Today, on the last day of August, it was time to get a picture.
Nu is in it--way, way back in the corner.
Today, on the last day of August, it was time to get a picture.
Nu is in it--way, way back in the corner.
Nu had agreed to participate in the UU youth group's year-long 'Coming of Age' program, and yesterday's welcome ceremony was poignant. There was a particular moment in the ceremony where the facilitator went around the Zoom screen family by family--with the child saying "Thank you for my childhood" and the parent(s) saying "Thank you for being my child." Gulp.
Nu will be a teenager in less than two months.
As I get busy, a picture of last week's 'sunflower with three busy bees' for motivation.
Feeling like everything from 2 through 12 is normal. Right?
(Full teaching day; have to talk really loudly through my mask; feel bad about having to remind students about masks sometimes; but I think we're beginning to get to know each other, yay; dropped off At's kettle bells and got a hug; went home to dinner already on the table thanks to Big A; Nu seemed to have managed the first full day of online school okay; kiddie cuddles from Nu and puppies; a binge of Indian Matchmaking with Big A; and so to bed.)
I mean to write of pomegranates
and roses in fairytales, how even
the pierce of your stare is a star.
You my child, have been puppies, tigers,
bees, snakes, and a praying mantis. You
say, today's animal: "sickly Victorian boy."
So pearlescent with scattered energy
stay stationed in understories of care
and humming to the surface, beyond
yes--the press of your face on my shoulder
but holding fast like the ink-paint-print-stain
koans growing on your arms for years.
Met all my classes; my students seem lovely! My international students patched in via video, and that went ok too. I am grieving the loss of classroom intimacy--video, masks, distancing, and having to sit in rows instead of a circle are all messy. But I get it--and I think we'll get through it.
Got to meet At before afternoon classes to pass on some freezer staples, I and was chuffed to see he had two masks and long sleeves on. Yay! I walked him back to his house and got a "back hug" as he turned to get the stairs. Seeing At made me so happy.
My last class ended late and then I headed to a socially distant picnic at the president's house for our new MFA director. Both of them have worked really hard on the program even through the strangeness of the summer, and I was happy to celebrate with them. But the sun had set by the time I drove home--another reminder this summer is ending. Luckily, I had a long conversation with JG to keep me company in the car.
Back home, I discovered that L had dropped off some of Nu's favorite brownies and a ton of snacks as a back-to-school treat for Nu (they start tomorrow). My Nu was already in bed, but I was told they lovvvvvvvved me when I snuck in for a goodnight kiss. And then Big A woke up, and we had a teensy dessert-date chit-chat (me with Nu's brownies, Big A with the leftovers of the Culver's from his and Nu's dinner) before he headed off to work. I'll be sleeping with Scout and Huck tonight.
carrying--valiant as ants--
relics of their fallen friends.
They see me turn muddy, as I
drink me (60% water, baby)
You'd think I am called grief.
I'm keeping an eye out for you
yearning for you for when you
are already inside (my head)
Today was my first day back in the classroom since March. Yes, it's Sunday, but that's when the first-years start this year. My first-day jitters were keener than usual, but once back in the classroom, things settled into the usual.
I don't think I have everyone's names yet as I usually do. Masked, even people I already know are hard to recognize; memorizing the names of new students when half their faces are out of view is going to be quite a challenge. Bless everyone who smiles with their eyes and nods in class.
This lush, deciduous forest all around me, so vibrant-green and teeming with birdsong in the Baker Woodlot--although I'm never more than a mile from busy roads and traffic.
My temptation to marvel at the richness of the canopy has to be balanced with the need to pay attention to my path crisscrossed with wayward roots and embedded rock. I look up for beauty, I look down for safety.What lies ahead is revealed only in small glimpses. But... my feet are on the path and I remember that the path has worked before. It can lead me from the cool breaths of solitude back into the warmth of messy but eager life. When I am ready.
The big difference is that At is now so like a grownup (I mean--he IS 21), and our dynamic has shifted enough that I don't have to try to hide my sadness anymore. I just embrace my old, needy mama role.
He was dawdling over breakfast while I watered plants and I was sharing that I wasn't sad because of him leaving in the pandemic even--just sad about him leaving; how I had expected it to get easier; and who knows what next year might bring--again not because of the pandemic but because of grad school etc. and how far away THAT might be. He was so sweet, listened with empathy, and hugged me so tight--and I had myself a good (great!) cry.
We packed his car together but then it wouldn't start. If it is possible for a face to both light up and fall at the same time, I think my face may have. But At was able to jump start it and proudly used to it reassure me of how he's a capable champion at life and then he set off for senior year. 💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓
Nu and I had a sleepover in the rumpus room with Scout and Huck because, that's how we've been distracting ourselves since year one. 🤗 🤗 🤗 🤗
Anyway, I had lots of new cuttings and plants with me since it had been months since I was last in my office, and I assumed my office plants wouldn't have made it. But they had all taken advantage of my overwatering the last time, and although they looked so sad, they had survived. Yay! I supplemented some of the emptier looking planters, and then I had plenty left to make a nice welcome gift for a new colleague.
I picked up the college-issued safety kit from my mailbox and it had some very useful supplies (Alma plaid mask, thermometer for our mandatory daily health reporting, etc.) though obviously, the hand sani and anti-bac wipes aren't going to last very long.
The COVID testing was weird, uncomfortable, overly intimate, and ugh. Earlier today, L had said that if she had to get tested every day as the White House staff supposedly does, she'd turn in her resignation. I chortled at that--"Yeah, L;" I teased: "THAT would be the reason YOU wouldn't work with this administration."
I made a playlist to share with them; they got some loot--a clean-start calendar, chakra stones to keep under their pillows, essential oils to boost immunity, lucky bamboo for the rest of 2020, water bottles for hydration (listed like that, I can see I skewed pandemic new-agey there!); and got pampered with facemasks and a mama pedicure while they watched a movie.
All they had to do was pick out dinner and a movie. The dinner pick was easy-peasy (mint chicken), but picking out a movie took some time. They cycled through Ten Things I Hate About You and Clueless and Mean Girls and Napolean Dynamite and School of Rock.
And then they began to improvise--Inglorious Basterds? I mean he taught Hitler A LESSON." Hahaha. I love my babies. They finally settled on Monsters University.
When I called Nu to see it, they thought something was wrong because I looked a bit shellshocked--I think I am, actually. I've known B as a student, colleague, and friend, but this new iteration as sister might be the best one yet.
Scout gets so much love just being Scout! I'm not that lucky, so I have to work hard to make sure people are happy with me.
But I worked so super hard today, I'd accomplished all the work stuff that needed to get done. And it was just 2:00 pm. I'd even managed to email all my students AND advisees AND independent scholars in a serious yet supportive way (or so I hope).
That was the point at which I decided I deserved a massage. Big A was grilling for dinner, so I managed to bag an appointment with someone new, and off I went.
I made it back in time for icy lemonade and coconut-y tomato gravy and dinner jokes. Long after everyone went back indoors, I hung out by myself listening to distant traffic, taking snapshots (memory/camera) of the sky, and pulling together songs for a 2020 playlist.
Here on the magic rock, is my little woodland Nu dappled in sunlight and lost in thought (they're very into plague doctor philosophy and aesthetics right now).
Another discovery: the story "Amma" by Sindya Bhanoo in Granta, not just set in my hometown of Chennai, but IN MY SCHOOL! OMG.
It was Fall term prep all day over here. Also, locking down meetings next week in my calendar helped--instead of holding hazy, all-day items in my head, I now have specific times and that's doing wonders for my general sense of preparedness and well being.
I kept getting adorable texts all morning from bestie KB and mock called her out for procrastinating via text message. Then I went off on a tangent myself and did some editor-stuff for the current issue of Jaggery (needed to be done, but not right now). At least it got done? I did a ton of other more normal procrastination as well, putting stuff in various online shopping carts and re-watching a few eps of Veep.
Actually, we've had a bit too much nature in the house. Last night we found a bat in our bedroom and then later--(another? the same?) one in the library. We couldn't find them this morning, though. I even doused rooms in mint essential oils and played high-frequency recordings, to no avail. Then as I woke from a nap this evening, I noticed a bat roosting about five feet away from me between two beams. We opened the front door and encouraged it to leave, and it did after endlessly stupid loops all around the living room and kitchen.
1) of my WGS students who set up 25 wonderful interactive booths to discuss subjects as varied as the female gaze in films, non-binary erasu...