Something Pesky

I'm trying to be upbeat on social media, but I MISS MY STUDENTS SO MUCH.

The little things I've done that students have thanked me for this week... ugh... crying on a timetable every two hours. 

When I feel overwhelmed...

...At's artful trolling gives me a chuckle.

(Sometimes.)

Pandemic, Spring

Across a tawny field that will be green
next week, a stand of maples, waving,
trunks spaced six feet or more apart
as if they’d heard the governor’s order.

As if they, too, were keeping distance,
while in the earth an interplay of fine
roots and tiny fungi relays messages,
shares sustenance, keeps in touch.

From here, their lacy crowns look bare,
spreading as they reach out toward a sky
delicately blue as a robin’s egg. Yet there
a thousand thousand leaf buds hold tight

ready to unfurl in jubilation. Till then
the trees hang on, deep-rooted, keeping
their distance, holding each other close.

Linda Mills Woolsey 3/27/2020

Social Distancing Boo

 

Forever Young

Pic from earlier this week (didn't leave the house today)
MSU Gardens

Although I usually get by on 4-5 hours of sleep, I've been sleeping a lot--a typical sadness red flag for me. But the kids don't know that, so when I said I felt groggy, my loves encouraged me to go back to bed at breakfast--even insisting they didn't want eggs, "We'll eat Eggos."

I eventually got to bed midday after some long chats with Big A (from all the way across the room), 'coping by moping', and writing lovelorn poems like I was a virginal teenager. Then Big A got me some gummie treats via drive-thru, and whoo--I was umm... the life of a very tiny party for a while. Ha. Not a good plan for everyday, obviously.

Still

 Still here, still carrying on. Out with L & T today, but I was mostly quiet. Big A is usually my comforter-in-chief, so the part that's really difficult for me right now is not being able to be held until we've chatted our way through things.

Already hotels--and even my college--have been offering rooms to hospital workers who think they might be at risk of infecting their families. This seems like the tip of that eventuality.

The Weight

This picture accompanied that awful story about India's sudden 21-day lockdown and the thousands of migrant workers who had to set off on foot for their "homes" hundreds of miles away as public transport had been halted.

And I look at that small child (center, front) carrying the toddler nearly half her size, and I look at the instinctive half-smile of the child carrying the large sack on his head, and I don't even know what to do.

Where are they going? Where are we going? What can I do? Everything feels really *heavy* right now.