Monday Morning

Restless sleep, lots of early movement…bathroom door opens and closes, sending light into the room like a lightening bolt.  Eldest ambles down the hallway.  Youngest is asleep next to me. Husband is just on the other side.

Just before 4am, looking at the clock, which is my phone, trying to decide what time it really is given Daylight Saving (with or without the “s”??).

4:15 alarm.  Snooze.

4:20…decidedly not asleep, so might as well get on with it. I am already planning backwards from 6:30, when I will have to leave the house.

Yesterday’s coffee is still in the pot, so it will suffice for the first cup.  The next will be freshly ground and patiently brewed, I vow.  Unfortunately for my husband, the next pot will have to wait until tomorrow.

Coffee on the couch, next to the dog, to check in on the headlines.

Coronavirus…I read the article in the Times and try to read between the lines.  Is it time to worry?  Is it time to buy extra toilet paper and refill prescriptions?  Can you get the virus if you have groceries delivered?  Would quarantine really be all that bad?

Politics…how did we get here and where are we going?  I check, again, to verify that I have the New York primary date entered into my calendar.  I do not.  I thought I did?  What else will I not be reminded to do?

5:00 alarm.  My reminder that if I am going to go out with the dog or to the basement’s treadmill, now is the time.  I weigh the options and try to see the ramifications of each choice.

Treadmill. 3 miles while being annoyed with the most recent Saturday Night Live.  I watch the current cast and think fondly of Jane Curtin, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, John Belushi…I know you! You’re that shark!

Showering on autopilot, trying to figure out the pace and sequence of my first class.  I know I’ll have some time between my first and second classes to organize materials, but I definitely need a plan, despite the fact that my plan is, in fact, already set.  Second guessing is second nature, I suppose.

6:30 and I am almost out the door…but I remember that I want to bring a friend a small plant.  Her father is ill and she just put down her dog and life is piling up on her and there’s nothing I can do except bring her a plant so that she knows I was trying.  So that she knows that she is loved.

6:40 and I park somewhere between the beautiful full moon and the almost sunrise.

Walking around the grocery store is a lot like being in a casino for me.  Time stops.  But it doesn’t because when I walk out, with the plant and a cup of coffee, it is almost 7:10.

7:15am.  Arrive at school, leave the plant with a note on a very (very!) clean desk, and walk to my classroom.  I wonder if my desk is really as cluttered as I think or if it only appears that way in contrast to the one I just left.

Lights on, one by one (lamps, no overhead fluorescents for me!), and adjust the chairs just a bit to find a little more space between them.

Return the computer cart (recall that coronavirus can live up to 14 days on a surface…or was it 14 hours?) and start the faculty room coffee pot brewing.

Back in my class, I check the daily slides that I use put together Sunday and that I will use as a backdrop to my teaching.  I have embraced the technology ever since someone decided to abduct my white board (following the kidnapping of my chalk board), leaving me with a giant screen that I now use, adeptly, every day.

7:40am Five minutes until the students arrive and I wonder about my next cup of coffee.