Day #348 Writing Through COVID-19: Communion and Monopoly

This morning as I logged my dad onto Zoom for his Sunday School class, he said, "Did you remember today is Ade's birthday?"

"Yes!" I said. What I didn't say was I was surprised he had remembered too.

Happy Birthday, dear Adrienne!

I'm still distancing as much as possible, so Dan went to church alone again this morning. He said it was "full," meaning that most of the un-blocked-off rows had at least someone in them. The service is now a full 15 minutes shorter than pre-COVID. A drop-box has replaced the passing of the offering plates, and communion is now a simultaneous opening of individual wafer-and-wine packets. Both of these adaptations save time!

---------------------------

This evening my kids and I played Monopoly on a phone app. Harrison's girlfriend Maria introduced us to the digital version of the game. We open a Zoom room while playing, so our chatter and facial expressions complete the money-grubbing tight-fisted capitalistic-greed experience. Those of us striving to drive our opponents into bankruptcy tonight hailed from Florida, Des Moines, Atlantic, Denver, and Salt Lake City, yet it felt like we were all wheedling and conniving in the same room!
---------------------------

As we ease out of COVID's grip over the coming months, I wonder which aspects of our pandemic-inspired adaptions we'll retain. 

The ritualistic aspects of a church service, such as the repeated murmur of communion (Body of Christ, broken for you; Blood of Christ shed for you) had a hypnotizing, calming rhythm that I doubt will be permanently replaced by the quick crinkle of COVID Lunchable-style communion packets. 

But Monopoly across time zones? That's a keeper.

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison

Day #347 Writing Through COVID-19: Countdown

The one-year mark feels like the right time to wrap up this chapter of blogging.

I have 19 days to go.

My COVID blogging project has given me purpose during a time that has otherwise often felt like treading water. 

We all put classes, weddings, concerts, travel, holidays, and funerals on hold, while elevating the ordinary motions of shopping and dental appointments to stressful, planning-heavy challenges. 

Yet because I was blogging, I was able to coat the day's difficulties (and ennui) with a dusting of opportunity: Yes, it wasn't good; but I could write about it.
--------------------

Now, on the cusp of March 2021, I'm tired of seeing Day #---- Writing Through COVID-19: at the head of every post.

I'm ready to move on.
----------------------

My Writing-Through-Covid project re-taught me the regimen of daily writing. When I returned to teaching 17 years ago, my writing dropped off precipitously. I excused myself by claiming that lesson-design drained my creative energy. 

It's true, planning lessons is composition, and it does demand creative energy. But this project reminded me that creativity is not a finite commodity. Using it does not consume some limited allotment. It can, in fact, feed itself.

Furthermore, this project gave me permission to explore small moments of joy while blowing bubbles and of frustration when confronted by maskless Covid-deniers in public spaces
-----------------------

Writing invites me (and you) to experience life twice: first by living it, then by making sense of it in words. I can understand that people may wish they hadn't had to endure 2020 once, let alone twice. But for me, coming to the page to reflect and talk about my day has given me permission to distill 24 hours of uncertainty into 600 words of...words. That's something.

Thank you for keeping me company during this uncertain, terrifying, boring, frustrating, liberating, paralyzing time. In these next three weeks, I'll keep my focus on the virus. 

But come March 18, 2021, I'll say 

Enough.

Be well.
Write.

Allison

William Wolf Hoegh, 7 1/2 months

 

Day #344 Writing Through COVID-19: Say Something Nice.

Today in Yearbook class K said she hopes she's as fit as I am when she's my age. It was such a lovely compliment (especially considering a student called me "Grandma" earlier this week). I told her that I, too, have admired "old people" for a range of reasons and thought "I want to be like that when I'm that age."
-----------------------

As compliments are wont to do, K's words made me determined to live up to her perception of me today.

I attended Game Club after school. While I usually gravitate to chess, a decidedly sedentary choice. But some kids were playing "Let's Dance" on the Wii, so I got in line and gave it a go. I came in third out of four. Let's log that as a win.

Next, I headed to cycling class at the YMCA for the third time this week. Our fearless leader Emma built the workout around chronologically arranged Taylor Swift songs. Emma even wore the French braid. We rocked it out and biked it hard!

When I got home, Dan was in the basement finishing his old-man evening lifting/biking regimen. He agreed to a game of Ping-Pong, and I beat him 21-17.
-------------------------

K is a compliment-generous person, as am I. I get a buzz from inviting people to glimpse their potential or see themselves through the eyes of someone (me) who appreciates their gifts. 

Has anyone researched the idea that bestowing compliments on others might, in fact, be a key to happiness?

Asking for a friend.

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison

Just a sleeping angel. 

Day #343 Writing Through COVID-19: Happiness

For the past 343 days, I've trained my eye on the pandemic, determined to chronicle whatever COVID-19 brought my way.

During the first months, the shift to masking, distancing, protecting loved ones, and adjusting even the smallest of life's routines provided a deep pool for reflection each night.

Add to that the unexpected re-homing of my aging parents in my basement, then the birth of a first grandbaby I have yet to see.  

When school resumed and COVID peaked in Iowa, the pandemic glowed like a hot coal in the center of my days. 

We muddled our way through distanced holidays, then reeled from the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6. Tensions across the world are stretched to the breaking point. The promise of a vaccine hovers on the horizon: surely when the pandemic subsides, the bludgeoning disappointments and anger that have defined the past year will also abate. Or so it's tempting to believe.
------------------------

One of my students is writing her research paper on happiness. While helping her with finding sources, I came upon an article on how bad we are at predicting what will make us happy. We think aging will make us less happy, it said, yet the opposite is true. We mistakenly hold out weight-loss or job promotions or new relationships as keys to happiness.

This got me thinking. Am I romanticizing the fantasy of my post-pandemic life, unrealistically believing the "if it weren't for COVID" fallacy? I do not want to neglect opportunities for joy in the present by choosing instead to push all of my hope for happiness into a future space.
-------------------------

You'd think a cancer diagnosis at 45 would shake a person into a habit of living in the NOW, whatever that is, even a COVID now.

And you'd be right. It did. For awhile.

But embracing the now, the here, the today is an ongoing effort. I'm glad my student's research project brought this back into my viewfinder.
-------------------------

Here and now:

• Cycling for a second day with Emma gave me an endorphin rush that (for a few hours) convinced me I was superwoman.
• My yearbook staff engaged in a thoughtful discussion about (surprise?) happiness today. A poster in the hall proclaimed: Choose Happy! K wondered aloud if we can, in fact, control happiness. She said she sometimes just feels sad and cries. G talked about introversion. H said her "happiness" is sometimes totally fake. M suggested that we CAN choose positivity, and that might, in turn, increase the possibility of happiness, but we can't beat ourselves up when we're not feeling happy. (Yes, this conversation happened while we were  designing the yearbook cover.)
• Tonight I spent an hour on a Zoom poetry reading organized by the Iowa Poetry Association. I was uplifted by beautiful poems flung into the world by brave and eloquent (if not all happy) writers.

Enough.
Be well.
Write a poem.

Allison

It's summer in NZ! 

Day #341 Writing Through COVID-19: Self-Care

I'm not into self-care.

That is, I don't think self-care should be one more thing we pencil into our already packed lives. If we have to set aside special time to stop beating ourselves up, if our miserable lives need to schedule a few minutes to soak our feet, we are doing something terribly wrong. 

I prefer to live in an ongoing state of self-care. Call it selfish. Call it 61-year-old wise. But if what I'm doing is causing me distress and exhaustion, I change what I'm doing. 
---------------------------

Teaching in a pandemic is challenging, to be sure. I've redesigned countless lessons to keep kids masked, distanced, and connected online. But when things get hairy, I am this year tapping gently on the brakes, which I find preferable to revving my entire classroom's engines into burnout.
---------------------------

Then.

Our district scheduled a Self-Care day today for all staff. Students stayed home while teachers were on contract from 8-3:30 with the directive to Care For Ourselves.

At first thought, I wanted only to stay home (which was not an option). Waking at 6 to plow through unplowed roads felt like the antithesis of Self-Care.

But as the day unfolded, my attitude shifted.
-----------------------------

I spent the first 20 minutes of the day having coffee with a co-worker who I knew needed to unload some recent frustrations. While education gives lip service to the value of teamwork among colleagues, the reality of our jam-packed schedules leaves only fleeting minutes to listen to each other. 

Next, I worked in my classroom before heading to the YMCA for an all-teacher yoga class, followed by an invigorating cycling workout. These were the most public activities I've engaged in since March 2020. I wore a mask and distanced myself, wiped the mats and the bike with disinfectant, used a tissue (per the posted instructions) to press the water-fountain button. 

I think I was pretty COVID safe. 
------------------------------

Upon my return to school, I ate a delicious salad catered by a local restaurant, paid for by (??school funds??) not me!

Since August, I have sacrificed the colleague camaraderie of lunchtime in the teacher workroom for the hyper-vigilant COVID precaution demanded by my children.

Again today I picked up my lunch and returned to my room to eat alone. 

But I'd no sooner opened my styrofoam box when Rebecca knocked at my door. "Can I join you?"
--------------------------------

Rebecca is young enough to be my daughter. She teaches Family Consumer Science while I teach English. Yet we recognize in each other passions and humor. To have her join me (distanced!) for lunch was delicious self-care. 
--------------------------------

I squeezed in a little more school work before meeting up in Brandon's classroom to watch a film Randall worked on in 2010. Before becoming a teacher, Randall worked in film. He joined our staff three years ago, and we've said again and again that we'd like to watch one of "his" movies. 

Today--Atlantic Community School District Self-Care Day--finally allowed us time and space to do it! The film was a psychological thriller, made even more interesting as Randall explained camera shots, production decisions, and anecdotes of working with the cast.
--------------------------------

Today I felt productive, relaxed, strong, sated, engaged, stimulated, and appreciated. 

I didn't realize how much I needed self-care.

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison

Day #340 Writing Through COVID-19: Old and Precious

I was glum after the strange, short phone call I had with my dad yesterday, so this morning when I talked him through logging on to Zoom for Sunday School, I asked if he'd be up to Bridge later in the day. He said he'd like that.

This afternoon we played a hand. It was not our best, in part because we played poorly, but also because our opponent had such unusual cards: two singletons! (Call this rationalization.)
---------------------

After our game, I asked if Mom was sleeping. "I think so," he said. "She sleeps a lot unless we are reading to each other."

Just then my mom called from the bedroom: "I'm awake!"

"Come out and see Alli," Dad said. 
--------------------

I asked no direct questions and instead guided the conversation gently: "I had Adrienne bring you Klondike Bars because I remembered how much we enjoyed them in the evenings watching movies when you were at my house," I said. This phrasing invited her to chime in without putting her on the spot with direct questions such as "Did you like the Klondike Bars?" or "Remember when we watched movies in my basement?"

"Some of the movies were better than others," I offered, and my mom gamely rejoined: 

"But the Klondike Bars were always good!"
----------------------

Such exchanges--when she's interacting with humor--are puffs of joy to me. They let me feel her intelligence and joie de vivre, characteristics I rarely appreciated when we were locked in constant battle during my teen years, and then beyond. 

It now seems like such a loss, at age 61, to realize the dominant dynamic of my relationship with my mom was honed during a mere four years of adolescence. That difficult time cemented us into years of division and quasi-estrangement.

Part of this, I'm sure, is because of our genuine differences in how we interact with the world. 

But as I experienced during our COVID time together, we have deep affection that might have been tapped years earlier, had we not been chained to expectations welded during those few fraught teenage years.
-----------------------

As painful as it is to think of the years we lost, it astounds me to realize that--at ages 89 and 60--in the crevices of a pandemic, my mother and I found a way back to healing.
------------------------

This afternoon Mom sat in the chair in front of the computer, which was angled awkwardly, cutting her off below the nose while scalping my dad who hovered behind her.

We talked about New Zealand and the handmade children's books she constructed. 

I told her that Palmer will call me one day to tell me how brilliant her students are, then call the next to tell me they know nothing! We shared a hearty teacher laugh. 
------------------

My parents are, like antiques, old

and precious.

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison

Day #339 Writing Through COVID-19: Bye, Dad.

My sister Adrienne in Ft. Dodge served as our parents' most constant contact during the past several years of their increasing need. When they relinquished their driver's licenses, she transported them on errands and to appointments. She joined them weekly for Trivia and shuffled them from the care center to her house to include them in her family's holiday celebrations. 

When our parents moved in with me last March, Adrienne wrote them hand-penned letters five times a week. 

Since they returned to Ft. Dodge in August, she's re-shouldered the family role of most-visible and helpful child (despite, I might add, having had hip replacement surgeries in October and again in December).
--------------------

My parents' current meal plan at Friendship Haven provides breakfast and lunch each day. They prepare their evening meal themselves, often using leftovers from their noon meal or concocting a healthy fruit salad. 

Adrienne had been the one to taxi our mom to Fareway for the past several years, helping her take advantage of the damaged produce and day-old bread. (Our mom loves a bargain.)

With our parents' mobility curtailed by COVID, Adrienne now does their shopping herself, delivering their humble order each Saturday.

Today, at my request, she included Klondike Bars as a surprise.
----------------------

My dad called a little before noon.

"Alli?"

"Hi, Dad."

"Did you send us Klondike Bars?"

"Yes! I did. Did Adrienne bring them to you?

"She did. Thank you."

I expected at least a short conversation. But I sense my dad is having a harder and harder time keeping up his end of our phone chats. He's now employing strategies our mother uses to minimize attention to her failing mental acuity.

"Bye now," he said. 

Bye, Dad.

Enough.
Be well.
Write. 

Allison

Little Prince on his new throne.

Day #338 Writing Through COVID-19: Is Anybody Listening?

My mother-in-law Janet spent two nights in our basement before returning to her home when the temperature reached a balmy -3 degrees.

She was a lovely guest.
------------------

I'd developed routines for tending my parents during the first four+ months of the pandemic, and I drew on that experience to feel instantly comfortable hosting Janet.

But the similarity of experiences also highlighted the differences.

The first day Janet was here, she ran a load of laundry in the basement, unassisted, reminding me of my mom's confusion in her first days last March. 
--

I handed Janet the wifi password on a post-it note, and she took it from there, logging onto her laptop to send emails, watch (church service) videos, and Google her way through any question the day might raise.  

I contrast this to my dad's dwindling facility with technology. He still valiantly logs onto Zoom each Sunday morning as I feed him the instructions to click on "join" and type in the access code he's written on his notepad. It helps if I repeat the code two digits at a time as he muddles along. 
-- 

Janet whipped through three or four saccharine middle-grade books from the basement bookshelf and continued her close reading of the Psalms during her 72-hour stay. In contrast, my dad read Roosevelt biographies and dense non-fiction while my mom read short children's books and the dictionary. 
--

These comparisons highlighted my mother's struggles with dementia, Janet's amazing tech skills, and my dad's continued appreciation of erudite reading. 

But Janet's visit also showed me her loneliness.

Dan's dad died almost 10 years ago at age 92. Janet, 10 years his junior, has lived independently since then. 

While she is an introvert, she is self aware enough to know too much alone time is soul crushing. Pre-pandemic, she drove to the Elk Horn care center each day to visit residents and play the piano for chapel services. In this way she could satisfy her urge to uplift those in need while hedging against her inclination to avoid social contact. (Like many introverts, Janet is most at ease when she has a task in front of her. At Dan's brother's wedding, she hid in the nursery tending to grandchildren rather than mingle with guests as mother-of-the-groom.)

Since last March, Janet has been to town maybe five times: to the dentist, the doctor, the pharmacy, and--last week--to receive her first COVID shot. Instead of visiting the care center, she has written hundreds of letters. She sews and studies Spanish and keeps her day busy.

But when she was here in our basement, I realized her aloneness in a new way. My parents in this space were not in constant conversation. But if one spoke a thought aloud, there was another person there to hear it. If Janet has a idea, she can write it in a letter, or save it to share when I come by to play the accordion. But the easy lobbing of a thought to the person across the room is missing from her life.
--------------------

Here in our empty nest, Dan and I rattle around in a companionable mix of sharing and silence. "Hearing" Janet alone in the basement increased my appreciation for Dan across the room or down the hall. If I toss out a thought, there is someone there to catch it. 

Hearing him crunch his ice here next to me is an irritation, yes. 

But it's also a comfort.

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison

Facetime with Wolf continues to
sustain me. He's wearing the Valentine
jammies I sent him.

Day #334 Writing Through COVID-19: A new basement guest

At 8:35 a.m. Friday I receive my first COVID dose.

"Done!" the nurse said.

"Are you sure?" I asked. I had felt nothing.

The next day when I pressed the shot spot, I could feel a slight tenderness. Otherwise, Dose #1 was a glorious non-event.
-----------------------------

My mother-in-law Janet (pronounced the Danish way, Jeanette) received her first Covid vaccine alongside me. The night before, she waffled: maybe it was too cold to go outside. I refused to take no for an answer. I would drive her to town (in a warmed car) I explained, and Dan would follow in his (warmed) pickup and take her home as I proceeded to school.

Janet is, at 91, sharper than many of us in our 60s and 70s. But she is sensitive to the societal ageism that diminishes her intelligence and value. Many people she encounters expect her to be confused, forgetful, or befuddled, and these expectations then cause her anxiety. Will people judge her every question or smallest misstep as evidence of an "old" person, ready for the boneyard? 
-------------------------

On Friday, Janet was a winner. She pushed back her fear of the cold, her fear of the vaccine, and her fear of interacting with the public during the pandemic. She got the vaccine.

By evening time, she said she felt "an awareness" of her vaccination spot as she reached for a can on a shelf but nothing more.
--------------------------
--------------------------

It's Monday evening now. Last night, with cold-weather warnings closing schools, we moved Janet into our basement, where my own parents lived for nearly five months at the onset of the pandemic. 

Janet's farmhouse, a mile from ours, is more than 100 years old. We protected her north windows with plastic wrap in October, but the house is a skeleton: It's just too hard to keep it warm in -20 temps. 
-------------------

So yep! I have a new nonagenarian in my basement! We both mask up when I come down to deliver meals, conversation, or accordion practice. 

She has her laptop, logged on to our Wifi. 

She's mending Dan's shirt and doing her own laundry. 

She's read two books since she arrived yesterday. 

I'm joyfully surprised at how familiar it is for me to create a well-balanced meal tray and deliver it with Valentine chocolates or a pretty napkin to make my basement guest feel welcome. 

Enough. 
Be well.
Write.

Allison 

Look who's 7 months old! <3 Wolf!

  

Day #329 Writing Through COVID-19: Yesterday (All About Molly)

I've mentioned before that a vibrant, healthy bus driver in our district died of COVID in December. One of my journalists wrote a lovely profile tribute to the man. We shared the story on our Facebook page yesterday, and the piece has already been viewed more than 400 times. Read it here.

Also yesterday: Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds posted this tone-deaf tweet.

-------------------------

And ALSO yesterday: I interviewed a woman in Austin, Texas, for an oral history project focusing on teacher-poets across the country during the pandemic. The woman I talked with has been teaching online or in a limited face-to-face capacity since August. The most students she has had in her room is six. 

Have any of your faculty contracted the virus? I asked. 

Yes, she said: one.

Meanwhile, in my school building, half the size of hers, at least five staff have contracted the virus. One who was hit hard (although never hospitalized) is having heart arrhythmia. This teacher is now on blood thinners and awaiting the electroshock treatment that will hopefully reset her heartbeat. Her cardiologist told her the arrhythmia is most likely fallout from her bout with COVID.
---------------------------

I don't want this space to be a gloom & doom report. But 330 days ago, I said I would pay attention to what was happening and write about it. 

So this is it.

There is a rending disconnect between the caution in Texas (Texas?!) and the devil-may-care attitude in Iowa. 

I feel a schism between our governor's cheerful rah-rah and the sorrow I hear in the quotes from students who miss their bus driver, the man who for years greeted them in the morning, wished them well at the end of their day, and bought their spaghetti supper tickets.
---------------------------

A highlight from the day: 

At the beginning of 6th-period newspaper class, Molly, one of the two lead editors, opened our time together assertively. 

We (her adviser and classmates) immediately fell into line. 

Molly had a list of items demanding attention in our short-Wednesday 33-minute class period:

• She needed me to pull in a student for an interview for her podcast. 
• She needed a horizontal photo to match a ready-to-post story. 
• She needed other newspaperish stuff...

But #1 on her list was the need for scissors. 

Molly was wearing a fluffy masterpiece of a sweater that could not have been more perfect for this -8 degree day. But she was having snagging problems. Several loose loops were poking up and out. She wanted scissors to cut them off. 

"WAIT!" our class cried in unison. Cutting off a snag would cause a hole! The class agreed that Molly needed to pull the snag back into the underside of her sweater,.

"Use a bobby-pin!" said our wise soul Camryn. Others chimed in. "Bobby pin! Bobby pin!"
-----------------------------------

My classroom is a treasure trove of the unexpected: I have bandaids and nail polish and glue guns and deodorant. I have granola bars and dental floss and lint rollers and suicide hotline numbers. I have ballerina tutus and silly string and envelopes and tiny rubber ducks. I'm betting most English teachers have equally curious catalogs of classroom trinkets.

But I did not have a bobby pin. Instead, I offered my magic fingers. (Yes, I called them that.)

In under two minutes, I'd pulled Molly's six or seven offending snags to the backside of her sweater. Not the best social distancing, but we were both masked.

"Are you going to blog about this?" Molly asked.

Of course.

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison

The AHSneedle.com editors. Molly is second from the right
in the second row. Camryn is on the far right, second row.
Ariel is at the tippy top.

Day #328 Writing Through COVID-19: Who's on First?

Good news! My 91-year-old accordion-playing mother-in-law Janet is scheduled for her COVID vaccine alongside mine on Friday morning. This is one more perk of small-town living: Amy and Beth have the mind-boggling task of scheduling 12,000 people for vaccines over the next months, yet they played phone-tag and jostled schedules to sequence Dan's mom's shot at the same time as mine. 

Because we live nine miles from town, on Friday morning I'll pick up Janet and proceed to the clinic. Dan will follow in his truck. After our shots, I'll head to school and Dan will take his mom back home.

As far as farm-vehicle-shuffling goes, this is a straightforward two-step*.
----------------------

Tonight:

"Have you had contact with Brandon?" Dan asked.

I thought he was asking about his sister's son who lives near Seattle. "No," I said, returning to my book.

As he left the room, I remembered we'd talked earlier about my co-worker Brandon who had attended a salary negotiations meeting last week with several unmasked people in a quasi-distanced room. Two days later one of the people had tested positive for COVID. Two days after that, a second participant in the meeting tested positive.

"Wait!" I stopped Dan short. "Did you mean Brandon I teach with?" 

"Yes."

"I thought you meant Brandon Lynette's son."

"No. Brandon at school."

"Oh, yeah. I have contact with him," I said, meaning I could text him and depend on a quick response.

"Then I don't think you should drive Mom in on Friday. You might be contagious."

"NO!" I shrieked. "I have only phone contact, email contact, text contact! I have no CONTACT with anyone!"

I was now on a roll:

"I'm always masked! I wear a 6-ft diameter invisible petticoat and dare anyone to encroach on my very wide space! I turn my face toward the lockers when I pass people in the hall. I. Have. No. Contact." 
---------------------------

Dan and I looked at each other and released tiny, accepting laughs. 
---------------------------

A friend recently said that when she's asked how long she's been married, she answers "We've been working on communication for 39 years." 

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison

FaceTiming with Max and Wolf

* We've also mastered more complicated dances, such as "Leave the Stratus at the silos and take the pickup to the west side of Noon's. Wait in the second lane. I'll need a shuffle to the east side, then take Harvey back to the Quonset where he'll get the grain cart. Follow him to the field across from the old house. Leave my lunch in the straight truck. Then shuffle Larry back to the Stratus." Somehow we're still married.

Day #327 Writing Through COVID-19: S O . . . C L O S E . . .

On again!

Public Health called today to schedule my COVID shot for this coming Friday, at which point I'll be 15 days past my shingles booster. 

When they denied me the shot last Friday, they talked as if it would be the second half of February before I could get rescheduled. 

KCCI reports tonight that Iowa lags nearly every state in both vaccine acquisition and delivery.  

Our confidence in renewing pre-COVID lifestyles as individuals, as a state, as a country--as a world--won't return until months from now. Whether I got my vaccine last week, or get it this week, or three months from now is a grain of sand on this COVID beach. 

But when I returned to school last August, two of my children asked me to retire, or at least take a year off. I promised them I would be diligent in masking, distancing, and wiping of all surfaces. I've tried to maintain rigorous standards, even as masks slip beneath my students' noses, and I forget to sanitize my hands after collecting the dry-erase boards. I'm still eating lunch alone in my room, but today I found myself (masked) washing my dish in the work-room sink next to an unmasked anti-vaccine colleague. 

Even after my second vaccine dose, I will still have the potential to spread the virus, and therefore I will need to maintain my diligence. 

Yet I feel I'm in the homestretch: racing my vaccine against this resurging virus, as there is again an uptick of COVID in our district.

We were notified Sunday by our superintendent that he'd begun to run a low fever on Friday, left work, and was tested. His positive diagnosis came Saturday night, and he transparently reported his condition to us on Sunday. I appreciate his candor.

One of my colleagues was in a meeting with the superintendent and several others for the first round of salary negotiations Wednesday afternoon. My colleague said he was the only one who wore a mask, with the others unmasked, as our district's 6-ft-distancing policy allows.

A second person at Wednesday's meeting tested positive today.
--------------------------

I feel like I'm THIS CLOSE to subverting the virus. 

I'm hunkering down.

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison

It's summer down under! Wolf is swimming
with his daddy in NZ.

Day #325 Writing Through COVID-19: Wanted: Beautiful Depressing Books

Saturday here.

At the recommendation of my sister Adrienne, I'm reading Shuggie Bain, the 2020 Booker Prize winner by Douglas Stuart. It's set in Scotland and explores the heartwrenching lives of Agnes, a crumbling alcoholic, and her suffering children. It reminds me of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes in its unblinking look at poverty and family pain. 

It's a hard sell: Want to read a beautifully written but very depressing book? 

Yet this is exactly the book I want. I am drawn to stories that can talk about agonizing realities with beautiful language. It's as if the well-turned phrase and original metaphors warm me even as I absorb stories of coldest cruelty.
----------------------

My freshmen just finished reading Of Mice and Men this week. Like Shuggie Bain, Steinbeck's novella is heavy. I do not think it can be read without the prick of tears. We read the final chapter aloud together on Friday, and I still cannot read these lines without choking: 

Lennie begged, “Le’s do it now. Le’s get that place now.” 
“Sure, right now. I gotta. We gotta.”
-----------------------

I want my students to know literature that makes them laugh out loud. My favorite authors weave humor into even the darkest scenes (as do Steinbeck and Stuart). 

But mostly I want them to understand that word-crafting can stir emotion, and that leads to empathy.

What tragic and beautiful books do you recommend? My tsundoku pile is always growing!

Enough.
Be well.
Write.
Read.

Allison

Andrea called while I was at my mother-in-law's
house this afternoon, so he got to hear an accordion duet
performed by his grandma and great-grandma.
He was (obviously) thrilled.

Day #322 Writing Through COVID-19: V-Day

I woke this morning to a text from my daughter in Florida, the one who was living in Spain when COVID ravaged that country last March.

Vaccine day, mom?

Yes, it's V-Day! I responded, adding victory-fingers emojis.
-----------------------------

I wore long sleeves at school but packed a deltoid-accessible shirt that I changed into at 3:13 when the final bell rang. 

I fought the student traffic leaving the parking lot to make it to the medical center by 3:30. I passed through the COVID screening and followed the signs to Conference Room #2, where I checked in quickly and was directed to Julie's table. 

You know you live in a small town when your COVID vaccine nurse is also the woman who helped deliver two of your children nearly 30 years ago. Her daughter was my yearbook Editor in Chief in 2015, and she has re-caned two rocking chairs for me.

Julie glanced over my paperwork and paused. 

"You've recently had a shingles vaccine?" she asked.

Yes, I explained, I'd had my booster on Jan. 28, eight days ago. 

Julie called to her supervisor, who did some checking and then confirmed that the CDC recommends waiting two weeks after other inoculations before getting the COVID vaccine.

"The CDC also recommends masks," I countered, "and a lot of people in our county ignore that recommendation." My argument was a false comparison and sounded pouty to me even as I said it. 

I was not behaving well.

The supervisor kindly looked past my impudence and explained that because my body is in a shingles-fighting mode right now, its antibodies are heightened, which might prevent the COVID vaccine from asserting itself and activating the necessary virus-fighting response. (Something like that.)
--------------------------

Julie's face mirrored my own disappointment. She guided me to Beth, our county's public health official.

You know you live in a small town when the county's public health official's husband graduated with your daughter. He is also the nephew of my dear friend Laura. I am Laura's son's godmother.

Beth made a note to push me to the front of the next vaccine clinic on Wednesday, then realized I'll still be one day short of the 14-day hiatus that day.
--------------------------

I didn't cry. 

But I felt like it.

I know my life (and yours) will not change much after the first people get the vaccine. We'll still need to mask to protect others. Travel is still not recommended. New Zealand has already told me I can't see my grandbaby Wolf until 2022 at the earliest.

But tonight a teacher friend posted her "I got vaccinated" sticker on Facebook. The guest commentator on Market-to-Market (yep, watching with my farmer as I write) just bragged up his vaccine. 

The pretend me is happy for everyone who has already been vaccinated.

The real me is blue.

I'm ticked that of the THREE nurses in the vaccination room eight days ago, none mentioned the shingles contraindication with the COVID vaccine. None asked me if I qualified for the COVID shot, or if I might be receiving it in the near future. 

I also blame myself for my ignorance. I would have willingly postponed my shingles vaccine if I'd known it would prevent me from qualifying for the COVID shot. Why didn't I think to check this out before my shingles booster?

Am I frustrated with the nurses?
Frustrated with myself?
Or frustrated by 11 months of the unrelenting unfairness of the virus.

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison

Day #320 Writing Through COVID-19: Feb. 3, 2021

The day began with a giddy buzz among the teaching staff.

Eric the ag teacher greeted me in the hall. "Did you get a vaccine slot?" We compared appointment times, and I told him about feeling my phone buzz as I grabbed a cart at Walmart yesterday afternoon. Right there in the vestibule, I punched in my numbers and got a confirmation: Vaccine at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 5. I'd felt the sun breaking through the clouds.
-----------------------------

A few rooms down, I popped into math-teacher Sheila's room and asked if she'd scheduled her vaccine. We lifted coffee mugs to toast each other's success. Later she printed off her own required paperwork and brought me a copy as well.

My darling English colleague Emma was relieved I had an appointment; she said she was prepared to offer me her slot if I hadn't made the cut. 
----------------------------

Almost all of the teachers I work with had signed up and were able to get scheduled for this first round of the vaccine. 

But at least a few didn't even try. They don't trust the vaccine, nor do they feel it is needed. They repeat COVID-hoax conspiracies and claim masks cause strep. They've asserted this stance in the presence of a colleague who lost her dad to COVID in December. 
-----------------------------

I've learned over the years that friendships happen in a Venn Diagram overlap. Sometimes that overlap is small. I'm lucky to have a few friendships with considerable shared territory. 

I get along with the COVID deniers well enough. We share book recommendations and compliment each other's shoes. We meet to discuss strategies for helping students. We laugh lightly about schoolish things. We bear each other no ill will.

But COVID lessons continue to unfold. 

Observing how my colleagues respond to masking, science, vaccines, and distancing recommendations has broadened some of my Venn space with co-workers while narrowing it with others. 

I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I might find the emotional energy to talk with my anti-vaccine colleagues one-on-one. If I do, I'll let you know. 

I might also just move to the far edge of the hallway when we pass. 

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison

Day #319 Writing Through COVID-19: Let's Celebrate

My parents received their second vaccine doses today. A photo on their care center's Facebook page is my proof:

My dad chats with the healthcare worker after receiving his second dose of the COVID vaccine.
My mom is behind him, her back to the camera.

When COVID brought the world to a halt last March, my siblings made panicked phone calls. We couldn't deny our parents were old. Our mom was increasingly demented and our dad's physical health had already given us two this-might-be-it scares. 

The five of us agreed that our parents had already lived long, satisfying lives full of generosity and quirkiness. They had already left the world a better place than they found it. 

But losing them to a rampant virus while their lives were still mostly satisfying seemed unbearably cruel. 

We set into motion our rescue plan: moving them into my basement. 

They lived here during the first five harrowing months of the pandemic. They returned to their care center when school started up again and I could no longer protect them from virus exposure.
--------------------

My parents have now been back at Friendship Haven longer than they lived with me. My mind cannot hold these two epochs as equals. Experience distorts time.
-------------------

As I see my parents receive their second COVID dose, a weight lifts--and a weight settles:

They will not die of COVID.

But yes, they will die. 

Their health, mental and physical, is declining. There may come a day when we'll look back and wished they'd died during COVID when they were both still relatively healthy and happy. 

Let's not go there yet. 

Right now, I celebrate that within a year of the virus's onslaught, we are vaccinating.
I celebrate that my parents may now be able to see their family without fear of contracting the virus.

And I celebrate that at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 5, I am scheduled for the "Educators' Clinic" and will receive my first dose of the vaccine.

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison

Day #318 Writing Through COVID-19: I Can't.

We made it through January.

Wait. I don't want to "make it through" my life. 

For the most part, I'm pretty good at finding joy in the present. But the combination of winter and COVID makes it tempting to wish away the next two months and land in April, when we will hopefully all have our Fauci Ouchies, as I've heard them called.

Today we had 10 hours and 6 minutes of daylight. 

In April we'll have over 13 hours, temps in the 60s. 
-------------------------

Stop. 

Today was a good day. 

I wore a pretty heart-studded mask.

My masked students staged tableaux illustrating key scenes from the first two chapters of Of Mice and Men.

My other masked students brainstormed video projects, wrote news stories, worked on yearbook pages, and made me laugh over and over again (which, I admit, is their #1 job). 
-------------------------

This blogging experiment is supposedly about COVID-19. That said, I find myself at a place where the virus, still rampant and threatening to kill more of us in the next months than it has so far, must be submerged if I am going to live--sanely--at all.

This is a turning point and a realization. I don't know if I can keep COVID-19 front and center, even as it most deserves a front-and-center positioning. 
--------------------------

Something positive: 

Tonight our music department held its winter Swing Inn concert. The jazz band and show choirs performed. 

In my early years of teaching, I would have shown up in person to watch my students. 

In my middle years of teaching, I stayed home more, instead asking my students the next day "How did your concert go?" 

With concerts now live-streamed, I can watch at home while cooking dinner, checking email, and maybe chatting with my husband. 

This isn't the fully present clapping in the audience (that might be the parents' job).  But it's better than not watching the concert at all.

Is this a COVID win?

Enough.
Be well.
Write. 

Allison

My pretty grand-doggie Mia, wearing the
Valentine bandana I sent her. #IowaEtsy