Reality Check

Last week, my sister sent me a text message to see if I am okay.  Your blog hasn’t been updated in the last week, she noted, and this made her worried.  

I reassured her that all is well, I am just crazy busy at work and eager to escape the computer screen when the work can be set aside at the close of the day.  No need to be concerned, I texted.  I am fine.  Just busy and worried.

Busy with worry?

My school - with about 700 students and staff spread out from pre-K to 12th grade and on a campus of over 40 acres - plans to return to campus for in-person class in the Fall.  That doesn’t worry me - I am excited to return and I believe that we can do so safely - but it does entail a prodigious amount of planning.  And it’s layers and layers of planning for even the smallest details.  Things that normally cause no concern - the drinking fountain, passing time in the hallways, books for use in class - are suddenly of great concern.  

We’ve been planning since May, before the last school year ended, and it’s been non-stop.  I joke and say that my lists have lists.  It’s meant to be amusing.  It’s also true.  

New Jersey flattened the curve and has successfully held the line but there are still nearly 14,000 of my fellow New Jerseyans who have died from this pandemic.  We’ve held the line as the rest of the nation’s cases have exploded but we do not live in a tidy Northeastern bubble and fear is our new daily companion.  For all of our planning and hopes about school on campus, I’m aware that we may have to be remote for the start of the school year.  Perhaps for all of the school year (or at least until there is a vaccine).  It’s scary to plan so much amidst so much uncertainty.  But I know people who have recovered from COVID-19; I know people who have died from it.  I know that we can’t afford to ignore this virus.

So I make plans.  Posting has been lighter than usual while I navigate this worrisome upside down world.  When I step away from my computer at the end of the day, I slow my mind, pick up my book, visit my flowers and plants, and find enough hope to start again the next day.