden we placed on her as the one thing that could protect us all by staying alive and holding onto her lifetime seat on the SCOTUS. Yet, of course she couldn't do that. So what happens now? We have an obligation to step up and not let her legacy or fighting spirit go to to waste. Most often, goodness prevails. Will it now? It has to.

I’m not a big fan of suspense novels. I didn’t really like Gone Girl, the Couple Next Door, or the Dinner.  Those kind of stories make me tense and I need to know how it’s going to turn out. And, true confession, if it’s in a book and my chest is tightening too much from the story, then I’ll cheat and read a bit of the last page or so, just to be sure the person I need to know is okay is going to be okay. I feel like we’re living the pages of the most intense suspense novel right now. Only I’m not able to flip to the back of the book or  scroll to the last page to reassure myself that things will be all right.

Donning and Doffing My Mask as a New School Year Begins

This week, like teachers all over, I headed back into school, after leaving at the end of a teacher workday on March 13th and never going back to finish out our year in person. Though I’ve been back in my room a few times since, walking in for the first time this week was a bit of a gut punch. 

The Vienna wall calendar my son gave me as a gift, still turned to its March page. Words on my white board, never erased: “Once upon a time…suddenly…fortunately…” (a reminder to use them in my never given next day’s planned lesson on storytelling through video). The bulletin board on the wall above my desk with trinkets and drawings from kids over the years, pictures of past advisory groups, all exactly as I’d left them. Tears may have fallen as the heaviness of this year came rushing back as it so often does.

I worked a bit on my room, moving furniture out of the way and putting tables into place so that it adheres to the new lower capacity of the space in preparation for that time in the future when we may have kids back in our building. I donned my mask and left my room and waved to old friends from a distance. I had my temperature checked, worried when it measured high, sighed with relief when the next try didn’t and answered the health questions with "no's." I took part in Zoom meetings, had Zoom conferences with parents. 

I sat down and looked at my MacBook to start putting all the ideas I’ve had swirling in my head the past two months into actual lessons for next week’s first week of remote virtual school, using the different apps we’ve had professional development for and training on all summer. I stalled a little and then stalled a little more and then finally got to work. For real. Creating lessons, activities and assignments for students to work through on their own in their own homes. Asking myself, “Is this engaging enough? Is it too much work? Not enough?” Recording screencasts, stuttering and stumbling through words for an embarrassing too many seconds, hitting stop, delete and starting over wondering, “Am I too energetic? Not energetic enough? Will they get my personality or humor over video? Talking too fast?” (more than likely yes to that last one!). Thinking about how to best use synchronous Zoom sessions to build relationships and start creating awesome content this year.

I’m pretty sure some version of that scenario played out in classrooms not just on my campus, but in campuses across the country this week. And you know what I think people need to know? Particularly the ones who don’t teach children for a living? Or the ones who think teachers are lazy and don’t want to work because they expressed concern about scary rates of transmission and percent positive Covid numbers and worry for their lives and those of their family members? Or the ones who feel the need to protest impossible decisions forced upon school administrators in a country plagued by an unrelenting pandemic, yet don’t want to do the hard work to help make it go away because of a misguided political agenda? Or the ones who call themselves “pro life” but at the same time publicly express, “Well, some live and some die, that’s how life goes?” The ones who hold elected office and are insisting schools open for in-person instruction, even while their own children will be attending school virtually this fall? 

They need to know that virtual school is absolutely real school. And it is an incredible amount of work to pull off and do well. They need to know that teachers everywhere would give anything to be with their full classes and do things the way they used to. That the safety protocols, while important and necessary, aren’t fun and will make school feel less like the “real school” some politicians are demanding when kids do finally come back. That they’re also all coming off a summer that wasn’t really a summer, where they’ve worked and learned and opened their minds to new ways of doing things, all in the service of doing what’s best for children and their learning, while also being aware that they need to be there to help with their social emotional needs, too. 

If they’re like me, they’re scared and excited all at the same time. Scared of the unknown, scared of the uncertainty. Excited for new opportunities and learning and growth. When I recorded one of my course introduction videos, I told my students what a college professor I had in a summer course a few years ago said: “If we always do things the way we’ve always done them, then we always do things the way we’ve always done them.” What a weird but necessary gift we’ve been handed to try something new and see if this can bring education into a more modern era. That instead of technology for technology's sake in the name of "21st Century Skills," using technology purposefully and gaining true skills 20 years into the 21st Century.

Doffing my mask as I got in my car after finishing a week of work at school for the first time in five months, I got home feeling that Friday night exhaustion that used to feel so familiar. I scrolled through my Facebook page, reading post after post from teacher friends (at my school, across the state, around the country), all mirroring what I was feeling. That prepping for in-person school is easier than prepping for virtual. That they’re doing what teachers do. They’re thinking about how to make learning fun and engaging for children. Different this year, to be sure, but finding ways to give them the best of themselves that they can. 

And so, here’s to the beginning of Year 17 for me, which is so different from how I started any of the previous 16.

Halftime for 2020

December 31, 2019. I was all about celebrating the “lasts” of the decade, reminiscing about the tremendous amount of change we’d undergone through the 2010’s and looking forward to 2020 and the “firsts” that a new decade had in store. Little could I have imagined. 

Today, we are six months into 2020 and if someone had given me a hint of what was to come, I’d have laughed at the sheer audacity one would have to make some of this stuff up. It wasn’t like there was a gradual…let’s make this year a test of the average person’s strength and meddle…thing that happened. No. We jumped right in and everything changed on the first night of the year as we were thrust into a new world of scary medical stuff. And before I go any further, I am incredibly thankful for the emergency medical people at our local hospital, as well as the cardiac care staff at the big city hospital where we went. Things could have taken  a drastically different turn that night and I will forever be grateful that they didn’t. I know too many who have undergone extreme pain and loss and sorrow in the past six months and I think about them every single day.

But as the news ramped up in those first few weeks of this year, stories of raging brush fires in Australia, insect infestations, blizzards and then tornadoes were only part of it. Because when that new virus showed up on the news, it didn’t really register as a real threat for most of us. Until it did. And by then, it was pretty much too late. 

March 13, 2020, a Friday the 13th, by the way, if you’re a superstitious type. To me, this is the day that will live on as the one where everything changed. When I left work that day knowing that school was going to be shut down for the next few weeks, I never would have imagined that “the next few weeks” would last until the end of the school year and into the summer and in some way into the next year. 

In the weeks and months that’ve followed, the thing I wonder most is, “What would I have done differently if I’d known I wouldn’t see my students or the majority of my friends and coworkers in person again?” I’m not a terribly “huggy” person, but I would have hugged my friends goodbye. Tightly, like the kind of hug where you might hold on for just an awkward second too long. I would have looked them in the eyes as they spoke to me in those last few days and listened. Hard. And been more present. I was working on a big deadline that week, and was in my head a lot of the time. Knowing what I know right now, I’d have gotten out of my head and enjoyed the exact moments that I was running around trying to document to meet that deadline.

Back then, I wrote in a post that if Ma Ingalls could manage life on a prairie and tend to people with yellow fever and still manage her farm chores, then I could certainly handle what was to come in my suburban town. And I can. And I have, but it sure hasn’t been easy. Don’t get me wrong…there are parts of this that I’ve actually loved. The slowed down lifestyle, the time with my immediate family. In what other recent time has empty nester parents suddenly been given back their kids for a little while? This time with our kids has been a great gift. But I also know that it’s hard on them and they want…they need…to move on and into their actual adult lives.The emotional ups and downs have been hard on everyone.  

The world has changed in so many unimaginable ways in this new decade. In April, I wrote about how I hoped we could take the good parts of our quarantine lives and leave behind the bad as part of our “new normal.” But that was before the term “new normal” was hijacked and turned into something ugly and weaponized. We’ve moved from the quiet, peaceful part of quarantine to the restless, angry part of it. We’ve watched in horror as 126,000 of our fellow Americans have died from this virus, and yet some of us haven’t been willing to do the simple things needed to help slow the spread. Wear a mask, stay home when possible, keep our distance from others. The Internet is filled with awful pictures and video of people behaving horribly in the name of “their rights” while at the same time disregarding the rights of others. Stop looking for conspiracies where there are none and just do the right thing.

But here’s the other thing. In the midst of this pandemic and all that has gone with it, we’ve finally been forced to take a long, hard look at our racial past and the awful mistakes that were made along the way that today still impact the lives of fellow human beings and Americans. And when I say things like, “I just wish we could get back to the way things used to be,” I recognize the privilege that lies behind a statement like that. My “the way things used to be” is another person’s time of fear, anger or sadness over a lifetime of mistreatment or a history told wrong. And we have so much work to do to find a way to come together and make things right.

20, 30, or even 50 years from now. What will they say about this period in history? What will today’s kids tell their own kids or grandkids about the “Year of the Pandemic?” Will they look at us and marvel at our strength and courage during a really scary time? Will they look at us with scorn because half of us refused to do even the bare minimum to help make things better as part of a political game of wills? Will they change the story to make us look better or worse than we do right now? The first half of the first year of the decade of the 20’s is over. But the second half starts today and that story hasn’t been written yet. We all have the power to control and write the story that should be written. Let’s get to it.

My Heart Aches Tonight

This evening, as I was coming back from a walk, I stopped to say hi to a neighbor and we talked about what was going on in our country right now. She pointed down to her 5-year-old daughter and said that she’s asking questions and how do you explain this to a young child? As I walked away, I said, “I have to go home and cry now,” and we both gave a small, sad laugh.

And my heart aches tonight. 

It aches for the families of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and so many that came before them.

It aches for people of color who have been held down for too long by systems designed to hold them down and beyond which they have no real power.

It aches for Black parents who live in a sort of fear I’ve never really known that their kids might be the next story on the news.

It aches for the Black community for their pain and anger and for feeling so unheard and unhelped for so long.

It aches for the almost 107,000 dead from Covid-19, which though it’s not gone, it is all but currently sort of, but not really, forgotten.

My heart aches tonight. 

It aches for our country, which feels like it’s falling apart as we stand by wringing our hands in horror because no one in Washington has the courage (or maybe desire) to throw water on the Wicked Witch of the West by standing up to the man who could have chosen to lead our country with compassion and strength and worked to unite us, but instead chose the exact opposite, using loaded, incendiary language designed to hurt and divide.

It aches for the US Constitution, particularly the First Amendment, which protects people’s right to protest peacefully, while some were fired on by tear gas as the President called himself the “ally of peaceful protestors.” 

I don’t know how a parent explains 400 years of systemic racism that ends in terrifying images on a TV screen to young children. I don’t know how to reassure my own adult children that we will see better days. Honestly? Right now, I don’t know how to reassure myself the same thing. 

What I do know is this: We have so much work to do. We have to do more than post memes and platitudes and hashtags. We have to read and learn and figure out what it means to be anti-racist. We have to speak up and help out when we see injustice happen. We have to have compassion. We have to be kind.

Where is the hope?

It’s hard to be hopeful when things really don’t feel very hopeful, isn’t it? I started writing this yesterday afternoon, before I’d seen the video of the Minneapolis police and what they did to unarmed George Floyd. We have to find a way to make this better.

I'd like to think I'm a fairly positive person. When I write, even if it’s not a happy topic, I like to end on a more positive note because that’s how I’m wired…I need to find the bright side of things. And yet, we’re in the middle of a global pandemic with no real end in sight. And we don’t know what the future holds as far as the rest of this year and school and other things that we think of as “normal.” And the man who is supposed to be leading our country is having a much better time dividing us, mocking his rivals, tweeting conspiracy theories, with little relief from his horribleness or lack of leadership in sight. And his defenders still defend him. And public health has become a political weapon; simple protective face masks weaponized in a weird new culture war. And the same people who a year ago insisted their right to bear arms at all costs was more important than our children’s right to be safe in their school now insist their right to a good time somehow supersedes yours or my right to feel safe when we leave our houses. And on and on and on. And I just don’t know how to find a hopeful note to end on when everything feels so hopeless.

I’m heartbroken for the mess we seem to be embroiled in: the vitriol spewed on social media comments by people on the extremes (and maybe not so extremes) and the awful things that are happening in the news: Covid deaths reaching over 100,000 and apparent disdain/disbelief of it, the murders of black men on video, disaster after disaster. With no end in sight for any of this ugliness, we’re like sideline players left to feel. And heal. It’s hard to find hope. Right now. But I don’t feel like all hope is lost.

Can you feel as though you’ve been sucked into a vortex of hopelessness and sadness, but not feel like you’ve lost all hope or feel sad all the time? How does that work? I think of it like this: There were some bad things that happened to me in childhood, but if you ask me, I would say (with complete honesty) that I had a happy childhood. These things aren’t mutually exclusive, are they?

What did people in other eras do when things felt this bad? Because in the history of our country, or all humankind for that matter, there have been times that have felt just as, or even more, devastatingly terrible. Young people facing angry mobs with rocks and other things hurtled at them as they integrated schools, Japanese families rounded up and stuck in internment camps, slavery, Civil War. 

I have friends who’ve intentionally been writing about the goodness of the world…that’s their gift and they do a great job of it. I want to find that hope and see things to be grateful for in every day life, too. Mr. Rogers reminded us to look for the helpers.  Laura Ingalls Wilder said, “As you read my stories of long ago I hope you will remember that things truly worthwhile and that will give you happiness are the same now as they were then. It is not the things you have that make you happy. It is love and kindness and helping each other and just plain being good.”

And Anne Frank was able to see the beauty in a world that locked her and her family in a tiny room for two years and ultimately killed most of them. “It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart,” she wrote. 

If Anne Frank can do that, so can I. The hope is there. So is the beauty. I don’t think we have to give up hope to care about the awfulness of what we see. But I do think we have to compartmentalize to avoid getting sucked into that vortex of despair. So I guess that’s what I’m going to do.

Finding the simple joys on the harder days

There are days in quarantine that just feel harder than others. And of course, they are. Pandemics are hard. People are dying. We already have more than 10,000 more than the estimate we were given two weeks ago for total US deaths. And we still lack adequate testing. And we can’t trust the information we’re given by our leaders as they work to silence the scientists who are most knowledgable. And people are storming state capitals with artillery and others are balking at the mere suggestion that wearing a mask might help others stay alive. Or they’re refusing to social distance in the name of “we want to go to work” when what they seem to mean is “I’m bored and I want to go to the beach.” (disclaimer: I KNOW people need and want to go back to work. That isn’t what those “protests” are really about anymore than they’re what this post is about). Of course this is hard. People are struggling financially, people are dealing with all kinds of things. It’s hard to watch the news most days. 

But when I say some days just feel harder than others, I mean hard on a more visceral level. The kind of hard where you feel like you’re going to cry and can’t really pinpoint something “that’s wrong,” but you know you just feel sad enough to, anyway. Maybe you miss your students and school the way it used to be. Maybe you had an “optional” Zoom class and no one showed up and even though you’re adult enough to know not to take it personally, you still do. Kind of. Or you sign in to a staff meeting that you don’t absolutely have to be at just because you want to see your co-workers’ faces for a few minutes. Or maybe you’re at the point where, in any other school year you’d be knocking out some of your best work and projects along with winding things down with students, but you can’t seem to make yourself do them the way you want to, instead inventing new things to do that don’t turn out the way you want them to.

And on these harder days, I suppose we have a couple of options. We can: 1) Wallow in the sadness; 2) Ignore and just push through; 3) Stop, take a breath and realize you’re not being terribly productive, lace up your shoes and go for a walk. If you opt for number three, here’s what could happen. You might get a couple of doors down and see these grand sidewalk chalk drawings that say, “Thank you” and “Thank you Teachers.” Maybe you get a little further into your walk and you see a family across the street with their dogs and you yell over to the 3-year-old who’s wearing a backpack, “Hey…that’s an awesome backpack,” (because that’s the sort of thing you typically do) and he strikes up a great conversation with you (from a distance). He tells you his dogs’ names and then, as you say goodbye, he finishes the conversation with, “Bye. Be safe!” And at this point, you tear up but also start smiling a little. As you keep walking, a song like “Titanium” comes on and it does exactly what you need it to do,, so you listen to it two or three (or maybe four?) times and you even add in the arm motions from your cardio dance class, not caring what others may think as they walk by you doing your big muscle arms. 

These hard days really are tough. This may be the hardest thing most of us, collectively, have ever had to do together. There’s no real instruction book on how to handle life in quarantine. Or what to do when the news brings us down and we become disillusioned or we miss things from LBC. We all have different ways of coping: Sharing funny memes, political rants, baking, creating, exercising. It sure feels like getting out and finding the simple joys during a midday walk is one sure thing I’ve found to help on days like this. What are some things that work for you? 

Random Quarantine Thoughts (pt. 2)

Random Quarantine Thoughts (pt. 2)

Masks

For some reason they’re controversial, probably because the CDC reversed course in its recommendations regarding them, saying at first that they weren’t needed and later changing to yes, they will protect others from ourselves. Because, you know…science and data change and so do conclusions. But since wearing them is going to be part of our new reality going forward (note that I didn’t say “new normal?”), they bear some thought. At least for me.

First, they’re not terribly comfortable. They’re itchy and hot and they make it weird to breathe in and make you notice that you might need to pop a breath mint or chew some gum. Second, they make it hard to recognize people. I was wearing mine at the grocery store the other day and saw someone wearing hers. She said, “Hi” to me, so I said, “Hi” back thinking it was a polite greeting, but as I walked away, I realized I knew her. Not well…she’s a teacher of a similar content area at another school and we’re Facebook friends who’ve met in person a handful of times. So I had to double back and confirm that I did know her. We laughed and I realized that wearing masks means we will need to depend on eye and hair recognition in a way we haven’t before. Third, the fashion sense of these will be interesting. I wonder if people will like wearing them more when they have cute ones that match their personalities? And fourth, I was wearing my mask as I picked up our take-out dinner last night. As I walked out, there was a couple waiting in their truck to go in that smiled a greeting at me and I smiled back at them. After all…PEOPLE! But then I realized I was wearing my mask and they couldn’t tell I’d responded. So I said, “You can’t tell, but I just smiled back at you!” And the woman said, “I did know. I could see the smile in your eyes.” So…the eyes have it.  

(And, because these are random thoughts, this topic reminded me of this song from the Top Gun soundtrack )

Can we pull this one out?

Have you ever walked into a class where you were hit with a pop quiz you weren’t really prepared for and as you started it, you thought, “Hmmm..it's tough, but I think I might be able to pull this out.”? Then, as you got further into it, you realized it was harder than you thought and you weren’t really sure which way it might go, after all? 

I kind of feel like we, as a country, were hit with a pop quiz six weeks ago. Maybe not a pop quiz, but a test. Probably the biggest test of our lives. Really, it's the ultimate test of courage. None of us regular people had studied for it (of course scientists and epidemiologists had). And we started out thinking how daunting it seemed, but we were doing it anyway. And we came together in that spirit of sticktoitiveness that makes America great (not the slogan, but for real, actually great). The way our ancestors did in times of world war or as they settled this new country and everyone worked together for the greater good. We knew that by staying in and experiencing some discomfort, we were not only protecting the vulnerable among us, but we were also helping the first responders, the doctors, the nurses, so they could do their jobs. This was our “Greatest Generation” moment. A time for us to look beyond our own needs and think about others.

And at first, most of us did all that. Many businesses learned new ways to conduct business. Teachers learned new ways to teach, children learned new ways to learn, families did things together. Social media feeds were filled with love and sharing and caring. It was like after years of divisiveness, we’d started to come together in this shared experience to fight a common enemy, Covid-19. But then, some started getting restless and stories emerged of politicians who’d said awful things like, “Old people should be willing to die to save the economy.” Never mind that these same politicians ran on a “pro-life” platform. Never mind that we were all coming together. New hashtags started appearing and the president began calling for states to “liberate” even after he himself had released a “phase in” approach to “reopening” states and our country.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. If we can remember why we were doing this and have some patience and perspective, it would go so far.  What we’ve been doing is one of the most selfless acts we’ve ever collectively done.  Is anyone really willing to sacrifice family members so others can go back to the way life used to be? Will life really go back to what it used to be? Do we want that? Can those who say to let the vulnerable, older, or weaker people die pick someone in their own family to let go? I sincerely doubt it.

Suddenly, it feels like that test that was really challenging but we could handle is a test that we, as a country, are failing. But it’s a pretty long test. It's ongoing, and I feel like if we could just take a collective deep breath, we can dig in deep and maybe turn things around to get that passing mark, after all.

"All of us have moments in our lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with white carpet is one of them." (Erma Bombeck)

Random Quarantine Thoughts (pt. 1)

Random Quarantine Thoughts (pt. 1)

Heavy

I know I’m not alone when I think of this time we’ve been quarantining to say that it’s like this crazy roller coaster of emotions. I wrote about it early on here. One day, it’s all, “This isn’t bad. I have time to do my work and read my book and enjoy my family and cook dinner and go for a walk and play some music and, and, and.” Other days, it’s anxiety central, and you know the best thing to do is try to do some of the healthy stuff you do on the good days and stay off social media and turn off the news for a little while and even reach out to someone to talk (if your anxiety doesn’t stop you from doing that). 

And other days are just heavy. And lonely feeling. And sad. Rightly or wrongly, I keep this website  as an open tab on my computer and check it daily. When the president rarely expresses any kind of compassion for the loss of life during his daily “press briefings,” I shake my head in disbelief. The number goes up by the thousands every single day. Yesterday morning it was just over 45,000. Today it is just under 48,000. Yes, 84,000 have recovered. But that means just under 48,000 families are grieving the loss of someone right this minute due to this virus, even while 84,000 are celebrating recovery. You can be relieved and sad and realistic all at the same time. Loss of life is loss of life. And while just under 48,000 have died from this in two months, that’s just 10,000 less than the number of US soldiers that died in Vietnam, a conflict that lasted almost two decades. And at the same time, there are so many other families struggling and in pain and dealing with loss, too. Cancer, car crashes, families making end of life decisions for loved ones due to old age, families losing loved ones due to addiction, suicide, weather disasters and on and on. We do what we can to manage these feelings of heaviness, but man, these days are definitely the hard ones.

View from my window

I found a group on Facebook this week called “View from My Window” and it's filled with photos taken from all

"View from my window"

around the world of peoples’ views from a window in their homes. These photos are lovely. And captivating. Photos of far off places I’ve not yet visited, some of which I hope to one day. Photos from cities and towns in the US that I’ve never been to and some that I have been to where the scene is familiar or something I've seen in person before.

And as I look at these photos, I realize that from where my temporary work desk is set up in my bedroom, I have spent a good deal of time looking out my own window lately, as well. The edge of our flag waving in spring breezes catches my eye many times during my Zoom classes. The green of the leaves on the trees in our front yard and across the street. The sounds of birds singing or children out for a social distancing morning run with their moms as they head up the street. They all vie for my attention and help distract me with a reminder that there's beauty in our own worlds, too. We’ve lived in our house for 18 years and I think I’ve looked out my bedroom window a handful of times before this.

Fading

Fading fake tattoo.

See my “fake” tattoo? My workout friends and I had these made for photos as part of a “virtual April Fool’s gag,” a gag that had been planned weeks before this began, but it has become a fairly big piece of symbolism for me during our quarantine. It pops into my line of vision while I’m working out at home or other random times during the day. Sometimes, I do a double take when I see it because I forget it’s there, but it makes me happy every time I notice it. It reminds me of: 1) friends I adore that I miss seeing in person so much, 2) the big parts of LBC that I miss, 3) that I have strength and can be strong in the face of hard and scary things.

It’s been just over three weeks since I applied the “tattoo,” and as it’s fading now, that feels fairly symbolic, too. I: 1) worry that so much time away from the things that I love will fade not just in my memory, but will be hard to recover when we start venturing out again, 2) that the good vibes and all the goodness we saw at the beginning of this crisis are starting to fade away, 3) that the divisiveness that is politically motivated and may be advantageous for some, is really incredibly damaging to the rest of us and that the country we grew up knowing and loving is fading away and what can we do to protect it and bring it back? 

"In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers." (Mr. Rogers)

A New Normal?

This started out as a post about loneliness. Because I can’t imagine that my feelings of loneliness, even in a house full of human beings and never actually being alone as we’re quarantined, are unique to me. Or the crushing sadness I feel for people who are truly alone right now. My mother, a widow, alone, unable to get together with her friends. My friend’s mom, also a widow, also alone. Another friend’s mom, in a nursing home. How do you explain to someone with dementia why no one is coming to visit them anymore? That kind of loneliness is gut wrenching to imagine. Sick people dropped off at a hospital’s emergency room, left alone in the hospital as their loved ones go home to worry. Alone. Missing my own friends so much it feels suffocating at times, but not really knowing how to connect the way I want, so avoiding more than I should. Thinking of kids who are missing their own friends. Yet, I have  no solution and I’m not sure I have anything insightful to say about it other than to acknowledge that I have these feelings and you probably do too and they don’t really feel great.

So instead it became a post about “the new normal.” On the first night of this year (in what feels like another lifetime ago), my husband suffered a heart attack, sudden cardiac arrest and then later had open heart surgery. In the weeks that followed, I was told, “It’ll be okay, you’ll find your new normal.” And I really wasn’t sure what that looked like, but I guess as we developed new habits and routines, we kind of did. And now, just 12 short weeks later, we’re all trying to find “our new normal” in the face of a global pandemic. Characters in books, after going through some major life change, often “find their new normal.” But truthfully? I don’t really want a new normal, I want my old normal back. I want my comfortable normal from December 31st, 2019 or even March 13th, 2020 back. A normal that wasn’t filled with fear or sadness or loneliness. I had it pretty sweet…mostly empty nester learning how to maneuver life with my husband in the “kids done or almost done with college mode.” We would go out to eat, travel a little, laugh a lot, we had routines. But as Mick so eloquently said, “You can’t always get what you want,” and that sure seems to be the case with this. So what is our new normal? What does that even mean? How do we know when we’re there? Do we stay there? Is that it? We fall into new routines. Are the routines and rhythms of a household in isolation really the new normal?

But that’s not even what this post is about. What this post is actually about, or what’s on my mind right now, is this: What happens when we’re done doing what we’re doing right now? So much has changed. And so quickly. We’ve learned new ways to do our jobs. New ways to do school. New ways to connect. New ways to patronize restaurants. New ways to interact with our families. New ways to slow down. New ways to be. New ways to think. We’ve learned that we can get by without so many things. We’ve learned that in the face of scary, challenging stuff, we can have days where we’re productive and things feel, dare I say, “normal,” and we can have days where we feel off and not so productive and we’ve learned that both are okay. We’ve learned that funny memes are sometimes just the thing to get us through hard days and the upside to social media is that it can help us not feel as alone as we might otherwise feel.

But when the stay at home orders are lifted and the pandemic fears have died down, what happens? I mean, after we do the things we've missed, like get a haircut or go for coffee with a friend. Do we go right back to the way things were? Does the hustle and bustle of LBC (Life Before Covid) ramp right back up? This virus has taken so much from so many: loved ones, jobs, health, security, human connection. And at the same time, it’s given much: fear, yes, but also time to think, time with family that felt like it had been lost forever, time to breathe, new ways to connect, time to reflect on what really matters, time to get outside. How do we take the good parts of now and combine them with the good parts of LBC? Do the calls and need for human connection and kindness stick?

Maybe this post is about the “new normal,” after all. Because it seems like the new normal can, no, should, include parts of the old normal. The smell of freshly cut grass on a pretty spring day. A stunning full moon on a clear night. A song on your playlist that makes you smile; or a song that makes you cry. That feels normal. And right. And good. Making dinner. Night, after night, after night (this, is definitely new for me!). Seeing a little girl run through a sprinkler in a bathing suit while holding a polka dotted umbrella and squealing with laughter. Maybe the two normals eventually morph into something that just feels like life is moving forward. Maybe not the way we intended, but still in a forward motion and it becomes this thing that we all experienced and will never forget and that will shape our futures in a way that we really can’t imagine, yet.

All the Feels (more of my random thoughts on COVID-19)

This past couple of days have truly hit “all the feels.” Here’s just a sampling of some of the emotions I’ve felt, sometimes all in the same hour, sometimes all in the same 10 minutes.

Relief. Relief that we had the ability to quickly get out of town and get my son from college who’d been displaced from his last semester and have him home. 

Grateful.  Grateful for doctors and nurses who are on the front lines dealing with sick people every day, grateful for the sacrifices businesses (small and large) are making, thankful for the helpers. Grateful for journalists who are working round the clock to keep us informed of what’s really going on. Thankful and appreciative for the amount of work teachers and administrators have put in trying to wrap their heads around how to “do school,” knowing that they won’t be able to please everyone and that changes seem to happen on a dime.

And sadness. So much change. And so quickly!  Sad for the disruption to life as we typically know it..for teachers and administrators trying to figure out the best way to “do school.” For seniors in HS and college. I was thinking about how happy and hopeful we felt on the quad when we dropped our son off at school 3-1/2 years ago, and how sad and lonely the campus seemed when we got him on Saturday. Sadness for the seniors in my school, not knowing whether, or when, any of the senior “things” they’ve looked forward to for years will happen. Sadness that I don’t know when I’ll see my students in person again or carry out traditions that we do near the end of the year in my classes each year. Sadness for families who struggle and will be dramatically effected economically by what’s going on. Sadness for people who are sick and dying of this virus. Sadness for those who are considered among the more vulnerable and are scared for their lives right now.

Angry. Angry for many of the same reasons as above. Angry that our federal government bungled this so much and yet still says their response has been “great and unprecedented.” Angry that people called this a hoax, that they assigned some political agenda to this. Since when is public health a partisan issue, anyway?

Happiness. Happy to read of families having great attitudes about being forced to slow down and enjoy time together. Families sharing resources and ideas online for how to plunge forward in the coming days and weeks. 

And hopeful. I’m hopeful that these measures we’re taking will contain the virus. I heard someone on the radio the other day say they were concerned that the social distancing works so well that people will say this was all hyped when, in fact, the reason cases started dropping was that the measures worked. I’m hopeful that people will continue being kind to each other. Hasn’t it been lovely the way people have been smiling at others, acknowledging them, making offers to tutor each others’ kids online? I’m hopeful that we will continue to offer grace and compassion to others. Most teachers have never delivered content to full classes of students for long stretches of time. It’s uncharted territory. Most schools haven’t closed for extended periods of time. It’s also uncharted territory. Mistakes will be made. Infrastructure may not handle it well. Parents will be frustrated. Teachers will be frustrated and everyone will need to have compassion for each other. I’m hopeful we can have compassion for young people whose big milestone events are up in the air and might be sad about it and have every right to be. Being sad, and even saying so, doesn’t mean they are spoiled or lack resiliency. You can be sad and still grateful for the first responders all at the same time. I’m hopeful we can have compassion for each other as the newness of our situation wears off and reality sets in.

I know I’m not alone with these thoughts and swirl of emotions. I think again, back to Ma and Pa trudging across the prairie in a horse drawn buggy with 3 young girls (or was it four? Albert? Who knows how many they really had, anyway?). Imagine the uncertainty they felt as they embarked on new lives in new places. We’re kind of in the place of a new normal now, but the certainty is that we can stay connected, at least virtually, and that we’ll come out of this stronger than we were before. And hopefully, the kindness and compassion that we expend during this period of time will carry into the future when we’re on the other side of this.