I’m Vaccinated and I’m Angry

I am growing weary of claims by unvaccinated people that vaccine mandates are a limit on their freedom.  Freedom is such a tricky concept and Americans are woefully ignorant of how freedom actually works when we all must live in the same society.  We wave the flag and shout the word freedom as if it gives us the right to do whatever we damn well please.  But that is not what freedom means; nor has it ever meant that.  In otherwise free societies, once human beings live with one another, freedom is necessarily bounded so that we can live safely and well alongside one another.     

All day long, your freedom is restricted.  Consider just one day in my life.  I must drive on the right side of the road because the law demands it.  Worse than that, I must follow a speed limit because safety and order for other drivers is important.  I must stop at red lights, signal before I turn, and abide by speed limits.  I’m barely out of my house 15 minutes and already my freedom has been restricted.  How do I bear it?  Well, those restrictions apply to all of us and they keep me - and you - safer as we drive our cars.     

Most limits on freedom fall into this category - restrictions made to benefit the safety of us all.  They don’t endanger my life, neither do they put me at risk.  They do set limits on what I can do - limits on my freedom.  They do that to keep me - and everyone else - just a smidge safer.  Vaccines - and masks, these days - fall into this category.  A vaccine against a potentially fatal and airborne illness helps to prevent me from contracting it.  And vaccinated people keep all the rest of us safer as well.  We have been using vaccines for years — smallpox vaccines were common in the 1700s - and we know that vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccine, is safe and effective for the vast majority of us.     

There is, of course, an enormous amount of vaccine disinformation, propagated by ignorant people who are afraid.  Fear and ignorance is a potent combination and for some of us it will be deadly.  But the fear of some of us must not prevent our government (a government by the people) from taking action to protect the health and safety of all of us.  

I make it a life habit to avoid anger and hate.  They are emotions that kill joy and I want no part of them.  But my fury at the unvaccinated and the risks they create for all of us is a potent force right now.  I am not proud of it, but I find myself not giving a damn about unvaccinated people who are dying of COVID.  I don’t even care about the suffering and pain of their families at this largely preventable loss.  The willful choice of some of us to keep a pandemic alive when we could stop it is unethical, immoral, and the height of selfishness.  To claim freedom as the reason for exposing us all to a greater probability of illness and death is beyond ignorant, it’s just plain stupid.     

If you want true and absolute freedom, then go where there are no other people, in a place where your actions can never affect any of us.  That’s going to be hard to find because it is an impossible goal in a planet occupied by people.  Until then, your freedom is limited by the freedom of the rest of us.  Roll up your sleeve and get the fucking vaccine.  You’ll be safer and so will everyone else in the world.  In a world in which we must live with other people, that is a really good thing.  

Amaryllis Tuesday: January 19

Tomorrow is Inauguration Day; the day after that my boy returns to his college.  Amidst it all, a pandemic rages on, seemingly unabated.  I am teaching in a hybrid learning model that is the hardest teaching I have every done, work that leaves me exhausted in body, mind, and soul.  There is a lot on my mind this month and this week seems to be filled especially with an expectancy that feels enormous.

And still there is my little bulb, soaking in the light and cheered on by my Winter garden to bring forth a beautiful flower.  Though it seems quiet, when I look close, I can see growth in the green stem.

There is hope in its promise of a flower.  That's happy.

In Search of Our Beloved Community

Middle school kids have loads of loud energy and my normal school life is a loud affair.  Often, the end of the day school day finds me in search of some stillness and quiet.  But the pandemic has rather reversed that calculation and so music provides company as I work.  I listen to many types of music but reserve a soft spot for the songs and artists who feed my soul.  U2 is on that list.

There is a U2 song, “One,” that I have always loved.  It’s a sad song, about a break-up, I suspect, but there is a line that recurs in the chorus about love and humanity that doesn’t feel broken or lost or hurt.  To me, it feels like a mantra of hope: “we get to carry each other.”

Not “have to.”  

Not “must.”  

Not “should.”  

But “get to.”  I’ve thought of that line so much over the years but especially this year, when the pandemic has meant that so much feels uncertain and different; even at times careening out of control.  When I’ve felt powerless in the face of it all, I’ve reminded myself to find the strength to carry someone else.

Martin Luther King Day is always a chance to remind myself of what matters, what’s truly important, and how we must all do our part for justice in the beloved community.  I think Dr. King believed that we must carry each other; and that we get to do so it is an honor as much as it is a duty. 

Sending Out 2020

I won’t be the only person who is glad to say goodbye to this year.  I almost wrote dumpster fire of a year because, of course, it has been that.  At that same time, so many people lost their lives in this year of years and it seems callow to dismiss the passage of this time when so many people and families have lost someone for whom time truly has passed forever.  I am profoundly grateful for my blessings in this year and I hope that I will always be able to see that light in the darkness that is 2020.

As 2020 fades into 2021, I am glad of so very much: My family and friends and our ability to laugh together; the blessings of jobs that put food on our table and give us a chance to make the world better than we found it; the harbor of walks in the woods and stacks of good books to be read.  I am incredibly grateful to be here as 2020 fades into 2021.  With that gratitude is a brightly burning hope that 2021 brings us more of the things that make life good: steady, kind, and measured leadership; the promise of science and a vaccine; and enough laughter and good will to see us through the hard times.  For all the storm that 2020 has been, I have hope that this nation and this world will safely steer into a safer harbor for 2021.  And so, as I have done so many times, I live in hope for us all as we say hello to a new year.

December’s Light

For most of 2020, I have appreciated the beauty of the sky as the day transitions.  In both the early morning and the twilight, there have been days and days with stunning light to behold.  I’ve taken the time to soak it on whenever I see it.

I don’t know if this year’s skies have actually been extra lovely or the fact that I’ve been home much more often to see it, but the light in the sky has often been a balm in this hard year.  

For me, light like this has a way of putting even the biggest of anxieties into perspective.  I hope that when life returns to whatever form the new normal will take, I remember to pause and appreciate this beauty when it shows itself.

That’s happy!

Your Weekly Amaryllis: Just Planted

For Christmas, T gave me an amaryllis bulb from Burpee Seed Company.  It is one of my most favorite traditions to plant this flower in the cold and dark Winter season.  I planted this year’s bulb yesterday.  It sits among the happy plants in the Southeast window, where it will soak up all the morning sunlight that comes along.  

And now we wait.

I watch the bulb daily, always mindful that this stark season is the only way forward to flowers, green grass, and the Summer Solstice light that will be all the more welcome for its comparative shortage during the Winter season.  

The amaryllis bulb isn’t just for marking time while I daydream about the arrival of Spring.  It reminds me to pause and appreciate this cozy season.  And in this time when so much of what seems normal is on pause, I am grateful and glad to have this usual tradition at hand.  

The Faint Light Ahead

The Pfizer vaccine has received emergency FDA approval and distribution in the United States will begin this weekend.  The Moderna vaccine is expected to follow within two weeks.  

The amount of hope that this news brings is hard for me to quantify.  Thanks to a complete absence of national leadership, the pandemic is worse than ever in the U.S. at this moment.  We are averaging one million new cases a day; deaths are approaching 1,000 a day.  In New Jersey, with a population just below 9 million, things are better but we are struggling as well, with somewhere between four and six thousand new cases each day.

There is still a long and dark Winter before us but this vaccine news feels like a faint but steady light at the end of a very long tunnel. 

Frontyard Flowerbed in December

Winter has taken hold around here, as it was bound to do,  and the flowerbed has been cleaned out for the season.  While I did that, I planted a couple dozen bulbs.

I’ve a lot riding on the Spring of 2021: actual leadership in this nation, prospects of a vaccine to fight this horrible pandemic, the usual joys of longer days and warmth.  And now we’ll have some extra crocus, daffodil, and tulip flowers to admire.  That's happy!

The Porch Season

Weekday mornings on the porch have come to a rather abrupt halt this week.  It’s not the cool weather that ended the habit, instead it’s the darkness of the mornings.  We’ve reached the point in the season when the sun rises past 6:45 and even with the porch lights switched on, it’s just too dark for my 52 year old eyes to read comfortably.

I can sit out in the afternoons and on weekend mornings but the writing is clear —— the porch season is coming to a close.  Most years, I accept trading my time on the front porch at the close of the season as part of the happy transition to Fall and then Winter - the cozy seasons, if you will - but this year it’s hard to say goodbye.

I think that’s a side effect of life in a pandemic.  I am worried about what happens with Covid-19 when we are all cooped up indoors. I feel safe at home and even at school we all fully intend to keep the windows open.  But the uncertainty about Winter and this dreadful disease is certainly ever-present.

If I let it, the worry and uncertainty can consume me.  So I make a concerted effort to instead welcome each day and set my worry aside.  Time I spent on the front porch, grateful for the blessings of the green plants and fresh air, certainly helps to ease the worry.  That’s happy!

Jenny Jump

Before I returned to meetings at school on August 31,  T and I stole a few hours on that last weekend to visit Jenny Jump State Park, one of our favorite places in New Jersey.

The sky was clear blue and lovely.

The park was its usual quiet, which is always nice to experience when you live in a densely populated state like New Jersey.  It was verdant green, even as the Summer prepares to end.

Just a few hours of rest but it was lovely, a down payment of still and quiet in what is sure to be a busy Fall.

The Little School That Could

School starts today.  To say that I am nervous, excited, worried, hopeful…….all of that is an epic understatement.  But children belong in school, a place separate from home in the company of their friends and led by adults who care deeply.  My school is this place and today, nearly 6 months after we shut the doors and went to remote learning, we are able to have students in school again.

We have masks and open windows, social distancing, and carefully marked hallways.  Daily we are at half capacity with 50% of our students learning remote and the other half on campus for alternating weeks.  The amount of preparation put into this day is staggering.  

But with all of my heart and soul, I am ready for this.

Good Morning Indeed

We had meetings all of last week and this week will feature some more meetings and then, on Thursday and Friday, actual school - in person and with students.  At this point, 6 months after I last taught students in person, the very idea of in-person school feels special.

For grades 6-12, my school is using a hybrid model, with half of the students present for in-person in class each week and the other half learning remote.  Each week, we’ll swap out the group on campus.  In class together will look radically different - with masks and socially distant seating. plexiglass shields and rules about hand-washing and hallway walking and a zillion other differences.  It could seem daunting but for the fact that I am so glad that we will be able to teach and learn together in person.  I know that most teachers and students won’t have this benefit and I am grateful that my students will.

I don’t know how long this method of school will last. I’ve never taught hybrid before and I expect it will be exhausting.  I’m still sorting out what assessments look like in this teaching model.  The list of uncertainties goes on and on and on.

But, after months and months of anxious planning, we have arrived at this day.  I am so very glad that we’re here.

Filling in the Gaps

I spent the last weekend of this crazy pandemic Summer filling in the gaps from my blog postings since August 11, the last time I had posted.  That I hadn’t posted since then wasn’t because I hadn’t been writing.  I had been writing in every spare moment I had.  

But, as expected of thoughts thrown down on a page in increasingly rare spare moments, there were trails of incomplete ideas everywhere.  I made those ideas a priority over the long weekend, cleaning them up and adding photos and generally feeling glad for the journal that feeds this blog, a register of the memories and stories of my life, my work, and my blessings.

September 5

There have been moments in my life when I have known things with certainty.  These moments are a wave of realization that always feels sudden but despite that they are reliable and have never been wrong.  When I left California for graduate school in Tennessee, driving East with my dad on a lonely strip of I-40 between Oklahoma City and Little Rock, Arkansas, I suddenly knew that I would never be back to California for good.  I felt the same way about Tennessee, a place I loved dearly.  Sitting on a rainy runway in Memphis waiting to fly to Nebraska, where I had made a home - temporary, as it turned out - I suddenly knew that I would not live in Tennessee again.  In Nebraska, when I got pregnant, I knew that it was the cells of little boy that I carried within me.  There was a horrifying moment in May of 2006 when I knew that my family of three was going to be broken beyond repair and that my little boy and I would be required to built a new family of two.  Many years later, when that little boy was a young man of 16 and we first visited the campus of Springfield College, I knew that campus would be the place he would attend college.

When the feeling of certainty fills me, I recognize and honor that truth, even if it’s a hard or painful truth to absorb.  In that moment, it simply is, and I believe it.

I think of these powerful moments now as we live in the clouded vortex of uncertainty that is life in a pandemic.  I search my mind for the power to know what the future will hold.  For hours, I sometimes wrack my brain looking for moments of seeming-certainty that blew up into an unexpected outcome.  Oddly, they almost always surround politics: the elections of 1984; of 2000; of 2016.  Now, in hindsight, I am not sure if it was certainty or hope that I felt on the eve of those elections.  I feel certain of Donald Trump’s defeat in November 2020 and I fear it is the triumph of hope over instinct that causes me to feel this way.

One of the hardest parts of life in 2020 has been the terribly certain uncertainty of it all.  I don’t just mean those powerful moments of certainty about my life that I have sometimes felt; those are rare and don't come along very often.  I mean any kind of certainty at all.  I feel like my last day of certainty was March 13, when we took an unexpected day off from classes.  I felt a certainty on that day that the rest of the school year would be remote.  Though school was not in session on that unseasonably warm and beautiful Friday, I came to work and stayed late into the afternoon, scanning my lessons into digital format so that I could teach from home through the end of the school year. 

Yesterday morning, I thought of that Friday the 13th as I drove to school at 7 am for New Student Day, a tradition at my school that I have participated in for each year that I have been here.  It was a moment of certainty —— I knew what to do because I had been through those motions so many times.  To be sure, it was a different New Student Day than I have ever experienced - masked, socially distant, with an obligation to take the children’s temperature before they could join the activities.  But in other ways, in the nervous smiles of new students, in the eager questions from their parents, the day was certainly familiar.  In 2020, such a sense of familiar certainty is welcome, so very welcome.

Some Wisdom in the Uncertainty

Tomorrow, our back to school 2020 meetings will begin.  We’ll be masked and socially distanced, sitting outside in tents, and sometimes meeting by Zoom from our individual classrooms and offices.  But the teachers, administrators, and staff will finally be back together on campus, finalizing the plans for the coming school year, plans that we began making last April.

It’s strange - and scary - to contemplate in these uncertain times.  I am a great fan of planning; a talent that is my certain sweet-spot when life gets difficult.  But a talent for planning is of limited use when uncertainty looms so large.  Though August 31 and then the September start of school have been on my calendar since before the pandemic came to New Jersey, the days still seem like hazy, like a familiar dream that I cannot quite make sense of.  

JT reminds me that there is “nothing to do but to do it” and so that is my plan for tomorrow; for every day, really, until the last page of this chapter of pandemic history has been written.

Working From Home and Wearing a Bra Anyway

In March, when the prospect of teaching from home was on the immediate horizon, I was on Spring Break.  It turned out to be a Spring without a break as I woke up each day and set to work making plans for myself and my teachers as we moved to remote school.  The logistics were overwhelming and, in an effort to still feel like I was on holiday, I started my day in pajamas.  Midday often found me in those same pajamas.  By early afternoon, I was distressed, feeling overwhelmed by everything at hand - remote teaching (not to mention remote learning),  JT at home and missing his school routines as he finished college classes remotely; the lines and shortages in our local grocery stores; the pandemic anxieties in New Jersey, where the caseload was daily increasing by the thousands…..

The list of anxieties seemed endless.  The list of solutions seemed both incomplete and painfully short. I seemed to start my day already playing catch up. It was not a winning combination.

By the second week, with the return to classes on the immediate horizon and the pandemic fears still blowing up, I realized that as much as I wanted to be one of those people who could casually work in her pajamas, I am not that person.  And so I started to get up and spend a few minutes each morning getting ready for school.  I took a shower, I put on clothes, I combed my hair.  And then I set to work.

I recognized anew that routines are my sweet spot and comfort-zone and perhaps are even my strength.  A routine helps me to find my purpose, persevere in the midst of fear and uncertainty, and manage a heavy workload.  So I leaned in to those routines.

I’m thinking of this as I prepare for the start of classes next month.  My school will be on campus at half capacity, with half of our students on campus each week, and the other half learning remotely, watching a broadcast of class.  It’s a heavy lift from a teaching point of view and as I prepare, I am looking to establish the routines that will serve me well.

Blessings

Happily, I never weary of my yard.  Sassafras House has lots of windows and from them I can see the outdoors from every room. I never tire of this view of the outdoors, especially in the growing season, when the green makes my heart glad.  From the front yard…

…to the back deck…

…there is beauty everywhere I look.  In a world that is mostly shrunk to the homefront, I feel grateful for the sight through the windows.

That's happy!

Sunrise with JT

Last week, JT and I got up early to watch the Wednesday morning sunrise from Washington Rock, a historical site that is nearly a stone’s throw from our home.  The morning was a bit of a lark made lovelier by the company of the son I call my boy, a claim that is rather in defiance of the young man he clearly has become.He’s been home since March and though I know that we all long for a return to normal, I am grateful for the blessing of this time together.  Despite the anxiety, we’ve shared plenty of laughter and thoughtful talks.  I’ve had the chance to get to know (and like) the adult he is becoming.  The morning sunrise was a welcome reminder to appreciate to pause and appreciate the small blessings of this unexpected time together.

Thoughts on the Pandemic

I began a paper journal when the quarantine lock down started.  I have maintained it on a daily basis and my notes and musings are now well into a second book.  It’s filled with details about the COVID-19 and is also a record of the anxieties and fears that have accompanied this strange time.

Because I find it reassuring (or perhaps because I am a weirdo), I’ve also made a record of the case numbers in New Jersey.  I can see the high point in April quite clearly.  In the last month, as the state begin to report it on the daily COVID-19 dashboard it maintains,  I’ve also begin to record the rate of transmission.  For a while, we were below 1, meaning that each case resulted in less than 1 additional positive test.  In the past week, my state’s rate of transmission has tipped upward.  Case numbers are still well below the thousands of daily cases we recorded in April, but thanks to a transmission rate above 1, we remain squarely in a very scary danger zone   Because we have a good contact tracing program, we know the source of these transmissions: large house parties on the Jersey shore.  It’s clear that even in hard-hit New Jersey, a place where virtually all of us know someone affected by this virus, it’s been difficult to get all of us to take the necessary cautions.

In mid-July, it looked like the Northeastern states could re-open in person school of some variety.  With each day that passes, I grow more anxious that we will be unable to manage that successfully.  The prospect of remote school is so unsettling…..we know that children will suffer and lose from it……and yet here we are.  

My fear is only eclipsed by my anger, a place I do not like to occupy.  I count myself among those who felt that getting to 2020 was a victory.  As the year began, I started to count down the last months of Trump in the White House.  But as the days remaining stretch before me with a pandemic in their wake, and a pandemic in our future, I am starting to fear the nature of the recovery from the Trump disaster that we can expect.

The cost of Trump isn’t just the more than 150,000 people who have died from this disease.  It the cost of the racism and lies, the failure to take responsibility and to lead, losses that will linger long after the disease has been vanquished.  I’ve always believed that in a democracy we get the government that we deserve.  But no one deserves this, a misery made worse by the vain and ignorant man some of us (though not a majority!) selected to be at the helm of our government.  

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.