Quarantine Notes

March 13th 2020- May 16 2020

Friday March 13th 

Beginning. A new journal on a first day What does this strange time of upheaval recall? 

I remember how disruptive it was to teach during Hurricane Sandy, but learning emerged that was transformative. My “Intro to Poetry” class ended up creating a class anthology of poems they wrote about the storm and its aftermath; each student contributed and offered a compelling perspective. Some of the students had lost their homes on the South Shore of Long Island. We created a class book and I often return to it as a creation of witness and testimony-- and of creative insight during times of struggle and crisis. We were all proud of it. I find myself returning to these experiences now. 

To keep a journal. This is my journal. One of them. A new journal. A journal that begins the first day we decide to stay home. 

Dear students:  What I’m looking is for you to write. Be sincere. Do what you can. Write to me. I’m your audience. I’m listening and curious. Now is your time. I’ll write too. 

I teach great classes. Ethics of Engagement. Environmental Literature. Community Learning. My classes couldn’t be more relevant for engaging with where we find ourselves. 

One line at a time. One thought after the next. One day after the next. 

And with the kids, this will feel like a lifetime. I stock up on Play Doh and Watercolors. The backyard is full of mud and there is gardening to do. And yes, there is Disney +. 

What will be most difficult to let go. Leona not being able to play with Theo. The grandparents at a distance from their grandchildren. The thought of the events we will miss. The preschool art show, the last day of class. 

I love my Old Westbury students. They reek of weed. Many seem distracted and a bit apathetic. It’s not always easy to get conversation flowing. But you are kind and take them seriously, as they deserve to be taken, their great wisdom and experience leap forth. And so many of them step up. They are ready; they are students; and we are at place where the words social justice are familiar.

How I fell in Love with Old Westbury…. Subtitle: How I Never Loved Stony Brook. Or, An Ode to the Liberal Arts College. Subtitle: The Pitfalls of the Research University. 

Dear Students: for the rest of this semester, I want you to create a work of art. 

My beloved Sienese, singing from the windows. 

Siena, city of civic pride. Not necessarily always democratic. But civically minded. The good government with its virtues. Yes, oligarchical, but also there is an ethic in place. Patience and temperance. Ambrosio Lorenzetti’s good government. It is March 13 2020, and the Sienese singing from their windows. COVID is hitting Italy. And I am mourning with them. 

More than the virus going viral. Poems. Wisdom. 

My work this semester: to compose myself to my students. To write to them. To write with them. To keep journals. To be present as we try to flatten this curve. 

March 14, 2020

We socially isolate, but the world doesn’t seem to doing so much. Although I see a half dozen walkers as I run up James St; more than usual, like people are cancelling other plans and are going for a walk instead. Something we can do. It sunny and mild enough. Of course there is much about this that is good for our communities. Walking and Biking. Time in the open air. Away from stores and bars. 

Dylan digs a trench from the house to the garage for the sub-panel. Last night D and Dev were out tiling my shed by moonlight. They work on my she-shed, which will allow me to continue to teach from home. A room of one’s own. 

I miss solitude. An adult life. 

March 15, 2020

Sanity crumbling. All day alone with Leona and Val. Dylan out tiling the shed. It’s so much work to finish it. He works and I wait. 

March 16

The media seems to be circulating more about young people in critical condition; about young people in French ICUs. Emergency room doctors. As if to warn young people: you too are vulnerable. Close the bars and restaurants. Stop the St. Patty’s Day shenanigans. Time to stay home. As each day passes the fire will spread.  

I go for a jog, chugging up James St. All of the restaurants are closed in the village; the stores are dark. The hair salons and the theater. Signs in the window: take-out and delivery available. Red plastic bags erasing the parking meter fees. We all keep our distance. 

I’ve been cooking lovely dinners each evening. The Greek salad in an Italian ceramic bowl painted with Lemons and one of those quintessential geometric flowers. How beautiful. 

I order an Italian flag to hang from the pole outside the house. Alongside our Bernie sign. To say to our suburban neighborhood that we stand with civic responsibility. Today feels like March, but the forsythia shines along the neighbor’s fence. The daffodils slowly open. 

Wanting to do the Poetry Pharmacy as our Community Learning final project. Poems and literature in these difficult times. But how to do it?

One student writes: Now with the Corona virus forcing us to take online classes I’m worried that I will have to drop classes or just end up failing. At least when school was in session I had an environment to influence me to get work but now at home I will just end up distracting myself. I want to get better at these skills but I know I won’t until I have learn them the hard way even then I know myself so well that I will blame something else and say I’ll do better next time. I know the most important thing in college is effort, I know if I put effort I’ll be great for college however, I just lack the mental strength.

My heart goes out to them, as I too struggle to find time to respond with my school duties, trapped inside with a 2 year old and 4 year old…. 

I take to soaking Beans. 

So much insight bounding through the social media…. Professors speaking wisdom. Professors backing away from their rigid plans and learning outcomes. Professors listening to students, opening their hearts to them. Professors doing the work of caring. Giving voice to something essential in the profession. Wisdom, insight, compassion, empathy – to open a space for reflection. To listen if they’re ready to speak, to write…. 

The transition to life online – a very real debilitation – so many of us already so addicted. 

Tuesday March 17th

St Patrick’s Day

Last night we moved the furniture around in the bedrooms. Finally moving into our house. 

My dear yoga teacher taught her class online this morning and it was lovely. Except for the kids screaming downstairs, desperate to burst into the room where mommy is having some quiet time. Guzin, you are beautiful. You swiftly continue the yoga that is so important to all of us. So grateful for this practice. 

I read an article of a family quarantined in Rome. It says, “take time to cook, etc.” Yes, we are taking time to cook. Each night, a good dinner. A little bit more time for the pleasure of this work. 

Soak the beans. Simmer them in water with peppercorns and olive oil. 

Yesterday mom had dropped off corned beef and cabbage for Dylan. San Francisco’s “shelter in place” decree in place. Rumors about NY following. We have been sheltering for four days. 

Time for new recipes. Time for experiments. 

Some say we are overwhelming the students with emails. Some say we need to be in touch with them to reassure them. Hard to know how the students are feeling. But some are writing. Some are writers. Like me, these words are some way of creating shape amidst the uncertainty. 

March 18th

Student assignment: cook a delicious meal for your family. 

To go from working full time back to stay at home mom. Memories of those first early years with two babies – adjuncting a bit, but largely home with them. How hard it was for the academic in me – for the writer, the poet, the teacher, the introvert. How I always felt like I was failing, watching the clock. Glued to the window, waiting for Dylan to come home. For a visitor, for walk-time, for nap-time… for some quiet time. This feels like a post-partum period. 

March 19th 

More time in the shed this morning. Nice and toasty. The floor is grouted. Dylan is out there now insulating the ceiling. 

My incredible privilege and relative peace in this all. My NY state paycheck coming into the account on direct deposit. A group of six people signed up for my first “zoom” yoga class tomorrow morning. And I, one prone to anxiety, seems relatively calm. Yes, I can stay home and cook. Under the hoop house, there are cabbages and broccoli. We are doing things one day at a time.

The poetic wisdom surrounds us. 

And perhaps it will be time for the spiritual book club after all. 

The Vernal Equinox. The first day of spring. A bit of a lion day. Damp rain in the morning. 

A proliferation of media exploding every possible angle about this all. But also knowing the poets are comfortable in their social distancing…. Breathing in place. 

Can we slow down? The images of dolphins in the canals of Venice. 

Right now, when we stay home, we save lives. What power. What power we all always have to make a difference. 

April in March. A lavender azalea in full bloom. Tremoring in the damp. 

March 20th

Things fall apart. Nothing to write. Claustrophobia. But it feels so good to run. 

March 21st 

We finish planting the raspberries and blackberries alongside the house. 

I put on earrings for our “zoom” faculty meeting.

Today we start hearing some people closer to us reporting symptoms. It gets closer. Dylan goes to an unexpectedly busy paint store to buy my Birds Egg blue for the shed. 

Rupture. Disruption. Ruptura in the latin. To break. 

Conference call with the Italy ladies and dear Barbara in Siena. She remains optimistic, but also knows we will most likely postpone our yoga retreat to Tuscany this summer. I miss her dearly. Her beauty, her love of Siena. Giotto’s baby lambs. So deeply I needed to return to Italy. I need. Is this fair? I desire. It feels like need. To be in a place that countered my ability to live in this place. To have two places. 

March 22

Sunday morning yoga in the shed. It’s good, but not the same. I miss the studio. I find myself substituting poses I don’t love for ones that I do. The anonymity of the format. It is a brisk windy morning. How desperately I want the shed finished. Cleaned. Painted. Furnished. My impatience with this incompleteness. 

I zoom chat with my dear friend Jess in Barcelona. We had been playing around with the idea of visiting her this winter. Her beautiful apartment. She speaks about authoritarianism, democracy, meditating. She is alone in her apartment. I am rarely alone. 

There are silver-linings. Speaking to friends more often; checking in with contacts around the globe. Random phone call from one of my Italian cohort – Ignacio wanting to contact his host mother from our study abroad program over 20 years ago. And I can help this connection happen. 

But there are also painful revelations. Our ecological vulnerability. Carrying capacity. Climate change. Listen to the scholars and scientists. 

Americans buying guns. Not our brightest hour. But those who stay home are saving lives. 

Two weeks ago, projects most pressing; Earth Week speakers and garden installs on campus. And today: staying at home. 

March 23, 2020

Rain all day. And some flurries this morning. Cabin fever. Too much sesame street for the kids. Inadequacies abound.

Reading a discussion board full of student entries – so much misinformation. They’re not reading the NY Times. Who knows where they get there news from. 

March 24, 2020

Sun. Dylan rototills the front lawn. I feel fragile. A struggle between his work with the land, and my work with the words. One seems so much more valuable. As a 22 year old, I would have swiftly and emphatically convinced myself that work with the words a type of necessary food. As I write this now I remember that it is—but the nourishment of absorption and purpose. Shaping a poem one doesn’t believe is particularly good standing alongside a summer of vegetables. 

I used to have faith that if I gave time to my art, I would feel a type of success.

Here I am, struggling to find the time that used to provide me with a reassurance. Hard work and time and practice. It is success that needs dismantling. 

The writer’s work is also in not writing. Conversations between self and soul. But always my next question: who watched Yeats’ kids? Virginia Woolf asks about Shakespeare’s sister. The work of mothering. On ongoing negotiation. The burden of so much of this falls to women. It always has. 

Cuomo is rightly angry. Angry at Trump. Angry at our citizens. Assuring to hear passion for a just cause. Saving lives.

Leona colors for hours. The detail she brings. Eyelashes, eyebrows.

Today would have been phase 1 of the garden install at OW. A perfect day. Pretty much exactly what Dylan did on our front lawn today. A garden install. 

March 25

Still reflecting on yesterday…. I wrote an email to a friend – made some sense of the conflict: 

Yesterday I was feeling waves of despair.... had to talk it through with Dylan...our modes in this are so different. He meets uncertainty and chaos with busy-work...... I, on the other hand, need hours of quiet to write, to cry, to read poetry..... it is on the surface a "less productive" type of labor -- but as you know, an essential one to my sense of self and the work that I try to do in the world. I need to process; he needs to produce. Makes me think a lot about the pressures of productivity surrounding this all -- how they have that hyper-rational masculine edge to them. Meanwhile, there is also such grief that needs to be processed. Mourned. Staying still as things crash around. I feel a bit fragile, but I think Dylan is understanding that, so he can make moves to give me some space -- and to be conscious of the rhetoric of his productivity trajectory. 

But today is better. Maybe the deep sleep last night. Maybe the zoom faculty meeting. So much laughter in our office. Good to “see” my colleagues. 

March 26th

Sunny and bright. Steadier today. Today is also ok despite our president ignoring the research and science and medical expertise. 

March 27th

I was scheduled to do an alumni talk at SUNY Geneseo today. I was in the midst of writing a piece titled “My Journey Since Geneseo: A Talk with Twelve Titles.” Plans on staying in Rochester with Maria. Going out for dinner and wine with my former professors, those lovely souls. How much I would like to sit with them now, for wine and conversation. To ethically navigate the consequences of what is happening. Instead, all is cancelled. Everything cancelled. Indefinitely postponed. 

Another zoom yoga class this morning. My work to carry this group. A small work, but important. Allowing a space for grief. Breathing together even as we are apart. 

Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,

imagine grief 
as the out breath of beauty 
or the gesture of fish.
Swim for the other side. (Judyth Hill)

 

The fear is that the corporate profit-driven structures of higher ed. will legitimize new demands of this crisis. That teaching online will become a norm. There is nothing like being in a classroom with other bodies. With sharing the air. The intimacy of exchange. The deep metaphor at the heart of this – that it is the lungs that are compromised. Sitting in that circle; proprioception. The light in the room. It is intrinsic to learning. 

To be an online teacher is to employ one’s writer skills. Email after email after email. Comment by comment by comment. 

This connection of Everyone with Lungs. Rereading Julianna Sphar today. It is terrifyingly and tantalizingly precise in its conceit. An essential metaphor. 

Vulnerable lungs. 

Use the rupture for reflection. It is the best that we can do. 

March 28th 

A big day – our giant Instacart delivery service from Costco arrives. What privilege and luxury. Instacart on the verge of striking (as they should). I’m sure to thank the shopper and double my tip. But still, such privilege.

One of my students writes, 

Now that I am home I have to help out with the bills since no one but me and my Mother are working to pay bills. I've been working 7 days a week from 8am-5pm, I am extremely exhausted and stressed out, I've been trying to keep myself sane through all of these issues but it's hard. I imagined this would affect my classwork. I was reaching out to you because I wanted to know if you could please work with me on due dates. I apologize for the inconvenience this may cause you.

It’s comments like these that stay with me. That need to inform a pedagogical approach. That we need to make decisions that protect the most vulnerable student. 

Before this all I had created a journal assignment that asked them to write about something they had been personally struggling with. What have I received in response….entries on Sexual abuse; death of a parent; divorce of parent; body-image insecurity; stress, stress, stress; anxiety; depression; feeling uncomfortable in one’s own skin. My students and their suffering. 

Intimacy at the heart of ecology; the pandemic as an ecological event; a phenomenon. 

Cuomo. I find him reassuring too. When someone uses their strength for a moral reason.

Every other day I jog four miles. I chug along listening to Krishna das or Paul Simon or blue grass. Ryan Adams singing about New York. I often feel a bit tired as a chug along, though it feels like quite a natural motion to me. I sweat profusely. I monitor my lungs. I am out of the house. I observe the social distancing and get a feel for my village. We seem to be doing fine here in Northport. People are following guidelines. We seem to be respecting one another. A social contract of sorts.  

Finishing Natalia Ginzburrg’s Little Virtues. Her chapter on being a parent spoke straight to my heart. 

Everything is blossoming; the plums and peaches in the backyard. 

Dylan is proud of his blueberries, raspberries, and figs. The she-shed and the home gardens. Our Italian flag is flying. I desperately miss my quiet time. 

Ethics of Engagement and Community Learning. How radically important these classes are. A strong first-year program that creatively, philosophical, and historically speaks to the social justice mission. This something I can stand behind. 

Valentine seems most affected by the loss of the structured day. My toddler. A month or two away from three. He’s having a potty regression and is holding his poop throughout the day. Says he is too little for the potty. Wants the poopoo to go away. He seems miserable. Except when it’s watching a movie or helping Dylan in the garden. I know I’m not doing the best job giving him structure, but my god I kiss him and cuddle him and chat with him and love him. I breathe in his baby sweetness, which still lingers. 

The fatigue one feels like that of trauma and grief. 

So hard to write to my students. The immensity of the experience. So many things I would like to say to them.

Dylan insulates and sheetrocks half the shed. Getting closer. 

March 29th

Rain all day. Despair. Stuck in with the kids. The shouting, the fighting, the noise. I crave quiet to my core. 

March 30th 

Dylan takes the kids to the beach today. I take Tylenol for my headache, I think from my hunched shoulders. So much time in front of the screen. 

My students continue to express their woes. First generation children of health care workers. Nurses and nursing assistants. Families being separated in quarantine. College kids laying in bed all day. They are writing of depression. One tells me how hard her mother worked to be a nurse and how now she wants to quit her job. 

Spring is so very yellow. 

March 31

Last day of this longest month of the year. It is as Leona professes, a lamb day. A bit chilly, but the sun comes through. 

Today I feel like everything is going to be ok. 

My own struggles with the transition to online work. My criticism of technology. The raft that we are floating on right now. What would this all look like without the internet?

The small pleasure in making dinner each night. 

The season of resurrection. Roasting potatoes. Roasting Brussel sprouts. Serving them in the wooden bowls. 

April 1

Ah, April. My favorite month. Never cruel. Always singing. The fullness of spring.

Last night I slept terribly – dreaming that the blackboard system wasn’t working. 

An idea to reframe the midterm ethics paper as a letter. Ethics needs a rhetorical context. My own essay – on synchronous / asynchronous teaching. An ethical dilemma to explore. 

The class needs to be accessible for all students. But of course, accessibility is incredibly difficult to define.

Dylan mentions to Leona today that she might not go back to preschool, and it suddenly strikes her. She starts crying and is distraught. How can I never see my teachers again? How will I be ready for kindergarten? All this time and she wasn’t thinking about the future. I don’t have the heart to tell her that there might not be kindergarten. 

One of my most painful senses of loss has been the loss my children experience… the community they had independent of me – life at the Village Preschool; the way it ended without the rites of passage and the rituals. The first day of cancelled class was the day Dylan and I were supposed to be Leona’s secret reader. Dylan rocks her, then I rock her. She cries and for the first time, she seems in the future. She uses the word worry. How dearly she loves her teachers. Her whole world is also disrupted. And she loved that world. 

More letters for me to write…. 

Today was a hard day. 

April 2

Another drag of a day. The kids don’t want to play outside. Windy. The wind drains your chi. 

April 3

Friday morning yoga. Third zoom session. Tony Hoagland’s (sunlight), Lucille Clifton’s Blessing the Boats. Technology difficulties. My laptop freezing; zoom wanting to update in the middle of our session. 

But I’m lighter today for having taught. Exhausting in its way. But essential to do. 

The work of yoga and poetry. My work. All of the things I want to do. My to-do list:

1. Record breathing meditations for my colleagues and students.
2. Record yoga class for the preschool kids.
3. Start a book club for the yoga studio.

It feels like Dylan and I are constantly in conflict about time. Time to work in a type of solitude. We both want it and need it. I’m trying to take time if I need it. Never very good at scheduling. I tend to be temperamental and liquid. I crave stretches where the clock isn’t ticking. Where the to-do-list isn’t bearing down. 

Rainy day. Kids on their third movie. But I feel better. We did a scavenger hunt this afternoon. Took down the air popper for a snack. I haven’t lost my temper with them. I’m trying to be a good mom. 

He’s at work on my shed. 

One of my students writes to tell me that her mother, a cancer survivor, is on a ventilator wait-list. I stare at the screen for ½ hour try to find language for a response. She calls herself a warrior. And she is. 

The poems are knocking down the doors. The new titles: “Signs of Spring” – “Ode to a Can of Tomatoes” – “sonnet for Cynthia.” Knocking down the doors. 

My colleague tells me her college age son thinks it’s the end of the world.

If we have to be quarantined anywhere, blessed that we’re in Northport. It’s beautiful. And there are dozens and dozens of people I love here. People I breathe alongside here, even at a distance. 

April 4

Sun is shining. Magnolias on fire. All the fruit trees blossoming. Hyacinths arriving. 

We’re in the midst of it now. Cuomo says he thinks we’ll peak in about 7 days. It’s April. 

April 5

Spring continues to color our neighborhood. I go for my jog. We plant onions. Dylan primes the shed. I’m tired. My soul is tired. I continue to have nightmares about blackboard of all things. Everything I love about teaching involves the shared physical space. I know we can make homes in words, but the immediacy and intimacy of the classroom is where the magic happens. 

Last night we bought a few take-out meals from one of our most local favorite restaurants. I’m hesitant, but also want a small break from cooking, and would like to support a business we know is suffering. We bring meals to my parents, the kids sleeping in the Subaru. We sit on the deck and chat for a few minutes. I know that my father would most likely not survive this sickness. Diabetes and pulmonary hypertension. A truth I carry with me. He spent several months of the past year in the hospital; in and out of rehab. We keep our distance. 

April 6 

The kids are doing better after the weekend outside. They seem lighter, happier. Each day has been different. I keep telling myself that they’ll be fine. They are resilient. And for the moment, miraculously, they are have a picnic tea party upstairs with what seems like their 200 hundred stuffed animals. 

April 7, 2020

Advisement appointments. Talking to students about the fall. I choose not to tell them that I think we’ll be online in the fall. It’s exhausting. But it’s my job for now.

A discussion with an anxious colleague makes me feel anxious. I can’t feel anxious about this job right. Academia has burned me before. I think of Toni Morrison’s essay about a job, where she channels her father’s wisdom. “You are not the work you do; you are the person you are.”  

That was what he said. This was what I heard:

1. Whatever the work is, do it well—not for the boss but for yourself.

2. You make the job; it doesn’t make you.

3. Your real life is with us, your family.

4. You are not the work you do; you are the person you are.

They play outside all day again. 

I jog my miles. Thank heavens for those miles. Even when I’m tired. The buds are on the maples. Some magnolia petals have fallen. 

Four year olds are amazing. Every house should have a four year, a psychologist friend of mine says. How deeply I agree. How I want to freeze her. Her excitement in hunting for sticks and stones. How all the weeds are flowers. Her furious coloring. 

April 8, 2020

Ten years ago Dylan and I went on our first date. 4/8/10. It was a gorgeous April day. We were both at a reception for a community art event at the wine bar. I invited him to a play with a group of undergraduates, who had come into Northport to see the Abridged Shakespeare. We went out for more wine after. He walked me home. I showed him my little deck overlooking the harbor. We kissed. It was passionate. There was so much desire. We fell in love in April. April sweet April. The beginning of everything. 

This feeling that everything I’ve been studying and reading all these years has prepared me for this time. This pandemic. This rupture.  

On or about March 2020 the character of the world changed. Take a deep breath in; take a long breath out. 

Disillusion and heartbreak. Shattered worlds and illusions. But necessary for social change. 

 

Mourning Bernie Sanders dropping out. We are still proudly wear our buttons. I’ve never given a candidate so much money. I admire his ethical consistency. Bernie says health care is a right. Bernie says that histories of injustice and oppression are with us. Climate action is a moral responsibility. Bernie’s policy think about my kids’ future. And all kids futures. Remember Brian Doyle, all children are our children. 

Bernie says that we as people can figure out ways to save this beautiful fucking planet and respect one another. Others have said this too. But he was saying it now. And now he won’t be my president. I’ll still wear my t-shirt and don’t plan on taking the sticker off the car….I continue to stand with what he stands for. 

We chalk the sidewalk. We sweep the porch. They pick all the dandelions, gifts for me, their wildly imperfect mother.

April 9, 2020

Strange day; sun, rain, wind. Stormy then bright. Holy Thursday. I had forgotten. All days seem the same. 

Advisement appointments. Zoom classrooms. Toddler tantrums. Broken washing machine. Bird song and poetry. 

More time cooking. New experiments. Missing lemons and limes. That this work might become a meditation. Domestic implosions; gendered roles. Cooking and cleaning. All I do when the kids watch a movie. 

April 10

Yoga and Poetry. Week 5. Back in the shed. Now with the blue walls. And that blazing sunlight exploding the camera’s eye. Jane Hirshfield recommends Baldwin and Kay Ryan. Two poems I’ve heard her recommend before. I remember her reading Baldwin’s poem at the Whitman Birthplace last year. 

I

am beneath that water.

It falls with great force

and the light

Blinds

me to the light.

Definitely falling into a rhythm with this all. Relieved that most of my students seem to be submitting some writing. And there are some very beautiful correspondences. Not with all of them, but with the ones who seem to need to talk right now. My New York City/Long Island students. My first generation students. How deeply I love this student body. How teaching here at Old Westbury is not always about academic rigor, but also the compassion for what lives look like in New York. And how education might play a role in making us all better people. The word empathy in the mission statement. 

Pride of place. Living in New York. 

April 10th

Damn. The days starting to stream by. Falling into a rhythm. Moving through the grief into a new rhythm. Dicing potatoes. Slicing the ends off the brussel sprouts. Accepting that the kids will watching sesame street and Mr. rogers. Maybe in some ways, their childhood will be more like mine. I had a good one. On sunny days we are out in the backyard all afternoon. In the garden, on the swings. Scavenger hunts and sticks and dandelions and purple nettle. Leona thrives out there. Val still needs someone close. My love-child Valentine. How hard this is for all of him. His instinct to cling. 

April 11, 2020

A lull. Easter Eve. Less emails today. It’s sunny but still a bit of wind. Those bright blue skies with the fluffy clouds. Everything exploding. The fecund abundance of spring. My favorite time of year. 

Things are hard with me and Dylan. Struggling over finding time to do our work. His rugged individuality. My bleeding heart. We’re aware of our differences, but have not yet really found ways of intimate thriving. We’re tired. We’re different. We don’t always connect. We care deeply; we love. Our beautiful home and family, but the waters between us feel wider these days. More and more so as the years go by. 

Thinking about postponing the Italy trip. Finding the language to talk to everyone.

Dear Friends,

When I put together the idea of this trip about a year ago, I never anticipated a pandemic – so I’ve been both heartbroken and uncertain with how to proceed in the midst of our current crisis. Clearly, it does not seem advisable to go this summer. I also continue to be in contact with Barbara in Italy. She is hoping that we will postpone until next summer.

As far as I see, we have two options. The first would be to postpone and to try and roll-over the deposit money in Italy for next summer (around the same time in July). This option would ask us to imagine that the same trip will happen in the same way, but a year later. 

 The second option would be to cancel and work to recoup our deposit fees (there are some non-refundable fees that will be lost – but not too much) and to reimburse deposits as much as possible. We could talk about rescheduling at a later point in time.

My heart is with Barbara in “postponement” – only because this trip has meant so much to me in so many ways. Italy is a special place for me and I feel an even more acute need to reconnect with the place, the people, and the wisdom of their culture in the midst of these trying pandemic days. I also felt such ease and synergy in the planning process, and felt a sense of an organic flow for this trip to come together, so postponed seems less disruptive to me. 

However, I also want all of you to feel comfortable selecting the best option for *you* … we all have different emotional, financial, and contexts for our choices, and I am committed to fully respecting the contingencies of your needs/desires.

If you could please email me and let me know what you think is the best option, I will take time to consider and mediate responses so we can come the best course of action. Perhaps if some folks are happy to postpone, and others are not, I can create a new vision of next summer. But most of all, I please ask you all to communicate to me what you think is best for you at this time.

With affection and wishes for well-being,

Jesse 

April 12 

Easter Sunday. The historians are telling us to keep a journal. A small service during pandemic times. Testimony and witness; observation and experience. The music of what happens and all of that. I’ve always kept a journal. 93 volumes, hand-written. About 20 years of words. 

We have a good holiday. The kids wake us early. We have an egg hunt. Our first in our new backyard. Our backyard that has been a blessing. A salvation. Yes, we are navigating this crisis on a sailboat. A swing set. A garden. Sunshine. Trees and birds and the profusion that is spring. And my shed is finished. Dylan mops the floor and we roll out the rug. We put in the desk and the old leather reading chair. That is all there is. It beautiful. It is a tiny house of light. 

I imagine there are so many keeping a journal right now. It is nothing special. It is something human. 

As hard as it all is, I’ve felt so comfortable in our home and neighborhood. Even as we are an epicenter. 

It’s supposed to be windy rainy tonight and all the magnolias will most likely be stripped to the earth. 

A good phone conversation with an old friend. Last year was a hard year for both of us. 

In the shed. How I could spend endless hours in here. It’s perfect. And now it’s done – it’s my room of my own. 

April 14th

Incredibly stormy today. I’m safe and cozy in my shed. This space is so beautiful. I’m so content in here. I could spend all day in here. Clean and bright and warm. Full of light. 

Six weeks and we haven’t gone to the grocery. I’ve managed to get deliveries, to place orders online, etc. 

The wind shakes the shed. But I feel safe. Chugging through grading. I glance at the calendar and realize that there are only three weeks left of class. All those weeks getting online and soon enough we’ll be offline. I’m trying not to think of the fall. I understand that at some point over this next year I may get sick. I think I’ll be ok. For now, my work is stay home. 

Benjamin Moore’s Birds Egg. To be in a sailboat. The feeling of safety in a raging storm. 

I wonder, is it an illusion?

April 14th

I’m livid at Dylan this afternoon. He’s late coming home so I have no prep time before my work meetings. And he doesn’t pick up his phone. I enter into four back-to-back advisement sessions without having the time to study their degree audits and to review their course progress. 

I am constantly not asking or taking the time that I need. I struggle with wanting to give him the time he needs. I am angry. It feels like feminist rage. Rage of self-sacrifice. Of drowning in guilt for not being able to make this better for those I love. 

And then a student writes to tell me that his father has died. 

Fuck.

A psychologist friend writes me this morning about macrogriefs (parent death; job loss) and microgriefs (a cancelled trip, a missed graduation). I confess that the concept bothers me. It makes complete rational sense, but grief seems something beyond scales and economies. The layers of COVID grief are dense and multifaceted. Grief as an ocean. Some are rivers, some are harbors, some are bays, some are open seas. All of them can drown us. All of them are subject to weather. Tempestuous one day, placid the next. Micro grief flowing to microgrief merging into a macrogrief. 

Should I use this last hour before dinner to go for a jog? The emotional fatigue. I know it is so very important for me, but I doubt my strength. 

I have been a mother for five years. I’ve struggled with giving myself space for five years. It was only when I found full-time work this past fall that I started to move into a new space. Getting in the car at 8 am in the morning. Driving to campus. Having an office. Dedicating myself to teaching and college life. I was busy there and didn’t feel guilty being away. It was my job to be away. But now that I am back home, negotiating hours with Dylan, my job is to be home. The invisible work of mothers. 

April 15, 2020

More anger today. It is most likely my hormones, my period on the horizon. But usually I just lack patience and crave solitude. These past two days I am experiencing an intense anger that I’ve never known. It feels like rage. It is rage. 

Rage rage against the dying of the light. 

Leona spends the better part of the afternoon in the backyard making a ‘Trump Trap.’ She digs a hole, fills it with stones and sticks. Covers it with grass and a heap of dandelions. She has plans to lure him in with a piece of cake. The way she creates out of her rage. 

April 16

Taking this time in the shed. Trying to take it for myself. And not just for school work. But also for poems. Jack Kornfield publishes a beautiful piece in the Times. I need to take time to for my singing. 

I lose my cool with the kids again today. I try to give my friend Kate a call. They start acting up the minute they realize I am engaged in conversation. I get angry. How deeply I would benefit from talking to my friend.

Our IRS check arrives yesterday. Credit card bills. Shed supplies.

I find myself writing this journal in the evenings, a few sentences alongside the making of dinner. Waiting for the oven to beep. Letting the soup simmer. Kids running like mad in the backyard. Dylan planting seeds everywhere he can. 

Cancelling the Italy trip reservations. Tuscany, Tivoli, Marciana Marina. Property rentals. It can’t happen this summer. It might not happen next summer. 

A windy day but the sun is bright. The sky blue with passing cumulus clouds. Tomorrow’s yoga class has a message at its heart. Jack Kornfield’s reminder. I cannot feel guilty about taking time for myself. For doing my work. And my work is poetry. 

April 17, 2020

I feel strong and steady during my jog this afternoon. After the week’s fatigue, it feels good to trot again. 

Less language today. Too many movies with the kids. Needing to spend more time cuddling them. What they love most. What they need most. Escaping the perpetual inadequacy that is remote teaching. 

April 18

Rain day in the shed. Making videos for my students. The time this take. Prepping the video. Make the video. Post the video. And my own self-conscious awkwardness of being filmed. 

But the sun comes out later in the afternoon. And I want to run. 

Making my way through the grading. When I spend a day in the shed, I come to realize how I would feel like I was doing my job so much more efficiently – better – if I didn’t have kids. But my god, who would I be without them? This utter failure and frustration. It must be the ground of something – the seeds of empathy. 

Working on poems. Taking time in the shed. Not thinking too far into the future. Taking it day by day. 

Leona making trail mixes and wearing dungarees. Last night she dreamed her and Val went to kindergarten and Amma was their teacher. The dreams of babes. 

It seems I’ve stopped having nightmares about blackboard. I can see the end on the horizon. Three weeks left of the semester. 

How will it change us? How is it changing us? A collective shift. 

Feeling a bit taciturn the past two days. A quiet. An uncertainty. What can I say about this all? From this privileged position of relative ease. 

Work to center yourself. Then sweep the garden. Perhaps this journal is one of my gardens. Or perhaps it’s how I center myself. Perhaps sometimes, these two things merge into one contemplative act. 

April 19th 

A bright windy Sunday. The kids are outside most of the day. By the end of the day their exhaustion leads erratic outbursts. It’s almost unbearable. I continue to be so deeply challenged by the behavior of our kids. My own emotional exhaustion meeting theirs. Tempers flying. Patience drained. 

Today Dylan got two fruit trees in the ground. A plum for Ona. A peach for Val. 

I lose my own ability to trust that there is any meaning in what I am writing. Notes on a dark and difficult time. A journey into the interior that reveals much of my own struggles. My monkey mind. 

This most unnatural of acts. Social distancing. Extended. Well over a month now. 

So many sirens. I’ve stopped following the news. Every day seems the same. 

Bernie Sanders continues to be a voice of sanity. 

The comfort of the shed. Now that it’s done I have memories of a past self. A self that spent all day writing. A self that was prolific. Uninterrupted. Fluid and free. The eros of art, of poetry, of the word shared and found. 

Asking human animals to stay away from those they love to save those they love. 

Planting a peach and a plum today. Maybe five years from now, they’ll bear fruit. The act of planting a tree. 

April 20

The social isolation continues. One day after the next. Today I take a nap on the couch while the kids watch Frozen. Val climbs on top of me the whole time. I manage to sleep anyway. A small victory.

A list of things I’m grateful for. A list of what I despise (the kids fighting). 

Speculation about the future. The summer. The kids birthday parties coming up in May and June. The trees are leafing out and today I saw the season’s first cherry blossoms. Always a sign that the semester is nearing its end. But the pandemic is still in its infancy. 

The cherry blossoms always bring fond memories of time at Stony Brook. Teaching in sustainability studies. The last class session, reading haiku under the blossoms in front of the Wang center. Environmental humanities students. What we couldn’t see, the pandemic just around the corner.

For my Environmental Lit. students this semester, I am handing them their research question. A question that has an answer, but still an important one to ask: 

Insert question

All of our frenzy settled, the air is cleaner. Though it still feels frenzy here. All of the cars buzzing, busily driving off to who knows where. But not me. When I leave, I leave on foot. 

Earth week. What could we do for our students? 

Reading Ross Gay again. Watching him read. 

In my best moments I think of how our class discussions will deepen. How the calls for climate justice will seem that much closer. Now there is an experiential frame of reference for how life might ask us to slow down and consider our ethical connections. 

April 21, 2020

Tired today. Sun and wind. Thunderstorms and hail. Sun and rainbows. More rain. 

Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of Earth Week. Hard to imagine how differently I had seen this day. 

April 22

Dylan continues to plant the fruit trees. I continue to do my yoga in the shed. We continue. 

The thought of a whole other year of remote learning. And what would that mean for Leona’s kindergarten? A dangerous thought for my heart. 

We buy a high quality oxygen meter. What we have been reading suggests that if infected with the virus, it is important to monitor oxygen levels in the blood. And if they drop, it’s time for oxygen. Don’t wait until it’s too late. We buy this piece of equipment not just for us, but for those we love. Better to have in the medicine cabinet with the thermometer. A small assurance that one might be able to monitor the most dangerous symptom. 

Dylan thinks the kids need more structure. I feel like I’m doing terrible with them. These chilly windy April days. Lots of rain. Too many movies. And I sleep on the couch when they watch movies. Movies movies movies. Ice Age, Mulan, Frozen… this week’s palate. 

But there is this: each day I find time for 15-30 minutes of yoga breath and posture. I am allowing myself self-care in a way I had lost. The effects are palpable. A reminder of those years before the kids when I had time each day to dedicate. 

April 23

One day like the next. Day after day. Time in the shed first thing in the morning. It occurs to me today that eventually we will leave the house again. But things will not be quite the same. When one practices distance for a long time. What distance does.

We take a ride in the car today to deliver some food from our Costco order. It feels good to be in the car with the kids, going somewhere. 

The kids wake early and are downstairs eating Black and White cookies while Dylan and I dream upstairs. I dream of birthing a third child. 

April 24, 2020

Another yoga morning. Another rainy day. Less language. Not much to say. Thoughts drift to the fall, but they are ones of worry. 

My friend Jessica is reading Little House on the Prairie. The longest winter.

We will emerge from this winter. But we are still in the midst of it. 

A few words here and there. Two weeks left of ‘class’. Two weeks left of creating assignments and posting videos. 

April 25

I count today. Our 44th day. Is it a long time? One day after the next. Rain day by sun day. Sunday by Saturday. 

April is in her full glory. Cherry blossoms are lush. This April when we stayed home. This April when we watched the Maples leaf each hour of the day. This chilly and rainy April. 

A zoom chat last night with my college friends. One is a pharmacist at Wegmans in Rochester. He spoke of his intense anger, his frustration with what seems like stupidity. COVID positive patients wandering through the supermarket, and asking about over-the-counter meds. My dear friend is in his bathrobe drinking too much sauvignon blanc, clearly pushed to an edge. The anger of a front-line worker. 

The pages and pages I am not writing during this period. The intense inwardness of it all. The work of getting through the day. Those without children are trying to fill hours; those with children are desperately seeking them. A divide in experience. And how this feels like a second post-partum period. A confinement. Being at home. Traditional confinements can last a month to a hundred days. A time when one stays home, a period of recovery. Also, the arrival of the new child. The intense breast feeding. Not able to see life beyond the immediate needs of the babe. 

And when postpartum ends, there will surely be a struggle to say goodbye. 

Warmer today. Beautiful really. Spring in her splendor. 

April 26, 2020

Sunday morning. The rain is supposed to come around noon. Despite Val’s resistance, we manage to get in the car and drive a mile down the road to a small nature preserve with a lovely trail. Val doesn’t want to leave the house. He wants “stay home.” His tantrums advocate for the message we have been internalizing these past weeks. But he needs to leave the house. He wants to watch “dumb grinch” and sit on the couch and control what he can. But once we’re in the car and start talking about one of his favorite books, “The Gruffalo,” he shifts gears. We’re going into the deep dark wood and we are looking for the big bad mouse. They do beautifully, hiking a trail up and down a few hills. They feel the moss, cross a small bridge, watch the mallards flutter away. They treasure pinecones and sticks. The terrain is good for them. The exercise is much needed. We only see one family, but my god, how glad I am that we decided to leave this morning. Val falls asleep on the couch later in the day. Exhausted from his little body jumping over roots and branches. His excitement with almost everything. His emphatic love of pinecones and big rocks and pine needles. 

April 27

Damp and cold. Another rain day. I keep reading articles about young people dying, or on the verge of death. Healthy, athletic, etc. What I worry about most is Dylan. The thought of life without him. His boisterous good health. The work he does for us, for our family. And how the children depend on him for almost everything. Already, these days seem to verge on impossibility with the two of us. 

Fear, worry. Old companions. 

Today I work the morning shift and Dylan takes the afternoon. I could easily have worked all day. 

Eavan Boland dies today. So sad. So very sad. I google her name and COVID to see if there’s a correlation. The news says she had a stroke.

The cherries are profuse. Heavy with the dampness. Their thick and soft color. But not without passion. 

April 28, 2020

A gorgeous day. At lunch, I find a tick behind Val’s ear. Another warning from the deep. I can’t help but to understand everything in terms of ecology. And the human imposition on that precarious balance. Pandemics and ticks… are they all part of the same web of over-consumptive taxation on natural systems? I know that many have been through far worse in history. Wars, genocide, colonial rule, identity-based oppression, slavery. 

Finding myself slower with my email return. 

I know I didn’t push my students at all this semester. Discussion boards with no discussions. I just wanted some contact. I just want some contact. 

More and more colleges announcing the fall will be online. I dread the thought of it. Though I know this is worry. Perhaps it’s the thought of balancing childcare and the demands of four courses. Advisement. If I had long days alone to work, it would be fine. But the thought of doing it as we have been these past weeks. 

The most beautiful time of year. 

April 29

All morning grading and emailing. I find my body tensing; a headache descending by lunch. Too much time glued to the screen. I do a half hour of yoga at lunch to connect back to the breath and to stretch my lower back. This has been a blessing. Allowing myself this time. 

The monotony of the days. I speak to my mother about her trepidation. Yes, it is hard dealing with this isolation, but the thought of it ended and the virus still present. The risk it poses for the elderly, the compromised. That the world opening up might lead to death. 

Finding myself retreating a bit from calls and emails. Even from letters. A fatigue and a malaise. I’m prolific in my mind when I’m out running. But after dinner/bath/bedtime, I’m pooped. 

April 30

Last day of this bizarre month, a whole month, when we stayed home. April oh April. Tomorrow on to May.

Still this exhaustion at the end of the day. Still this relative silence. Val continues to cling to me. I continue to not quite know what to say. 

Windy again. More rain expected. Wanting tomorrow’s yoga class to grow out of Hirshfield’s “It was Like This” … because isn’t’ this what it is. What these days have been. All the same, but all so different.

The leaves really filling in. 

Friday May 1

I started this journal on a Friday. Week 8, I believe. Rumors of re-emergence. Today my in-laws make a plan to take the kids one afternoon next week. Two socially distant parties making the decision to come together. 

Cuomo says NY schools will stay closed through the end of the year.

Hints of summer this evening. The kids are chalking and bubbling the backyard as the sun goes down. Utterly absorbed in their play. Good to see them this way. All of the interior hours, watching movies and cuddling on the couch. Though this week I start a small ritual. Mommy’s lunch book reading hour. We all select titles; we read them together. Today: Strega Nona and Zog; The Lorax and Curious George. And Dylan’s morning ritual: outside after breakfast to fill the watering cans and take care of the babies. Even when it’s drizzling. We’re starting to bring some structure back to their lives – but one that we also can do. One that organically integrates. I like reading books at lunch; Dylan likes watering the garden in the morning. 

It doesn’t feel like the end of the semester. My favorite time of year. That break early in May. The release of an intense year. And so much spring and summer ahead. The lilacs blooming in Geneseo. Dropping off dozens of books into the Melville Library book-drop at Stony Brook. Knowing I had the summer ahead to indulge in reading and writing on my own terms. And often, a trip to Italy planned for June or July. Some years I left during finals week. This year it feels like uncertainty. Mundanity. The missing rites of passage. The lost excitement of campus life on the verge of change. I’m such an end-of-the-semester person. The feeling of running miles and finally reaching the finishing line. Time to walk with the exhilarated buzz of having breathed deeply to reach the end. 

May 2

Gorgeous day. Feels like a summer day. We do a birthday car-parade and it is too much for the kids. It makes them miserable, belting into their car seats, not fully understanding what is going on and why things have changed so much. Leona is angry at the virus. With her spring birthday, the big 5, on the horizon, perhaps she sees what she doesn’t wish for. Her behavior is punchy the whole day. There is anger, and deliberate steps to rile anger in us. She tells us before her bath that it’s not fair that little kids like her can’t see their friends. She is in a terrible mood all day, throwing everything she has at us. 

My sister-in-law, who is due to have baby 3 in July, tells me they are considering not sending their oldest, who will be in 2nd grade, back to school in the fall. 

A worry: that people will become so comfortable in their isolation that they won’t actively seek to return to community. That fear and a germaphobia/xenophobia will infiltrate life and lead to a dystopian breakdown in civic engagements and community centers. That people will remain alienated from their neighbors. 

Still there are others who are relived to not have to commute only to sit in front of a screen all day. Those who would be doing that work anyway. Relieved to be checked out. To focus. If your life is already on the screen, why the need to travel to an office to do that work? 

But for my work, as a teacher, I am adrift. 

Realizing today on my jog that it will be important to keep writing this document, even as things “open up” – but there are parts that will not open; many that will. But some parts that might remain closed. 

Finally sitting down to write a letter tonight. To Holly. Sending her back a letter she posted on May 2, 2013. The weeks before Dylan and I eloped in Siena. Holly and Matt came with us. I keep thinking of our wedding as I hear all of these collapsed wedding plans. The small ceremony. Making it something intimate and different. Getting married to get married; not getting married to have a party. That’s what our wedding was. And why it was so damned meaningful. 

Leona was so difficult today. So defiant. So aggressive. So angry. So sad. 

I miss my friends. We could have chatted with Duncan and Maria, laughed with them,  all afternoon.

May 3, 2020

What a full and beautiful day. Temperatures in the mid 70s. Sunny. Feels quite like summer. The kids are happy in the backyard, in their t-shirts and without shoes. Dylan installs the shelves in my shed. 

Feels like summer. Memories of an ease. For me, the end of the semester. 

My students are silent all weekend, even after my plea for them to reach out about incompletes. 

We go to Dylan’s greenhouse wholesale grower today. He does our vegetable seeds, but today we go for flowers. Hanging baskets for the front porch and some flats of flowers. 

May 4.

Monday. I work for a few hours, grading and answering emails in the morning. Then take the kids over to mom and dad’s backyard around lunchtime. The first time I’ve brought them over there. Our own loosening of social distancing. I am feeling it happen in small ways. We have been so literal with our adherence. Now we are starting these news types of visits. The grandparents. These relations are also important. 

Last week of “class.” 

Phew. 

I had a good day. Val took a nap in the afternoon and I managed to sleep too for a bit, while Leona did an hour of Cosmic Kids Yoga. She had fun; we slept. The energy of a 4 going on 5 year old. The exhaustion of a mommy and a toddler. 

New bookshelves in the shed. How increasingly at home I feel with them. 

And the first picture on the wall. A signed Terry Tempest Williams broadside, How shall I lived?

Reading her new book Erosion.

We are approaching our 1 year anniversary of being in our new old house. My god, how grateful I am for this space. How painful and paralyzing the process to get here. But now that we are settled, how grateful. Today I put my mom’s old wicker on the front porch. It has cushions. And I sit there and gave on a street where I feel comfortable and supported. Where the neighbors are kind and people say hello. I feel safe and at home. I know this is privilege. I know my neighbors are largely white. And there are also Trump signs around the corner.

Feeling myself move into a new phase. Finally writing letters, making cards. All of my photos and colored paper and blank cards easily accessible in the office. Time to write letters again. 

May 5

Another zoom faculty meeting. Two hours long. Phew. So much speculating about the fall, when really, it’s all uncertainty. I’m trying to remind myself of this. We don’t know what the fall will bring. We don’t know what two weeks will bring. 

I’m so very exhausted. Long days. It started in a calm way. Some yoga, some emails. And a morning with the kids. Watering cans and the swing set. Getting the back deck set-up for the warm months ahead. 

The calamity of the semester end.  What the summer will look like.

A NY Times article today says that people don’t want to go back to work. We are getting used to this new world. 

Mothers, full moons, the month of May… 

This incredible insecurity in knowing my teaching has collapsed these past two months. Am I teaching at all? Existential crisis in the profession. 

I read an article by an anthropologist at Queens College. 

But that’s exactly why the classroom is so crucial. It is not a space apart from the damaged and unfair world in which we live, but it is a place where students meet each other, first and foremost, as fellow learners. As a teacher, I cannot level a deeply unequal playing field. But within the classroom, my students and I can try to forge a community where we listen to one another with respect, where everyone has a right to the floor, and where students share their experiences because of the trust we’ve built together, not because their private lives are on display via Zoom.

I’ve been doing my advisement calls on the phone. I find it a familiar and not especially exhausting medium. Old fashioned phone calls. A technology I grew up with. 

Two fears: everyone rushing back to normal and a severity in the sickness. And then, having to do heaps of synchronous class time. I just can’t wrap my brain around it. 

What I should be writing about is my beautiful children. How they water the plants every morning. How they imaginatively play. How they kiss me and cuddle with me. 

May 6.

The arrival in my shed. At my shed. This space. Reminds me of my room in the old moss green Victorian on Main St. in Geneseo. The window seats – the perch. A bed and a desk. Heavenly. Did I take pictures? I can barely remember now. Did it have a closet? I remember the built in bookshelves. The little wicker desk with the old IBM desktop. I wrote and wrote like a madwoman. I read all of Willa Cather that last semester. How wildly meaningful it all was. My senior year of college.

There is so much we could be saying or doing with students right now. I could radically change my classes for the fall. I think about it sometimes. There’s time this summer.

A good phone chat with Bonnie this morning. How hard she works. How important strong leadership is in a crisis. 

A gray day. 

After lunchtime, reading with the kids. 

Radical uncertainty. All that will happen when lockdowns are lifted. In my gut it feels like we need to continue on in this way for much longer, even as it leaves people in economic peril. 

May 7.

A good morning. I win an artist’s grant from a Garden Foundation. It comes with a thousand dollars and asks me to do an interview, share some writing. It feels so affirming to be granted something. In my application I wrote about my ongoing work. Gardening in suburbia. Trying to sustain. 

A student writes me an email today. 

Good afternoon, Professor Curran.

I just want to thank you for your wonderful advice, lectures, and for being understanding and supportive in so many ways towards me and the rest of the class. I learned many things through this class during the semester, although it did not go as originally planned. I am very grateful to have known you and people like you during my first year at Old Westbury. Reflective writing and assignments given by you were not a burden to complete and I looked forward to them. I apologize that I could not make it to the meeting today, I was on line in a Stop and Shop for a very long time this morning and was disappointed that I could not join the call. 

Thank you again for being an amazing mentor and friend; we need someone like you especially during these hard times. 

That email made me feel better than the silly award. That I’m doing my job. 

I always need to remember that even if it seems that many are not responding – or not always hearing what I’m trying to say, to teach – even if one hears something, learns something. Has restored faith in mentorship and education. 

The lilacs are blossoming. Today blueberries went in, an herb bed, my granny smith apples in the back. The lupines we bought at the grower the other day. Leona saw them and had to have them. Conner and Dylan, digging big holes and sticking in trees and bushes all afternoon. Watching them from my shed, reading blackboard assignments. Thanking students for sharing their stories. Reading their stories. Their stories matter. 

Full moon in Scorpio tonight. Some sort of immensity hovering. Leona spent the day playing with the earth worms, her hands deep in the mud. 

The red bud next door on fire. 

Tomorrow, May 8, is our first anniversary of having moved into our home. I can say that personally, life for me is infinitely more stable, happier, now. It has been a big year. And while this pandemic is disruptive, it seems a must needed break for many of us. Travelling to a new mode. 

May 8.

Chilly and rainy. Lots of grading. But I do feel happy today. A good yoga class this morning to a full zoom room. 

One year being in this cozy house. Dylan is proud of all of his plantings. Blueberries and apples and plums and peaches and raspberries. Temperatures dropping into the 30s tonight. 

May 9

Windy and cold. We had to move plants into the basement last night to protect them from the temperature drop. This afternoon, on my jog, I turned my head up to the sky to see where those white petals were flurrying from – cherry? Verbena? But there was no blossoms falling. These were flurries 

I’m so tired. Reading through 50 community learning final essays. Reflections on this experience. I try to respond honestly and supportively to each student. To meet them where they are. They have been through so much. So much more than me. More disruption, thrown back home. The end of their first year. So many sick family members. 

Our neighbors have their weekend fire. How comforting I find the woodsmoke. And their laughter. 

One student writes: 

What else have I learned? The president is a buffoon who doesn’t know simple anatomy and chemical relevance. But this, we knew. It’s amazing what money can front you, an entire bluffed presidency. I’ve learned about compassion; I’ve seen more shelters and hotels and churches open up their doors for homeless individuals than ever before. I saw the Barclays Center was open and handing out bags. Target gives out free wipes to utilize the shopping carts. People are buying groceries for those who can’t afford. Elderly people are allotted hours before hours in shopping centers so they can get what essentials they need first. We are doing what we should have been doing but better late than never. Until being asked, I never knew what global citizenship was, but I think it has to be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever thought about. Yes, there are terrorists out there with horrible intentions, but I believe giving it a chance would be a beautiful thing. At the end of the day before race, culture, sex or class we are humans worthy of a chance to prove unity. We can do it. We’ve proven this by our actions during this crisis.

Their names: Divya, Charmaine, Chedayia, Elizabeth. 

My students this semester who communicated beautifully. Who engaged me with their vulnerability and courage. 

What you notice when every day is the same. 

Starting to put some pictures on the walls of the shed. Going for it. My Matisse prints. My TTW broadside. 

May 10.

Mother’s Day. Lots of tears for me. Confusion with how to “do” the day. Everyone else’s needs. Overwhelmed. The garden, the babies, the parents, the house. I just want to crawl into a hole with a blanket and close my eyes to it all, take deep breaths into my belly. I want more distance within distancing. 

My mother wants me to drop over her house. My beautiful generous mother who very rarely asks me for anything, wants me to drop over. And I can’t bring myself to do it. The guilt consumes me all afternoon. 

Azaelas on fire. Cherry blossoms all gone. 

Needing to distance within the distancing. 

My beautiful children. Dylan perceptively notes today that he and Leona bounce back and forth between joy and rage; while Val and I swing between longing and grief. 

Writing a reflection on Elizabeth Rush’s Risings. Helping students reach out to the counseling center for therapy. Crying on the floor of the shed, feeling so cold from the May wind. Letting the sunlight warm my worn bones. Done with the phone and the laptop.

This morning, Dylan lays out two sawhorses and throws a palate over them – flats of seedlings for the neighbors. 

May 11. 

My mom wanted me to come over because my parents were planning on giving me a family heirloom; a diamond ring from the 20s. 

Dylan and I will be married 7 years this month. We never had rings or bands. We just got married and lived our lives

So tired today. I sleep on the couch this afternoon with Val. 

May 12

The semester still lingers. A final exam tomorrow. More grading. Last call emails. 

The heart-shaped cabbages. Needing to switch gears, but not quite sure how. Or when. Needing a little downtime after this first year of full-time work. 

A chilly spring. Every few days the temperatures rise and it feels like summer. But more often, windy and crisp. Damp and chilly. 

Fauci testifying before the Senate. When will they listen? 

What has fallen away? The art of presentation. Fashion. Jewelry. Shoes other than running sneakers. Pocket books. 

May 13

My final exam today. Such fatigue. Knowing it has to do with my cycle, with shifting hormones. When I’m busy at school, I tend not to dwell so much on my weariness and desire for solitude. The day usually sweeps me away. But here, a home, things seem so distinct. An unchanging background on which to notice shifts in mood and temperament. 

Cal State says they are going online in the fall. A harbinger of what is to come. 

Gorgeous May day. 

All of the incompletes. All of the emails. All the uncertainty. All the students who fell off.

I started this journal on March 14. Two full months. It feels like longer.

I’m thinking of Gerald Stern’s poem about Bolero for this week’s yoga. That moment of joy in the midst of sorrow.

The best place on the way to the worst place. Zadie Smith’s essay on visiting Auschwitz. And it is not as though this is the worst place, this pandemic place. It has its existential challenges, its premonitory warning of climate uncertainty. But it is a place. The certain place on the way to the uncertain place. 

Thinking about how the semester end always marked a transition for me. Often a celebratory one. A new mode. But with no childcare in the foreseeable future, the time ahead seems vague and I have a lingering concern that I won’t have any time to work on creative projects. 

May 14

Intensity. Meditations on Joy. 

Painting on rocks. My wildly exhausted children – playing all day in the yard. Fighting with one another. Swinging and swinging and swinging. Lugging watering cans. 

I need to allow myself to have a different experience now that school is winding down. To step back. To take some space. 

When I worry what my childrens’ lives will l be. The peace of wild things. 

Time away from the computer. A goal for this summer.

May 15

Finally it feels like school is over. The email is a bit quiet today. I submit 3 out of my 4 final grades. I take a nap in the middle of the day. The kids play in the baby pool outside with Dylan. It is usually hot. They wildly laugh and I sleep in the middle of the day, trying blot out my first year of full-time work since the kids. These last weeks, months, of online learning. All of the triage. My soul is tired. Time to fill my own cup a bit. 

There are protesters down in Commack with Trump signs; signs that say things like “Hang Fauci.” It sickens my heart. 

I’m going to try to shift into a different mode within this same mode. To focus my attentions in different places; to loosen my attention. 

But first, making Valentine’s birthday cards for friends and family. Getting out the scissors and paper. Cutting and sticking and mailing. Keeping the postal service going in my small way. 

So tired. Thinking of moving to the physical book with these daily notes. Getting away from the screen a little bit. Taking a break. 

May 16

Another tired day. But I think I’m done here. I think it’s time for the journal. Two months. Try the next two months by hand. Because it is becoming clear to me that I need to continue to keep this journal. This daily record. For me. For my children. To anchor me to the pathos of each day. Breathing with it. When one writes, one breathes. This is everything.