This broken and beautiful world

“Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Suddenly, they become the bleached bones of a story.”
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

I posted this quote on a discussion board for my seniors during our first official week of remote learning. They'd read most of Roy's novel before the school closure, and suddenly her words took on new meaning. So we started there. Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted.

Little events: Trips to the grocery store.

Ordinary things: A walk through a neighborhood. A package of toilet paper.

Smashed and reconstituted: Prom. Graduation. English class on a Monday.

The bleached bones of a story. Our stories. All of them. These small bones, and the way we pay attention to them now.

***

Almost exactly ten years ago, we were in Montana for my grandmother's eightieth birthday. Isaac was just four months old, and I was still on maternity leave. April was strange that year, too. I remember: snow on the mountain passes and staying the night in Helena when the roads became too treacherous. Eating at a diner, too late, but cozy anyway. A vanilla latte before we hit the road. I read Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Played With Fire when I wasn't driving. We drove into Gildford after lunch in a brisk wind in time to celebrate with my grandmother at the little general store: someone had baked her an Elvis cake. My daughter, only three at the time, remembers the blue frosting. We stayed overnight at the hotel in Havre I still I love, even though the tiny pool is cloudy with too much chlorine.

Even with an infant and a not-quite-four-year-old, I remember sleeping so peacefully.

I remember my aunt Liana taking family pictures; we were all so rarely together. I remember one day in Bozeman, and a quick visit with Julia, my oldest childhood friend, when we stopped in Great Falls on our way down to my parents' house. We had a date night for the first time since Isaac was born.

I miss my family.

I miss my grandmother.

I miss crisp hotel sheets and lattes on the road, the highway through the mountains and across the prairie. (I miss road trips.)

I miss date nights. Restaurants. I miss the wood booths at the Elliott Bay Brewery. I miss the Seattle skyline when we drive over the West Seattle bridge at sunset. (Now that the bridge is closed for safety, I will miss it for a long time.)

I miss hugging the people I love. (I love the people I live with and I am grateful for their hugs every day. But I love a lot of people.)

I miss my old friend Julia.

I miss the landscapes of my childhood.

I miss writing alone in coffee shops, and drinking wine in cafes.

I miss hugging my toddler nephew, I miss my parents, I miss my friends.

It is not lost on me how lucky I am to live in a life that brings me joy exactly where I am, even now. But sometimes the missing is a deep ache, all the same.

***

How quickly we adapt and change.

On a Monday morning in early March, I pulled up to the espresso stand I drove through every day on my way to school. (Drove. Past tense, for now.) My favorite barista had seen me in line and made my drink already, so she handed my Americano through the window without my asking.

“Isn’t everything so crazy?” she said. Her words sent me spinning back to the first month of my teaching career, when I’d driven through on my lunch break. September eleventh. I’d ordered a mocha that day, my standard back then. She’d said the same words.

That day, though, she said, “I guess I don’t understand all the hysteria. Why can’t we just live normally and be smart about it and let it pass?”

The previous Friday, one of my coworkers asked about social distancing at our upcoming student-led conferences, an event that brought hundreds of parents and family members pouring through our cafeteria and commons area, where we had tables set up in close proximity. Our principal replied, “It’s way too late to reschedule or change the format. Families already have the schedule and the expectation. We’ll proceed as normal, but we can talk about your questions and concerns at next week’s staff meeting.”

But on Monday morning, we received an e-mail: the district had decided to hold conferences remotely instead. Students would sign up for a time slot with their advisory teacher, and we would make phone calls. We were still expected to hold the same hours, our principal said, to accommodate our families. The building would be open, and we could call from our classrooms. We would discuss the details further at the staff meeting on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, instead of discussing the logistics of remote conferences, we watched Governor Inslee declare that schools would be closed for six weeks, effective no later than Tuesday, March 17. We limped along until Friday afternoon, when we were all hustled out of the building. I walked to the parking lot in a daze, watching thin flakes of snow drift from the gray skies.

***

“Staff, you have five minutes remaining. Five minutes remaining before you need to exit the building.”

The office manager’s voice echoed over the intercom. I stood behind my desk, my arms around my desktop monitor. I set it down and yanked the cords for my docking station out of the outlet. Sweat trickled down my back. I wondered how I would carry this out to my car with the three overflowing bags at my feet. Could I sprint to the parking lot with the books, the binder filled with senior IB material, the chocolate and snacks I’d stashed in the back of my file cabinet (I didn’t want them to go stale or attract ants) and make it back for the monitor, all in five minutes? Could I just cram the docking station into one of the bags?

I could not.

“Three minutes. Staff in the building, you have three minutes remaining. Please gather the last of your things and exit your classrooms.”

“Fuck it,” I muttered. “I don’t really need another screen.” My laptop would have to do.

I slipped my mask back onto my face and took one last, long look around my room. It looked like the end of summer, only cleaner. The student desks had all been scrubbed and stacked in the back of the room. My desk was completely clean. I thought the carpets had been shampooed, and the harsh scent of disinfectant lingered in the air. Everything was wrong. When my room looked like this, it was time to set it up, arrange the desks, touch up the paint on the walls. Now I didn’t know when I’d be back.

“Bye, D-7,” I whispered. I grabbed my bags before my tears could dampen my mask, and I flipped off the lights.

“I’m out. I’m done,” I called to my assistant principal who sat with her laptop in the breezeway between buildings, noting our times in and out. We’d been given twenty-four hours to sign up for a time slot and twenty minutes to gather what we needed. It wasn’t enough.

My coworker (or, more accurately, my work wife) and I stood in the parking lot, separated by two spaces. We hadn’t seen each other in exactly one month.

“Coffee?” I asked. She nodded. We drove up the street to that drive-thru espresso stand I’ve loved for my entire adult life, ever since I discovered their black-and-white mochas the weekend before my first day of teaching. She parked in the back of the strip mall parking lot, skipping the coffee. I pulled through the stand and ordered an iced chai latte. I didn’t know the afternoon barista. She was nice, though. She took my card and wiped it with Clorox before handing it back to me.

“Stay safe,” she said.

I parked two spots away from my friend in the nearly-empty lot. She rolled down her window.

“I have camp chairs in the back,” I said. “No one’s touched them in a month. Want one?”

She hesitated. “Okay,” she said.

I hauled it out of the car, slid it from its canvas cover, and set it up next to her car. When I’d retreated to my own space, she opened her door. We slid on sunglasses in the afternoon sunshine.

“Do you think we’ll even be back in September?” she asked.

“I cannot think that way right now,” I said. “I cannot.” My heart began to thump with anxiety and my stomach churned. I sipped my chai and remembered my friend Jessica's words from a few weeks ago: When Sean was dying of brain cancer, we had to find a way to live in ever increasingly horrible new normals. We learned to keep going by living in the present and finding good moments. This means trying not to think about what your day would have been like in the circumstances of a few months ago or what your day might be like a few months from now. It means trying to find good moments in today.

I try to remember this every day -- not as a trite admonition about positive thinking, but as the only way I can live, to breathe in and out and try to put forth some good in this world anyway. If I start worrying about a situation I can't control three, four, or five months from now, I am no good for anyone.

We chatted for awhile. When we stood to head back home, she gave the chair a shove so we didn’t have to get any closer than eight feet apart. All the same, it mattered -- that brief human contact, face-to-face.

***

I think about the things that bring me joy, like my early-morning walks. I've watched the spring unfold and bloom in a way I never have. Every day, I walk through the streets of my neighborhood and beyond, exploring new routes, new views of Puget Sound. How have I lived here for so long without realizing what shimmering expanse of water can be seen from a street so near my own? I've met other folks on a similar schedule: the older gentleman who walks with a cane at the same time every day. Last week he raised his hand in greeting and said, "Hello, Dear," and it filled my heart. Hello, Dear. When would I have the chance to encounter him in another, ordinary life? Or there's the jogger who sprints up the hills I walk every day, and sometimes we cross paths in the middle--maintaining a respectful distance on the other side of the street. A month ago we nodded greetings; now he shouts a cheerful "Hey!"

My son and I play games in the middle of the day, after he finishes his math and reading. I unearthed a board game all about U.S. geography; I have no idea where we got it, or when, and Isaac showed zero interest in it, proclaiming that it was "so boring." But! I bribed him one afternoon, because obviously I parent (and teach) through bribery and emotional manipulation, and now he begs to play every single day. I guess it isn't so boring after all.

The kids and I get outside every day. Unless it's pouring, this is non-negotiable for me. My son hops on his bike and I walk and we head to the school, where he zooms around the playground and I walk or jog on the track. Fresh air and sweat. Every single day.

My children are experts at trolling each other, but we have settled into a rhythm now, and there is something sweet about looking up from my laptop and watching my daughter at hers while she works on her math or typing. I watch my son curled up on the recliner in the living room, reading. They are old enough to read what their teachers send and "do school" without too much guidance from me; I think I merely set the tone for our classroom. It's possibly the sweetest time to be quarantined with children. They're old enough to manage themselves (and ask their teachers questions, instead of me) and young enough to follow my basic expectations of routine. We work in the morning and head outside in the afternoon, at at lunchtime we watch the Cincinnati Zoo "Home Safari" which features a different animal each day. Fiona the hippo is still my favorite. And I know I'm going to remember these moments sweetly someday.

I have learned a very certain thing about myself: I am not meant to be an online teacher. I need to be in the room with my kids. But I can't be in the room with my kids now, and I am grateful for the technology that allows me the next best thing, which is to see their faces in a Zoom classroom meeting. Truly, it is one of the highlights of my week. I miss them so much.

This isn't forever, and I know this. But I can't think about teaching this way long-term. Not now. It's already hard enough to know that the last glimpse of my senior class will be when we line the streets for them as they pick up their caps and gowns for a graduation that won't happen -- at least not as we envision it. I will be there in whatever capacity I can. On the street, with a sign, anything I can do. But it isn't the same.

I suppose the fact that this hurts so much shows how deeply privileged I am. To love someone so much, to miss my work so much. Please never believe this fact is lost on me. It isn't.

***

Things fill me with anxiety and rage, too.

Armed (and white) protestors screaming at our healthcare workers are not "very good people." Friends of friends in my homestate who tell the whole internet that no one will force them to wear a mask or get a vaccine because they're not sheeple, thank you very much are also revolting (and to be fair, I probably have friends who say the same thing, but apparently they're doing a good job of filtering me out of those particular posts). So are the conspiracy theorists and the "Do Your Own Research" people who think watching a YouTube video or reading an article in a publication that requires you to pay for your submission counts as research. The flippancy -- if I'm not sick, why shouldn't I do whatever I want? If you're immunocompromised, you stay home! I think about the relative who e-mailed me over a decade ago with concerns about Obama's death panels. He'd euthanize all our grandmothers as soon as they turned seventy. That aged well, didn't it? I have no idea what that person thinks these days, because after I told them I didn't think I was their target audience, I never received another e-mail.

It's too easy for me to spiral into anger, rage, and anxiety, so I'm trying to put down my phone during the day, read balanced sources I trust, and avoid scrolling through social media. It really does help.

I actually think it's important to stay angry. And awake. But I can't drop anchor at anger.

So instead I'm trying to focus on gratitude, and, yes, joy. It doesn't negate the anger or the anxiety, but it means I can slow down and take notice of the world I want to preserve. The friendships that last through physical distancing and the hope that I can hug my people again. The kindness of neighbors and the kindness of strangers. The way the spring comes again, every year, whether we notice it or not, and the unexpected privilege of witnessing it each day. And maybe I can send a little of the fierce hope and love I have into this broken, beautiful world, and maybe it will land on the people I love and miss every single day. I don't know how else to live.