#SOL20: Find Your Cozy Place And…

Like many teachers across the country, I am eyeball deep in preparations for our district to go online with our learning. Like many teachers, I’m putting an immense amount of time and energy into thinking about how I will preserve the relationships I have with my kiddos while I maintain adequate “social distancing.”

What’s so very hard about the whole situation is that I will just…miss their faces. I will miss the joking around together. I will miss our dismissal dance parties, our musical partner activities, and I will miss the sheer joy and love my kids have for all things learning. I’ve thought about a few ways to maintain those relationships, and I’ve got a few ideas, including:
-Google chats for kids who want to talk about their writing
-Video “pep talks” from me where I share encouraging messages for my young readers and writers
-An open forum for them to post videos, writing they’re proud of, self-made memes and the like

But the one thing that dawned on me today? One thing I’m crazy excited for?

Well….it stretches back probably about two decades to an assignment I used to give to my students. At the start of the year, I would ask my students to scope out their houses for a cozy place to read. Kids came up with all kinds of things: their closets, their beds, under the dining room table…you name it.

Then, once a week, their homework would be FYCPAR:
Find Your Cozy Place And Read.

It was, by far, the most popular homework I have ever assigned. (That, and the Shakespearean insults. But I digress.)

So today, as I was considering how to continue my students’ writing instruction, it hit me.

Ladies, Gentlemen and Non-Binary Friends, I hereby give you:

FIND YOUR COZY PLACE AND WRITE.

I’ve found mine, and I can’t wait until my students show me their hidey-holes, their nooks, their crannies, their soft and safe spaces.

I don’t have to like that I’ll miss my loveys for however long. But I can savor and appreciate the time and space we will create, however we can.

If you need me, you know where I’ll be…

#SOL20 Day 12: Taking a Moment

It seems as though there are fewer and fewer places to hide from the spectre of Coronavirus. Even those of us who set out on a conversation trying to discuss something, anything other than the impending wave, there is no escaping the momentum of what surrounds us.

And so, in the midst of swimming, paddling, gasping for breath, I surface for a gulp of air to bring you something, anything other than the impending wave. Because I am sure I will write about it. Just…not today.

Today, amid all the craziness, this guy on my desk caught my eye.

This…is Ruffus. He’s my buddy. We’ve been together pretty much since my first year of teaching in Loudoun County, Virginia, and he’s followed me across three states, four districts, eight schools, at least fifteen classrooms and twenty-five years of teaching.

We’ve been through all kinds of things together. He’s been my demo dog for math lessons, a companion animal to many students, and he’s been the “talking stick” for countless class meetings and heart-to-heart conversations.

He may be just a tiny six inches long. His fur may be fading, and the paint on his eyes may be chipping away bit by bit, and his belly might be held together with some very amateur stitches in absolutely the wrong color.

But he’s seen so much, and heard so much, and done so much.

I think I’ll keep him around a little while longer.

#SOL20 Day 11 (Bonus): How Bad am I at Grief? (Or…will it always be too soon?)

In my daily blogroll, I came across Laughing Squid’s post about comedian Glen Tickle, whose Netflix special is in tribute to his late brother.

I can picture myself tuning in. I picture my own brother looking on from wherever he is, perhaps laughing along in that laugh I can never unhear, visiting me later on in my dreams to thank me for keeping him around a little longer in my thoughts.

It should be the kind of show I’m into. As a fellow human who lost a brother too soon, as someone who knows that grieving is messy and weird and difficult, I should find comfort and solace in sharing someone else’s experience. I should find a quiet hour and a box of tissues and dig in.

Should.

But as a human who knows that grieving is messy and weird and difficult, I don’t know that I have it in me.

And I’ve hung out long enough with Grief to know that Should has absolutely no business being anywhere in the room.

So it’s possible that I might watch the special, and it’s possible that it might offer solace and validation. It’s also possible I’ll pop in a DVD of Airplane, and think fondly on the guy who would text me random lines from that movie, who had crazy amazing dimples, who reduced everybody’s first names to single syllables, and who left this world way too soon.

Of course I’m serious about that. And don’t call me Shirley.

#SOL20 Day 11: Comin’ Home

Maybe I jinxed it by missing my boy.

But he’s coming home this week for Spring Break.

Aaannd for the forseeable future.

Yes, my son’s college has made the decision to move to online learning starting after Spring Break.

And that boy, the one I’ve been missing, the one I enjoy spending time with, the one it was harder to say goodbye to after Winter Break than at move-in, the one I’ve started to enjoy more texts and phone calls and conversations with, the one I was looking forward to visiting over my own Spring Break, and again on Mom’s Weekend, that one? He’s coming home.

Under my roof.

Indefinitely.

I’m….mostly sure that’s a good thing.

It’s a good thing.

Right?

Right?

#SOL20 Day 10: Better Late…?

You slide into bed, making sure the requisite layers cover you: Comfort. Warmth. Weight. A sense of victory wells up within. You have done it. You have achieved early bedtime.

Until the moment you realize what you didn’t get done.

It had to get done.

Today.

Try as you might to get that pit in your stomach to develop into some kind of ambition, some kind of forward motion, sleep wins out.

Next morning, you spring forth, anxious to get the job done for what it’s worth, praying it will do.

You scramble in, trying to appear collected, knowing you’ve got it coming.

You don’t have to look. You can feel an “I-expected-better-from-you” teacher stare snaking its way around the reddening tips of your ears, your cheeks, your neck.

Gathering your breath, you reach into your backpack. Trembling fingers pull out the crumpled, mottled paper in offering. The reply comes.

“Comments closed.”

Something shifts within, and you are not quite sure whether you feel relief or deeper dread.

You decide on relief. It will have to do.

#SOL20 Day 9: We’ll See What Happens

“We’ll see what happens,” the Wife shrugged as she grabbed her bag and keys.

The Husband looked up. “What’s THAT supposed to mean?”

The Wife lowered her bag and countered, “C’mon. You know that’s how it goes, right? It’s not like we have any control over what actually happens. We jump in, and then…yeah. We’ll see what happens.” She glanced out the window, at the reddening sky, at the dark figures beginning to assemble and approach in the streets below.

“Whoa, whoa, wait a second,” the Husband said. “What’s this about we? I’m not leaving this apartment, and I’m not about to have you out there – out in all of that – knowing that something – that anything – could happen.”

“Well,” the Wife chuckled, “it’s not like anything could happen. I’m just saying that we don’t know what will happen. There’s really only one way to find out.”

In silent spaces between people there is often a sound. Listen carefully. You can hear the hum of the world. But in this silence, in this apartment, there grew something different. This sound was rising, thrumming, pulsing. At first it was a single, gentle tone, then it crescendoed and diverged, moment by moment and note by note, until it seemed as though it were a symphony of every instrument, if every instrument could play every note at the same time.

“Are you crazy?” the Husband shouted over the din. “There’s danger out there. Whatever’s out there-“

“Or…WHOever is out there,” the Wife interrupted. The figures out the window seemed more numerous now, and the sound was even louder.

“Whatever’s out there can’t be good,” the Husband added. Just the thought of those dark figures filled him with foreboding.

The Wife considered his words. She actually liked the sound. Yes, there was dissonance, and at first listen it sounds harsh and uncomfortable. But there is also comfort in leaning into that dissonance, of pressing into those close quarters, of getting into the tiny cracks between sounds and pushing into them, only to be pushed back. To her, it was kind of like musical swaddling.

The Wife said, “Whatever’s out there might be good or bad. We don’t know. But this music gives me a good feeling. And I’m up for finding out.”

The sound swelled in the apartment. There was not enough room for all three of them. The Husband and Wife both closed their eyes and leaned: one inward, one outward.

#SOL20 Day 8: Signs of Spring

I always love that first day I start to notice signs of spring. Here’s a little old thing I wrote to celebrate.

The sun whispers to the spring soil,
“Come out, my friends, it’s
Time to play!”

Is it that they don’t hear?
Are they still cold,
Hiding
Waiting afraid for
Winter to pass?
Who will be the first to break forth?
Not the blazing forsythia
Nor the big-headed iris
Nor the overbearing peony

No.

Only humble crocus,
Braver and
Stronger
Than its delicate petals get
Credit for
Breaks the silence.

#SOL20 Day 7: A Time to Bake

Today was hamentaschen day.

Hamantaschen, for the uninitiated, is a triangular-shaped pastry filled with stuff, and it’s eaten around this time of year in celebration of the Jewish holiday of Purim. Which, for the uninitiated, is a celebration (among way too many) of how someone tried to get rid of Jews and failed.

But in all honesty? That’s not what I commemorate.

For me, it goes back to 1994. I was a student at the University of Illinois when I got a phone call from my best friend from elementary school. Her father, after a brutal fight with cancer, had died.

But before we can get into that, we have to go back to 1984, when she and I were pretty much each other’s only friend in junior high. One of the ways we’d pass the time on our many sleepovers was to bake cookies. Sometimes we’d use a recipe. Sometimes we wouldn’t. Sometimes our efforts would be edible. Sometimes they’d be downright awful. Always we ate them.

So on that February day in ’94, I returned to St. Louis to be with my friend. I wanted to help her just…escape, if only for a little while. Those of you who have been around family in a time of intense grief know that things are just that – intense.

The two of us retreated to my place to make hamentaschen. I don’t remember exactly what we talked about. I don’t remember much. But I do remember that was important time for the two of us.

So now, each and every year, when the holiday falls, I once again dig out the recipe, yellowed and food-stained, scrawled in my mother’s handwriting, and I get baking.

Baking hamentaschen isn’t just a simple mix-it-up-and-throw-it-in-the-oven enterprise. You’ve got to make the dough and chill it before you can handle it.

And then there’s the matter of filling. Some folks like to just use canned and jarred fillings – and I kind of do, using whatever fruit preserves sound good as one of my options. But I also treasure my mom’s prune filling recipe. (I know it has the word “prune” in it. Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it. It’s one of the most delicious things on this planet.)

So there’s the dough to make. The filling to prepare. And then each round of dough has to be rolled and cut out. Each dollop of filling has to be centered on the dough. Each circle has to be folded into the triangle, pressed down and sealed with egg whites. Then, and only then, can it be baked.

There’s something so very meditative about making hamentaschen, about getting into the rhythm of the filling and the baking, that sends me into a thoughtful mood. I think about what’s going on at school, how my kids are doing, all kinds of odd things.

But I always think about my friend’s dad. I think about what a warm and caring soul he was. How he treated me like one of his own kids. How he was always up for anything. How he was one of the funniest people I knew. How very much he loved his family. How very much my friend loved HIM.

It makes those hamentaschen even sweeter.

#SOL20 Day 5: Failure is…

Today was…a day to remember some lessons.

Today’s lesson was a lesson in…what should I call it? Patience? Self-forgiveness? Understanding? Revised expectations?

I went to the gym today hoping to score a new PR (personal record) on my deadlift.

Yeah, I guess that makes me a meathead. I’ll take it.

I really wanted this one for a friend of mine, who’s been ill and going through a LOT of tough stuff. We started at my gym around the same time, and we would always joke around about how regularly – and badly!- she would kick my behind.

Now, though, she’s not allowed to lift weights. Like, not ever again. How does a 30-year-old carry that news? I can’t imagine.

So now? Now we joke around about how I’m sneaking up on her old PR’s. And the biggest one is the deadlift. As of last spring, I was 5 pounds shy of her best lift.

Today was my day to test it out. Today I wanted catch up, and to send her a video of me celebrating, and to let her celebrate along with me.

I arrived at the gym to work, and the first several sets working up my weight felt great. I built up the barbell, confident that things were going great.

And then, they weren’t.

25 pounds below my target, I stalled. I tried three times at that weight, and NOTHING DOING. In gymspeak they call that failure. My great hope for today clearly wasn’t happening.

Yes, I was discouraged. Yes, I was disheartened.

But I am also grateful to myself. I have now lifted long enough to know that there are some days I’ll have great lifts, and there are some days I’ll fail. And failure simply means it didn’t work this time. I’ve worked to be strong, and no one can take that away.

So I’ll be back at the gym soon enough, plowing ahead with whatever it is that’s next.

And as for my friend? Ohhh, I’ll catch her. One day.

Just…not today.