and this is your brain after a day of preparing to teach entirely online:
This is a melted green rubber duck I found online, and I find this to be a pretty accurate representation of what my brain feels like right now. I sure hope I sleep well because I’ll need all those hours of deep non-REM sleep to process everything I’ve learned (newer data suggest this stage of sleep is the most important for learning and memory, and that’s from John Hopkins, so I assume it’s legit).
As for the part of my sleep that involves dreaming, I hope it has nothing to do with screens, elbow bumps, or masks.
I have logged many hours sitting on my butt today. I did drag myself out of bed for an early morning run, but it still can’t erase a full day of sitting. Even pre-COVID, teachers spent many hours sitting during those first few days back at work, but these days have always been limited. After a few days of meetings, workshops, and training, we’re up, buzzing around the school picking up books and supplies, chatting with friends and colleagues, papering bulletin boards, arranging furniture, and maybe even going out for lunch!
In these unusual and unfortunate times, I am keenly aware that these sedentary first days back to work are just the beginning of a months-long stretch of sitting. There must be some things I can do to fight this looming stillness. At least I have my watch, cheerfully reminding me to stand every hour for a minute, but that’s not enough. Is it time to work from a treadmill?
We had been out near Clifton on Saturday and ordered a pizza from Little Villagio for pickup (fabulous pizza, by the way). Edwin’s ears pricked up from the backseat when he heard me mention Clifton. He insisted we drive the short mile and a half out of the way to see Bunny Man Bridge, officially known as Colchester Overpass.
According to local lore, the Bunny Man was an escaped mental patient in the 1950’s who survived on and donned the skins of rabbits as he hid behind the overpass, lying in wait for his victims, hatchet in hand.
Edwin said that though no murders in the area had been officially attributed to the Bunny Man, a number of people had gone missing and that it was most likely him.
Chris and I had a good old time making jokes about BM, wondering if he gave it a rest on Easter, whether he found his nickname emasculating, and so on, but I must admit a chill ran down my spine as we approached the lonely, wooded bridge in the dappled late afternoon light.
Was that pair of ears that just disappeared behind the tree or was it just a trick of the light?
On this day last year, the kids were packing for their trip to Florida to spend the week with their grandparents while Chris and I would be busy preparing for a new school year. Instead of making the long journey by car to spend a few days with Chris’s parents and having the kids fly back on their own a week later, we went ahead and bought round-trip tickets for them this time. So simple.
The kids spent the week splashing in the pool and in the Gulf, playing with/tolerating their little cousins, and generally having an all-around good time. Chris and I had a pretty good time of it as well; we went out for happy hours, met friends for dinner, and took long evening walks. We had the freedom to work as late as we wanted, which can also be quite satisfying at times. Nevertheless, by mid-week, I was missing them and ready for them to come home.
Chris and I went out for an early dinner the evening of their return. This was probably the fourth time they had flown by themselves, and since they had become so wise and mature by then [insert eye roll], we just had them wait for us curbside. After dropping their bags and saying a quick hello to Sasha, we walked a few blocks to a friend’s house, who was hosting a little get together for Wakefield and about-to-be Wakefield Warriors and their parents (younger sibs were welcome, too). The teens chatted, ate, and laughed as they scrolled through posts on TikTok, and we parents talked about how crazy our schedules were about to become with another school year filled with music lessons, sports, drama productions, orchestra concerts, Model UN, etc. Little did we know it would all come to a screeching halt seven months later.
As we embark on this new year, I wonder what it will feel like. I think we’ve learned some valuable lessons over the past six months, one being that we were simply too darn busy before. We packed our schedules too tightly, supported (or pushed) our kids into doing more for the sake of…what, exactly? I think it was to make sure they had every opportunity to experience the world so they could discover their passions and talents and..blah blah blah. All that’s great to an extent, but when every evening and weekend becomes filled up, you struggle to remember what it’s all for.
I am certainly looking forward to having the kids refocus on academics, and Maxine will start some weird form of distance soccer practice next week, but our evenings and weekends on the horizon are still looking pretty sane.
Where have you been all my life, Old Rag? How is it that I hadn’t hiked this mountain until yesterday? I had certainly heard of it, but had filed it away as a hike that sounded nice, but whatever.
Well, it’s probably the most beautiful and fun hike I’ve ever done on the east coast. I can even say it ranks up there with Zion and Bryce Canyon. What endears it to me even more is that it’s home, having grown up driving down Skyline Drive with my dad and sisters on the occasional fall Sunday while my mother got a few hours to herself, and then spending four school years and two summers in Harrisonburg, Virginia, right in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley.
The trail begins with a winding hike through the forest, part of which runs alongside a babbling brook. Every now and then, we came to an overlook, so we could clearly see the progress we were making as we began to look down upon treetops and gliding hawks.
Just as the kids seemed to be running out of steam, a grand new adventure began: we had reached the rock scramble portion of our hike. We shimmied through crevasses between colossal boulders, scampered over rock faces, and used a rope to heave ourselves up the side of a steep rock wall. When we finally reached the 3,284 foot summit, we were in awe of the beauty that surrounded us. We gazed out across the Shenandoah Valley, as the breeze blew gently across the exposed rock summit and giant puffy clouds hung in the sky.
After a long photo session of selfies, groups pics, and amateur panoramas, we began our descent, winding down a different set of switchbacks. I was acutely aware of and impressed by the occasional set of steps created by large granite rocks placed just so. How many people did it take to position them? Did they cut them? How far did they have to carry them? Surely, a front-end loader was not an option way up there. It had to have involved only ropes, chains, hand tools, and human sweat and tears.
As we finally dropped below the base of the valley’s treeline, we emerged on the fire road. Though very pretty in the surrounding forest, it seems to go on forever when you’ve hiked nearly seven miles already. The three 13-year-old girls, though not above the occasional complaint about the never-ending road, didn’t run out of topics of conversation. The lone boy, the seven-year-old brother of one of the teens, whose feelings were hurt by being shooed away by big sis every time he lingered too long or too close, informed us they were talking about TV shows and that once they exhausted that topic, they would move on to the subject of facial products. He was not wrong.
The fire road did, indeed, come to an end after a couple miles (I can’t be precise because my watch had died), but we still had one last brief ascent up to the main trail, on which we would trek for the final mile back to the parking lot.
Boy, were our dogs barking by the end, but it was well worth it. I would love to return when the leaves change, but I’m not sure how to avoid the crowds. Even on a late-summer Tuesday morning, we had to put our masks up dozens of times to pass and yield to groups. All I know is that I’m already longing to be back on the mountain.
The woman who cleans our house came back today, and I really have an urge to kick everyone out so that it will stay pristine for more than a day. It really is a beautiful thing. This is the third time she’s been back since the pandemic, but we had been out of town the other two times, and with all the hubbub of unpacking the car after a week or two away, I didn’t really get to enjoy those initial magical moments after they finished the job.
After I greeted Maria and spent a few minutes catching up, I headed out for a run while the rest of the family camped out in the basement. When I returned, I joined them as the vacuum hummed above. Before long, Maria and her assistant were finished and heading out. When we heard her car backing out of the driveway, we stretched, gathered our various devices, books, and empty dishes, and ascended the stairs, squinting in the sunlight at the gleaming floors and counter tops. The shine will have dulled by tomorrow evening, but it sure is nice while it lasts.
We got a new piano last week, and I have a renewed interest in playing. We had been making due with a hand-me-down piano that really should have been put out of its misery years ago, but, hey, it was free. The kids practiced on it for 11 years, but every time I would sit down to play, I derived little joy. The touch had never been very satisfying; some of the key tops had come off; a few hammers were missing, so we couldn’t play a high F; and it just didn’t sound that good. Finally, two weeks ago, Edwin said, “Mom, I really can’t play on this anymore. My pieces are too complex, and it just isn’t working.”
Chris and I started our search in earnest, and within a week, we had a new used Yamaha gracing our foyer. It’s a gleaming ebony, professional height, and the hammers have all been refurbished. I can’t walk past it without sitting down and playing a little something. I opened up a book from my childhood and noted the date my piano teacher had assigned me various pieces. This particular book is full of dates from 1984. They bring back memories of me practicing on my mother’s Chickering baby grand in our living room, which she still plays to this day.
Maxine printed off songs from Hamilton, and we’ve been working on “Dear Theodosia,” among the many Beethoven, Czerny, and other classical pieces we’re practicing. We actually end up fighting for the piano at times. I wonder how long that will last.
Tim Moore, president of the Mississippi Hospital Association, compared trying to socially isolate second graders to keeping frogs in a wheelbarrow. I think he’s onto something.
I think it’s time for our family to call it a summer and go home. We’ve spent a week in Chincoteague, two weeks on the Gulf coast of Florida, and are now nearing the end of a week in the mountains of North Carolina.
I’ve been waking up around 3 AM every night, wishing I was at home where I feel I can better control our fate, where I know which stores are safest, where I can start to plan instruction for this wacky upcoming school year, where I can have a kitten curl up between us at night, dog at the foot of our bed, children tucked safely in their own rooms.
I’m not complaining about being away from home; I am aware of how fortunate I’ve been to have had a real summer. At times, I’ve even almost forgotten about the pandemic, though very fleetingly. I can probably count on one hand when it’s happened: when a dolphin swam under my paddle board (I swear he was smiling at me), when I beat Chris in badminton, when we waded through pools of water at the bottom of a waterfall, when Edwin accidentally smacked Maxine in the face with his knee in an forbidden game of indoor tag in the dark (nothing like administering a little first aid to distract you), on a moonlit walk down a mountain road, and taking the first sip of a perfect margarita followed by a chip with fresh guac. Okay, that’s more than one hand.
The emotional roller coaster we’ve all been on lately has been insisting on dragging me through mostly lows lately, but here are some things that I’ve recently experienced that have provided a little respite from the gloom:
-A video of baby goats in pajamas
-Standing under waterfalls
-Running by a fawn, so young is still has its white spots
-Watching a humming bird scold a couple of finches for hanging around his feeder
-Sunset over a lake while paddle boading
-Bull frogs croaking at dusk
-Katydids singing a chorus so loudly in the pitch dark that it drowns out every other sound
-A perfect batch of jalapeno poppers, straight from the oven
My Corner of the Village 