Month: June 2020

Time has bent, stretched out, and curled back on itself over the past few months. I’m definitely not as good at sensing the time as I used to be. Schedules have a drastically diminished role these days, which has definitely had some positive effects, but sometimes I feel a little unmoored.

I got an email this morning from a student who said she realized she had one of my copies of Fahrenheit 451 in her backpack and asked if she’d need to come to school to return it. Her face materialized in my mind, dark blond hair and a spray of freckles across her nose and cheeks. She’d been an 8th grader when I taught her, and she must be in 10th grade now. I was surprised by the message and pleased to hear she had been giving one of my favorite books another read.

I wrote her back that it was great to hear from her and that I hoped she could stop by and say hi sometime in the future, and that she’d find me down in the Dolphin area these days. Oh, and keep the book- it’s an essential part of a personal library.

She responded that she was so sorry and had momentarily thought that I was her current English teacher. I guess I’m not the only one without a firm grip on time these days.

Well, according to the governor, schools will reopen in the fall, providing we advance through the three phases of reopening. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I so want to be back in the classroom for the new school year, but will it be safe? I worry that our country’s desperate need to get the economy pumping again and the desire to go back to “normal” might step on the toes of prudence.

Whatever we do, it won’t be normal. We won’t have assemblies. We won’t have whole-staff meetings (okay, neither of these are heart-breakers). We’ll likely be wearing masks, which will be hot and uncomfortable, and the children will have a difficult time hearing us and reading our expressions. I won’t be able to sit down at my round table with a group of three or four to examine a text. Instead of saying, “Turn and talk to your partner” will I be saying, “Turn and talk loudly across the chasm to the nearest student”? Wait, no. I won’t be saying that because I’d be encouraging the spewing of droplets.

I guess there’s no simple way to deal with the effects of a pandemic, and I’m glad I’m not the decision-maker because no matter what you decide, someone will vilify you. But… I can’t help but wish we had our s*** a little more together, like New Zealand, for instance. Why can’t we be more like New Zealand? But that’s another story.

My older sister, Lara, had a flair for the dramatic. One night when my parents went out, she gathered my younger sister and me in the kitchen and said we needed to arm ourselves from people who might try to come kidnap us. She was hovering near the phone when suddenly it rang. She picked it up and innocently asked “Hello?…um, no…what?!” She slammed the receiver down and stared at us with wide eyes. “Oh my god, you guys. That was a woman who just asked if our parents were home, and when I said ‘no,’ she cackled and said, ‘Thank you.'”

Alana and I glanced at each other, figuring she used that trick where you could make your own phone ring, but Lara was a force of nature, so we had no choice but to go along with it. She rummaged around in the back of the pantry and pulled out the sharpest knife in the house, a fish knife that my dad kept in a leather sheath and out of the way. This would be her weapon. She used a belt to fasten it to her leg. She then opened the drawer with the other knives and pulled out a serrated bread knife and, with gravitas, declared this would be my weapon. She dug around in the closet for a scarf and tied it to my leg.

Lastly, Alana was to be armed. Lara, with some sense, presented a round-tipped dinner knife to her five-year-old sister. I’m pretty sure she just tied this to Alana’s arm with a string.

Then…we waited. She made us hang out under the kitchen table for what felt like hours, but was probably more like 20 minutes. At last, probably bored herself, she declared the woman was probably not going to come kidnap us…this time..and allowed us to drop our weapons and go watch TV.

We joined the protest today, and it was such a relief to be able to take part in this important movement in such a visceral way. I’ve found myself momentarily forgetting about the virus in light of recent events. When I heard about the Arlington March for Black Lives, I got all caught up in what our signs should say, whether we should drive or bike, and who might want to join us. COVID was kind of an afterthought until today got closer. Then I started to get a little anxious, and a battle began in my mind: Are you putting your family at risk? What about people who are at risk every day because of their skin color? What if we get boxed in amid a crowd? What a privilege to be able to opt out of being at risk…

By mid-morning today, Maxine had painted our signs, a friend had given us a few hand-sewn masks, and we had a plan. We rode our bikes to Iwo Jima and met three other families and then waited in the shade under the pine trees for the Arlington contingency to make it to us. We could hear them coming right behind the police motorcycles, so we scrambled up the hill and and stood on the sidelines, masks secured and signs held high. A few minutes later, we nodded at each other and jumped in.

As we walked along the bike trail between Iwo Jima and Arlington Cemetery, I kept nudging the kids into the grass in order to maintain distance. I wouldn’t have been comfortable with any tighter conditions and began to wonder how long before we would have to peel off. Thankfully, things opened up when we got to the cemetery, and we were able to stick with the protest all the way up to Lafayette Square. Once we neared the heart of the action, we slowed to a stop, knowing we had reached our limit. It looked pretty darn tight up ahead.

We wandered around for a bit, and then met back up with our friends to make our way back to Arlington. I kept thinking how fortunate we are to call this place home. All we need to do to participate in these monumental events in our nation’s capital is hop on a bike or even just hoof it. As we passed the Lincoln Memorial, I glanced at the grassy slope where we watched Obama’s inauguration on the jumbotron almost 11 and a half years ago. The kids were bundled up so heavily they looked like little marshmallows in the frigid weather. The purpose and mood of the gathering that January day back in 2009 were drastically different from today, but both days were full of hope.

Yesterday morning, as I was drinking my coffee and reading the newspaper, I heard a murder of crows making a racket out back. I looked out the kitchen door and saw two giant ones sitting on the deck railing and the rest of their gang spread out in the river birch in the backyard, all looking at my house and cawing. I thought it was pretty cool until I realized that they were not looking at my house, but at the robin’s nest above the door.

Mama robin has been tending to her eggs for a couple weeks now, and we’ve been excitedly awaiting their emergence. She tolerates my presence and will usually stay on her nest when I step out onto deck; she’s also okay with the kids and Sasha, but she hits her limit when Chris goes out because with his height, he simply comes too close. She’ll sound her alarm and fly off to a nearby tree to wait until he gets the heck away from her nest. It must kill her to have to abandon the nest like that, right?

My heart skipped a beat as I flung open the door and saw a crow fly away from above the door. I got a chair and peered into the nest and saw four perfect blue eggs. The crows on the deck had flown away, but not without telling me off, and the gang was still in the tree, verbally abusing me. Once Sasha came out, they flew away and didn’t come back. I went back in the house and asked Edwin how many eggs were in the nest, since he’s been the one most closely monitoring the nest. Please let it be four, I thought. “Four,” he said. Whew. Mama’s babies were safe for now.

I sat back down to finish my coffee and mull over my distaste for the crows. Then I thought, “That’s not really fair; everybody’s got to eat.” Then again, why were they all hanging out watching? It wasn’t as if they would all share in the spoils; there simply wasn’t enough to go around. Were they taking pleasure in it? Were they just bored? What gives? Why they gotta be that way?

I haven’t watched the video of George Floyd’s murder, but I’ve seen pictures and read what he was saying. “Please I can’t breathe…they’re going to kill me.” Maxine saw it, which I wasn’t aware of until she showed up in my bedroom in tears. I still can’t bring myself to watch it, but that didn’t stop me from dreaming about dying.

I was in the car with a friend, and we kept driving up and down a very steep, icy road. I kept thinking, “Shouldn’t we stop the car? This seems very dangerous,” but she seemed to be handling the wheel with unshakable confidence until… the car careened off the edge of a cliff, and suddenly I was alone in the car. I felt so sad because I knew it was the end. I was sad for myself, sad for my family, and so desperately wanted to turn back the clock a few minutes and stop the car.

At some level of consciousness, I must have known I was dreaming because it wasn’t a nightmare. I didn’t wake up sweating or crying or anything. As I processed the dream throughout the day, I started thinking more and more about George Floyd.

At some point during those eight minutes and forty-six seconds, he realized he was going to die, that there was no going back. What a nightmare he had to experience, and how incredibly lonely to be surrounded by people, none of whom is willing or able to save you, as you take your last breath. I can only imagine what it must feel like to have been in his shoes.

Those words keep echoing in my head, words that Joe Biden uttered in the speech he gave this morning in Philadelphia. I feel it like I’ve never felt it before, and I also feel hopeful that we as a nation are finally emerging from our slumber and recognizing that only two options have ever existed: being pro-racist or anti-racist. I believe our country will choose the latter. We have to.

I hadn’t previously been super excited about Joe Biden, but that changed today. His speech brought tears to my eyes because it filled me with hope that we may again soon have someone with integrity leading our nation, someone who is there to serve the people and the principles of our Constitution instead of his insatiable and fragile ego. I have hope that we will flush the ultimate megalomaniac down the toilet of history when we vote this fall.

I went to a small birthday party tonight for a friend who lives on the next block. In normal times, a bunch of us would spread out across their wrap-around porch and enjoy a dark and stormy or some other cocktail they had mixed, along with one of her delectable desserts. My fondest memories of her birthday celebrations are when an actual storm came on, and we’d watch the wind and rain from the safety of their porch. However, times are different, so a much reduced group of us gathered in their side yard for a corona virus paper maché piñata and refreshments (fortunately, without a storm). Once the sun set, we lit a fire and enjoyed one of the last cool evenings of the season.

The evening was bittersweet because this lovely family is moving to Idaho this summer. They’re renting out their house for three years, but I’m not so sure they’ll return. It’ll be a big loss. You know when you wish you had more time to really get to know someone? Well, that’s Emily for me. She is so gracious and has such a passion for life. She always seems to know where to find the best adventures: where to mountain bike, where to find new places to kayak and have a picnic, what books to read and podcasts to listen to. She knows so much, but is always relatable and fun to be around. Plus, she has good taste in beer (she’s a fan of Chris’s brews), and has always loved Edwin. She is one of his favorite people in the neighborhood. She takes a genuine interest in what he’s up to and seeks him out to catch up with him and his current interests. She’s a good egg, and I’ll miss her- and her family- very much.