The Coronacation Diaries, Episode 100

Endings

Like a great British tv show, it's important to end a thing before you run out of things to say, before you jump the shark. You shouldn't write 7 seasons if you can figure out how to end somewhere in the middle, maybe at the end of season 2. 

Maybe at Coronacation Diaries post 100.

I've thought a lot about endings, about famous final lines, about how to end a thing that has become, literally, a part of my daily life, a part of who I am as a person. As Holden said, “It’s funny. Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.” By putting a part of my heart and soul out there on the Internet, by building a small but loyal following of readers, I have accidentally tapped into something much bigger than me, much bigger than my thoughts or words. 

Because, it turns out that the cliche was right: we are all in this together. Well, maybe not all of us. I'm not going to even pretend that I can connect with the "historical statues matter" folks, or the "never maskers" or the "barbershop or die" crowd, or even the "all lives matter" folks. I'm not even sure that I want to. But I can see the community out there of people like me: people who are trying to do the right thing. People who fail, but then get back up, apologize, and promise to do better. People who care passionately about our country and recognize that "I don't do politics" is a road we will never walk. People who sometimes struggle to get out of bed or accomplish anything of meaning...and who recognize that tomorrow is a chance to get up and try again. People who struggle to connect with the ones they love, who struggle being together, who struggle being alone.

Photo by Edwin Hooper on Unsplash

Tonight, I am alone for *I think* the very first time in 100 days. Michael is out running. The kids are at their dad's. Daughter from another mother is out for the evening. It's just me and the dog, hanging out in my home office/front yard, watching the battery tick down on my Chromebook. It is peaceful, but strange, to be alone after so many days of forced togetherness. 

But these so many days of forced togetherness and so many days of having to put my thoughts into words has helped me to make meaning of it all and to find meaning in each day. And my final thoughts are not final, of course. I will still write, I will still blog, and I will still search and find something in each day that is worth writing about. Even though the pandemic is not over, this particular series has ended--but only to make room for other things that need to be unpacked, that need to be said.

Because I refuse to walk back to the hotel in the rain. I refuse to lay down my brush in extreme fatigue, having had my vision. I will always beat on, boats against the current. But I refuse to be borne back ceaselessly into the past. There is no room for defeat, for getting stuck into the what ifs, for attempting to live and relive the past over and over again, for throwing my hands up in the air and declaring my work here to be done.

There is so much yet to be done. There is so much to do. And if I have learned one thing--one singular thing throughout this whole pandemic--it is that our words have impact, not only in how we frame our message for others to hear, but in how we characterize our days and our moments. The words that we use frame our lives, frame our relationships with others, frame every moment. These words, no matter how poetic or succinct, have the power to change our world.

And now I will go clean my desk.

"Are there any questions?"

The Coronacation Diaries, Episode 99

All the Things I Did and Did Not Do

I'm just gonna put this right here and move on: I have not yet cleaned my desk.

I know that I said that I was going to, that it was on the short list somewhere around blog post #5, but it still hasn't happened. I also haven't unpacked the boxes from the great house remodel of 2018.

I have, however, managed to run 3 miles without stopping. It took 45 minutes, or the amount of time it would take to walk 3 miles quickly, but I ran it. I can run 3 miles. This is a thing.

I also can do a chaturanga. I did 4 of them in my circuit training tonight.

I did not finish the 30 day yoga challenge. Daughter from another mother and I got to day 18 and then she ended up with a (totally unrelated) stress fracture. I really want to yoga, intellectually, but I haven't figured out how to get that back into some sort of routine. It's been 99 days and I'm on day 18. I can't claim this one as a win.

 I have established that I write best in my front yard. I have also established that I currently have 32 mosquito bites.

After 3 months sheltering in place, I am closer to my daughter and to my daughter from another mother than I was before this all begin. This is priceless.

I still fight every day with my son. I have a lot of work to do.

I got the garden in before Memorial day. It remains to be seen whether or not anything will grow.

I have tried 7 different brands of hard seltzer. Corona wins. Ironic?

Photo by Leon Biss on Unsplash

I have written 99 blog posts. Some of them have been really good. Some of them have been kinda lame. But I haven't had to post the one I wrote and kept in reserve about mashed potatoes. I've managed to write 99 posts without including the mashed potatoes post. And no, I wasn't drunk when I wrote it.

I have written a lot about Black Lives Matter, about white privilege, about what it means to be white in our country today. And I've gained a lot of readers and a lot of shares. I thinks that we can maybe be part of a movement, a movement of white people, who act for the greater good. I think, maybe, that our voices can make a difference. I think that we can get our heads out of the sand and really work for positive, productive change.

I also lost a union election in my job and I gained a position facilitating the CRWP Remote Literacy Learning Institute. I'm still processing this one, but I know that, in the long run, the people who walk in this world much in the way that I want to walk, they are the people with whom it isn't a popularity contest. I think I maybe came out a winner, even though that loss was incredibly hard.

I did not lose 20 pounds, as planned. Instead, I gained 19. I have to figure this one out.

I have thrown the squeaky hotdog for the dog 1,435 times. I also figured out how to groom him, but I did not figure out how to trim his nails.

I drove to Florida to adopt a cat and ended up spending a week with my dad, getting to know the man who did not raise me, but who always loved me.

I have learned that, although our relationship is not one based on Hallmark movies and Harlequin romances, Michael and I work really well together. If we can weather this together, we can weather anything. This singular fact gives me hope.

I have learned that, although patience is not my strong suit, I have a lot of it. I can do patience. I can build patience. I can have patience.

I'm not sure that I learned what I wanted to learn throughout this whole pandemic thing. I'm not sure that I accomplished the things that I wanted to accomplish. But I know that I am not exactly who I was 4 months ago. And I think that I have learned a lot about who I am, about what matters, and about what is truly important to me.

The Coronacation Diaries, Episode 98

The New Normal is Nothing But.

This pandemic has done a number on our work lives. I can't speak as to what it is like to be an essential worker through all of this, because I am not one. I haven't lived that, and I wouldn't want to pretend that I understood what that has been like through all of these months. But I have lived working from home and I've watched people I love go back to work and none of this is easy.

For me, personally, teaching from home took on a whole new level of stress and I was even worse (if that is possible) at putting it away at the end of the day. Although I cut the content of I would have been teaching by 75%, just creating and explaining and troubleshooting lessons took forever. And the emails. Oh, god, the emails. Literally, thousands of emails to parents and students, trying to encourage them to participate. And then the daily emails from students asking me to explain an assignment that I had explained in a screencast that they clearly hadn't watched. And then there were emails asking for extensions and emails asking for alternate assignments and finally, at the end, a couple of emails of thanks, thanking me for sticking it out all along and answering all of the questions and working so hard to make it meaningful. Even now, two weeks after school is done, my gut twists a bit and my heart-rate goes up if I open my work email account.

Now that I am on summer break, I find myself putting in 10 hour days, sitting at my "desk" in my front yard, working on various projects. Each day starts with a 4 hour Zoom meeting with CRWP's Remote Learning Literacy Institute, where I attempt to balance facilitating video conversations, text message troubleshooting, Voxer group messages, and a backchannel chat simultaneously. When we finally end the meeting I am so mentally exhausted I can barely string words together. And then, I work on writing projects all afternoon, slowly building a catalog of projects. The "teachers have summers off" thing has always been a myth to me, and this summer is no different. Except that it is. I think it is easier to meet in person, to facilitate in person, to collaborate in person. The addition of keyboards and screens and videos and multiple backchannel conversations all happening at once is emotionally and physically exhausting.

And then I talk to a salon owner, who has just started back after all these months off, and I realize that I don't know the half of it. I don't know what emotional and physical exhaustion really feel like. I don't know at all what it is like to go back to work and try to keep the world I live in safe. I don't know how incredibly stressful it is to try to figure out how to make sure that the chair and every handle and every surface is disinfected. I don't know how emotionally draining it is to try to listen and support all of the various clients coming in, people that I care about, some who I vehemently disagree with. I don't know what it's like when I can't walk away from someone who insists that everything our Governor has done is wrong and all this COVID stuff is just the lamestream media. And I don't know how it feels when I can't convince the person who is afraid, but desperately wants a hair cut, that she will be safe in my chair.  I will never really know what it feels like, in this moment, when I can't please the people who are angry, I can't console the people who are sad, and I can't calm the fears of the people who are afraid.

Photo by jasper benning on Unsplash

I can't truly understand what that is like. I only know my own experiences. But I know that we have to move in this world with all of the compassion that we can find within ourselves. We have to find ways to lift each other up and take care of each other. We have to think about more than our own comfort and discomfort. Because the people around us, providing us services and helping us get on with our lives: they are absorbing all of this emotion, all of this energy, all of this exhaustion, too.

The Coronacation Diaries, Episode 97

What I Know Now

Photo by Zoe VandeWater on Unsplash

Being an activist is not what I imagined. I had imaged allyship. I had imagined that I would go, I would listen, I would walk in some marches, I would make some phone calls. I would be part of something bigger than myself.

But what I learned was that I needed to shut up. I needed to listen. I learned that I would make horrible, awkward mistakes, centering my own voice in a fight that wasn't about me. I learned that my good intentions can still cause harm. I learned that defending my good intentions really wasn't necessary and definitely wasn't valued. I learned that I needed to shut up and listen. I learned that accomplices were needed. Allies were all well and good, but accomplices, people willing to get dirty in the fight, were what was truly needed at the front line.

I'm not even on the front line. I'm not there in person. I'm not canvassing, making phone calls, sitting in. I'm not protesting; I'm not putting my life on the line for a revolution. There was a rally today, but I didn't go. I had too much on my plate. I held the worth of other things in my life above the worth of this fight. Instead, I stayed very comfortably at home, in my safe space, in my pretty little neighborhood.

But I also know there are things I can do, even when I don't show up to the physical fight. What I can do is use my voice, and my writing. That's what I have. That's what I'm good at. That's how I can be an accomplice, even if I'm not physically on the front line.

As I attempted to become an accomplice, I envisioned what it might be like.

I had envisioned that I would have difficult conversations. There would be angry exchanges on Facebook. There would be mandates from administration to tone it down. There would be accusations of an agenda.

There might even some tense moments during actual protests when I got a little bit nervous, a little bit unsettled. I've experienced police in riot gear. It is terrifying. Maybe I might end up there again someday.

There would be some imposter syndrome. I would feel like don't belong here, like maybe I'm just acting. Maybe this isn't really me, this is just who I wish I was. People might see through my act.

There would be some angry emails from parents because I was indoctrinating their children.

None of this is new. All of this is what I was already used to. These things that I envisioned, I knew I could take, no matter how uncomfortable they were. This fight is worth it.

What I hadn't imagined is that I would be ghosted from groups I belonged to and valued. I would be ghosted from many of my colleagues. I hadn't imagined that they would vocally, vociferously defend a racist white man over the needs and safety of our students. I hadn't imagined that.

I hadn't imagined that I would be talked over so many times by well-meaning white women who wanted to insist that their knowledge was more valid than the lived experiences of People of Color.

I hadn't imagined the latent racism that existed in so many white men, men who would try to hush me, belittle me, tell me to calm down, try to quote Morgan Freeman at me out of context.

And I am still doing so very little. I am not out throwing bricks. I am not out talking to our politicians. I am not out at that rally. I am just pushing back in little ways, on social media, in conversations, at my job, in my freelance work. I wear a Black Lives Matter t-shirt to the store. I dare you to "all lives matter" back at me.

This work is hard, in ways I hadn't imagined.

I was prepared to ask myself hard questions.

I was prepared to grapple with my own privilege, with my own biases, with my own racism. I was even prepared to face and admit the mistakes I made along the way.

I wasn't prepared to deal with the emotional and physical exhaustion of fighting day after day after day. I was so very naive.

I wasn't prepared for how truly empowered the white man is, and how truly self-important the white woman is.

This fight isn't even about me. Even in this blog post, I am centering my experience, my voice, in this fight. But this blog is about me, and this fight comes at a price I had not anticipated.

I have so much work to do. We all do.

If we want to be part of something bigger than ourselves, if we want to truly provoke change, then we have to take the risks head-on. It won't be easy. It never was. We just weren't really trying that hard before now.

The Coronacation Diaries, Episode 96

A Lot on my Mind

Tonight I have a lot on my mind and nothing is floating to the top. It's been a long day of facilitating tough conversations and sorting data on the side.

Michael and I are outside, stoking the fire for marshmallows later, drinking hard seltzer, listening. The baby birds in the bird house are chirping angrily because we we are daring to sit near them on the patio. Their mama bird darts in occasionally with another snack, but the babies are hangry.

Sam has a friend over from a family in our quarantine circle, a long-delayed sleepover planned months ago. I pitched the tent for them; they built a blanket fort inside. We grilled hotdogs in the chimenea on the patio. Now the boys are inside the air-conditioned house, watching a Star Wars movie.

A family down the hill has a squealing child, running around the yard. Traffic on the road behind us is loud and constant, waves of engine and tire noise. Jet Skis are on the lake, slapping the water and revving their engines over and over and over as they cross and re-cross each other's paths. Somewhere, a bass line is thumping in the distance. A child's voice keeps insisting, "stop! stop! stop!" And the birds are still chirping, their bird house rocking back and forth.

Sometimes, it's easy to forget how different everything is in our world right now. Sometimes, it's easy to forget all of the hard conversations that need to constantly happen, if we are ever going to change our country. On evenings like these, we can just sit in the moment, listening to the birds' consternation. Michael is too close to the bird house. Mama bird is not happy.

If I close my social media tabs, the ignorance disappears. It's just us, sitting here by the fire, on a Friday night in June.

The boys paused the movie and are now roasting great flaming marshmallow torches.

The child down the hill stopped squealing. Mama bird finally fed her babies.

I reopen that Facebook tab and push back on the ignorance some more.

The Coronacation Diaries, Episode 95

Run up the Big Hill

Although my daughter missed her first "not really a practice but some people will get together to skate but this isn't sanctioned so league insurance doesn't cover it" practice, we did show up today. But, no one else was there. Apparently Facebook is hard and I didn't quite understand what the "not really a practice" schedule was.

We sat on some rocks and waited for about half an hour. It was quiet, and peaceful, and the weather was perfection. Some guys were working out, HARD, running up and down the sledding hill. Women randomly walked by in pairs, dressed in running shorts and running tanks, the summer soccer mom outfit of choice. A youth field hockey team practiced in the skating rink and then got their pep talk after practice. "We are the best team in the league! We will work the hardest! We might not have the most talent, but we have the hardest workers! Go, team!"

When it became clear that no skating would occur, my daughter and I decided to hike up the sledding hill. It was a slog. I was panting like an overweight middle-aged woman by the time I got to the top. #busted. At the top of the hill, we took photos. She restarted her picture a day challenge, since I accidentally erased the entire last year of her life on her phone when I reset it. I took pictures of her taking pictures. #meta.

She's told me some things these last few days. Confided in me. 14 is a tough year. She is going into high school, figuring out who she is, and who she wants the world to see.

These fleeting moments captured in time frozen by a pandemic are incredible and precious. I'm not sure these moments would happen in any other reality.

Sometimes, we are gifted a moment --a chance to run up the big hill, stop at the top, take in the view, and try to memorize the details. This right here, right now is an opportunity.

Let's run up the big hill.

Photo by Schaub Family 

The Coronacation Diaries, Episode 94

Musings

As I write my way through this pandemic, the responses have been incredibly supportive and incredibly fascinating. Some readers are right there with me. Some push back, telling me I expect too much or hope for too much. I think that they know that "expect too much and hope for too much" is my middle name. I will own that.

Photo by Yeshi Kangrang on Unsplash

I've already decided that 100 is a good, round number, like bottles of beer on the wall +1. So, the end is closing in on the Coronacation Diaries, and regular weekly or biweekly blogging will commence. I have other things to write, other writing opportunities that I need to explore. It's been a really good run, an incredible challenge, and I have learned so much about myself, about how I am processing all of this, about my friends and family, and about my take on our nation.

Finding a way to put each day into words, and finding something unique in each day gives meaning to the mundane. And the realization that others are using these words to also process this strange time has been empowering, frightening, awe-inspiring. The fact that you are reading this, by choice,  helps me to realize that I am not alone. We are all in this together.

Together, yet apart. Apart, yet together. This has been the common thread. We are all feeling the stress of this pandemic in unique yet similar ways. An oxymoron. A paradox.  Teachers are struggling with how to teach and connect. Parents are struggling with how to parent.. Partners are struggling with how to partner. Workers are struggling with how to work from home. The kids are bored and lonely and frustrated and loving it. Everyone is generally in limbo. We all feel fat. Even when we all are realizing that there are aspects of a slower life that we might want to hold on to, going forward, we all are still mourning our lives, what used to be, what we wished still was. None of us are sleeping well.

And I've also learned that, if I had to be stuck in a smallish cottage on a 35x100 lot for 3 months with 4 pets and 3 tween/teens and a partner, I would choose these people. And if I had to co-parent, I would choose my ex, who has been phenomenal throughout all of this. As I sit by the fire in the chimenea with a glass of wine, laptop open, bats flying overhead, dog awkwardly trying to climb on my lap, partner poking at the fire, traffic echoing in the distance, I really can't complain.

If you are reading this, if you have been reading all along, if you just stumbled into this space today, let me know in the comments, or on Facebook, or on Twitter. What are you observing in your life? What should I write about, in these last few diary entries? What have you learned about life, about yourself, about your family, and what really matters? What would you print on your pandemic t-shirt? What has all of this done to you and your people? And what can we take away from this whole experience, to act better, do better, love better, be better? What will we tell our kids or our grandkids about this time in our lives?

We are all in this together. Apart, but together. This I have learned. This gives me hope.

The Coronacation Diaries, Episode 93

One Step Forward...

Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

Now that the kids are officially on summer break, I am trying my damndest to help them organize their summer. They can't sleep in until noon every day and watch youtube until 2 a.m. in their squelchy, festering bedrooms. They can't live on Pop-Tarts and Cheez-Its. And they can't snap at each other whenever they venture out of their rooms, like angry vampires, stumbling and cursing and bursting into flames in the sunlight.

Both kids have classes they want to test out of in the fall, which means they are going to have to study this summer. Both kids have band in the fall. I am paying over $550/month for music lessons, so both kids MUST MUSIC. Both kids have sports practice starting back up. Both kids need to go outside occasionally. And both kids need to help out around the house at least once or twice this summer. Good god, their lunch boxes from March are still on the back table. Their backpacks are still full of school. There are 127 shoes by the back door, and I'm fairly certain most of them don't fit.

In short, there are things both kids need to do.

I am working basically full time --more than full time-- between facilitating the summer institute and freelance work. In the in-betweens, I'm trying to put away a thing or do a dish or fold a t-shirt or make a meal. And I'm trying, desperately trying, to get the kids to do what they need to do, for their mental and physical health, and for mine.

I decided that they need to do the following things Monday through Friday:

• Do 1 hour of test-out school work.
• Be outside for 1 hour.
• Clean something, dear god, anything, for 1 hour.
• Do something physical for 30 min.
• Practice music for 30 min.

That's it. That's all I ask. The rest of the day is theirs. The weekends are theirs. For 4 hours per day, just do something healthy and productive. It seemed like a really good plan.

Yesterday, Sam practiced piano for 10 minutes. That was the sum of the checklist total. For both kids.

Today, Sam did some 6th grade math. At 8 p.m. he decided to ride his bike to the park. Score! He can double-dip on the exercise and the be outside! Helena, on the other hand...did not do any of the things. She didn't even make it to derby practice. Instead, she hid out in her room, a disaster of teenage anxiety and emotional exhaustion. Clearly, yesterday's blog post of hope was short-sighted and ill-conceived.

Tomorrow, we will do it all over again. I can only hope that we get a little farther down the checklist, that we get a little bit more done, that we all get a little bit healthier. 

But today, I am feeling like we took two steps back.

The Coronacation Diaries, Episode 92

By Evan-Amos - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

Fingers Crossed

The email said, "Looks like we will have something resembling a baseball season this year." Sam's team, the team he was so excited to make, is going to start practicing on Wednesday. It won't be easy. The boys have to somehow stay 6 feet apart. The coaches have to wear masks. There is no sharing of equipment. This is also the year that baseball gets real: you can steal on any base; overthrows can result in home runs; there are only 3 players in the outfield. There are so many drills that the teams need to run and it's going to be really difficult to figure out how to run them at a safe distance. There is no crying in baseball this year. There is also no dugout.

Sam usually plays first base. I'm not exactly sure how he can play first base and stay 6 feet apart. I don't think anyone knows what this is going to look like. But the smile on Sam's face when I told him that practice started Wednesday...I think this feels a little bit like hope.

The Facebook post said, "Hello everyone! LDV/LJV practices are still on hold due to current WFTDA/JRDA guidelines so there will be no formal practices, but we can still get outside and enjoy our skates...If anybody wants a socially distant skate friend you are welcome to join me. I'll bring my training cones and might even lay a sidewalk chalk track if I'm feeling ambitious..." Helena's team, although not back to formal practices, is going to get together and skate.

It won't be easy, trying to social distance and wear a mask and run drills in an outdoor hockey rink. But the smile on Helena's face when I told her that some of her teammates and the adult team were going to get together and skate this week...I think this feels a little bit like hope.

The curve in the state has definitely flattened.

The crisis isn't over; the virus is still out there. We still don't know what the summer holds, or what the fall holds.

But right here, right now, this week, this evening...this feels a little bit like hope.

The Coronacation Diaries, Episode 91

Almost

Things almost feel like normal. Almost.

I spent the morning writing, sitting in the front yard. A year ago, I probably would have been at Biggby's on a Sunday morning while the family slept in. But the front yard --my home office-- has its own ambiance. The squirrels and the chipmunks gorged themselves at the birdfeeder buffet. I sprayed down with bug spray. My coffee got cold. I wrote for three hours and managed to pound out my demo for the upcoming Remote Learning Literacy Institute that I will be helping to facilitate over the next two weeks. It almost felt like a normal Sunday morning. Almost.

Later, a daughter and I went to VanAtta's to try to find some pepper plants and some corn, the only things I hadn't managed to find when I planted the garden in May. There was an employee there, counting people as we went in, in order to manage the numbers. There was a sign that said "absolutely no one admitted without a mask." I briefly thought that the girl at the door was a former student, but then remembered that I truly am faceblind when people are wearing masks. I have no idea who anyone is, when all I can see are the eyes and hair. Daughter and I looked for plants, but they only had landscaping left; no veggies anywhere. We settled for seeds that will never grow in time, tried to maneuver the cart around the plexiglass guards, raced after the packets of seeds when the wind picked up, and ended up giggling on the way back to the car about the clumsiness and ridiculousness of it all. It almost felt like VanAtta's. Almost.

For dinner, Michael and I decided to venture to the Mayfair. He had run by there earlier in the afternoon, and announced that the roof was open and not crowded. We grabbed our masks, some hand sanitizer, took a deep breath, and ventured out. It was difficult to relax into it at first. Sometimes, after so much togetherness 24/7, I wonder what else we even have to say. Michael was keenly aware of who was wearing masks and who wasn't. I was keenly aware of a lingering sense of guilt, like maybe we shouldn't be allowed to enjoy beers on the roof when the virus is still out there going strong, layered with a sense of exhaustion of the futility of it all, coupled with a profound sense of relief to finally --finally-- be outside, on the roof, having a beer, just like we would on any given night in the summer.  It almost felt like a normal summer evening. Almost. 

Now we are sitting by the fire, ankles coated in bug spray, having a nightcap. The dog is wandering around the yard, a great shaggy adventure muppet. The boxes and bags of returnables glint in the firelight, mountains of unreturned deposits that we'll probably donate in the next few weeks.  The bats are flying overhead; the sounds of cars driving by echo in the distance. The lawn is mowed.  The laundry is not done. I'm ready for the Institute tomorrow. It almost feels like normal. 

Almost.