Everything slowed down in Week Thirteen. Not necessarily in a bad way — it feels as though everything has slowed to a walk. The news is no longer changing hourly (or maybe I’ve just started tuning it out). The stress of creating an infrastructure for remote learning and teaching has passed. The urgency we all felt to get stocked up with supplies has eased.
A lot of people are going stir crazy or are still stressing about how to properly serve their students. I feel a little guilty about this, but I am not one of those people. Certainly I’m a less effective educator right now, and that stings a bit. And if this was my permanent gig, I would not feel fulfilled. But I have connected with many of the kids, and I’ve settled into the plan I made to continue supporting my students during this whole thing.
And honestly? I’m not hating the extra free time. It’s not there because my job has suddenly gotten much easier or because I’m treating this like a vacation from teaching. It’s there because all of the extra stuff has fallen away. I’m not responsible for running the Academic Assistance Center after hours, or tutoring students in the ELA State Test program. I’m not tasked with organizing several Student Council meetings, efforts and events. And even though I enjoy coaching, right now I’m okay with not having to wait for the last girl to get picked up. I’m okay with not getting home so late I’m scrambling to eat dinner and get things done before bed.
And I’m okay with the excuse to stay home, to say no, to read and to write.
I think so much of my life is usually consumed with the pressure I feel to go, go, go, that I’m actually grateful for the excuse to slow, slow, slow. And from what I’ve read, the earth is happy for the chance to regrow, grow grow (I know… that was kind of bad. But I couldn’t help myself).
Sunday
I’ve always enjoyed a good walk, but they feel more like a necessity now. Because you walk off your confinement. You walk off your anxieties. You walk off your disappointments. And you open your eyes to the squirrels you see scurrying about, the robins that have already flown back, the crocuses that are eager for sunlight… And then you feel slightly better about the fact that the David Sedaris event you were looking forward to got postponed seven months.
Monday
Spring in Upstate, NY.
Tuesday
I still managed a walk even though I had to stomp through a thick layer of snow. I went early and it felt less eerie to see so little activity because I imagine lots of people are normally asleep at that 6:00 hour, or at least still in their homes getting ready for the day.
Wednesday
Working from home sometimes means coffee breaks with the kitties and a book.
Recording videos of passage annotations, using Google Meets for tutoring sessions, and hosting an online book club while sporting yoga pants hidden from the webcam is not teaching. But at least it’s contact with the kids. And at least I can enjoy breaks like this one.
Thursday
Not a bad place to start and end the day.
Or spend the entire day.
Friday
I finally convinced myself to start running. I’ve been doing walks and attempting to keep some kind of fitness routine going with the workouts Anthony at the gym has been posting/sending, but it’s a lot harder to work out on my own. In some ways it’s nice. In most ways it isn’t.
But the weather broke 50 degrees Thursday and Friday and I didn’t want to waste that. According to Map My Run, my loop was 1.2 miles, which I jogged at a record slow pace. College Athlete Me would be extremely disappointed. But Friday’s pace was slightly faster than Thursdays, so there’s that (although that might be due to traffic lights being on my side… or not on my side, since I could have used the rest).
As I ran past the zoo entrance, I stopped at this sign. I’ve loved this copper structure ever since it went up, but I never fully noticed the white-silver shading in the design. On Thursday, the sign read: “Temporarily closed until March 31st.” On Friday, the sign read: “Temporarily closed until further notice.”
Saturday
I tried to be productive; I really did. And I suppose in some ways I was… I did a little writing, after all. And I met Ashley on Google Docs and did some conferencing… but I did it all from the comfort of this bed, with this needy cat under my legs eighty percent of the time. Periodically she would emerge from the “tent” and flatten herself at the end of the bed, a little overheated from the two hours spent cooking in the blankets with me. And I would gratefully stretch my legs and stand up, convinced I would do something other than lie around now that I had the freedom to do so.
But, while I might venture downstairs to make tea or coffee or grab a snack, I kept ending up back in the bed with Willow underneath me and my laptop open in front of me. You’d think I’d have written 4,000 words in all that time, but I barely managed 800.
I’m not complaining about the extra time I have to read and write and cuddle my kittens. If this is what it takes to keep people safe, I think I can rise to the challenge. But sometimes it all catches up with you and you’re flooded with a feeling of fatigue. I don’t mean actually fatigue that can be slept off. I mean a tiredness that comes from living the same day fourteen days in a row. Or at least feeling like you’re living the same day over and over.
But I remind myself that tomorrow is a new day and a new week! …Or maybe it’s the same day. And the same week.