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Tonight in New Jersey, there is nearly two feet of snow outside my frosted windows. It’s pretty. But Merlin, our ten month-old Westie, finds all the fluffy white stuff frustrating.

Truthfully, I found it a little frustrating too. Since we are having remote instruction right now, we were informed that today would not be a snow day. I watched the snow whirl and listened to the wind howl against our windows throughout the day as my students dutifully showed up to class, looking out their own windows. Today’s kids have lost a lot of their childhood during the past eleven months.

Snow days are a fundamental experience for kids in school. There are many things a student can do to invite a snow day: wear the pajamas inside out or flush ice cubes down the toilet are just two of the well-known superstitions. Just the excitement of hearing snow can be enough to make a kid smile. Those of you my age probably have fond memories of those days. So why are adults opposed to giving the kids a day off from school? Kids have lost a lot during the pandemic. Give them a snow day and watch them smile.

And smiles are so important these days. With news of Covid variants and the struggle to get vaccines, being happy might be a good defense against getting sick in the first place. But how do you stay happy when you have been looking out the same windows for nearly a year? How do you make yourself smile when every trip to a story requires a mask or two?

Maybe we should think like a kid. Play some video games. Take a moment to call a friend. Play ping pong on a dining room table. Watch modern versions of favorite childhood cartoons. Go outside to do more than just shovel snow. Take a leap into the piles of fluffy white snow and spread your arms like an angel.

The wind has begun to howl again outside my window. Despite shoveling four times today, the paths we made are covered in white again. Tomorrow we will have to go out again. We still have a car to clear out. And we still have to deal with Covid. Pandemic fatigue is real.

But I promised myself, and my son, that I would take the time to build a snowman, or maybe have a snowball fight. I promised myself to take some time and enjoy slowing down.

At least for tomorrow I will think about snow, and not so much about Covid and its variants.

I’ve been reading HUNGER by Roxane Gay late at night. And there is something ironic about reading her body memoir the week of Christmas. I also read an article on cortisol and the brain which seemed to justify my need to keep the Amazon app on the home screen of my phone. But there I exhibited some rare self-control, and chose to run to the local library instead of adding to my 800 book collection.

Three weeks before Christmas I chose to start hording library books. One of my early visits prompted the librarian to let me know that there are no late charges at this time, which was all the permission I needed to take home two, then three, then five, then a few more books. Things were getting dicey in NJ and all I could think about was a possible state lockdown, such as the one we had last Spring. Since few of the 800 books at home would keep my attention, I wanted “new” titles to choose from during the impending isolation, which hasn’t happened, of course. I love the smell of books, the feel of paper sliding between my fingers, the cuddled up position I take when cuddling paper puppies as my mind slips away from 2020 craziness: Covid, election, economy, etc…

So now my piles of books sit in the blue room, the bedroom, the living room. And I am beginning with Roxane’s memoir.

Which leads me to food.

This was the first time I was tasked for cooking Christmas dinner. Every other year, we’ve been at someone else’s home, bearing wine, or cheese and crackers. I was the “wine, cheese, and crackers” guest. Four days before Christmas, I started to plan. I pushed aside my anxiety and started googling: garlic mashed potatoes, roast beef, popovers, scones, honey glazed sweet potato. My printer cringed as I printed out recipe after recipe. Then I sat back in my chair and studied the ingredients as I first placed a Peapod order. I groaned as I saw I couldn’t get delivery until Christmas Eve. Which led my back to my Amazon app and Whole Foods. I couldn’t get a fast deliver from them either. But they could come before Thursday. Monday morning I was anxious about not having enough food…for three. And then there was the wine I wanted, and the fresh fruit, breakfast supplies, and other “necessities”.

Tuesday afternoon, right after work, I found myself on line waiting to get in at my local Wegmans. Ridiculous right? Not as ridiculous as the amount of money I spent on food this week. It took all three sets of groceries to get ready for Christmas dinner, and I only made two of the six recipes I printed.

After all the cooking was done, I sat with a glass of red wine wondering what had driven me to this insanity. Was it hunger for the perfect dinner or the perfect book? Or was it fear of not being able to get what I wanted when I wanted it? Or was it desire or the normalcy of life before Covid? Truthfully, having all the food in the house and all these books has not made me happier. I am still reading Hunger.

So here we are: December 2020. The holidays are here, and it feels quite a bit like Easter did. NJ had over 5000 new Covid cases today. The death rate has dropped to 21. And the rate of transmission is back to 1. Vaccines are here.

But what does this mean? Last week at a meeting for work, someone said that no one expected the pandemic to last this long. I couldn’t help but laugh. “Haven’t you checked out the Spanish Flu?” But I bit my tongue. I had already said too much about having to make the choice between my health and my family’s financial wealth. This pandemic isn’t over. Not by a long shot.

Which may be why I started seeing notifications that more people had been reading this blog, specifically the first 40 days of Covid 19 in NJ. So here I am again. Month 10.

I am high risk for negative Covid outcomes, according to my GP. This is somewhat ironic as I have been the only family member leaving the house with any regularity. While I was provided a few accommodations at work, getting up and getting there has been especially stressful. Now, don’t get me wrong, I loved seeing my colleagues from six-feet afar. But watching students gather in the hallway, or seeing some colleagues alone in their rooms without masks made me twitch. The stress of going in to teach most of my classes, then running home, changing and showering before teaching my last was exhausting. Worse, I was compelled to check our Covid numbers with such regularity that they only increased my stress levels. There is nothing normal about this school year.

Perhaps the most damaging message is that our children are being left behind. Left behind from who? The wealthiest of us who can afford to hire a retired teacher as a private tutor? Perhaps. But our kids’ mental health should be worth much more than an SAT score. As I said, there is nothing normal about this school year.

When we are stressed, cortisol enters our brain. Then we have challenges recalling and acquiring new information. The same goes with kids. You may want your teachers to shove curriculum down children’s throats, but that isn’t as beneficial as giving your kid a hug.

Now I get to hug my son daily. I am thrilled to teach from home. And I hope to be in a classroom with my students some day…when it is safe for all of us.

I chose this picture, which I took in early Fall. The rocks’ reflection in the water teases the eye towards the waterfall. Reflections are funny that way. How will we reflect upon this year? Covid has provided a time for reflection.

We will be alone for the holidays, for the first time in my 50 years. But I will be safer than if my family chose to gather, which they haven’t. I cry for my 101 year-old grandmother who remains stuck in her little box at an assisted living facility. I pray for the chance to sit with her again at lunch. I pray the sadness she has doesn’t drag her too far down. She is living in hell.

But this is 2020. Events feel as disjointed as this blog post.

Be well, friends. Be safe.

J.Monell

Today my anxiety crept up and wrapped it’s grimy hands around my neck. My asthma kicked up a bit, and my stomach’s acid boiled enough to send me rushing for the medicine cabinet. The Teacher Twitterverse was filled with messages about updating wills and increasing life insurance. Speculation about going back to school during the pandemic fills my social media.

After a few hours staring numbly at various screens, I decided to look for some PD about SEL and blended learning: teacher jargon for the latest pedagogical acronyms for 2020. It was then, while looking for a webinar, that I discovered that two of my friends had recently passed away.

Both were older woman. We had worked together on committees related to teaching. I had been to one of their houses for hours on end, planning workshops, conferences, and budgets. The other I had shared a room with when we had attended a national conference. I remember her husband had been so kind to buy me a glass of red wine as we sat in the hotel bar waiting for the next meeting. Turned out that the weekend would be my last bit of fun for a while, since the following week I discovered I was finally pregnant.

I can’t tell you how many times I thought about picking up the phone and calling, or stopping by the house to say hello.

Only I didn’t.

I was too busy juggling job, home, son, husband, family, and me. The image of being a fuzzy white and brown hamster spinning in a plastic ball while being on a treadmill comes to mind.

I was too busy being a human doing.

I missed my friends’ demises.

I regret that .

Even though we are living in a pandemic, please don’t hesitate to reach out to those you know. Help those you don’t.

Be a human being.

This picture was taken back in late March. I can’t believe it is the middle of July. The last couple of months have gone by in a haze of fear. But as we made it to June, things felt almost normal in NJ. Our COVID 19 numbers were lowering, and stores began to open. I almost cried when I was finally allowed into our local Barnes & Noble for the first time since March. We picked up our new puppy, Merlin. The school year ended.

And then, there was the emptiness.

Somehow it seemed easier to exist when I had some sort of a schedule and a longer to-do list. As work came to a close for the year, my life slowed down further. The puppy kept me busy, forcing me to wake-up earlier than I had in months, tracking his movements to make sure he didn’t take another dump on the blue, oriental style rug in our living room. But there was little else.

And then COVID 19 blew up in our southern states. The news once again showed images of over- crowded hospitals, and long lines for testing. Covid Death had come to a new part of the country, a part where some had watched NY and the rest of the northeast with skepticism. Wasn’t Covid just a bad flu? Weren’t the numbers exaggerated? My own sister, who lives in Tennessee, sent me articles stating that my local news was lying to us.

Watching what happened to NJ and the rest of our area happen in the South has triggered my anxiety. Combined with protests about racial inequalities and images of “Karens” behaving badly refusing to wear masks, FEAR has a stranglehold again. I had been hoping that NJ and NY would be the only severe outbreak spots.

And September is coming. Suddenly my job is a political football. I will be a front line worker in a classroom in a couple of months. This year, “Back to School” is not about cool new clothes, or school supplies. It’s about our President declaring we will go back despite new infections and our Vice President stating clearly that we need to reopen schools for the economy. What?

I won’t know what is expected of me until maybe the first week in August. The school I work in has twice as many students as the building is supposed to serve. It’s a fifty to sixty year old behemoth with no ventilation, crappy plumbing (the toilets exploded many times last year) and hallways so crowded that you’re often shoulder to shoulder moving during passing time. Will we have A/B days, weeks? Half days? Last year I had 128 students. How many will have I have this year?

And how will that number increase my risk of exposure? Being 50 with asthma makes me high risk for COVID. Besides the students, there are over 200 staff members. Are we going to contact trace each other?

How will I survive teaching all day with a mask on? Who will provide the mask? I have already bought thirty from Old Navy. But the thought of teaching in a 85 to 90 degree classroom in September with a mask on makes me gasp.

These are the thoughts that haunt me and normally I don’t think about school until August.

I’m afraid we are just in the beginning of this pandemic unless we can come together as a country and a world to deal with it. That seems so unlikely as we appear to live in a country that is either red or blue. Where’s the purple?

There’s an old saying that life is 10% what happens and 90% how you react. The problem for me is that I don’t deal well with uncertainty.

Guess I’d better learn how.

Namaste