Day #214-15 Writing Through COVID-19: Root Canals, Covid, and Why I Write

My mother-in-law's worries about her upcoming root canal continue to dominate my days. But honestly, I can't bear to write about it. 

So here's the short version:

There is no short version. 

There is only the long version, which involves my mother-in-law wanting a solution that does not exist. It entails multiple phone calls, lots of re-explaining. As my husband said, this is only a foreshadowing. As much as we celebrate Dan's 91-year-old mother's youthfulness, her confidence and health are no longer on the upswing.
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I've requested a sub for Wednesday to take my mother-in-law to her Omaha appointment. If all goes as hoped, her dental work will be completed in one fell swoop and we'll do follow-ups from Atlantic.

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In other news:

The 14-day rolling average for Covid testing positivity is now above 15% in Cass County. This puts us into the category that allows our district to request to move to online teaching/learning.

I'm pretty sure that if our district is still unwilling to require students to mask up, they will not be aggressive in moving us online.

We got an email from admin praising us for our success with our mitigation strategies (distancing and wearing masks when distancing isn't possible). It said we've had only minimal Covid transmission in our building. 

Yes, we've only had one Covid case in the high school this fall if you don't count the cases that erupted in August involving several students and administration. 

Yes, we can all be happy about this. 

But most kids don't wear masks. Most kids don't distance. 

My face is chapped. 

I'm lonely eating lunch alone in my room while my colleagues eat lunch, unmasked, in the workroom together. 

I'm weary.
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Tomorrow is the National Day on Writing, sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English. 

The question asked each year on this day is Why do you write? 

I write to make sense of my days, to find meaning in the small moments. Writing is centering. It draws my wide and wild thoughts together, to a point where the pencil meets the page, where only one word can be written, and then the next. 

You may or may not write regularly, but I invite you to try it tomorrow. Open a page and open your head and heart. Put some of that into words. 

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison

Wolf, 15 weeks