The world does not bend to do your bidding.  Sometimes, you have to accept that you don’t get what you want.  This is what I want to tell her, but she is only twelve and she needs to feel like maybe the world should bend to her will.  Maybe she does deserve to get everything she wants, and more.  She is as stubborn as her mother, maybe even more. And she can hold a grudge.  For a long time.

Once, when she was still small enough to have to be zipped into a sleeper (backwards, so that she couldn’t take it off in the middle of the night), she bit me.  Hard enough to leave red teeth marks that would turn quickly to a large, dark purple bruise, almost in the shape of a kiss.  Almost.  When I recovered from my shock and pain, I asked her why?  What had I done to deserve that?  She looked at me and calmly said, “You used the nose sucker.”  More than ten hours prior to the Great Bite, I had tried my best to clear her congestion with the teal nose sucker that we had brought home from the hospital with us.  Clearly, that would be the last time.

She came into this world on her own time, as most babies are apt to do, but she really did seem to command the universe’s attention.  Her birth story is full of drama and edge-of-your-seat twists and turns, and she took a long (looong!) time to make the decision to arrive.  When she did, there was a winter storm that took off part of the siding from our house, allowing a family of squirrels to take up residence in the attic before we had even returned from the hospital. Her first few weeks of life were shared not just with family, but with Randy the Squirrel Guy, who came every morning to check the have-a-heart traps, taking out the little rodents and leaving behind fresh traps.  Squirrels, not surprisingly, became her spirit animal.  Really.

When she was three, she wanted to be a squirrel.  At four, she answered the quintessential question asked by most adults saying, nonchalantly, that she would be a squirrel when she grew up.  By the time she realized that this was not a legitimate career path, she started feeding squirrels in our front yard; we would put bird seed in the bird feeders and she would sprinkle a fair amount on the ground for the squirrels.  This past year, we have watched the squirrels fly around the obstacles she has put out to protect the bird feeders and we have watched them try to master the intricate food placement that she has left to entertain them (and us).  Currently, there are two or three bagels hanging from the large red maple tree in our front yard (and the bird feeders are often breached by the squirrels’ ingenuity).

There is more, but those are stories that still need to stay in the privacy of our small family.

I know that there will be fights, battles — wars even — as we make our way through her adolescence and beyond, but I also know that she will continue to amaze me.  And make me laugh.  Maybe she will figure out how to be a squirrel when she grows up.  If anyone can figure out how to make that happen, it is her.

I have sat in front of this blank screen for far too long. I don’t have it in me today to craft the words to fit the emotions. The emotions that have been rumbling all day, my engine beneath the hood. There are so many paths to take and yet I am simply standing here at the crossroads. I am going to sit down and decide my direction tomorrow. For now, I am just going to rest.

When my father was finally admitted into hospice, I called my then Rabbi and stood outside my classroom, cord stretched through the almost but not quite closed door.  I didn’t know what to do but I did know that this was a call that I was supposed to make.  Hearing my stilted speech, she quickly figured out what was happening and said, “One thing we Jews do well is death.”  I don’t remember much else from that conversation, but I remember that calm, measured sentence and I remember feeling that this was a safety net I could step into without question.  While my reaction is definitely credited to the gentle, firm comfort from my Rabbi, I also know that she was right.  Jews do know how to do death extremely well.  

In Judaism, there is a lot of ritual surrounding the minutes, hours, days and weeks following a death.  There are prayers to be said, acts to be carried out; the mechanics of mourning are firmly written in stone, allowing the bereaved to focus on their grief.  When a parent dies, there is a daily prayer, the kaddish, that adult children recite, every day, surrounded by at least nine other adult Jews.  In the days, weeks and months following my father’s death, I welcomed the sacred time every day when I could mourn, when I could gather with other mourners and say the kaddish.  And then it stopped.

At exactly eleven months from his death (according to the Jewish, lunar, calendar), I stopped the daily ritual of kaddish.  This, too, was part of the process. It was important to have one month in the year when the mourner reentered the “normal” world and stopped mourning.  It was intended to be a clear demarcation and for me it was a stark moment.  What should have felt like an arbitrary and manufactured cessation to grief, was perfectly timed; I was ready.  I needed to be free of the daily obligation of kaddish to allow space for life to fill in, settling into the small spaces that I was holding from my father’s death. 

Today is March 11th.  It has been one year since the pandemic was officially declared.  Every day after today will be an anniversary.  The end of sports.  The end of school.  The end of (fill in the blank).  For some of us, we will mark anniversaries of death, hospitalization, recovery and more.  The personal moments will be reflected in the shared humanity that comes with a global pandemic.  So much shared pain.  So much shared grief.  (Just like mourners gathering together to say kaddish, there is connection in shared grief.) I worry that the waves of reminders will begin and never stop.  Wave after wave of sadness and loss revisiting us, knocking us down just when we thought we had found our footing.  I wish that we could have found a way to stop, just stop, after eleven months. 

I don’t know what the connection is to saying kaddish for my father and circling around the calendar back to this date, but I do know that there is one. As we inched closer and closer to today, I couldn’t shake the sense that this year didn’t get to have a month of normal, didn’t have a time without mourning. We’ve moved through so much loss, it is amazing we are not completely empty.

Breathe in. Breathe out. The alarm has gone off a few times; it is probably time to get up and see what the day has in store. I try to think of three things to be grateful for before I leave the comfort of my bed, but can only come up with two: the energy I have to start my day & the salad that I will bring for lunch. I am stumped for my third and so I fall back on my fall back: I am grateful for my bed.

Coffee. Facebook. SOL posts. New York Times. Syracuse.com. More coffee. A glance at Google Classroom (breaking my rule to maintain a “school free” zone). Meandering through a few other sites to read poetry, a few buddhist reflections, politics (should relegate that to the periphery, too) and, of course, my daily horoscope. I wind up back on Facebook, connecting with members of my tribe that are tethered to my life through space and time and the magic of Zuckerberg. My silent agreement with myself is that I can do this for as long as I have a warm cup of coffee. When I find myself sitting there with an empty cup, then my time is up. (Most days, I have two cups of coffee….my morning ritual’s equivalent of a snooze button.)

Starting the day, a Wednesday, I know that it will be full of adults and devoid of students. It is a gift and a curse, created to allow me time to reflect, respond to students and plan but absorbed by meetings, both scheduled and impromptu. I always have a list and I almost never complete it. The energy that comes in on the backs of students is missing on Wednesdays. Again, both a curse and a blessing.

I start with a three hour session for our district’s Lead Learners, a collection of teachers and administrators from all levels who have been meeting regularly under the guidance of a consultant, helping us to move forward with culturally responsive teaching. That is the goal. This is difficult work on so many levels, not the least of which is the need to trust and be vulnerable. This is difficult and important work.

More meetings–department and grade level and one-on-one and with counselors and without counselors and with administrators and without administrators. So many meetings. Clarifying my role, having to check to see which hat I am wearing, having to mitigate other’s expectations and my own. It is exhausting. I struggle to listen more than I speak, to allow others to find their way to their own conclusions, to be open to the possibility that my conclusions are merely pauses along the way.

Finally I am alone in my classroom, late enough in the day that I don’t anticipate another knock or chance encounter in the hallway. I want to grade. I want to plan. I want to have the energy that I was so grateful for this morning.

The sun has chased any memory of winter away, and I need to get outside. I look at my list, close my computer and walk out, earbuds in place. The music will carry me away, transport me to a non-covid world and refuel my tank. It always does. I laugh when I catch my reflection in the double doors as I exit the school. I may look like I am a middle-aged teacher walking on an early spring day, but really I am dancing on stage with Michael Franti and Spearhead. I will find my way home.

I am looking at the ten of you, sitting there, in various slouchy positions.  You are teens.  You are living in a covid world.  I only see half your face and I only get that for half the time.  When you are home, you are a name in a black box, except for the brief “I have to take attendance and make sure that you aren’t someone else” moment when we all log in.  

We watch a whole thing on Generation Z.  I put it into some context.  I talk about seeing the world through your eyes.  About the need to see the world through your eyes.  I pleaded with you to find your voice, to be your voice, to use your voice.  I forgive your silence because these masks block more than just a virus.

I give you your “You-Do” list, wait for any questions, and then send you into our workshop. I wait for the writing to begin.  I wait for the tap tap tapping of the keys.  I wait for the buzz of quiet conferencing.  Instead I hear…

“Can we go outside again for another mask break?”

“When is this due?”

“I bet I can use that poem from last year!”

“Where is the list of articles?”

“Can we go outside again for another mask break? Please?”

….

Thank god you can’t see my face.  You would see the tension building in my jaw and my lips pressed into a thin line, holding back my words.  You would see my vitriol.  My judgement.  I am angry.  You are not doing your job!  I have given you my kinda brilliant mini-lesson on voice and I have connected the definition of Generation Z with the current writing portfolio project, “Taking a Stand.”  I have made it relevant and just challenging enough to stretch your minds without putting anything out of reach.  I am doing my job.  

Thank god you can’t see my face.  What are you hiding behind those masks?  What are you missing?  What do you need?  I am grateful for the face covering.  I am grateful for the imaginary distance that is greater than six feet.  I am grateful for the restraint I am pulling from somewhere deep within me.  

I am quiet.  I let you find your way to  quiet.  Some of you do, eventually, start to write.  Some of you will write later.  Some of you will never write.  

In a few weeks, I will see the writing.  I will gasp out loud at the insight and I will berate myself for the many (many!) grammatical errors that found their way into your final pieces.  Some of you will surprise me with what you complete and some of you will surprise me with what does not get completed.  I will be repeatedly surprised by how little I know you.

The first cracks in the ice are invisible 

barely audible beneath the silence of the winter woods

Cautious step after caution step

        as if there was a way to mitigate the weight 

The trees fall out of focus 

the dull grey of the sky is brought to brightness in the reflection

off the glassy surface

They say that if you are out and the ice begins to break

you should lie flat

spread yourself out 

hope that you can trick the ice into believing

you are smaller than you really are

But at that point, honestly, the lake is seeping through

there is more water than ice

In the movies, heroes make the split second decision and 

run over the disappearing surface like jesus on water

Is this whole act one of faith 

or is it an incredible exercise in denial?

Because 

      you can see the cracks

      you can hear the echos through the covered water

      each step holds the same weight and

      spread thin or standing firm, you are still you

I am spending a lot of time noticing.  Whether it is spring’s tug-of-war battle with winter or the upcoming anniversaries, big & small, of the past year, there does seem to be an art to noticing.  I’m no Picasso, but I am practicing this art and hoping that it will transform me into something better.  So, I sit noticing things (which looks a whole lot like just sitting).

I see the barely green grass pushing through the melting snow and I wait patiently for the birds to rediscover the treasures hiding in our red maple, some placed intentionally by tiny human hands and some coming out of the natural transition from dormant to rebirth.  I am noticing the struggle for spring to win this March battle, although we all know the game is rigged in her favor, and I am seeing metaphors in even the smallest bud.  It is a writer’s muse, rich in detail and symbolism.

And then there are the anniversaries.  Daily reminders of what we lost or discovered from this past year.  We are just about to cycle through the days that are heavy with incredible firsts. I am not sure I am prepared to walk back through this pandemic and feel all of those moments again, but I am noticing this step-by-step passage of time and the whirlwind of activity that marks this perpetual groundhog day. (Remember that? When everyone started to realize that this was like Groundhog Day and we were all Bill Murray, just not as funny?)  

I have fooled some folks into thinking that I don’t notice most things…that I don’t see the trees in the forest, just the forest and the repercussions of the forest in the bigger picture of the universe and the unceasing passage of time.  Someone once said that details are not my strength and that is right, some of the time.  But it is the details that sit in my brain, taking up space, fighting for primacy in my thoughts.  The details from conversations that replay over and over again, on a loop that gets louder and louder until I am certain that everyone can hear.  The details from the leaves in the forest center my field of vision and sometimes I don’t even realize that I’m in the woods.  

I guess it is a little bit of both, this noticing, seeing the big and small, the details and their place in the bigger picture. It is an in-between, like the space between winter and spring or the time just before time continues.

Finding words is sometimes like taking a deep breath.

I keep breathing, but it doesn’t feel like enough.  I know that my lungs are working, but I am less sure if my body is using the oxygen the way it’s supposed to.  I visualize the air coming in, filling me up, but it feels stuck.  I try to take in more air while simultaneously feeling the deprivation in my head, bringing darkness to the edges of my vision and increasing my heartrate in anticipation of having to rescue myself.  The apparent inadequate workings of my respiratory system surprises me. 

I don’t remember the first time I couldn’t breathe.  I do remember the first time that it brought me to my knees, sobbing and gasping for air on the sidewalk, wondering if I was going to be able to rise again before anyone noticed.  I did rise, breathe, and continue… and no one noticed.  The moment passed, but it left a crack behind, a glimpse into a darkness that I always knew but never named.  

Now, when I feel the constriction begin, I trust in my breath.  Years of yoga has trained me to see the air come in, fill my lungs, disperse throughout my body and exit once again.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.  Focus on the breathing.  I no longer collapse and only sometimes do I wonder, briefly, if I will survive.  It comes without warning, without an obvious villain to my simple story, and is almost always gone before anyone can notice. 

I am terrified of not breathing.  I have woken up from deep sleeps gasping for air.  As a kid, I was diagnosed with asthma and I have never been far from an inhaler.  But the not breathing from an asthmatic trigger is different from this not breathing.  Asthma constricts the airways and doesn’t allow the air in.  This allows the air in but there is never enough.

Finding the right words is like finding enough air…

Yesterday afternoon a 17 year old child was shot and killed by police. He was a former student of ours and he has siblings that are currently enrolled here at my middle school and at one of our elementary schools. According to news reports, he was shot by police who had come to assist a mobile mental health unit. According to the report, he held up an object that appeared to be a gun.

Yesterday afternoon our district’s superintendent sent out a survey to parents, informing them that we would be returning to 5 day a week, in person, learning and that the hybrid model would no longer be an option. Families would have to choose full time in-person education or full time remote learning for the remainder of the year. The move would take place as soon as possible.

As of 7:50am today, no information about either the death of one of our former students or the major change to in-person learning had been sent out by either the superintendent or the building principal.

I began my day with rumors and speculation and the grave realization, once again, that I do not matter. at least not to the people who make decisions.