But walking to the theater after a morning working on the pond, and seeing glorious daffodils everywhere, and hearing incessant birdsong, and knowing it was Tamil New Year... all that was suitably spring-like.
Pic: Intermission pic of the Spring Awakening set since photos were prohibited during the show.
Today I spent nearly eight hours pulling the liner tight and anchoring it with dirt. This involved digging a trench alongside the outer wall, lifting and folding the liner, and then shoveling the dirt tight around it. I counted it as today's workout.
Nu was with friends and Big A is in Milwaukee, so it was just Huckie, Max, and me. But it was SUCH A LOVELY DAY, it felt like a blessing to be outside.
It still looks pretty messy and I still have to find a way to edge it so the pond liner is hidden under more natural elements. Sometimes garden projects take years to look pretty, but I'm not known for my patience.
Pic: The sun smiling on my labors. I love the heart-like indent at the top of the pond. MSU dorms in the distance.
5:30-ish am: I wake from a nightmare in which I'm in my modeling days and the make-up artist is someone who appears to be a 14-year-old child. They somehow manage to fix my hair so it looks both straight and frizzy and when I demur, they threaten to call their dad.
6:55 am: I'm finishing up breakfast chores and Nu asks me if I could drop them at the school bus stop because it's drizzling and they just blow-dried their hair. Umbrellas and raincoats are too cumbersome to carry around at school (their locker is too far away from their classrooms).
8:30-ish am: I'm crying in the car because today's Story Corps was terrifying and beautiful.
9:15 am onwards: all my favorite work people are gathered to clap for a colleague who has just taught the last class of their career as they walk out of their classroom. Does anyplace else do this? The consensus is "no." I think this is a lovely tradition. Bonus: I get to have little chats with all my favorite people.
10:00 am-ish: I walk AK back to her building and we take in the Gaza exhibit the YDSA has put up.
WORK WORK WORK WORK
Noon-ish: Two colleagues pop by my office to strategize some advocacy work. We're drinking tea and spilling all kinds of tea.
WORK WORK WORK WORK
5:00-ish: Mostly work although there is some surreptitious texting during the meeting where I say goodbye to Big A and check in on Nu and then JD and LK are texting about "feeling a breakdown coming on" and how their "soul has left the building."
5:30-ish: I leave the meeting with SD for a work dinner. It's lovely to see all the wonderful work people have been doing. One of my favorite people who now works at the University of Michigan is visiting and has a beautiful handwritten letter for me.
7:00-ish: I'm on my way home and chatting to my mom.
8:00-ish: I get home. Big A has left for Wisconsin, Nu is out with friends, Max and Huckie are so happy to see me.
The day is almost over for me at this point. The puppies and I share a banana--our evening treat--and then snuggle up on the couch. I finish up the book I'm reading and listen to music while I wait for Nu to get home. Their deadline is midnight.
Pic: YDSA's informational Gaza exhibit. I assumed that the rain had done some damage, but it seems some of the uprooted flags were human mischief.
And that's a wrap on classes until August. There are exams and meetings next week and task forces that will meet through the summer and new course prep, and I hope I work diligently on my writing projects... but the teaching schedule will be on hiatus. First day of the non-teaching schedule!
Pic: None. It was grey and rainy all day and I realized to my dismay on my way home that I'd forgotten to take my customary last-day-of-class pictures with all three of my classes. I thought we did some solid learning, had some good times, and I loved all three classes--I would have loved to have the pictorial memento. It's also a moment of bonding and levity in a stressful week as students sometimes yell out fun stuff to make the group smile or pick goofy poses and I'm sorry not to have shared in that this year.
Ah well, onward!
Showed up for moral support at a student advocacy meeting with the powers that be early in the morning. (I found myself picking pants over a skirt as I got dressed because I feel I'm taken more seriously when I'm in pants. This is probably true, but I hate the internalized femmephobia of this.)
I was so proud of and so moved by the students who showed up, spoke up, held space for others, held their ground, and held us accountable. I may have cried a bit when it was over--they were so brave and amazing. And also, so young and so deserving of not having to spend their time and energy and wellbeing on meetings like these. How is it that we're still working so hard for basic freedoms decades into the 21st century?
I got so much support from the fam on this. From BD supporting my decision to prioritize conscience over diplomacy and career security, Nu's disdainful anger and outrage, and At's organizational chops and doc review. I'm a lucky duck.
Pic: The moon at sunset yesterday. So much celestial activity this week! Growing up in Chennai I remember the Eid date determined by whether the local imam sighted the new moon or not. So friends wouldn't know if they were ending their fasts that day or the next! This year, I'm celebrating the end of a successful Ramzan with friends across the globe. May there be hope and joy and goodness and good works.
I don't think Max gets consent, we'll have to teach him better. Big A is reading The Bee Sting now and both of us chuckle with horror (is that possible?) at how clueless 12-year-old PJ, one of the narrators, is.
Pic: Huck submerged under Max early this morning.
It's At's birthday and she turns 25! TWENTY FIVE! I can't believe my baby is that old (nearly 30, my mom said rounding up in her...
