Day #175 Writing Through COVID-19: A Day in the Life

6:45 a.m. 
I've cut my fingernails down to nothing. I wear a little mascara. No jewelry. No perfume. Part of this is for COVID hygienics, but part is the new simpler me, nurtured during five months of no-fuss living. I like it.  

7:15 a.m.
I grab a clean mask from the dozen dangling from the cupboard knob in the laundry room. But when I get to school and put it over my face, it smells musty. 

The sofas that used to line my room were hauled away last month to make room for hard-surfaced desks, but I still have a bottle of the Febreeze I used to use on the stinky couches. Today I spritz it on my mask. 

10:15 a.m.
I poke my head into the Chemistry room to ask a question. A boy sees my masked face and my blue scrubs: "Whoa! I thought you were my doctor!"

11:30 a.m.
It's raining, so I don't use my lawn chair for lunch in the sun as I have for the past two weeks.  Shortly thereafter, a student asks for a place alone to de-stress. I'm glad to offer her my happy COVID lawn chair in the vestibule. 

2:10 p.m.
I am learning to observe my students' writing via our district's laptop-monitoring system. In normal years, I'd walk the room, asking questions, offering encouragement. Today I sit at my desk and creep surreptitiously on students' computers.  I feel like a lazy Big Brother. Is it a good thing that I'm getting better at this sit-down form of surveillance/teaching?

RDH Jill and I send a photo to a mutual friend.

3:30 p.m.
So this is the pandemic way we now do dental appointments. I park in the lot and call the front desk to alert them to my arrival. The hygenist comes out to take my temperature before letting me inside, where I then answer the screening questions we're all growing accustomed to. 
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"Have you always worn a mask," I asked her, "or is this new for COVID?" 

"I always wear a mask, but now I also wear a face shield, and I like it! It keeps splatter off my face!"

5:42 p.m. 

A student texts me to say she'll be out 14 days for quarantine. I hope she does not get sick. Her access to WiFi is sketchy. I mentally revisit my interactions with her today and am confident we were on opposite sides of the plexiglass shield that separates my desk from students with questions. 

5:55 p.m.
As host, I open the ZOOM room for the NCTE Committee I chair. Because the board members live in four different time zones, we've met via ZOOM for three years now. 

But tonight we need to spend our first minutes together describing our teaching setups. Some are teaching online. Some hybrid. I'm the only one who meets my students face-to-maskless-face each day. Iowa.

7 p.m. 
It's cold out, so I make a pot of chili. Harrison joins us for supper. I did not let him do this when my parents were living in the basement. But my boundaries have blurred. I tell myself that working on the farm, he comes in contact with far fewer people in a day than I do in an hour. "Telling myself..." is justifying the loosening of parameters I once held firm.

7:45 p.m.
Dan tells me the woman who cleans our house (and who at last returned today after a 5-month coronavirus hiatus) said she is angered by Facebook posts that belittle mask-wearing. Her mother-in-law is one of two people in Cass County who have died of COVID this year. She was 75. 

8 p.m. 
I open my blog but realize my day has been blessedly boring. I have nothing to say. Maybe I'll just try to capture moments of Sept. 8 that were impacted by this relentless pandemic. 

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison

Look who's laughing now!