Retreat

I never understood why people went on retreat.  Why put yourself through the stress of travel when you could hunker at home?  COVID has opened my eyes.  When you never leave home, and when you are never alone, the desperation to be somewhere, anywhere, else mounts.

This is why you find me, today, $300 poorer than I was last week, holed up in an Airbnb one mile from my house.

It is bliss.

This is my second night; tomorrow I drive home in time to get my kind onto his school Zoom at 8:00.  The first night, I sat and stared at the wall of the guesthouse for a long time.  Then I went out into the garden and stared at the garden.  I watched the sunset.  I got up and went back inside and wandered up and down the stairs, into and out of all the rooms, the silence ringing in my ears.  I ate dinner at 4:30 PM and was in bed by 8:00.

In the morning, I felt peppier.  This was freedom!  I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted!  And what I wanted was to watch Welsh police procedurals at 6:30 AM!  I did that for a while.  I ate breakfast exercised and ate a second breakfast and decided to go hiking.  Why have I never hiked alone before?  It is the best thing.  

I came home and finished a book and tried to nap a bit and began to get antsy.  I was living the dream!  This was the life...!  Whatever I wanted, I could do, and I wanted to....work.

So I did a bit of long term planning and reflection, both on some career projects and on how I wanted to react, going forward, to the rest of the pandemic.

Looking back, it's a clear recovery arc- stupor, then bacchanal, followed by boredom leading to reflective productivity.  I needed this.  

I also realize now how much the fact that I am never by myself anymore is a kind of chronic trauma.  I miss myself.  I am great company.  I miss quiet and ease and reflection. 

I don't know what to do about that, other than perhaps booking my next retreat.  January 2021?

Wait, what day is it?

William started virtual school.  It went better than I expected, because his school actually got off its duff to provide synchronous instruction this year.  (I'm glad all the energy I put into loudly bemoaning the lack of synchronous teaching in the spring was justified?  It's always nice to know that your untrammeled whinging had a point.)

School in general is made for kids like William.  He loves structure, assignments, and conformity.  I'm worried about some of these characteristics in the long term, but in the short term it's an easy ride.

What else is happening?  

-A smattering of the first days that give one an inkling that there might, at some distant point on the horizon, be something other than summer.

-Donuts.

-I have muted the most egregious virtue signalers in my FB feed and it has made me much happier.

-Lots o' teaching, as per usual.  Now that I only have one career, it's trickier to separate my sense of self from it.  Still learning to navigate this.

-Margaret is getting to be excessively two.  

My Pandemic Weeks-ish Undefined Amount-ish of Time-ish

Say what?  Time has passed?

I forgot this week that I am not yet 40.  I feel 40.  

I remember my father's 40th birthday party, which was a surprise party, the only surprise party I think anyone in my family has ever thrown, because we do not like surprises.  Specifically, I remember hiding on the blue carpeted steps waiting for him to walk in the door.  I must have been three or four, and it was thrilling, if unsettling.  Even more unsettling is the knowledge that 40, once you are on the approach or coming in for the landing, simply does not feel that old.  Childhood was yesterday!

What has happened since I last wrote?  

-Margaret threw up in the car on rural roads.  We have to drive several miles to find a place to pull over, strip her down, and shellack the car with wet wipes.  Parental achievement unlocked!

-I needed a vacation from our vacation.  

-We've really gotten into a rhythm with my oldest, who wanders around playing by himself and reading all day. This rhythm will be imminently disrupted by virtual school.

-We visited Lafayette Park, and you know, all I can say is that it is sad when gazebos become thrilling

-We also went to an orchard and picked apples.  One of those quintessential normal family things, except we've never had time in the past because of the volume of work we used to do on weekends.  It was fun, but I'd rather have my old life back.

-I ordered an international snack subscription, because what else is left to us in this life?  Cheese of the month club may be next.

-I'm very much enjoying no longer being a member of my local mom's FB group, which basically consists of progressives virtue signaling to one another while shaming the rest of us and exhibiting startlingly hypocritical blindness to their own privilege.  Who would have thought I would become so crabby?  (Oh, wait, everybody.)

-I do believe this election is a battle for the soul of our nation and I've decided to funnel all my charitable contributions toward electing Biden for the foreseeable.  

-I can't remember any books I read anymore. The make almost no impression, like a fire walker slipping across the flames.  It's scary, but convenient in terms of cost savings.

My Pandemic Week

I have started a Facebook group for pandemic cruciverbalists, and so far we have managed to discuss a shocking number of crossword clues between us.  Does this count as an accomplishment?

I don't remember much from the beginning of the week, because it was much like the beginnings of other weeks.  David is more irritable than usual.  I wonder sometimes if it is tiring, being that affronted by so many small things.  It certainly exhausts me. What does he get out of it?  He must get something out of it, or the behavior wouldn't persist.

Or maybe that is a behaviorist's daughter's blind prejudice- that, over time, we only engage in behaviors that reinforce themselves.  Maybe we are just mad beasts making noise.

In other marital news, we have, when in the car, started a stealth battle in which the holy grail is to turn on the other person's seat heater without that person noticing.  It is the most fun I have had all week.

We are on vacation now, two night at a small cabin in nowhere, MO I found on Airbnb.  As we drove down over pot-holed, graveled hairpins, we passed a rifle range filled with men shooting.  It was like the exclamation point at the end of a long, tangled sentence full of rotting barns and dilapidated trailers and confederate flags.  You think this milieu is made up for the movies, but it isn't.

 As ever, in parenting, being on vacation consists of doing a whole bunch of housework in an unfamiliar locale. I miss gigs.

But it is nice to have an excuse to read during nap time, and to drink a gin and tonic on the porch, and to force oneself, for the minute one has between cleaning up other people's crap and serving them the raw material to make it, to sit and listen to the birds and whine of bugs and the suck and slop of the river: summer sounds, still here as the world crumbles.

My Pandemic Week

Even my complaints about the sameness are the same.

I miss being alone.

What happened this week?

I am buying book after book for my kid, because they take him completely out of commission, like darting and elephant, but in a virtuous, skill-building kind of way.  Also I enjoy seeing him enjoy books, so I keep wanting to give them to him, book after book after book, though I know I need to ration them.  I've tried reading all day as a lifestyle choice; it makes you weird.

I gave up on our parks tour this weekend; it rained Saturday and on Sunday it just felt like a chore, so we walked to the neighborhood park instead and Margaret attempted to kick the ball and William kicked the ball; and then we got hot and walked back.  Sometimes you just need to do what you haven't recently done.

We had Mellow Mushroom pizza, which reminded us of the Mellow Mushroom pizza we usually only have on vacation.  

I read a fantasy novel for book club; it reminded me that fantasy used to be all I read.  It's odd how thoroughly I went off it- most of my childhood interests are still active in one way or another, but that one, which was fairly consuming, seems to have simply died.  Then again, I am not longer into dinosaurs, either.

I am boring even myself with this catalog.

My Pandemic Week

This was the week we found out there will be no school for my son, and that once more, we'll have to take on the extra full-time job of educating him on top of everything else we do.

I am not going to pretend I took it well.  I was really excited about this upcoming school year- I'd finally left my part-time speech job, so I was going to have only one career, and the space and time to invest in it and help it grow.

Not it will be survival.

But what we did, other than that?

Everything blurs.  We wandered through Suson park on Saturday morning- a million degrees, the sky boiling, the pond full of dead fish.  Sunday there was squalling in Blackburn park.  I do like my "collect the parks" idea; there is literally nothing else to do.

I am also trying to make a clearer demarcation between the week and the weekend.  This is something I've never had, because the various cycles of my work overran traditional boundaries, but I think the cycle of work and rest is something I need, and have been missing.  Some small difference in the texture of life.

Week #4,970,994

It's funny the tweaks that matter with kids (with people?)

Unlike my youngest, who demanded "GO TO SCHOOL. MARGARET'S SHOES" at 7:30 AM, and proceeded to drop to the floor and bawl when I told her it was Sunday, my oldest has a lukewarm relationship to adventure and outings.  If I simply say, "let's go the park," I face a protracted effort to get him into his shoes and out the door.

For him, you need an added ingredient, some element of mission.  My son is not even one shred an explorer.  Instead, he is an eager executor of instructions, a dedicated ticker of boxes.  Much like his mother, though it pains me to admit it.

So my tweak for him is a checklist.  For every park we visit, we get to check off the appropriate box.  Slowly, we're collecting the parks of the metro area- square by square, tick by tick.

This week we visited Columbia Bottoms on Saturday  (crowded floodplain, sunflowers, mighty Missouri), and Shaw Park on Sunday (money, racing from bench to bench, pleasant flowers, secret paths).  I am in theory enjoying these visits; they get us out of the house, which is something.  And some of them I truly enjoy, but it depends on the mood of my oldest.  Saturday he was sour and anxious, whining at every deviation from expectation; Sunday he was charming and enthusiastic, holding his sister's hand and showing her all the secret corners of the park.

In other news this week:

We had Mexican takeout.

David went back to "church," insofar as the church was open for private prayer for fewer than 10 people Sunday morning.  Only two or three people showed up; he played the organ anyway.

Margert is transitioning to twos on Monday.  On Friday, I had to report an unmasked staff member in her new room.  I'm nervous.

I'm furious with the unthinking privilege displayed by the #onlywhenitissafe folks.  All that energy should be directed toward #makeitsaferightnow.  Just because you can work from home and form a pod with your fellow upper SES-ers, perhaps hiring private tutors to support your children, doesn't mean everyone can.  Schools are vital lifelines to many; we should be doing everything in our power to open them, at least for those who need them.

And it's such a double standard: Daycares have been open across the US for months; there has been no massive outcry to close them Why?  Because daycare providers are low wage workers, and more likely to be minorities; k-12 teachers are wealthier and whiter.   I KNOW that is where the disconnect originates.  And of course low wage childcare workers will be the ones to pick up the slack if schools stay closed.

Being agry is so draining.  And so useless.  And it (once more) pits me against the progressive tide (no clue why progressives are glossing over the profound consequences of closing K-12 schools, but they are).  I'm sick of feeling so alone, politically.  What has happened to all the people who want left-wing policies implemented with logic, pragmatism, balance, compromise, moderation, calmness and compassion?  Where have all the reasonable people gone?

What else?  I did laundry.  I taught many lessons and a webinar on breathing.  It was a really solid webinar. I am good at what I do, though of course I could be better.  You can always be better; I find that both humbling and inspiring.