Day 5: Ten Good Things, Spring of 2021 Version

 Years ago on the blog I made a list of ten things about my life at that moment that were good. I don't remember if it was intended to be a celebration of how things were going well at the time, or a reminder during a darker period of how things weren't completely bad. Either way, it became an occasional topic, and a good one to use during this May posting marathon because it's usually a pretty quick post to write. 

With that in mind here are my current Ten Good Things. These aren't necessarily the only good things I could think up, or even necessarily the ten best. They are just ten things about life that, for the time being, are making it good. And in this moment, overall, I feel like things are pretty good. 

1) My Pod: It's fantastic to be back in school and having actual humans to interact with again. Due to an intersection of assignments and schedules and proximity, I've been able to quickly identify the people in my Covid pod -- the small group of people I see most frequently and spend the most time with. Most of our distance learning teachers are housed in two practically adjacent classrooms, so there are the four of us for certain, but I also include the other two fourth grade teachers who are on the same team as the fourth grade teacher a share a room with. I truly enjoy my pod, and my roommate is exceptional. 

2) My happy little dog: Freddie has transitioned out of his pandemic and back to having me at school all day very well. He's happy when I get home, he's happy when we go for walks, he's happy when he gets to go out to the patio and sit on his chair. I'm happy and relieved about all of this.

3) Skyrim: I don't play a lot of video games, but I do have a short list of favorites I keep returning to. Skyrim is probably at the top of that list. I started playing a new game of it over President's Day weekend, just because at that point on the isolation curve, my head desperately, desperately needed an escape. I'm still working on that same game now. Running around Tamriel with a magic sword isn't exactly my happy place, but it sure feels close.

4) New pillows and sheets: In the past month I've ordered new layered pillows and new bamboo sheets. They were both good choices. 

5) A building optimism about summer: Being back in school makes life feel gradually normal again, or at least a version of normal. Being back at school also means that when the school year ends, I'll be able to end it with a more tangible feeling of closure than I would have had available if I was still at home.

6) My sister: I won't get into the specifics of it because it's a very big and very specific secret right now, but my sister just recently completed a major project that involved a lot of work as a favor to me. I did pay her (or I will when I see her) because it was something I absolutely couldn't have done myself, and because I know her doing it for me meant it would be done with a level of quality.

7) Alter Bridge: Even with a lot of good new music so far this year, I've recently been rotating through the albums in the Alter Bridge library. What an extremely great band.

8) MCA Testing: Yes, I'm listing MCAs as a good thing, and not even sarcastically. Why? Because for the past year, I've been here at home feeling pretty cut off from the world, and the students on the other side of my computer screens have been some of the most important people in my life, without condition. They have to come to school for MCA testing, and when they do, I get to spend time with them in person. 

9) Wet Teddy Bears: It's a stupid, but the way that guy selling wet teddy bears in that insurance commercial commits to his sales pitch cracks me up every time.

10) Korean BBQ Meatballs from Noodles & Company. I just had some for dinner. They were delicious.

Day 4: What I Miss (and Don't Miss) About Being in the Classroom

Someone asked the question, “What do you miss the most about being in the classroom?” and conversely, “What are some of the perks of distance learning?” I marinated over this one for a time today, because there are both things about being in the classroom that I miss, and now that I’m back in school, I’m seeing there are things about being in the classroom that I did not at all miss, and frankly don’t really look forward to dealing with again. Distance Learning is a really difficult approach to the job in some ways, but a blessedly easy one in others. 

Here’s a mix of those thoughts from today -- the things I miss and don’t miss.

MISS: THE INCIDENTAL MOMENTS

When you spend so much time with the same group of people day after day after day, and have a relationship where both sides become important parts of each others’ lives, small moments build up into the things that become memories. 

MISS: THE ACCOUNTABILITY

It’s too easy for distance learning kids to not do their work and think they’ve found the perfect lie for when they get called on it. Not all of them, but some. The live version of my teacher stare is much more forceful than the Google version.

DON’T MISS: THE FRUSTRATION OF CONSTANT CORRECTIONS

This isn’t absent from distance learning, but it’s lessened. I don’t have to tell the same kid to take a hat off 47 days in a row. I don’t have to ask them why they don’t have the time to put their name on their papers. 

DON’T MISS: THE POTTY PARADE

This is such a real thing. One person asks to use the bathroom, and within five minutes seven others need to go as well. Especially prevalent during state tests.

DON’T MISS: SWEARING, LYING, FIGHTING, VANDALIZING, STEALING

I don’t think I need to say much more.

WOULDN’T MISS, BUT I CAME BACK IN TIME FOR: STATE TESTS

Especially the moments when you look at the clock and realize that if you were at home you could start playing a movie right at that moment and it would be over before you were done with your testing session.

MISS/DON’T MISS: KIDS WHO WORK HARD/KIDS WHO DON’T TRY

Also present in distance learning, but more acutely noticeable live.

MISS: ADRENALIZED SONGS IN MY HEAD WHEN THINGS GO WELL

I have songs in my head nearly the entire time I’m awake. When I’m teaching and get caught in a moment when a lesson is going exactly as I planned or the kids are proving their success, it pumps me up and some powerful, workout-type song appears in my thoughts.

DON’T MISS IN THE LEAST: THE YARDS-LONG BLACK STREAKS LEFT ON TILE FLOORS WHEN SOMEONE STEPS ON A TINY BROKEN SHARD OF A MECHANICAL PENCIL LEAD

I know they (probably) don’t try to do it on purpose, but when a kid gets one of those hellish graphite chunks stuck in the sole of their shoe, a piece of my will to live falls off and withers away. 

MISS: CREATIVITY

Distance learning is online assignments, web sites, and occasional nods in other directions. Of course there are opportunities to be creative anytime you create something, even a lesson, but it’s not the same as the live version. The bulletin boards, the paper, the colors, the signs, the organizational schemes, the proactive thinking…when you find a lesson you connect with and really want to make your own, it can be invigorating.

DON'T MISS: GLITTER

No further explanation necessary, I'd say.

MISS: FLY ON THE WALL OBSERVATIONS

Some of the funniest moments of the day come from the absence of self-awareness that so many kids carry with them. It’s fun to witness the moments when they are all by themselves in their heads and let their true selves be displayed. 

DON’T MISS: MEAN GIRLS

They’re the worst. I really believe that the ways girls go after each other when they’re going into battle is so much worse than it is with boys.

MISS SO MUCH: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX

I miss having the unusual moments surrounding me that really define the atmosphere of a school. The way some clocks don’t necessarily line up with others in the building, and everyone has to get used to the idea of how one is two minutes faster. That phantom noise that randomly occurs during the day that sounds like machinery collapsing in the ceiling that you learn to ignore, because nothing ever falls through. The way some kid will leave a banana sitting on the hallway floor right outside of the bathroom and then forget about it when they leave. All of this is to say nothing of how you don’t just learn to accommodate the dozens of quirks the students bring into your days, but often enjoy them.

MISS TERRIBLY: THE APPROACHING CLOSURE

The last month of the year is one of my favorites because the school year has a definitive expiration date, and you know that after that the relationships and group dynamic you’ve worked so hard and so long to establish with the class will abruptly end. That can lead to some powerful goodbyes. Or, there could be (are) years when you welcome the ringing of that final bell on the last day with open arms; not gonna lie, I’ve been on that side of the equation more than once. 

This year though, I have a great class. Even if I’ve spent precious little time with them in the real world, they are still a cohesive group full of distinct personalities that I know I’m going to miss. For so, so, so, so long, they were the only people I would talk to in the past year, in some cases for what felt like weeks at a time. I hope things don't end like this, but I’m afraid our year is going to close with all of us waving to each other as we shut down our last Google Meet of the day, like we do every day. 

I might have to pull out some creativity to make sure we get something closer to the ending we deserve. 

Day 3: Building a Mini-Bucket List

During an early morning Target run this past weekend, I bought a new package of Post-It Notes to use on my fridge this summer. If you’re new to the idea, I’ve spent most of the past few summers turning the front of my refrigerator into a massive To-Do list of summertime activities, with each note listing something else to do, which I peel off and throw out as I complete them. Hopefully by the time school starts again in the fall I’ve finished off at least most of the things I had listed. It’s a good cure for the days when you can’t think of anything to do.

I didn’t do it last year, because the options of what to do seemed so severely pandemic-limited and the only thing really on my list was stay home and not die. However, the world seems to be regaining some of its equilibrium. Even though Covid is hardly resolved (and seriously, if you think it’s gone or will end anytime soon you have some real self-searching to do), life does feel slightly less dangerous than it did a year ago. I’ve gotten pretty good at managing a safe lifestyle, and I’ve had both of my shots. Maybe the occasional measured or controlled risk wouldn’t be completely inappropriate? After all, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph — I did actually go inside a Target store, and buy things. Clearly I’m ready to live on the edge.

In all seriousness I have no plans on going crazy with the “open world” idea. But I love my vaccines and the increased security I’ve learned to feel with their 95% efficacy. I think getting out and doing a few things might not be so bad under the right conditions. After a year of isolation, there are a lot of things I’ve always enjoyed, particularly in the summer, that I missed after holding back from doing them.

There are things I’d like to do that I’m not ready to yet, and even some bigger, more adventurous things that I’d like to try someday. But in the short term? There are the things I’ve missed being able to do. There’s stuff I’d like to try, projects I’d like to attempt, things about my life I’d like to work on trying to change, for real. People to see. Skills to develop. The kind of unremarkable but still unusual and potentially memorable experiences to be collected that would be worth the investments of time and effort. 

I think a lot of people might see life this way now, divided between Before Covid and After. Speaking for myself, living through an existential threat (shut up, science deniers) gives you a watered-down version of the perspective that I imagine people who’ve experienced near misses with illnesses or injuries probably feel. They survived, and come out the other side with an appreciation of the opportunities, the potential, and the promise life still holds.

I’ve never really had an official Bucket List so much as some things I hoped I’d get to do or see someday. I’m not thinking in terms like that here, at least not exactly. Instead of putting together a checklist of things like exotic places to visit, I’m thinking of smaller things, sort of like the things that really I could have done at almost any point but never took advantage of the opportunities to do. The smaller things. It seems to me as I start thinking about another summer with my fridge hidden beneath a layer of Post-It Notes, this might be a summer to try and accomplish some of those things.

For example: I’ve never been big on spending a lot of time in the city. Really, it’s just not my thing. I was brought up in small towns, and I’m relatively comfortable here in the blandness of the suburbs. But I’ll admit I can enjoy the energy of the city when I’m there, at least if I'm not trying to steer a grade level through a field trip. Maybe taking the commuter train downtown to meet up with a friend for lunch sometime could be a nice little fun-sized adventure. Of course I’d have to feel comfortable about riding the train, which is far from a lock right now, but we’re really just throwing around hypothetical spitballs here, so why not consider it for the list.

I’d like to give my dog a chance to see more of the world around him than he has; he likes exploring the neighborhood, so he might like getting out a little further. I have friends with dogs he could meet. It could make for a fun evening to go visit with some of them some summer evening, and maybe sit outside for dinner. I’ve been a writer for so long, and my best friend is a professional musician. We’ve talked for decades now, literally, about trying to collaborate on writing at least one song. I know he’s game for it and is just waiting for me to have an idea. Maybe this could be the summer to really try. A few years ago a friend of mine and I joked about making a day trip up North to visit a mutual friend with an alpaca farm and shop. That could be fun. I'm almost certain it would be.

The way I see it right now, I have a little over a month to really zero in on what would be the things that could both enhance my summer and help me fill in some of the overall life gaps I’d like to close while I still have the chance. Even if I only managed to address some of them in the end, I think it'd be worth the attempt.