Connections.  Elusive and present at every turn.  That is the thing with this new reality:  even though we are no longer physically connected, we are communicating.  The communication is intense–faces filling up my screen, phone buzzing at all hours, emails within emails within emails–and while the communication is often convoluted and bewildering, it is constant.

In the movie Ralph Breaks The Internet, the characters move through the wires and out into the great World Wide Web.  Their little bright blue lights shoot down from the video game, through the wire and out into the expanse of the internet.  I feel like that when I sit down to write.  As soon as I click “publish” I feel like my words fly through the wires and out into the great beyond; my words find your eyes and we connect.

I am not a fan of my new relationship to my digital devices.  It seems that my phone & my computer are never out of arm’s reach…and if they are, when I return to them, the “catch up” is enough to elevate my stress to levels that make me think the disconnect isn’t worth the cost of the reconnect.  But I also cling to the connection that these hold.  In our new world of isolation, the connection is all predicated on the digital.

I know that the time will come when I will know that disconnecting means connecting.  I will put my phone down for dinners with friends, leave it in the car at a concert and silenced in my desk when I teach.  My family will return to our “screen free” hours and days and I will forget my phone more often than I remember it.  But for now, the connections are purposeful and I am grateful.

 

**Inspired by the brilliant women of my “book club”

Denial:  Waking up to the sound of rain, I wonder if the dog can wait just a bit longer.  Giving in to the inevitable, I make my way into the day, recalculating my plans given the extra hour I slept.  Dog outside, coffee brewing, youngest accommodated, I find my space on the couch and begin my “work” for the day.  Posting plans, answering emails, responding to student comments…I think I can figure out how to make this work for the next few weeks!  I schedule my zoom meetings, rework our family calendar to make space for all the zooming, and reach out to a few colleagues who have been heavy on my mind.   I head for another cup of coffee and to help wake the rest of the house so that we can all venture forth.

Anger:  I start to read some of the responses and feelings of frustration begin to build.  I am misunderstood.  I am not communicating well.  Messages are received, but ideas are lost.  What will happen if we don’t go back?  How will I do this for another month? Two?  Why can’t anyone give a straight answer?  One leader (and I use that term loosely) gives one version and another tells a different tale.  Fake news is a thing of the past; now we just have uncertainty and projections and apexes (is that the correct plural?) that roll and move.  How can no one know what is going on?  I am seething and there is no escape because I am locked inside and it is pouring rain.

Bargaining:   Heading to the basement to my faithful treadmill, I promise my kids time and attention.  Later.  I promise my husband time and attention.  Later.  Right now, I have to take care of myself.  If I take care of myself, I will be able to do this.  Whatever this is, I will be able to do it…if I take care of myself.  I know I’m not really trying to cut a deal with the universe, just with myself.  I walk and run and debate the many ways I can spend my time productively, the many silver linings that I can find in this whole catastrophe.

Depression:  I can’t.  I just can’t today.  The plans from early this morning make no sense.  Will the kids even see any of it?  And what about the kids we don’t reach…are they okay?  I have names running through my head, students that I would, on a normal day, make sure I got my eyes on at some point, to make sure they knew I was seeking them out.  But they don’t know.  And I don’t know.  It’s all a big unknown.  And, because I am going down this road, does any of it even matter?

Acceptance: I finish up yet another zoom meeting and then, almost immediately, call my co-teacher (who is also one of my closest friends).  Plans are becoming clearer and I think I can see the progression.  I think we can actually do it…we can develop something that meets the criteria set forth by my district and aligns with my education philosophy.  I see the scope and sequence and I think I can figure out the details.  It may even transfer to this new alternate reality.  I close my computer, silence my phone and open my door.  I prioritize time with my family over another zoom meeting, recognizing that tomorrow is, indeed, another day.

 

I wonder when rocks begin to settle?  When do they sink far enough into the earth that a shuffling shoe or even a determined kick cannot alter this final resting point?  I recognize that rocks (probably) do not have much choice in this ultimate placement, but I do wonder if there is a moment when they just give in to their destiny.

I am not a gardener.  My husband is the one who somehow transforms corners of our yard into spots of beauty and finds a way to coax food from packages of seeds.  When we first moved into our house, I watched as he pulled rock after rock out of the soil, before finally giving up on the natural land and building raised beds that would become our gardens for years to come.  The rocks were too big.  The rocks were too stubborn.  The rocks were just too many.  But he didn’t give up; he just accepted that the rocks had a permanent space and worked around it.

I thrive on routine, but only because that routine gives me a bit of control.  I rarely try to control the uncontrollable but I hold tight to the things that I can control.  I have usually been able to tell the difference.  Until now.  Now I am missing the spontaneity and vibrancy and change and all of the things that define a middle school life.  I need to exercise my flexibility and make sure that my response muscles still work.  But without something to flex around or respond to, I am stagnant.  I didn’t know that this was missing until today…this is what my students and my “school world” always provided and now they are gone.

As much as I try to move…around the house, around the neighborhood, around my own busy mind…I worry that I have begun to settle.  Tomorrow I will till my proverbial soil and try to loosen my grip on stagnation.  I know that I am not a rock, nor am I in danger of becoming permanently embedded in the soil, but I do fear that without the energy of the unpredictable, I will begin to sink.

 

Occasionally, I move the furniture around in my classroom.  I say occasionally, but my students (and definitely my colleagues) would use the word often.  Regardless, I feel the need to move around the physical space of my classroom several times throughout the school year.  I do it to accommodate small groups for upcoming book club discussions; to find as much quiet space for serious, independent writing as possible; to make room for a new student or to allow a specific student the opportunity to safely hide.  I also rearrange when one of my many old, gently used chairs finally needs to make its final exit to the dumpster.  But I do respect the physical space of my classroom and I give a lot of thought to the impact of that space on my students.  A lot of thought.

But I haven’t thought enough about helping them to find their space at home.  I am not equipped to give this advice…I am currently holed up in my bedroom while my husband and three kids find a way to reorganize our living room. We live in a small (just over 900 square feet) home with our overactive, overgrown 6 year old puppy and our postage stamp fenced-in yard.  Survival is the name of the game here, at least when it comes to finding your own space.   I read wherever I can find some quiet; I write in the early morning before anyone is awake.  I do not have an office or even a chair designated as mine.  Move your feet, lose your seat is not the law of the land, but it definitely sets the tone.

About 15 years ago, I stopped assigning any homework.  Along with some members of my department, we agreed that the 80 minutes of class we had each day was enough and that the only “homework” that was necessary was independent reading.  When students fell behind on their writing, they would work with me during the school day; working from home was always a last resort because I didn’t want them to try to navigate the writing process without the resources and support that they had in our classroom workshop.   School was enough.

A few years later, I stopped bringing my work home.  We had our second child and it was clear that bringing home papers or trying to plan from home was almost impossible, so instead I stayed at school until my work was done, or went in at the crack of dawn.  I would rather log 10 or 11 hours a day at school than try to carve out the time at home.  School was for school and home was for home.  It was as simple as that.  I had drawn the line and it was clear.

And now?  I have no control over their environment.  I have made the master bedroom my command center, working from the warmth of my bed, away from the distraction and energy of the rest of the house.  I am giving them only homework.  Work to do at home.  My time is split sometimes hour by hour and even minute by minute…parenting, partnering, dog wrangling and teaching.

All lines have been erased.

 

 

 

 

“Words are powerful,” is one of my mantras.  My students, my colleagues, my family…they all know how much I value words, all words.  It is what connects me to other teachers and writers (although I am uncomfortable with that title!) and readers and thinkers.  Words are powerful.

I have always been pulled to words.  I can (almost) still hear my father’s voice giving life to Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson as I fit myself onto his lap in his overstuffed, orange chair or snuggled under the bend of his elbow while he sat on the edge of my bed.  I have surrounded myself with words my whole life, escaping into others’ words and trying to find my own.  But what makes me a teacher is my relentless drive to show my students the power of words…their words, others’ words, written, spoken, improvised and revised to perfection.

It feels ironic that I am now forced to communicate with only my words and it is not enough.  My students are forced to communicate with only their words and it is not enough.  We don’t have the rest of the conversation to help.  There is so much more beyond the words:  eyes that lock for a beat too long or avoid altogether; shoulders hunched over in self protection or stiff backs, strong in anticipation of a battle; hands that sit loosely, revealing inner calm or hands that fidget, pick, and fumble betraying the facade being presented.  There is so much more beyond the words.

Words are powerful, but they are, sometimes, just not enough.

 

I write in my dreams.  Really.  I woke up this morning, at my usual pre-corona time, to a sleeping house.  I was excited to write.  In the quite, next to the still-sleeping dog, with the warm coffee at my elbow, I opened the computer, bypassed the news and the social media begging for my attention, and went straight to my waiting blank page.

I had the words in my head, but they were all jumbled.  I had the ideas in my head, but the words didn’t quite catch them.  I knew what I wanted to write but it was fading fast.  I typed furiously, but when I paused to look at what had come out, it bore little resemblance to the writing of my dream.  My dream was full of metaphors and allusions and words pushed together in ways that made readers stop to consider the meaning and the figurative meaning and the story hidden behind even that.  My dream wrote perfectly nuanced phrases and cadenced sentences and Just Right paragraphs, that caught readers in the current and carried them gently along.

But the words that had tumbled out of me this morning couldn’t capture the dream, despite all of my very best attempts.  I had to accept the reality of my now fully conscious state:  that dream will forever be mine, it cannot survive the translation.

It is a lonely thing to know that there are pieces of our existence that can never be shared, no matter how desperately we want to understand or be understood.  While we can get almost to our core, almost to the heart of who we really are, with a few, select people (if we are lucky), the fact remains that there are fragments that will always stay in our dreams.

I stayed in the warm. I stayed in the last gasps of restless sleep. I stayed despite the responsibilities of my life. I stayed in my cocoon. I couldn’t face whatever was out there, so I stayed. But the sun forced its way through. Its persistence a testament to its relentless power. Even as I pulled covers over my head and burrowed deeper into the pillow, the day was finding me. I fought valiantly. I convinced myself that it was all utterly unnecessary. I was almost successful.

Clearly no one expected this
(Or at least no one who didn’t have a bunker full of canned goods):
Random acts of humanity, big and small
Other moments of connection, across seas and continents
Nations seeing themselves in the future or the past…
and no one really knowing what comes next.
Can we find the so-called silver lining?
A piece of beauty that wouldn’t exist had we not hit the pause button?
There is something incredible in the stillness:
I can take in everything, at my own speed
only moving forward when I am done with each moment.
Now that we have found this peace, how can we hold on to it?

 

*The forced “vacation” we are all on because of the Coronavirus

 

I have been on technology all day.  All. Day.  I just finished a zoom board of education meeting.  I was responsible for taking notes for our union.  My phone died in the middle and then I had only audio.  There were lots of numbers and lots of questions and very, very few answers.

I have been on technology all day.  All. Day.  Emails from parents.  Texts from colleagues.  Google classroom questions and updates.  Students waving to me virtually…but I can’t figure out how to wave back.

I wish I was holding a quill instead of a laptop.  I wish I was in the room with others and we could just talk.  I wish the world wasn’t spinning out of control.

Tomorrow is another day.

I haven’t been out in days.  My husband has been the one to brave the grocery store and that is the only place anyone from our house has been for almost a week.  I was sent home from school on Tuesday and haven’t been out since.  My kids have gone as far as the driveway to play not-even-quarter-court basketball; me and the dog have only ventured to the backyard.

But today I was on a mission.

You see, I have a friend who lives in California.  I am in New York.  She is there, with her dogs and cats and turtles and god-knows-what-other creatures and I am here, closer to her parents who are currently living alone in a rural town 30 minutes away.  She is there and I am here.

So today I was on a mission.

Before I left the house, I made sure I had my phone, my wallet, car keys and hand sanitizer.  I don’t use hand sanitizer.  Dries out my skin and kills the good bacteria.  Handwashing is just as good.  Unless you are in a car and in a store and back in a car and there are no sinks in a car. Then, you have to use the 65% alcohol “all natural” hand sanitizer because, well, no sinks in my car.

So I took the hand sanitizer on my mission.

I started to drive and couldn’t decide between NPR and the news (which I already had heard loop through several times) or music.  Loud music.  My music.  Played loudly.  I cranked it up, adjusted my sunglasses and placed my hand sanitizer in the cup holder.

Mission begun.

I sat in the parking lot, watching through the big glass window.  There were three customers in there.  I saw one leave.  The other two inched forward.  I waited a bit longer, just waiting for another car to come into the lot and force my hand.  Customer #2 was paying and I made my move.  I rubbed in the hand sanitizer, grabbed the twenty dollar bill and adeptly got from my car and into the bakery without touching a single surface.  Better than Tom Cruise.

Mission in progress…

Cherry pie.  Sold out.  I don’t eat cherry pie, so what’s the alternative? I can’t go back now.  And there is another customer pulling into the small parking lot.  I have to commit.  Cherry turnovers?  Solid backup.  I watch the woman behind the counter carefully.  She is fully gloved and removes them only after putting said turnovers into the box and closing it.  But who else has touched the box? What about the counter? What didn’t I see?  I hand her the twenty and give a hefty tip…partly because I know her job is precarious on so many levels and partly because I don’t want to take possession of any unknown variable.  So I give a nice tip and retreat.

Mission almost accomplished.

Back in the car; more hand sanitizer.  Music on. Sunglasses on.  I drive, wondering what brings the few other cars out on a Sunday morning in the midst of a pandemic in a state that is, for all intents and purposes, locked down.  What is their mission?  I drive. I sing. I dance in a little in my seat.   Google Maps signals destination on my right.  Car in park, motor still running, I exit and walk the short distance to the woman standing at the open door.  There are tears in her eyes.

Packaged delivered:  a box of love from thousands of miles away.

Success.