You Know How to Do This

 She laid there, exhausted. She was currently always exhausted. She glanced at the clock, at the wineglass on top of it, and groaned. Drinking wine in a bed on the floor was the only time she found stillness these past two weeks. So much had been done, had to be done, loomed around her waiting to be done.  But that bed, on the floor, in the middle of an empty room, was the perfect place to sit, exhausted, at the end of the day and drink a very full glass of wine.

The packing was done.  Her life, the kids' lives, all in boxes that were taped and labeled and waiting to be unopened in a new place.  Twelve years of living in a house purged, donated, and boxed over the past ten days.  She was exhausted.  His life, well, what he had left behind,  lay strewn in open boxes in the dining room.  She wasn’t sure what he wanted to take, to toss.  He wasn’t there when she was packing.  When was he ever there? Friends had helped her box, fed her, listened to her, and poured her wine as they busied themselves in her kitchen, the garage, the attic.  A house was too much for one person to pack.  Especially when she was just exhausted.

She knew she needed to get up but she felt glued to the bed.  Two more minutes.  Two more and she’d move and start the coffee and start the day.  The last things crammed in their bags and the animals captive in a room so that they wouldn’t escape during the commotion of feet and voices moving and shouting.  She was too old to have friends moving her, but they offered and she was just so tired.  Yes, please, she had said.  I am just exhausted, she had said.  They had said of course she was, smiled while their eyes looked sad, asked what else did she need?

It was a lot to go to work, to stand there and try to teach a room of students.  Often, they had to ask her the same question two or three times until she heard them.  Sorry, she would say, I am just tired today.  “Late night, huh, Miss?” they’d laugh and she’d say “I wish” and laugh with them for a minute until the smile felt weird on her face and fell.

  It was a lot to hold her kids at night and tell them it was all going to be okay.  They definitely did not believe her and she wasn’t so sure she believed herself right now.  Their anger, their confusion was too much to look at and their sadness made her not want to get out of bed.

Shit, she needed to get out of bed.  She moved to sit and as she looked around this bare room remembering the first time they had spent the night in it.  No curtains, no blinds, a wall of open windows, and a night sky that seemed endless.  Their time here seemed like it would be endless as well.

She felt the tears, not in her eyes, but only when they escaped and pooled over onto her face.  She pushed herself up but then sat back down.  She didn’t want to do today crying, but she could.  She could do a lot while crying.  So much in fact she looked for her journal and a pen.  She needed to write this down, to remember all the things she could do while crying.  Maybe if she wrote things down, they would get out of her head.  She sat up straighter and began scratching out the truths that she knew all too well.

You know how to do this.  You remember the weighted sensation of your heart as it sinks to the very bottom of your chest.  You know that pressure that makes your lungs constricted and your breath is limited.  You know how to do this.

 Your head is like a vise and your eyes leak.  You wipe the moisture away from your face and realize you didn’t even know you were crying. You think you will always be crying.  Your sinuses ache and your nose runs and you don’t care.  All you know is that crying makes it better, makes it worse, makes others uncomfortable, and you don’t care.  You are so fucking sick of crying and yet you say you don’t care.

You don’t care about much.  You try to eat because your stomach tells you that you are hungry, but your stomach is a liar.  You aren’t hungry.  The smallest amount of food makes you cramp and ache and feel full.  People tell you stories and you react properly but you have no idea what they are talking about.  Maybe later you will see you did laugh at the right time or make the right sounds.  Maybe you forget it even took place.

You wish you could forget a lot that took place.  You wish the day could be like the two minutes it takes to wake up where everything has been forgotten and nothing hurts and your chest is not heavy.  But it’s not.  You wake up and remember.  Your body takes over before your mind catches up.  You stand up and gravity has never been more real.  You step heavily on feet that can barely inch across the floor.  Your shoulders are too much for your frame and you stoop, head bowed, spirit forgotten about; left in the bed for tomorrow’s two minutes.

You dress, you brush your teeth, you smile and nod.  You can do a lot while crying.  You do your job, you try to do your job, you do something.  You are here.  You are physically in this room yet taking up so little of it.  Your voice is a whisper because it is being choked by memories, by wishes, by what you thought would happen.  

You are afraid to open your mouth.  Afraid a torrent of words will come out and splash onto the floor and make puddles so wide and deep you will never get back.  Because there is no back.  There is just here and here is painful.  Here cuts.  Here hacks and tears and bleeds.  Here shreds and you lay eviscerated, emptied, and scarred.

You let your heartbeat and twist and squeeze within your chest.  You let your eyes drift off into space because if they drift into your head, you will start crying again and you are so fucking sick of crying.  But you remember this.  And if you remember this, then that means that you have survived this.  And if you have survived this before, surely you can survive it again.  You know how to do this.

She took one final look at her words, wiped her eyes, and said “You know how to do this”.  There was coffee to be made and kids to wake up and last-minute things to do.  She was exhausted, but she could do this.  She had to do this.  She knew how to do this.

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

“Daddy!”

“Daddy!”

“Daddy, look at what I can do!!!”

“DADDY!!!”

“What?” Jimi looked up from his phone and peered over the top of his sunglasses.  

“Daddy! Look!”

He looked at his daughter standing in the shallow end of the pool and sighed.  She was constantly requesting that he look at this or that and honestly, she hadn’t done anything yet that really impressed him.  She was wearing a floaty still for Christ’s sake and she was almost eight.  Jimi was sure other kids knew how to swim long before eight.  That one girl with the curly, red hair was definitely younger than Ellie and she was swimming on her own and underwater already.  Jimi looked again at his daughter wondering what the hell he should be looking at.  All he could see was her standing on one leg and bouncing.

“Wow.  Really balancing there.”  Jimi made a note to talk to his ex about this swimming bullshit.  She really needed to get swimming lessons for this kid.  He sighed thinking about having to talk to her as he knew he would be met with “Jimi, I work two jobs.” “Jimi, can’t you take her?”.  There was a time when he loved hearing her say his name but now his name in her mouth annoyed him, as well as the whining that always followed it.  “Jimi, I can’t do all this on my own.” ,  “Jimi, you promised you’d take her an extra night.”, “Jimi, blah, blah, blah.”  He couldn’t remember the last time he really listened to anything she had to say.  Probably the night she told him she was pregnant and he felt the world crash in on him.

“Daddy, come swim!” Ellie yelled while jumping up and down.

“In a little bit. I’m working right now.”  Working on my tan he thought as he closed his eyes and leaned back.  Well, and his highlights.  He had put lightener on the tips of his hair before heading out to the pool.  He heard her yell Daddy one more time but he kept his eyes closed and just sighed.  Fatherhood was exhausting.  Ellie was with him every other Saturday afternoon until Sunday morning and it was all he could do to entertain her and not count the hours until Britani picked her up again. 

It was so much easier when she was a baby, Jimi thought.  Ellie was cute when she wasn’t screaming and he had really enjoyed walking her around the park in her stroller. God, all he had to do was lift her out and hold her and the women flocked to him.  He’d scored more and with much less effort in Ellie’s baby days than in all his years of dating combined.  He had noticed that the attraction of a kid seemed to wear off around age six; Ellie seemed to be more a nuisance than a lure to women he met.  

Maybe it was time to have another baby.  Jimi tossed the idea around for a second before dismissing it.  More money to pay out a month and what if this kid took up his free Saturday? No way.  He’d get women on his own, he’d just have to work a little harder than holding up a cute baby.  No worries.  His exotic pet shop had always been a real panty-dropper and he knew that would continue.  Women loved men who owned weird shit and he not only owned it, he sold it.  His shop, “Getting Tail”, continued to do well despite his partner who liked to smoke his share of the profits.  Jimi loved watching women come in and giggle at the name and then walk up and down the aisles of exotic pets.  He would wait until they stopped at the snake cages before venturing over to see if they needed any help.  Snake innuendos were sure to happen and Jimi made a killing in that snake aisle, both in sales and in getting dates.

He peeked up and saw her bouncing still in the water and talking to some people with kids.  Great!  She’d be fine for a while.  He rolled onto his stomach and sighed.  Jimi couldn’t stop thinking about this party one of his Hinge hotties had asked him to go to tonight.  Since Britani, Jimi never dated just one woman at a time.  Too much emotion, too little freedom, and too much pretending to be interested in whatever these women did.  He liked first dates, he liked first kisses, and he lived for the first time he had sex with someone new.  The first time was the best and even though he might stick around for a week or two after, it was the first time that always thrilled him.  Even the boring ones were still thrilling.  New bodies were where it was at!  Jimi’s business partner and roommate had been with the same woman for five years and swore it was still the best sex he’d ever had.  Jimi didn’t believe him at all even though he’d heard them through the wall separating their rooms and had to admit it sounded like it might still be good.

Jimi sat up and looked at his watch, 7pm.  Ellie wouldn’t go to bed until 10 or 11, whining more and more with each passing hour.  God, he really wanted to go to this party though!  He was guaranteed new sex and he couldn’t stop thinking about it.  He’d tried to get Britani to keep Ellie tonight but she wasn’t returning any of his texts or even his phone call.  God, he hated her.

“Daddy!”

“DADDY!”

Jimi was startled out of his Britani hate-spiral by Ellie’s shrieks.

“What?” he answered

“Daddy, I’m hungry.”  Ellie whined.

Jimi looked around and saw that almost everyone else had left the pool and started to get up.  This kid was always hungry.  Hungry, tired, sick, annoying.  The last time he’d had her, Britani brought her to him feverish and small with a cold.  He was pissed and afraid that he’d catch it, so he had loaded her with Benadryl and kept her asleep most of the weekend.  

“All right, grab the floaty, and let’s go.  I’ve got some pizza leftover from last night.”

Ellie grasped for the pineapple float but it slipped out of her hands and shot over towards the deep end.  “DADDY!!!  I can’t reach it!  DADDY!!”  Ellie started sobbing in the shallow end of the pool, looking hopeless.

Oh my God, Jimi thought, she’s just like her mother: can’t do a damn thing and is always crying.  “I’ll grab it, let’s just go.”

Jimi paused to grab the float as Ellie climbed out and met up with him.  Her nose was running and her hair was a stringy mess tangled down her back.  She wiped at her nose with the back of her hand and then reached out to hold his hand.  He jerked his own hand back quickly and patted the top of her head instead. He hadn’t brought a towel and as they walked into his apartment, Ellie complained she was cold.

“You’re cold?”  he asked.  

Ellie nodded and held her arms close to her chest as she sniffed.  He was sure it was just the cold air conditioning and the fact she was dripping wet, but what if she was sick again?  Ohhh, he thought.  Yes, what if she was sick again?  What if he had to give her Benadryl and she slept the next ten hours like a drunk coming off of a bender?  What if she slept so soundly she never noticed he was gone and he could go to that party and be back before she woke up?  What if he gave her just a little bit more than Britani said he should give her and he could take his time with the Hinge hottie?

“You know, Ellie, you look like maybe you’re getting sick again.  Run and get pajamas on and I’ll get you some pizza and medicine.”

Jimi heated up a slice of pizza and poured Ellie a glass of water and a generous amount of Benadryl.  He messaged his Hinge hottie that he’d be there after all and that he had plans for her.  She instantly messaged back “Can’t wait!”  

He smiled and a minute later his phone beeped again with her asking “When will you get here? If it’s too late, I might have to get started without you.”  Jimi groaned.

“Daddy, I’m done,” Ellie said. She stood there in mismatched pajamas, holding up her empty plate, and waiting.  Her eyes already looked heavy and her shoulders seemed to droop with the effort of holding that plate.

He took the plate from Ellie, watched her lay down on the couch, and quickly typed back “I’ll be there in twenty.”

Prologue and Chapter One

Prologue

The complex sat off the road and was fenced in wrought iron all around.  The gates opened and closed slowly, moaning and creaking as if attached to a rope, a turnstile, and one beleaguered person walking round and round.  They opened at 6am for the day and remained agape and the complex accessible until 6pm when they slowly slid shut.  Even then they were more for show than anything else.  If you waited at the gates long enough, someone was bound to drive up with their magic pass and as the gates slid open, you could slide in too. 

The buildings themselves were made of various brown bricks and tan siding and were so neutral and non-descript that they easily faded into the trees, the pool, the neighborhood.  The parking was adequate, the landscaping was green and abundant; its flowers changed out seasonally so gradually that no one was really sure when they had changed.

The complex was a mile from a school and as such, had an abundance of teachers living within it.  They complained that the rent was a stretch but that you couldn't beat the commute.  You saw their cars dotting the parking lot, school parking passes hanging from the rearview mirror.  You saw them hurriedly walk from those cars to their homes trying to not talk to students on the way.

During the colder months, most occupants of Le Ecole, as this complex was named, stayed indoors; their patios empty save for the diehard smokers who didn’t fear cold or lung damage as they stood and smoked and quickly went back inside.  It wasn’t until the days grew longer and the air suddenly spoke of summer that you saw what was normally kept indoors.  

The early morning hours of a Saturday or Sunday were ripe for people at their oddest.  Half-dressed occupants scratched at their bellies as they stood bleary-eyed letting their dogs sniff and paw at the grass.  Couples’ voices raised up and over their privacy fences about what went wrong last night, five years ago, the day they got married.  More often than not, you could also witness the awkward goodbye of a night no one had planned.  Men in their boxers walking down women in their yesterday clothes.  It was too painful to watch as these men turned their lips and let these hopeful women kiss their cheek instead.  

In the middle of all this lay the complex’s pool, shimmering in varying shades of blue, depending on the day and the chemicals swimming within it.  The pool was surrounded by its own fence, no lock, and many signs warning that there was no lifeguard on duty, no glass was allowed, no pets at the pool.  What it didn’t warn about was the people who would trickle out of their homes to gather around.  People one didn’t know lying in the sun, swimming with their children, and bringing with them glimpses into the world that went on in their apartment.  If you were very quiet and uninterested in making friends with your neighbors, you could learn a lot by sitting quietly and pretending to read.  Often, what you saw at the pool was more interesting than what was printed in any book.  

Chapter One

They were quiet and kept to themselves.  They were not here to make friends and they didn’t even feign pleasantries to the other people around them.  The man was stoop-shouldered and small as if he had spent his life cowering and hoping not to be noticed.  He moved quietly, spoke in a whisper, and never raised his head or even his eyes in passing.  

The woman was different.  She was quiet in an angry way.  Her long, orange hair erupted from her head as if it was trying to escape and she never walked; she took long, punishing strides every time she stepped.  She would look straight through anyone who attempted to catch her eye and had no issues with walking too close to someone and not acknowledging them.  She would walk by her neighbor’s window ten, fifteen times a day, trampling the grass and ignoring the walkway three feet away.

When you saw their children, you had hope that a child’s natural curiosity would force them to look up, to smile, to acknowledge the dog walking by them.  However, the children had been warned with harsh words and angry tones about strangers: strangers would take them away, dogs would bite them, other children would bring them to adults who would take them away.  They played only with each other and spoke only to their parents.  The girl was a replica of her mother with angry orange hair and eyes that never once looked anything but cold.  The boy was a sturdier version of the man, his preschool body belied by the way his eyes watched but never seemed to wonder.  Often, you would hear them exclaiming in their language with childish enthusiasm and for a moment think that they were just like the other children in the complex.  Your unreturned smile and their look of cold indifference soon reminding you that something just wasn’t right.  

The man was terrible at parking his car and that might have been enough of a nuisance to talk about.  He was forever backing up over the lines one way or the other and making it impossible for the cars next to him to open their doors.  It wasn’t his inept parking that had people talking though; it was the sheet that hung in the back seat windows obscuring any view into the rear of the car.  People found this odd because their children weren’t babies.  Were they allergic to the sun?   Neighbors wondered this aloud to one another until the day they saw the entire family ribbon dancing in the grassy area by the pool.  Watching the ribbon dancing removed any remaining doubt that this family was not quite right. It was the parents who took turns ribbon dancing while the other filmed and the children busied themselves in the grass and with rocks as children do.  It was a beautiful sunny day and many people were out to enjoy the sunlight but were steadfastly ignored by the entire family.  They danced too close, their ribbons sailing over the head of others, the kids pushing past anyone in their running path.  Never once did they acknowledge anyone else on the grass.  They had eyes and ears only for one another.

Their language sounded harsh and impersonal even when the mother was softly talking to one child or the other.  No one could quite figure out what they were speaking and this led to even more confusion.  Where were they from?  Was this haughty indifference a cultural thing?  Was their inability to make eye contact some sort of xenophobic superiority?  German and Israeli were ruled out as their words didn’t sound guttural enough.  Some swore it was French, but it was too guttural to be French.  Russian?  Pennsylvania Dutch?  All countries and known dialects were offered but no one except the four people in that family knew what they were speaking.

They celebrated unknown events on odd days.  They dressed in white T-shirts and white baseball hats and stood outside their door clapping and laughing, their excitement drawing you in even as the man’s hunched shoulders and the woman’s dead-eyed stare said to stay away.  Was it a religious holiday?  What was that object on the door?  They huddled together on their stoop and smiled and sang until someone dared to pass by.  They drew even closer together, each parent touching one of the children, everyone silent until the stranger had moved on.  Once alone, they stayed close but smiled and resumed singing.

Singing was a big part of whoever they were.  People were shocked when strangers stood in a circle around their door singing lustily one day.  They know people? This question answered when their door flew open and the family stood there and joined the others in singing and laughing and even more shocking when they stepped back to admit the singers into their home.   

The woman knew, and the man quietly knew too, that they were getting too many looks, too much interest generated in their small family.  They laid in bed and spoke in hushed tones as to not wake the children sleeping on a small mattress at the end of their bed.  The man sat up, his weary shoulders supported by the wire-framed headboard behind him, and rubbed his tired temples with his fingertips.  The woman lay on her back, her orange hair spread out like a wildfire on the pillow.  We have to go, he said.  I know, I know she whispered, even an apartment is not anonymous enough.  Oh, but he was tired of moving, of leaving, of changing, but as he glanced at his love in the bed, and the children softly snoring and moving in their sleep, he knew he would move a thousand times if he had to.

Over the next few days, the woman strode by windows faster, more hurried, more purposeful than ever before.  She marched the children to and from the car and back carrying bags and boxes and items no one could see behind their packaging.  The man moved slower, more carefully, his shoulders seemed to bow even farther forward as if every step he took required him to push the air ahead, shoulders first.  His mind was running with too many thoughts to keep noticing how he was leaving the house. He didn’t mind the glasses perched cautiously on the end of his nose and he even left the house in his love’s lavender shorts and didn’t notice until she told him much later that day.  He looked down and laughed and she laughed with him and as they hugged in the emptied kitchen, he felt calm for the first time in days.

The children knew something was happening despite the woman’s best plans to keep them busy and occupied.  She planned picnics and swimming and crafts but she was preoccupied and absent-minded and their questions became too much.  She yelled, harshly, and they cried, copiously, but she couldn’t stop worrying in her mind.  Her heart threatened to explode with love for the man and these children but there was just so much to do between then and now.  There was no time to think of love and no time to spoil these children.  She put them to work cleaning corners and blinds and they fell quiet with their questions and expressions.

Friday night the man came home driving a large camper.  How is he going to park that, the neighbors wondered?  He parked it crookedly along the fire lane and left it there for two days.  The children ran in and out of the apartment and camper, calling to one another in words no one understood.  The woman marched belongings to the camper and marched herself back to the apartment to retrieve more. 

Early Sunday morning, the man and woman woke early and carried the sleeping children and the last few belongings to the camper.  They would get coffee on the road and let the children sleep as long as they could; there was no reason to say goodbye to this home when a new one would be waiting.  A new one would be waiting whenever they wanted now.  The camper was their new home and they could move it anywhere they wanted and whenever they wanted.  The anonymity they craved and fought for was here on this small home with four wheels.

The man looked over at the woman and smiled.  She touched his hand lightly and laughed a soft laugh of relief.  Their eyes met and as he looked in them he remembered how much he had always loved her.  He loved her now in their family years, and he had loved her in their twenties when they had come to America broke and desperate to share their lives together.  He had loved her in their teens when they were forbidden to love and determined to love at the same time.  He had loved her when they were children and he would love her until they were too old to remember anything but each other.  He started the camper and inched it slowly away from the curb.  He glanced at his love one more time and knew that he always had and that he always would love this woman.  He would protect and defend her and their children and no man, no law, no religion could ever keep him from loving her; this woman, his wife, mother of his children, his best friend, and his sister.

Here's Your One Chance, Fancy....

 I fancy myself a lot of things: a good mom, activist, well when it's convenient, feminist, and super funny when I have had a few drinks.  In the past year or so, I have taken to fancy-ing myself as a writer.  Like a real writer who wrote not just to opine or to complain but one who wrote because the stories just welled up inside and had to be released.  A real writer who writes for money and fame and purpose.  But, in my typical fashion, while I was creating this part of my identity, I did absolutely nothing about it other than fancy it.  And to be fair, it's been a year.  We have all lived this year, so I don't need to explain.  Teaching, coaching, parenting, dating, living in a pandemic.  Doing all of those things in a pandemic.  God, someone should really write a book on how to do those things in a pandemic.

One way I coped with being cooped up last summer was to write stories about the people in my apartment complex.  The lives that I imagined they lived and not one of them were very flattering.  It is hard in many ways to go from living in a house to living in an apartment surrounded by weird people you didn't choose to live in and I took their eccentricities and my boredom and wow, I live among vampires, and bad parents, and incestuous couples.  I sent them on to my mom who sent them to her sisters and I am a real hit with white women over 60 that I am related to.  But does this make me a writer?

I also found myself writing about divorcing.  About raising kids who were so angry and sad and disillusioned.  About my own anger and sadness and disillusionment.  I didn't share much of this because it was so personal that I had to write about it from a second-person point of view.  But I wrote words that were true and painful and freeing.  But does this make me a writer?

My stories also made their way into the new world of dating.  Shared experiences made funnier, weirder, and explained by my brain and received well by their intended recipient.  But as we shared that experience and laughed about what could be and I just took it a little further and gave these people names and jobs and a penchant for murder, does that make me a writer?

Today I am at a coffee shop writing this because I feel that a real writer would write in a coffee shop while sipping hot coffee and using the free Wifi.  I have both coffee and Wifi at home but I felt compelled to come here.  Instead of editing the stories I wrote or finding a way to meld the stories together, I am writing this blog.  I tell my students all the time that writing is a process but I seem to be ignoring this process myself.  Also, wouldn't a real writer be able to write without relying on Grammarly? 

Free Wifi, $4 coffee.

I often write because the words get built up in my head like a logjam and I need to let them go so I can do other things.  I am pretending that after I write this I will attack those stories with gusto and get them polished and published by the end of summer.  Will that make me a writer?  What if I send them out and they get sent back?  What if I never polish them up or send them out?  If I spend the rest of the summer watching crime dramas with a strong female detective and British accents, relying on those stories and not mine?

I like to write because it gives me tremendous joy when people tell me they like my words.  I like to write because it is an escape.  I like to write because I can create worlds where they don't exist.  I like to write because it lets me express what I cannot always say.  I would also like to write because I am a teacher who makes $48,000 a year and it would be great to supplement that with something that didn't make me wear an apron or leave my soul at the door.  I fear living in smaller and smaller apartments with fewer windows with each passing year.   I am picturing one light bulb hanging from the center of my apartment and cats waiting to eat my face when I fall down dead.  That's actually too depressing to keep writing about. 

I will always write.  When I was eight or ten, I wrote my mom a terrible song about clowns for her birthday.  And sang it.  God love that woman; she pretended I gave her a million dollars.  I wrote terrible poems in high school that made the yearbook and now introduce my lessons on poetry.  I write this blog because, well the words are piled up like a logjam.  And I guess I will write stories whether or not I ever publish them because they are there in my brain and prevent me from resting.  Maybe I will never make money from writing or take a jump and try.  Maybe I just continue to write for me and for my fan club of aunts.  And when asked about my hobbies while interviewing for some terrible second job where I have to wear an apron, after yoga and eating dark chocolate, I will say "Writing".

  

Pivot! PIVOT!!!

 You know that episode of Friends where they are moving the couch and it gets stuck on the stairway and Ross just keeps yelling “Pivot!  PIVOT!” in increasingly desperate tones?  If that is not the mood for teaching in this 2020-2021 school year, well, I just don’t know what is.  

Maybe it goes beyond teaching too, maybe it is how we have all been asked to live life, but y’all I have changed directions so many times, I am nauseous.  Or maybe just heartsick; they present the same way.

I am weary of Zoom classes where no one turns on their camera and I am talking to a screenful of black boxes.  And not black boxes like on airplanes where they are full of information. Black boxes with names of kids who might be there or may have logged on and left; we won’t know until I end class and see who’s still there when they have been told they can leave.  I am told to be engaging, to use new technology, to make lessons fun!  I could stand on my head and juggle fire and that would not be engaging.  Students are tired of being online too.

Work remotely, no you can’t work remotely, that doesn’t count.  Wait, though. Remote learning counts when it could be a snow day.  Work from school and teach to in-person and online kids at the same time and here, step behind this plastic shower curtain that will keep you safe from contagion.  Sports are cancelled, but, wait!  They are not cancelled. Some teams are cancelled.  Wait, that’s not happening either.  Wear a mask on the field, mostly wear a mask on the field.  Always wear a mask on the field.

Aren’t we next in line for vaccines?  Where are all the vaccines?  Yes, old people and 1B.  Of course.  Are we 1C?  Was that just a rumor to get us back behind the shower curtains?  And not a real shower curtain.  I am sitting at my desk with yesterday’s clothes on and a beanie on my three-day-unwashed hair.  And I am only sitting at my desk because some applications require you use school wifi even when school is not open.

All the acronyms that make teaching painful are still on for this year. All the tests, all the professional development, all the observations, and boxes to be checked still need to be checked.  How about new ones for this year?  Only cried on camera once today? Check.  Stays up to date on grades and attendance? Check.  Modulated tone to represent hope and passion while feeling beleaguered and defeated?  Check!

This week was especially hard.  I feel like teachers and students alike have settled into that this is it.  I doubt we will be back to school for real this year and I am trying to find the reserves to power through five more months like this and the kids are too.  No, this is not ideal, but forcing open schools and all of us sharing this air and being superspreaders isn’t ideal either.  I miss actual students in my classroom.  I miss their ridiculous ideas and the way they could make me laugh that just does not translate over zoom.  I miss watching kids work together in groups, even when they hate group work. Breakout rooms are no match for some desks pushed together or the excuse to sit on the floor in the hallway and work.  I miss the smell of coffee permeating the air on the third floor and lunch with my colleagues at our crowded lunch table.  I miss the live sharing of stories, the sense of togetherness, and the knowledge that we were making a daily difference somewhere that day.

I’ll continue to do what we are all doing: pivoting, changing, adapting, powering through.  I just wanted to say that I am so tired and I know that you are too.  I also know it won’t always be like this and sometimes I remember to tell this to other people when they are having a bad day.  I think I just forget to tell myself.  So, for all of us who need to hear it, IT WON’T ALWAYS BE LIKE THIS!!!  And maybe, just maybe, all that pivoting and twisting and turning will give us rock-hard obliques!

And Up From the Ground Came a Bubbling Pool

I wish that we could all say what we know.  I wish we could be forthright and forthcoming and just say it:

this school year will be a mess.  The biggest mess. The messiest mess.  The hottest mess.  A bubbling

volcano of molten lava spilling, churning and boiling into every aspect of our lives and our kids’ lives

kind of a mess.  

KRAKATOA!

It will be a mess because no one knows exactly what to do.  It will be a mess because every directive

indicated will be challenged.  It will be a mess because no one will agree on what is best for most.  I

t will be a mess because this world is currently a mess. It will be a mess mostly because we all just want

our lives to go back to normal, but normal has changed.  And maybe what we used to think of as normal

won’t be normal again for a long, long time.

It will not be because no one is trying.  So very many people are trying!  I know I will try.  I will try to have

engaging lessons that translate over Zoom.  I will try to get to know the names of 170 kids I have never

met in person and convey to them that I care.  I will try to build rapport and relationships and give feedback

in a timely manner.  While I do this, I will also try to get my own kids to engage in their online learning.  I

will commiserate and say “yes, this sucks” and then I will be a mom and say “Get up and do it.”  

And administrators will be trying.  They will be trying to appease parents and teachers all while knowing that

they cannot do both.  They will try to think about the kids while adhering to our state mandates that change

and change and change again.  But they will be trying.

Teachers will be trying.  They have been trying all summer to think of what they could do better than they did

in the last months of school.  They will be trying to learn new skills and read new books to learn new things. 

They will try to be positive as they are told their job will look like this, no this, no now back to this.  They will

try to remember to breathe.

Parents will be trying.  They will be trying to remember that this is an uncharted world and they will try to

remember that everyone is trying.  I hope that they try to think about all the kids at school and not just what

is good for their own child.  However, that is something that takes considerable effort and time and parents

are tired.  

We are all tired.  We are tired of swimming upstream, tired of treading water, tired of being afloat and adrift. 

We were promised this would be over, life would be normal, and while many of us are so grateful for the things

we do have during this, we are also just tired.  We are tired of the uncertainty and the misgivings and the

rethinking of things that we used to do without thinking.  We are tired of the news and the people in charge

and the way things have gotten worse, and not better.  We are tired of not being able to hug the people we

used to hug and we sometimes get tired of the people we are still allowed to hug.

I just want us to be honest and say “We are tired.”  And I want people to listen and say “I am sorry you are tired. 

We are tired too.”  Then we can sigh collectively and admit we are in this for a long time and think about

how to do our best.  I think part of how we can do our best is to remember that other people are trying to do

their best as well.  Maybe this will give parents patience with teachers and teachers patience with parents. 

And administrators.  And these poor kids who don’t know which way is up.  

So as school gets ready to begin again and people are already social media shouting about all that is wrong,

could we maybe just focus a tiny bit on what could be right?  For me, it will be trying my best, failing more

than once, and remembering that everyone else is doing the same.  Oh, and wine.  Lots and lots of wine.

No Pomp, Just Circumstance

When she was little, she loved horses.  She must have galloped a million miles around our couch watching Spirit or Flicka.  We read all the horse books she could find.  She slept with a stuffed horse and played with plastic horses in a corral made by her Papa.  She loved horses and was going to be a veterinarian when she grew up because she also loved dogs and cats and all the animals.

She went to kindergarten and soon loved not only horses but new friends and teachers and reading!  Oh, she loved to read!  The first book she read on her own was a chapter book and while it wasn't about a horse, it did involve a unicorn.  She loved to make new friends and loved them all fiercely and forever; she was always very loyal.  She loved to learn and excelled and if it wasn't for Math, she would have never doubted how very smart she was.  She still wanted to be a veterinarian because, honestly,  she loved animals more than she loved people.

How do you caption your heart?

She was in the back row of every performance because she was tall.  She would stand up so excitedly, scanning the room, seeing who was there.  She sang her heart out, acted her heart out, and ad-libbed her heart out through every grade school performance.  Even that damn recorder.

She grew and changed but her heart stayed the same.  She loved all animals and most people.  If they hurt, she hurt more.  If they were happy, she was happy too.  If they made her laugh, oh, she threw her head back and her laugh would ring out across the room.  She was joy and wonder and the very embodiment of all that is good in the world.

She hit puberty and middle school and doubts.  She no longer sang as loud or looked as excited.  She withdrew, she hid, she tried to fit in.  Hurts from friends or not friends or boys pierced her heart.  She seemed to grow smaller as she grew taller and that beautiful heart seemed to always be in a million pieces or more.  She said maybe she didn't want to be a veterinarian any more because sometimes animals died.

She went to a new high school knowing just one person and her mom.  She worried about finding friends, she worried about where to eat lunch, she worried about worrying.  Yet, she prevailed.  She found friends.  She found a place to eat lunch.  She found where her mom hid her snacks and ate them and gave them to her friends.  She nurtured and counseled and helped new friends all while finding her footing in this new place.  She took hard classes and excelled.  She took Math and still hated it.  She took Art and her paintings, her drawings, her sketches took on life.  She said maybe she would be a doctor, a psychologist, a crime scene investigator, an artist, a lawyer.  

She got a job, then another job.  She worked hard and smiled and made people happy and when they commented that she was doing a great job, she was shocked and pleased; she was just doing her job.  She learned quickly these were not the jobs she wanted to be doing for a long period of time.

She looked forward to school and friends and change and finally being a Senior. What should have been a year of celebration and laughter turned into a year of sheer endurance.  She endured.  She endured her parent's divorce, moving from her childhood home, break-ups with friends, and with boys who were unworthy. She was sad, she was angry, and she fumed with a world gone wrong and awry and uncertainty about how to fix it.  She was recognizing her value and she talked of moving away, far away.  She wanted to run and fly and even gallop a million miles away.  She wanted to be anything but here.

She watched COVID19 shut the world down and felt relieved to be done with that grind of school.  She watched movies and spent time with her family and settled and healed and sighed.  After a time, she missed normalcy and other people and sighed even more.  She missed the things she would be missing.  She wanted stories of prom or skipping school or those sweet last days when teachers laughed more than they lectured.  She missed the idea of graduation and walking the stage and living that day about her, about her classmates, about what they had done, and the hope of the things they would do.  She wanted pomp but will just get circumstance.

Going forward, she will do great.  She will make mistakes and she will succeed.  She will find love and lose love and vow to never love again and then love again.  She will learn to drive and she will always park too close to the building.  She will befriend the friendless and she will care more than any other person in the world.  She will be loyal, she will work hard, she will grow and shine and be anything she wants to be. She will throw her head back and laugh and when she does, the world will stop.  If you are lucky, you will be the one that caused that laugh and be sure to listen to the joy and happiness and love of humor and life that ring in that laugh.  Notice how her eyes shine and her smile lights up her face because when you do, you will see how she will be anything she wants to be and we will all be better for it.