Not a Wasted Word

I’ve been thinking a lot about the “why” of this blog. Why do I keep writing it? Why, after long absences, do I come back here?

It’s not my first time trying to articulate my “why.” There have been many reasons why I’ve written over the years. In the beginning it was about working through the pain of my ectopic and the frustrations and fear of trying to get pregnant. Then it was about managing the insanity that is new motherhood (when none of my friends were going through the same). In those years I wrote my blog to be a part of something bigger that myself – the people I felt closest to were not in my physically proximity, but instead in my blogging community. I found meaning in my online space in a way I just don’t anymore.

That community is gone, it has been for a long time. I don’t really miss it anymore (it has taken me a lot of years to write that!) – and I’m not really looking to blog like I used to back then. For a while I wrote because I wanted to be a writer. I was writing and copy editing for a local mother’s group magazine and even taking some writing classes at Berkeley Extension. I started a blog under my real name so I could showcase my pieces (and my photos). But that didn’t last long. I realized pretty quickly that I didn’t LOVE the kind of writing that people might pay me for (a realization that helped me avoid asking myself the hard question of whether I could even write well enough for people to pay for my words).

As I let that dream die (it was peaceful, releasing), I started up this space because, well, I couldn’t imagine NOT writing. Stopping blogging altogether felt impossible then, I’m not so sure anymore.

Recently one of my friends found my blog. And then more recently some other friends learned of it. When they asked me what I wrote about and why, I struggled mightily to articulate my reasons. In the end all I could land on was, well I started for this reason and kept writing for these reasons and then… I just never stopped. That was the best explanation I could come up with.

“I just didn’t stop,” is not really a reason to be doing something. At least not if it isn’t bringing something tangibly positive to one’s life. I tell myself that this blog is a record, but when I returned to some early posts during the pandemic (to prove to my husband that we did NOT see my parents outside for Easter at the start of shelter-in-place!) I found nothing but matter-of-fact posts about what we could and couldn’t do and what we were were doing inside of those restrictions. There were no feelings mentioned, no emotions expressed, nothing messy written out to make sense of it. If I don’t use this space to work through the mental gymnastics of making sense of a pandemic, then what is this space even for?

These are questions I will need to answer, but I think maybe I already have. There are some posts I have banging around in my head, but I realize that I don’t write that anymore, honestly and without regard for people’s possible responses. Maybe I’ll write one of those and put it up and see how it feels. And even if it feels okay… I think maybe I just don’t have a lot of those posts to write anymore. I’m in a positive place in my life, and I have friends to talk stuff out with (which is amazing! I’ve wanted that my whole life and I finally have it!) Maybe my blog as outlived its usefulness.

Then again, maybe not.

My daughter has a cold, so we kept her home from camp today. Actually, she had a sore throat on Tuesday afternoon, but we assumed it was the heat and her mask and the exertion at camp after so many months home (she is a loud talker like her mom). Also, her allergies have been bad, so we chalked it up to all of that.

Wednesday she had a bit of a stuffy nose, but the sore throat was gone and we again assumed allergies, gave her an extra dose of antihistamines and sent her on her way.

But this morning she really didn’t feel good. Her stuffy nose had gotten a lot worse and she had a cough. So we decided to keep her home. She was super bummed because they were going ride the new Ferris Wheel in Golden Gate Park today, but you can’t send your kid to camp with a cold during Covid.

It’s our first brush with mild illness since all of this started, and it was a reminder that it’s going to be really complicated once school starts and more viruses are making the rounds. I’ll be teaching in person so it’s not like I can just work from home if my kids have symptoms that normally wouldn’t be a big deal, but now required don’t show up at school. My husband will have more flexibility, and hopefully with a kid home who isn’t very sick (not requiring constant care), the whole day won’t have to be considered a wash (which used to be the case – if he wasn’t at his office he couldn’t count the hours, even if he really did do work).

I snagged an appointment through Kaiser this morning to get her tested so we’ll have some piece of mind by Monday when we plan to send her back (assuming she feels well enough by then, which I think she will). In the meantime, I’m glad we didn’t have much planned for this weekend.

I didn’t go down to work today like I had planned, because the Covid test was across town and by the time we went there and back it didn’t make sense to drive down to work. Instead I’m getting some of tomorrow’s errands run and deciding if I want to drive down tomorrow to finish packing or just spend all of Saturday down there, so I can push through until I’m done. Saturday is probably the better move but I’m loathe to do it. I just want to get it done and put it behind me but it’s taking longer than I thought, and it’s totally depleting me in ways I didn’t expect.

I’m honestly not quite sure why I’m having such a hard time with it… I’m just trying to plod through and not think too much about why I leave every day feeling so bummed out. (I’m not against exploring the feelings but I’m honestly not sure where to start – I think it’s a lot of things, like a the reminder of how long my commute is and how wiped I am after spending the day away from home, about how frequently I’ve been asked to move rooms, how much stuff I’ve purchased that I really didn’t need, how isolated I sometimes feel at work being the only foreign language teacher, how isolating teaching is in general, how I’m so relieved and even excited to be teaching back in my classroom next year but how complicated those feelings of relief are when taken in the broader context). So I guess I have some ideas of why it’s bumming me out but I think they are so complex and multifaceted that just letting time manage most of them is probably the best course of action. It probably doesn’t help that I’m coming out of one of those more depleting 16 months of my life.

There are ways I remember the tunnel. They aren’t necessarily distinct, and I don’t always remember them in order. They overlap too, because each designation is based on something specific (seeing friends, politics, school, public health guidelines), but the ways in which the actual timelines overlapped I can only vaguely recall

One important way I think about different parts of the pandemic is how we escaped the confines of our 1,200 square foot house. Getting outside was a big part of our pandemic.

I remember Lollipop Walks, in the early days of shelter-in-place when the play grounds were closed and we only left the house for essential shopping. Every afternoon the kids and I would walk the same loop in our neighborhood, and we started the walk by picking out a lollipop.

We weren’t even wearing masks when we took the first Lollipop Walks (the CDC had told us not to), and I remember how adding them later made it harder to enjoy the lollipops. But we made due. Lollipop Walks were the only way we ventured outside, because the backyard was still a disaster and other public outdoor spaces were closed down. I remember Lollipop Walks fondly, though I also recall sending texts to my friends lamenting the fact that even a f*cking lollipop wasn’t enough to get my kids out of the house without copious complaints. Eventually we added a second, longer loop, to our Lollipop walk repertoire, and that felt momentous.

After Lollipop Walks came Back Yard Play Dates. If the spring of 2020 was Lollipop Walks, then that summer was Back Yard Play Dates. We were lucky to easily fall into two pods – three friends for my daughter and one friend (and his sister) for my son. We packed the shed with art supplies and toys and I bought mats and outdoor rugs and everyone wore masks as they did most of the things they would have done inside, except they did them outside. Playgrounds were still closed at this point, so Back Yard Play Dates were an incredibly treat.

That summer we also spent a LOT of hours in a big park near our home. The playgrounds were definitely closed, but the outdoor spaces were not. We’d pack up lunch and layers and I’d camp out on a big log while the kids ran amok all around me. We bought walkie talkies so they could venture farther and farther afield. Somehow we had barely ventured into that park before the pandemic, but last summer we explores its every nook and cranny. That park will always hold a special pandemic place in my heart.

Then came Playgrounds! In late fall (mid October?) the playgrounds opened and oh my god it was like Christmas came early. Every afternoon friends would descend on the Playgrounds, squealing with joy that there was finally something to do. Kids got to invent their makeshift games while parents got to attempt makeshift conversations. Everyone was rusty but we made due. The Playground orgies lasted well into winter. It was March when we finally got tired of descending upon the Playgrounds – I remember telling someone I had gotten my vaccination appointment there, and chatting with cautious optimism about what summer might hold, or (and here is where we really held our breath) the fall.

The spring of 2021 is harder to categorize. There isn’t the one thing that makes it stand out. As older family members were vaccinated, people’s suffocatingly tight social circles began to loosen. We started seeing my parents inside. In late spring, when the CDC changed its guidance and more friends were fully vaccinated I started seeing friends outside without a mask. This spring is when things started to feel more normal, or at least started to feel like soon they would. We signed our kids up for camp and were promised a full return to in person learning in the fall. Our kids enjoyed 10 days of in person learning in May. My daughter “graduated” from 5th grade. We attended some events for their new schools. We started thinking ahead toward summer and a new school year.

And now it’s summer, with its full day camps and special events. It’s going to go fast, I know that for sure, and I don’t think at the end I’ll remember pandemic specific about how we spent our time. The very prescribed way we got outside during different parts of the pandemic though, those will always be a part of how I remember the tunnel. It was the way we filled our days, it was the way we saw friends and stayed sane. It was really, really important.

How did you get outside during the pandemic?

I started packing my classroom yesterday. I got six boxes finished. I would have packed more but I had to spend a couple hours taking apart the binders of my students… from two years ago.

My students each have a 1-inch binder that stays in my class. This has been the case for many years – more than I can remember. They keep a notebook, worksheets, and other papers in it. They also keep a pair of ear buds and their current free reading novel in a pencil pouch affixed to the three rings. Usually they take their own binders apart at the end of the year – recycling (or taking home) the paperwork and throwing away (or keeping) the binder. Of course when they went home in mid-March of 2020, they assumed they’d be back in three weeks, and so they left their binders. Those binders that they never came back to get have been sitting on my shelves all these many months; I never dealt with them because I wasn’t teaching in my room and didn’t need to. Honestly, I didn’t want to.

Now, of course, I need to, and it doesn’t matter whether I want to or not. So yesterday I sat down with a stack of the binders and started taking them apart. Each one was a tiny time capsule, with all the papers we had been working on tucked between the doodles and notes of its owner. The little prizes they had one were in the pencil pouches of many students, pressed up against the novel they were reading (they were going to make trailers in groups and share them with the class). It’s been a long time since I’ve come up against such a strikingly complete vestige of the before times, and I kept catching my breath as I noticed little details that felt so familiar and yet so foreign.

Yesterday afternoon, as both kids played their video games after camp, I got on a bus headed in the direction of the dojo. It was the first time I’d been on public transportation since shelter-in-place began so many months ago. At the dojo, I practiced martial arts for the first time sans mask with other community members who are also vaccinated.

I know the pandemic is not over, even here with our high rates of vaccination, but it definitely feels like we can see the light at the end of this tunnel. Today I was struck by the juxtaposition of the remnants of when this all began, and the first tentative steps into a future where this is behind us.

I suppose it’s easy to focus on the two ends of the tunnel, when really we should be doing the hard work of muddling through what happened in the middle. The middle part is harder to remember, because it was dark and confusing and sometimes terrifying in there – none of which make for reliable recollection. But it’s important that we do our best to revisit that murky middle, to not just focus on the two ends of the tunnel – as mesmerizing as both may be. The disorienting dark of the first weeks and the blinding light as we come out of this – it’s easy to focus on those moments – they captivate us. But what’s really important is what we learned as we stumbled through the tunnel, unsure of where we were going, terrified of what our lives would look like on the other side.

I don’t want to forget the middle, which means I need to take the time to remember. Perhaps that is a good project for this summer.

The past two weeks have been busy. Very busy. A lot of what was planned was really fun, but it didn’t leave for much free time.

{Some of what kept us busy: pizza movie night in the garage with my son’s friend, our daughter’s family birthday, hosting daughter’s friends in the backyard and garage, water park Saturday x 2 (I got reservations for consecutive weekends in case the first was too cold to go, but both Saturdays were warm enough so we went twice!) camp orientations over zoom, eight hour marathon photo book making afternoon/evening, end of year events at my school}

Now that I am officially done with the school year, and both my kids are in camp (my daughter starts today too! Woot!) I will suddenly have A LOT of time without kids: 9:30 to 2:15, Monday through Friday. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’m going to do with that time.

Of course I’ll be packing my classroom, and honestly that might be all I do this week because by the time I drive down there and give myself time to drive back, I will only have about four hours to pack. If I run, it will be even less. Honestly, there is a part of me that is relieved I have a concrete way to spend that time, because if I didn’t I’d be floundering. What do people who don’t work, but have kids in school full time do all day? (Pre-pandemic obviously). I mean yeah, I’d do some deep cleaning, and probably work out more or longer but then, what? I supposed my kids wouldn’t be in aftercare so the “school day” would be shorter (closer to what I’m looking at right now with camp), but still, that is A LOT OF HOURS to fill. I’ve always wondered what parents who don’t work but have kids in school from 8:30 to 2:30 do during that time (I’ve never had a friend who didn’t work once their kids were in school, so I haven’t had anyone to ask – I guess they probably have side hustles or other personal projects to work on).

You may be thinking, well what do you during your crazy long summers – I don’t get eight weeks off! – must be nice!) and that’s a fair question. I usually spend the first weeks doing some projects around the house that have been languishing for months. My house is usually in various states of disrepair so I can burn a full week just going through my kids old clothes, organizing the garage and deep cleaning the floors (which won’t have seen even a mop since the previous summer). I usually also schedule a bunch of appointments (that is next week, when I’m getting my teeth cleaned, my allergy shot and a chiropractic adjustment) in late June, because it’s hard to get that stuff during the school year (I can’t just take a “long lunch” when I’m teaching).

Then, about two weeks after the my school year ends, we head to St. Louis to visit my family. And sometimes we have another trip planned after that. Sometimes I sign up for a week or two of professional development (almost never paid – usually I pay out of pocket to attend) in July. At the end of summer, I’m usually back at work before we officially start in mid August. So I usually only have 2-3 weeks of “free time” when my kids are in camp and I’m not traveling or in a training. That tends to go by really fast.

This year is a little different obviously, and I’m going to have to figure out how to spend some free time. It’s the absolute best quandary to be hitting my head against, to be sure. Still, it has me rather perplexed.

{Honestly, the free time has never freaking me out as much as this summer which I think speaks to how over extended I’ve been for the past 15 months. When you quite literally have NO free time, finding even an hour of it a day can be very disorienting. I keep trying to remind myself of that.}

We do have some fun things planned, so it’s not like I have eight weeks of kid-in-camp to burn (they are only in camp for seven weeks total, actually and three of those weeks only one of them is in a camp – like last week) . I also need to pack my room in June and unpack it in August (and we start August 11th this year, which feels so, so early). So maybe it will go faster than I think. There is certainly PLENTY to do around the house, if I were so inclined (but ugh, I’m really not – I’m so sick of my house!). I’d like to let myself enjoy a little bit of down time. I haven’t taken a day off since the pandemic started because what was I going to do or where was I going to go? (And of course teachers get weeks off during the year so it’s not like I worked all that time.) Still, I’ve been on double duty working at home while my kids learned at home for an entire academic year so… some down time would be nice.

I’ll definitely find a book to read (any recommendations?) and I’d love to find a show to binge watch at night (again, any recommendations?). Soon I’ll be finding out what classes I’m teaching next year and at least two should be new (4th and/or 5th grade Spanish which I have never taught), so I’ll have some work stuff to keep me busy. If I were my husband I’d be buying some crazy video game that I could play for 60+ hours but I don’t really like video games so… Maybe I’ll blog more, but lately it feels like I’m just shouting into the void. I’m not really sure if blogging is where I want to spend my time, even when I have more of it.

I’ve had people ask why I put my kids in camp if I’m home during the summer. My answer is that they are happier humans when they have something to do. This year I’m doing it because that is still true, and we also (a) all need some time away from each other and (b) they need practice managing a longer, structured day with outside-our-house expectations. They had 10 days of in person learning last year, so they need to ease into a full academic day this fall. Camps are going to help do that.

They are also going to give me some much needed free time. Now I just have to figure out how to use some of it.

What do you do when you have free time? Can you even remember?