Let's face it

 

"Wait, you ate dinner there? They don't have any outdoor seating. You ate INSIDE? How did you do that?" I asked.

My friend laughed. "Yes, we ate indoors. We're vaccinated! We BELIEVE in the vaccine. It was lovely."

Oh. Wow. 

I believe in the vaccine, too. 

Yes, I, too, have been vaccinated. 

However, I am surprisingly ill-at-ease about our world opening up, this ability to leave our homes and be out and about. I am moving slowly and with trepidation towards all these new "normal" opportunities that await. Honestly, I surprise myself with my fear, my anxiety. I joked with my friend that I feel like a cicada, emerging slowly, not entirely understanding where I am now, and then moving confusingly through the world, bumping as I go. I'm edgy, restlessly edgy. Overly sensitive. Maybe I shouldn't use the word "overly" with sensitive - ha! - I need to be sensitive about that. 

Why does eating indoors in a restaurant make me so nervous? What is my deal? 

It's as if I have been on a very strict diet, and then I am invited to a smorgasbord of all my favorite rich and heavy foods - it looks delicious, but it doesn't feel good to partake. Too much too fast. 

I want it, I want it, I want it, but it leaves me a little shaky and uncomfortable.

I have long known I am an introvert; I have never known myself to be this ill-at-ease.

I think it is going to just take time - right? Just a little out of step, I am.

This past Sunday, Father's Day, the kids and grandkids feted my husband with a big yummy breakfast; by 1 pm, everyone was gone, and we had this quiet day remaining - a very typical pandemic day, a day in isolation, just the two of us. 

What should we do for dinner on this special day, just the two of us?

That evening, we took the plunge. 

Just like we always used to do, we walked to our favorite little restaurant in downtown Silver Spring, a cozy little Indian-Nepali place. 

Just like we always used to do, we went INSIDE. Yes, I faced my vague, invisible, stunting fears. 

Just like we always used to do, we had a delightful time. Funny thing, I'm not the only one with these fears - we were the only customers eating inside the restaurant (though there was lots of takeout business, which is how the restaurant survived these pandemic months). This quiet and familiar restaurant was just the environment I needed - and it came with an extra-special bonus of good conversation with the owners, sharing stories about this strange time we are all living through. 

Slowly but surely, I am emerging, we are all emerging.

___________________

It's Tuesday and I am participating in the

 Slice of Life.  

Thank you, Two Writing Teachers, for nurturing teacher-writers!

Flow it, show it

 

It's Tuesday and I am participating in the

 Slice of Life.  

Thank you, Two Writing Teachers, for nurturing teacher-writers!

A photo essay

Oh my, this COVID hair has got to go.

January 2020, that was my last haircut.

My brother says I look like Emmylou Harris. 

Maybe if I played guitar, I'd keep this look.

I have never grown my hair this long.

Did you know you can get trapped by your hair in bed?!

This was news to me.

Frumpy, dumpy, grumpy.

I do not like this look.

Fully vaccinated - that's my cue,

time to go, go, go to the hairdresser!

Wait, one last photo - the pony tail!

The HORSE tail.

I brought flowers to my stylist - I really missed her! 

I discovered the greatest way to transport a vase of flowers, lol.

My hair was too grey to donate - though, my goodness, it looks dark here.

I'm baaaaaack!

SOL21 Slice 17: Mystery of the mind

 

I am participating in the

 Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOL21).  

All participants are sharing stories about moments in their lives, writing 

 every day for the month of March 2021.

Thank you, Two Writing Teachers, for nurturing teacher-writers!

Perhaps the most elaborate part of my school's preparation for students returning to in-person learning is their new, sleek wall system of horizontal elevators. It is masterful! These connect every classroom in the school and move students just one at a time, in an efficient, clean, sterile, COVID-free way. Every staff member has been given access to the iGOTTAgo app. Here's a quick description of how it works: the teacher selects the location that they need for the student to be taken to next (for example, bathroom, art class, principal's office, even to the entrance of the school for parent pickup; all destinations are pre-programmed, to meet the unique needs of each individual classroom). With the press of a button, the sliding doors along the back wall of the classroom open almost instantaneously. The student climbs into the horizontal elevator, and they are whisked to where they need to be next. While onboard, there is special hand sanitizer and a new clean mask, ensuring COVID-free safety at their destination, as well. iGOTTAgo eliminates the need for additional staff members to help with transitions of students, and ensures that teacher and students remain at safe distance throughout the school day. 

Seeing this system with my own eyes has triggered all sorts of anxious questions and concerns. I don't like that the individual elevator 'buckets' don't have any doors or enclosures, the students are each expected to sit down and still throughout the move. How will this work with preschoolers? Goodness, how will this work with a wily seventh grader? iGOTTAgo has assured my school that the sheer speed of transport fixes every student in their place, not one student got out of their seat during the program's testing of the horizontal elevators. I'm sorry, but I'm not convinced. Have they ever met [insert name of follows-different-drumbeat-child]? I'm imagining children being squished between the wall and the elevator bucket, I'm imagining the severing of limbs. You can't possibly add these concerns to a teacher's worries!

This is when I woke up.

I dream about being in the classroom all the time. I had anxiety dreams when I was teaching, and they continue now into this first year of retirement. Last night, there I was setting up a preschool classroom for in-person learning. It was time for the children to return to school, the pandemic was subsiding, we were allowing half the children to return for two days each week. I'm sure I gleaned this plan from all the news articles I read about this process, not to mention all the SOLSC blogs other teachers have written about this very transition. 

What a time of stress, for everyone.

Unlike many of my dreams, in this one I was aware I was retired, I knew I wasn't the teacher. I was there to help my former colleagues. I wonder if on some subliminal level, I want to be needed like this? (I am reminded of Glenda Funk's post yesterday, about how when you ask a retired teacher for help, you are almost performing a service!)

What fascinates me about these school dreams, I am ALWAYS with a challenging student. Yes, when I was teaching this was true, and now in retirement, it continues. It is as if my mind is still trying to solve the puzzle: how to help them? what is the best approach? what are their triggers? what have I noticed to date? what is working well and I can do more of? 

Throughout it all is this enormous weight of RESPONSIBILITY.

One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world.

- Malala Yousafzei

I do not fully understand

I am participating in the
 Slice of Life.  
All participants are writing about one moment, one part of their day, 
on Tuesdays.

                                                        Thank you, Two Writing Teachers!

The digital clock blinked "3:34 am," and I got up and shuffled to the bathroom in the dark...my usual, perfunctory, middle of the night ritual. A moment or two later, task completed, I stepped out of the bathroom, and immediately paused at surprise noise - I heard music, a joyful celebration of some sort, from the back of the house, our family room. What?! There is no one home these days except Tony and I, and Tony was asleep in our bed. How to describe the sound I heard...it was brief, muted, happy...a chorus of some sort, welcoming, exuberant, delighted. I leaned around the corner to peek, to see what was going on - honestly, I was not in the least bit fearful, only curious, even, perhaps, cheerfully expectant - only to find nothing there, nothing visible, and no more sound.

I went back to bed and lay down next to Tony, in the dark, smiling to myself at my overactive imagination. Certainly, there was no one else in the house, there was no one partying. Perhaps it was a neighbor, remnants of some late night festivities? I knew whatever the noise had been, it was okay. I lay there thinking about my Dad, and I was overcome with this feeling of serenity...a sense of softness, acceptance, celebration, connection, and love for him, as he journeys towards his death. 

I've been searching for serenity these past few weeks, battling anxiety, feeling increasingly stressed and depressed about my Dad, who is under hospice care at age 91, some 500 miles away from me, living out his days in a nursing home that is on lockdown with COVID. There is no possibility of in-person visits from family or loved ones. Yes, I've been quite blue. Yet, here in the dark of night, something almost magical had transcended into the air, bringing song and cheer, and I felt calm and peaceful. I do not fully understand.

Maybe it was that good long walk I had taken? 

Yesterday, I took a long, quiet walk in an effort to relax my mind. As I was finishing up my trek, I had the strangest sense that someone was coming up behind me, right on my heels, on my left side. I was on a spacious part of the path; it made no sense that anyone would feel the need to come right up behind me like that. I looked behind me, puzzled, and, yes, you guessed it, there was no one there. Strange! It felt like someone was there, shadowing me. The sensation reminded me of my Mom, in her last years, as she suffered from acute dementia...when I would visit, she would hang very close to me. If I walked down the hall, for example, she would 'toddle' up right behind me, following me as closely as she could, tagging along, like a child. 

I lay in bed, thinking, when a whisper of radiant light trickled through the curtains at the front of my bedroom - much like the music I thought I had heard, the light was soft, embracing, and brief. My window. Light in, around, through the curtains, a kiss of light, and it passed. I lay there in absolute awe and respect. I admit to having a smidgeon of fear - I reached over to my husband, placing my hand on his thigh, to anchor myself. What was happening? The light was not some car passing by on the street, certainly not a flashlight or searchlight...it was much softer than these...diffused, yet clear and hopeful. Too solid for fireflies...certainly not anything I could identify. I do not fully understand.

This light, this song, this dark night - my little spot of courage and love. This thing called life, what a mystery, how it weaves in and out of us, through and around. We are, we live, we die, we bring our whole selves into it all. There he is, my fiercely protective, strong, determined Dad, solving the greatest problem of his existence, and he is stumped by it, trying his best to die on his terms, to finish without hoopla and fanfare, desiring to be independent, resilient. He is stuck in the earthly confines of his Parkinson's, in this home with caregivers, dependent on their helping hands, thoughts, and care, he must submit, he must rely on others...I know this is so hard for him, as it is for me, all my siblings, too...we are not in control, we never have been. 

Tony woke up, responding to the touch of my hand on him. I told him about the music and the light, the mystery of this night. He shared my sense that I had been visited, yes, visited, by something much bigger than me. I had this pervasive sense of being fully connected to and with my Dad at this time, across all these miles...this sense of certainty, really, that it doesn't matter one whit that I am not physically with him right now, I am with him always, and he is with me always.

Realizing I was wide awake and there was no drifting back to sleep, I got up and moved into the living room, to write about this experience, to capture the details while they were fresh in my mind (everything you have just read!).  

Little did I know, the night's mystery was not yet complete. 

Into my journal I wrote:

At a minimum, I believe I am getting a beautiful message of peace, acceptance, serenity, from Dad, from the surrounds, from the larger universe, this holy spirit - I am loved, I will always be loved, I will always know this loving, my loving is felt by Dad, he sends and embraces me with his, all is well, there is no separation, no distance, there just is, there just is not.

No sooner had I written these thoughts down when there was, once again,  a sense of radiant light, enveloping me, this time over my left shoulder. I have a lamp on my right side; there is no lamp or window on my left side, only a bookcase...with a wave of soft, embracing light. 

I go still.

Pause.

What is this?

The light passes. 

I make the connection: this light, over my left shoulder, my Mom.

Mom, behind me on my walk, Mom supporting me during the night, letting me know, everything is well, everything is good, giving me strength. 

With that, I felt clarity and peace. I went back to bed, back to sleep; there were no more mysterious surprises. 

Something transpired that I do not fully understand, that led me to this very peaceful place. 

Dad is dying.

I am not there with him, and yet I am so present.

Attuned. Aware. Alongside.

This sense of eternal belonging, eternal connection,

we are one.

Insight from the dark, all will be well.

My little part of the nightmare

I am participating in the
 Slice of Life.  
All participants are writing about one moment, one part of their day, 
on Tuesdays.

                                                        Thank you, Two Writing Teachers!

Today's slice is a lament.

My Dad is now under hospice care. I've written about him lots these past few years. He is 91; has been in feeble health due to Parkinson's; lives in a nursing home in Maine (near others in my family). In recent days, he has begun to decline rapidly, spending whole days in bed, not eating much or at all, and complaining of pain.

The goal is to keep him comfortable and at ease. Hospice is so beautiful at this.

I feel so much sadness. Brokenness. Stuck in this fog of uncertainty and mixed-up confusion. Should be there. Can't be there. Don't dare be there. Want to be there. Not permitted there. Hard to imagine him there.

He is dying, all alone.

This past Friday, we received word that there were now several cases of COVID in the nursing home. Not my Dad; to date, he has tested negative for COVID. However, he is being kept isolated, as is every resident, and no one, no one, no one is permitted to visit. 

My head hurts from this grievous puzzle:
To travel to see him means staying with family/friends, and putting them at risk from possible COVID picked up as I journeyed.
There's no possibility of seeing my father for two solid weeks, as the home is quarantined. 
In two weeks, it means having only brief visits with my Dad, and no real contact - though there is something called a "compassion" visit when he is perceived to be in his final days.
To travel back here, afterwards, is to put my sweet little 'pod' at risk - my toddler granddaughter, my son/daughter-in-law, who are expecting a second baby this fall.

Honestly, this is like a nightmare. This is my little part of the enormous nightmare that is happening throughout the world. 

I can still think of so much for which I am grateful.
I know it could be worse, it can always be worse.

I had a lovely Zoom call with him this past week and I look forward to another tomorrow, fingers crossed.

This sucks.

I think I need to not fight these heavy emotions I am experiencing, 
not gloss over them, 
just hurt. 
Take the quiet, the stillness, the emptiness, and hurt.

This little ditty of a poem appeared in my head, so this will be my share today:

so many "make do's"

pretend "must do's"

creative "to do's"

but nothing

absolute do

just so much grey

this day

a make myself do day

no zippety do dah

in a make myself do day

just need to accept

I'm feeling blue day