Everything & Everyone

Everything has changed for everyone. 

This is the first time I have lived through something like that. 

Yesterday, our schools closed for the remainder of the year. Before then, there was hope that we teachers would return to our classrooms on May 15th. When I spoke about the idea of returning for two weeks to friends, they’d often ask the point of going back for so short a time before summer. And I agreed that it didn’t make a lot of sense to close for 9 weeks then open up for the last 2. I knew we would be closing for the year. It was just a matter of time. 

There are good reasons for a lot of things that don’t make sense.

Why go back to school for 2 weeks? I would be willing to go back to school for a single day. It would be worth my while to show up and sit in front of my students, talk about our lives a little bit. This crisis has taught me that passing down knowledge is not what makes a teacher. What we teach is secondary to the relationships we create. Learning is the effect. Role modeling is the cause. You can’t take out the cause and expect the same effect.

I wouldn’t have much of a lesson if I could see them for a day. But it would be a chance to remind them that their ideas matter. 

I did some creative writing with my students this month. One of their assignments was to write a quarantine reflection. I was amazed when I read their responses. All I could think was me too. Normally, I am joking with my students about how different my life is from theirs, mainly because I work for a living and take care of a young family. But for the first time in my teaching career, I can honestly relate to each of my student’s struggles. 

The word contronym is not widely accepted in the academic world but it stands for a word that contains its opposite. Take the word bound for example. In active use, we bound forward or upward or away. Taken passively, we are bound to obligations or responsibilities or oaths. One usage propels us forward, the other restrains us. Another example is oversight. The word can mean both to look after something and to overlook something. 

Quarantine means to stay isolated for a period of time. But stay at home orders, when everybody is quarantined, provides the unique experience where everyone is going through something together. I can’t remember a time in my life when it was easier to relate to everyone else. And yes, following the same old news cycle will provide evidence that it is the same old ideological walls that divide us. But whenever I reach out and connect with people on a personal level, I have more in common with them now than ever before. 

I’m not suggesting a round of kumbaya will solve the problems of equity in the world, all I mean to say is: I know what you’re going through right now. 

Months ago, I agreed to help launch our city’s new newspaper.

When I agreed to take on the extra work, my youngest daughter was at a daycare until as late as 6 in the evening. That would have given me 3 hours after school each day, plenty of time to get the work done, I estimated. In quarantine, I’ve had to work on those things early in the morning and late in the evening instead. 

But the biggest challenge has been distraction. Our youngest daughter is my alarm clock. She is 8 months and wakes me each morning with a firm tug at my beard. After making the coffee and putting away the dishes, I let her crawl around as I do some work. It is nice when it is just me and her. But my attention is not focused. Keeping one eye on her puts my thoughts off track every minute or so. Then the big kids stir and it is time to make breakfast, start them on their school day and try, as best my wife and I can, to continue our full time jobs throughout the day. 

One class period is 50 minutes. I usually have 4 of those a day. Those are near-hour intervals when my attention has a single focal point: my students. Lately, I don’t have the luxury of a continuous minute of focused attention. 

We live in a pressure cooker. Tensions are high, stress levels rise early and often. But also like a pressure cooker, this isolation makes for some delicious home cooking. 

On the surface of things, this has been a marathon of monotony. But occasionally, there are moments of such astounding joy, that I am reminded that hardship is the building block of glee.

Last week provided several such moments in succession. It happened fast.

At first, I didn’t like the idea of my son jogging with me. If he rides his bike, I can actually get exercise as I jog to keep up with him. It also means we will be listening to his book on tape—Roald Dahl—not my book on tape—Joan Didion. 

But I have to say yes to his request. It is so endearing when he wants to do things with me. 

We jog, trying to keep up with my daughter on her bike who usually turns around before the industrial switchback that takes us over the rail line and to the lake. 

A perfect photo opportunity for the paper presented itself.

My son takes the photo and becomes the youngest photographer I’ve ever heard of to receive a print cred.

My daughter wants to ride up the scaffolding this time. Everything is alive and ecstatic and blazingly normal. 

I push her up on occasion. I tell her as I push that this is how God works. God gives you little pushes when you need them. She crashes. 

So I get to add how true it is that God won’t turn the wheel for you. But will always, always, always, push you when you can no longer push yourself.