I've been trying to Zoom with my parents daily since they returned to Friendship Haven 27 days ago. I don't want to lose the bond I felt when they lived with me.
But my efforts have been undercut by my dad's glitchy laptop. First, he lost his video camera on Zoom. I couldn't see my parents' faces as we talked, but they could at least see me--which I told them was all that mattered!
But then my dad lost audio capability as well. The care-center tech support was not able to fix it, so today I made arrangements for my dad's sister's grandaughter's husband Jason (got that?!) to troubleshoot his laptop issues tomorrow.
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My interactions with my parents--face-to-face this past summer and now on Zoom or phone--are fogged with their confusion. I am not angry or even irritated by their loss of acuity and memory. Still, at times, it takes effort to modulate my voice to erase tones of boredom or judgment as they fumble through what used to be simple computer tasks and free-flowing conversation.
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Both of my parents report bubble-blowing to be a joyful part of their days.
Could we all just take hold of a jar of bubbles and send some opalescent spheres of contentment into the atmosphere? I'm reading a lot about "self care" these days, and I think bubble-blowing is underrated.
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My newspaper editors will be Zooming next week with leaders in the Des Moines CORE for Advancement organization. My students are landlocked in a mostly white, mostly conservative, rural Iowa community. Yet they feel the urgency of this summer's reawakening of the civil rights movement. They want to engage in the hard thinking of addressing racial inequity in our country, our state, our town, our school.
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Enough.
Be well.
Write.
Allison
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