My work is hard to the point of being objectively impossible. It's my job to keep trying even though I am totally powerless to do what I'm trying to do. For example, in one class today, 45% of the students never showed. 45%. Of those there, I could only tell that ONE (ONE!) student even started the reading. I do not not know if anyone else read a single word. And since this class almost never responds to questions and doesn’t reliably turn in assignments, I won't know the next time we meet either. And yet I work all day and into the night just in case that one student might learn something. Just in case. Today I was feeling exhausted and defeated. My day was so full (there isn't even a pause between classes) that I didn't get to eat lunch. That's not totally true. I had a little over 45 minutes at 1pm, and then I had meetings again until 3:15, and then my daughter had an orthodontist appointment, so it was my only 45 minutes of daylight to run, and I chose a run and a protein bar over lunch. I quickly changed, mentally planned my route, and left.
When I got one mile into my run, I turned a corner and saw that most of the rest of my route was ON FIRE. Literally on fire. 10-foot flames, and dark, opaque billows of smoke. Not something you can run through. So I rerouted. I did, on my modified route, get to see the workers starting the fires--it was a burn of the prairie. That was really cool to see, and I don’t regret that experience. I'm always so tired by Thursday that those runs are always mere-survival-slogs, and this one was too, but I did it--on an unexpected out-and-back route. I got back for my meeting eight minutes before it started and was sweaty but wearing real clothes again.
So there's a metaphor. My plans of every sort--vacations, holidays, teaching, shopping, eating, family, sports--are ON FIRE. Burning to the ground. 10-foot flames and dark, opaque smoke obscuring the path ahead. So...reroute. I might feel like crap, but it'll be...enough. I'll be ugly at the end but still here. Of course, partway through my on-line department meeting later in the afternoon, the wind must have shifted because my house filled with smoke and we couldn't see the houses across the street. My daughter went outside to see whose house was on fire. Opening the door was...not a great idea. Our house smells like a campfire, but there are worse fates.
But back to my job. Tuesday, I tried to warm up that same group of seniors that doesn't fully arrive or speak much. I always start class with a non-academic sort of personal question just to get them used to interacting. Tuesday, I asked, "What was your biggest kitchen fail?" No one talked for a LONG time. I told them about the time I sliced into my finger, pulled the knife out, and had to ask the guy fixing my roof to drive me to the ER. No one responded. In a real classroom, I would never give up on something I knew they could do. I'd stand there in awkward silence until someone cracked and spoke. I can endure awkward silence better than your average person. In a pandemic, however, I think kids just walk away from their computers when it gets uncomfortable, so I was about to reroute and move on to the lesson when one person talked. Then a second person told me that when she was seven, she and her cousin put a mitten in the toaster and burned her house down. "Like, all the way?" I asked, mouth agape. All the way. They had to find a new house, which is how she came to live here. Oh.
I guess sometimes your life, well, burns to the ground. And then you reroute. And it's ugly. But here we are. Alive. Sweaty. Tired. Together, sort of. Smelling oddly like smoke. And HERE.
