One question

It's Tuesday and I am participating in the

 Slice of Life.  

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

I'm excited to report that I have had my second vaccine, and in a matter of days I will be considered fully vaccinated. Here we are, as my friend says, making the world healthier one vaccine at a time. I know we have much further to go, but I am so happy to be moving out of this hard pandemic time into something a little softer.

I am curious though.

Think back to the trials and tribulations of this past year:

• realizing COVID-19 exists
• learning that it was spreading throughout the world
• trying to contain it, combat it, cure it,
• so much dysfunction on every single layer of government
• upheaval over rules for quarantining, social distancing, masks
• close schools? open schools? virtual school? hybrid school? 
• closing businesses, introducing phases to reopen businesses
• what is PPE? Yikes, where to get PPE? (also, toilet paper!)
• all the false starts, inadequate starts, insufficient responses, all the confusion
• how every state did their own thing, handled COVID their own way
• how every city and county within states tried different responses, often in conflict with others
• wear masks? masks required? no mask mandate? needed inside? not outside? must wear where? 
• legislators arguing over COVID relief bills
• watchdogs investigating federal health agencies, relief bill fraud allegations, more
• vaccine rollout, also chaotic: approved? not approved? withdrawn from market? safe? side effects?
• where to get vaccine - state run sites, local drugstores, grocery stores, churches, just look for it!
• how to sign up - confusing directions, confusing software, paused screens, wait, wait, wait, stress

We all lived this year out, 

I don't need to belabor this list. 

I'm sure we could go on and on! 

However, when all is said and done, all these varied situations lead to:

the exact same, identical vaccine card for every single American?

This wild, hectic, maddening year of pandemic leads every one of us to this 2 x 3 inch rectangle of white card stock imprinted with the CDC seal?

How in the world did we pull this off?

No, seriously, am I the only one wondering how we managed to create one single card and distribute it everywhere? 

How did everyone I know receive the same vaccine card, though we were vaccinated in different places? How did my loved ones and friends who live in other states receive the same as well? 

Who handled the logistics of this one little card? 

I wonder if 

one dear, hardworking employee 

simply decided 

to block out every other maddening unsolvable problem 

unleashed by this pandemic 

and instead

locked herself away 

in a quiet office,

worked with total focus, 

diligently, 

obsessively, 

printing out and packaging, 

box after box after box after box

of these cards, 

for every citizen,

distributing them to every imaginable location in the United States

in a timely manner!

woohoo!

Pretty impressive, really.

No, seriously, am I the only one wondering how we managed to pull this off?

Redbuds and memories

It's Tuesday and I am participating in the

 Slice of Life.  

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

This past Friday, April 9th, was a spectacular spring day to be outside. Tony and I worked together in the yard, trying to eradicate those endless weeds and spotlight the spring flowers. I had a writer's notebook at the ready, trying to capture "live action" words for writing haiku, which was that day's poetry prompt with Dr. Sarah Donovan's Ethical ELA #VerseLove, where I am writing poetry every day in April.

We worked quietly, slowly, trowels in hand, moving the dirt, tossing the weeds, enjoying the day. We were already aware of the date and then noticed our redbud in peak bloom, always a beautiful sight. Both of us immediately got a little misty-eyed, and began to talk about its meaning. 

You see, we planted it to commemorate Tony's father, who died April 9, 1995. Twenty-six years ago. Wow. 

How can this time be, at once, both so long ago and yet so current, so right there, at the ready?

 

Are you finding yourself so much more raw and accessible, big emotions right there on your sleeve, during this time of pandemic? I find myself thinking back, reflecting frequently, on those I've loved who have died. 

Is it simply because I'm getting older? 

Is it spending sweet time with my granddaughters, seeing 'the passage of time'? 

Is it the loss of my father, earlier this year, after losing my mother two years ago, and this realization that I'm the older generation now?

Is it being retired, spending more time writing and reflecting?

Perhaps all of these play a role, but I think it mostly has to do with this time of grief we are all living through. This world in grief.

Without a doubt, I am so much more aware of the brevity of life. 

Tony and I, we remembered how, when we received word that Papaw had died, we immediately packed up the kids and the car and drove the long drive south from Maryland to Atlanta to be with family, to be in mourning. All along the long, long drive, spring flowers were blooming, and what was especially beautiful were these gorgeous purple blossoms that seemed to burst through the greenery of the trees - redbud trees. All along the way, purple, purple, purple. 

My father-in-law died at age 87, a couple months before our youngest son was born. He was a truly good and kind soul and it's always made me sad that I only knew him for maybe seven-eight years, that I had not had more time with him. We lost three of Tony's family in 1995; in addition to his father, who died of cancer, he lost two older brothers, one to a heart attack and one to cancer. It was a brutal year for us, in our young marriage, grieving all this loss. 

Lots has happened in those twenty-six years. Our youngest child is an adult now, and he never even got to meet this grandfather. His whole memory of Papaw and his uncles is through our family stories, memories shared. Even our older sons were short-changed in their time with these loved ones, being only 6 and 3 years of age. 

I do believe we have done a pretty good job of sharing memories with them, through the years. 

But that is the way life works, yes? We live and we die. If we are lucky, we get to love and be loved. Yes, for me, this awareness of the tenderness, the fleetingness, the fragility of life is felt more profoundly during this time of pandemic, with so many abbreviated lives all around. 

Let me close with some haikus about these redbud reflections - Tony and I actually wrote the fifth one together, which was very sweet.

day in the garden
turning over the soil
memories flowing

we planted a redbud
to bloom each year at this time
in your memory

when the redbud blooms 
we remember when you died
and sent us kisses 

flashes of purple
amongst the bright greenery
throughout the mountains

flowering redbuds
reassurances from you
all the long drive south

Musings and rambles

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!

I cannot seem to land on any one topic for a blogpost today, so here are a few rambles related to this COVID-19 pandemic:

Dad

These are strange times indeed. Tomorrow, I will have my first ever video chat with my Dad, who is 90 years old. How will this even work? He has rather severe vision impairment, and he is nearly deaf. Nevertheless, I am so excited that this technology exists, and that there is the possibility of connecting with him in real time. I am so thankful that his nursing home has offered this option to us.

He has been in isolation for several weeks now, and he has stayed healthy and clear of the virus. There was one case of COVID-19 in the nursing home; this case was isolated immediately, and there have been no more cases in some three weeks. Our fingers are crossed that this will remain true, and that these dear residents will somehow miss this pandemic. Unfortunately, this means that we won't be able to visit inside the building with Dad for the foreseeable future. 

Flowers

This morning I went outside to water my new red geraniums in the big pot next to the side entrance of my house, only to find there were no more blooms. Every single bloom had been eaten by some renegade deer, sometime overnight. Unbelievable! Perhaps the deer read my post from last week, where I confessed to feeling guilty about this purchase during a pandemic? There's irony or karma there, or something.

The Classroom
We got word that there will be no returning to school for the rest of the school year; only virtual learning for the weeks ahead. We left school so abruptly back in mid-March, with the now-foolish assumption that this would be a break of one to two weeks. We just walked out that day. Did we seal the goldfish crackers and put them away in the plastic bin? What papers are in my cubby? What bulletin boards are up? How many overdue library books are on the book shelf? I find myself thinking about the paint that I left in the paint cups.

Children
So many fun moments with little ones these past few days. In our latest FaceTime chat, my granddaughter (17 months old) leafed the pages of a favorite board book, and called out the animal noises for each page - she's reading right? Truly a delight to watch her excitement with that book.

Then, there were the phone calls with my preschool students. One silver lining to this pandemic is the one-on-one conversations I am having, uninterrupted, with each of these treasures. I heard one passionate story after another - playing with dolls in the dollhouse, planting seeds and now the plant has three leaves, the finding of a beetle and its larvae in the woods (Dad's an entomologist!), building a cardboard house for a toy elephant, and the plot to the latest Ninjago (this was totally over my head). One preschooler insisted on reading me Peter's Chair by Ezra Jack Keats, knowing this was one of my favorite picture books - she turned every page and shared what she recalled, often using the exact words as written. She truly is showing early reading skills. I am impressed.

The Cardinals
We had a bit of a windstorm and some rain mid-day, and I looked out the window to see what was transpiring. There in the midst of my redbud tree were two beautiful cardinals, one male (bright red) and one female (lighter red), hanging on for dear life. They were on two separate sides of the tree, both sheltered within multitudinous small branches, as if weathering the impromptu storm with a makeshift lean-to. Both birds were puffed up nice and round, as if they had eaten too many cookies, too, though I suppose they were simply defending themselves against the cold breeze. I was fascinated by their ability to hop around on the branches, moving with the wind, making do. Just trying to make it through. When the gusting subsided, they flew away. I feel lucky to have seen that.

Weeding

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!

I'm out front, weeding, underneath the azaleas. My goal is to eradicate every last remnant of a pesty vine I call bindweed or common morning glory...I'm not quite sure of its name, I simply know its nature. It very cleverly blends into the branches of my azaleas and the stalks of my purple coneflower and black eyed susans, winding itself all around these in a type of chokehold, growing and weaving its way to the top. It is what I call a copycat plant, in that you often miss it, if you simply glance at your flowers...it is stealth, with similar leaves, and entangled within and around its host. Beneath the soil, it has a multitude of runners, allowing it to spread out and sidle up and through almost every plant in my garden. Shoots of this vine will climb along a neighboring stalk and then bend towards each other at the top of the plants, interlocking vine and leaves with one another, forming almost a rope 'hat' at the top of the plants. When the weed has escaped my eye just long enough to settle in, it blossoms with a a bright, white flower - as if to jeer, "Ta da! Look at me! You have neglected your garden! Ha ha!"

It does no good to simply peel off the flowering vines from the tops of the plants - though I admit it is highly pleasurable to grab the mass from above and yank. If I want to get rid of the bindweed, I have to get underneath, to where the vine emerges from the ground...I need to find every chute and dig these up by the roots. I find it is best for me to be down low, on my knees, peering up into the branches, watching for chutes that have climbed up from the soil. It is slow and patient work.

Try as I might, I always miss some. I'll finish for the day, put away my tools, go inside and get cleaned up, step back outside with a cup of iced tea, and my eyes are drawn right back to the blemish - AACK! There's another one of those dang weeds! I swear, bindweed regrows within the hour.

I think how this yard work is a metaphor for our world, where vicious weeds like racism and hate and bullying and misogyny and white supremacy pop up and then reach towards one another, becoming intertwined, and, in this way, much stronger. We cannot ignore these, we cannot make superficial or temporary fixes. The only way to eradicate them is to get to the roots, which means we must be caring, determined, and focused in multiple places simultaneously. We must toil. We must get to know one another, to connect, to be good neighbors. We must give lots of love and attention to that which we treasure, and ensure that it is safe and nourished. We must teach our children well. We must realize our work is never, ever done.

SOL: Redbuds in spring

            The redbud is one of my favorite trees. I first noticed it when hiking in the Shenandoah mountains many, many years ago, in the early spring. In the mountains, these are little wisps of trees, perhaps grown from seeds dropped indiscriminately by birds or carried by the wind, slipping in-between and alongside evergreens and oaks, dotting the trails as you climb. They almost jump out at you, bursting with bright purple-pink color, as they move from their winter dormancy. I have never really seen anything red about them...I think they should be called 'purple bud,' but, of course, I was not consulted.

             About five years ago, having decided a small, flowering shade tree is exactly what we lacked, we planted a redbud in our front yard. From our living room window, I get the delight of watching it bloom and grow, throughout the seasons. Its early spring show, with its pop of color, blows away all the other seasons, in my opinion. I soon realized a downside of the redbud: that pop of color is very brief, with the bright blooms changing quickly to leaves. Walking by flowering redbuds on a hike, I never thought about that; they were simply beautiful to behold. Watching the redbud from my window these past few years, I've been more aware the bright purple-pink season is actually very short and I pay close attention.

              About ten days ago, my redbud began its gorgeous spring blooming - sweet blossoms emerging along every branch, dotting these in tiny petals. Then, we went away for spring break. We drove down to Georgia from our home in Maryland, along I-81, and I again marveled at the redbuds dotting the landscape, all along this mountainous route. Beautiful! Once in Georgia, I didn't notice the redbuds...out of sight, out of mind. Here, the dogwoods were in full glory. Ah, spring!

               First thing Easter morning, back in Maryland, my spring break over, I immediately noticed that my dear redbud's fabulous spring blossoms were fading quickly - oh no! I was not here for their full glory!

               I stood for a long while underneath the tree branches, noticing and devouring.

               Emerging from the end of each of the branches were small, heart-shaped leaves. These leaves do not simply replace blossoms, but seem to grow in addition, alongside, stretching new from the tree. As the blossoms wilt and fall away, more and more leaves will arrive. Looking closely at those blossoms one more time, I notice their small purple core, with two to three tender pink petals growing out of this. I notice those new heart-shaped leaves are pretty, too, bright and shiny, deep red in color.

                This same week of spring break, my granddaughter, "Frog," who is nearly six months old, outgrew the bassinet in her parents' bedroom and moved to her own crib, in her own bedroom. Do you know she also started to sit up? Babies, wow, how quickly they change. Somehow in the midst of the hike of parenting my own children, the changes didn't seem so fast as they do now, with Frog. She is stretching and growing, just like those blossoms and leaves, letting some things fall away, opening up to so much new. I get the delight of watching Frog bloom and grow.

SOL: It's 9pm

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

A big thank you to Two Writing Teachers for providing this unique opportunity
for teacher-writers to share and reflect!!

It's 9pm 

on a Tuesday.

It's 9pm 

on the Tuesday after the March Slice of Life Challenge.

It's 9pm 

and I have not written a slice of life.

It's 9pm 

and I have not even drafted a slice of life.

It's 9pm

and I wonder how it can be so challenging to write one slice of life, when I wrote one every day for 31 days without much difficulty at all?

It's 9pm

and I have 

babysat my granddaughter for one hour before school, 

because of a very unusual scheduling hiccup,

carried a bureau into my own classroom for the dramatic play corner,

because it sat there screaming "I'm free!!" from the curb in front of a house as I drove by,

launched a whole new professional inquiry project about restorative practice,

because of an excellent workshop last week,
taught a full day of preschool with paint, blocks, dress-ups, books, more,
because that's what I do,

worked closely with a very challenging preschooler,

because he bit a classmate once again and I can't figure out how he's ever going to stop,

entered edits on report cards during my lunch break,

because my principal got them back to me late and they were due last Friday,

ate too many pizza rolls leftover from children's lunches 

because I couldn't believe they wouldn't even taste them,

wrote a long note to families,

because we are going to do many exciting things in the weeks to come,

ran at break-neck speed around my school neighborhood with other colleagues,

because a first grader was missing and, thankfully, soon found safe and sound,

returned to see my granddaughter a little more after school,

because we gather there on Tuesdays for dinner,

showered and readied myself for bed,

because I am exhausted.

It's 9pm

and this is my slice of life.