“How was your nap?” I ask as he walks to the kitchen where I’m preparing dinner.
“Good. Like every other nap,” he replies with a smile, rummaging through the cabinets and the refrigerator for a snack. I’m at the counter, chopping an onion. He hugs me from behind. If the weather allows (for him, that means above 55 and sunny), he will spend some time outside working on his basketball shot. Earlier in the day I could hear him straining through some situps and pushups in his room. “Mom, will you take some pictures for me?” he asks later. He’s been customizing shoes, painting them as a tribute to Kobe. Like me, he loves the light at the end of the day. We walk outside where I take several shots of him from different angles so he can post them to social media. He’s hoping to start a business. “I can’t wait until this is all over,” he tells me at least once a week. This boy lives for basketball, and while his school season was finished, he was just gearing up to play on his favorite team with official practice set to start in early April. That obviously didn’t happen. Then the rec center closed. Thank God for our driveway hoop. “Stop it, bro,” I hear his laughing voice echo up the stairs as I work in the mornings. He’s in his bedroom below, on a video chat with a friend from school. They are supposedly collaborating on homework, but I don’t intervene if they steer off course because I’m so glad to hear the joy in his voice. They talk about shoes and NBA stars; when I’m not listening, I’m sure they talk about girls. I never thought I would be so thankful for technology. While his brother is reluctant to talk about matters of the heart, this boy wants to talk about deep topics all the time, even when I’m exhausted after a day of teaching online, helping with homework, doing laundry, and preparing three meals. How do you know God is real? How do I know what my future holds? How can things like the Holocaust happen? Those are a few of the topics we've covered in the last few weeks. He loves with this deepness and intensity, too. Sixteen is straddling a canyon, one foot in childhood, the other firmly in adulthood. Someday soon life will provide the push that gets him fully to the other side. Until then, I’m happy that he still calls me “Mama” and then raucously croons the next line from “Bohemian Rhapsody." I'm always happy to sing along.
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“Wake me at 7:59?” he asks each night as I head upstairs to bed. He’s perched in front of his PC, ready for some Fortnite or NBA2K before his bedtime. I kiss him on the cheek.
“I love you,” I say as I leave the room. “I love me, too,” he laughs. And then after a pause, “No, really. I love you.” Sometimes he asks me to come back for a hug. The next morning I peek in as he sleeps, noticing shadows of the 7-year-old I tucked into the bottom bunk eight years ago when we adopted him and his older brother, new parents with zero years of experience on our resumes. I also see a whisper of the man he will be in his broadening shoulders and shadowy facial hair. Fifteen is mythology, a centaur age -- half boy/half man. After waking (at the requested 7:59), he stumbles out of bed to the yellow kitchen bench and starts on his online schoolwork while I make breakfast. Occasionally asking for help, he’s usually done with one of his four classes before school would have started (8:30) before the virus. Eventually I head upstairs to my office where I check in with students and respond to some writing or, if I'm feeling brave, work on my own writing. He continues to work, coming up to ask for help with a journalism assignment or to snuggle with Rooney. “I’m so popular,” he jokes, grabbing his phone from the charging station by my desk and scrolling through notifications. He’s mostly self-motivated and independent, a self-proclaimed homebody who is happy that I can no longer invite random guests over for dinner on a weekly basis. Of course he’s a teenager who misses his friends, but armed with snacks, video games, and driveway basketball, he could live this “stay-at-home” life indefinitely. “Rooney, you’re my favorite family member,” he declares, winking at me as he walks back downstairs. Despite living in the same house, we have a lengthy text thread full of Brooklyn Nine Nine gifs and dog memes. Sometimes I watch him play a video game. If he’s in the mood, we take a neighborhood walk with Rooney or do an ab workout in the basement. While I know we’re not supposed to name Enneagram types for others, I think he’s a 5, a curious thinker who is disinclined to talk about emotions. I’m a 2, an empathic helper, creating some conflicts for us. His joking style is witty and sometimes barbed. It can cause me to double over with laughter in the kitchen as he teases Chris, but other times he will accuse me of being “sensitive” if I’m not in the mood. He’s not wrong. It’s a dance we are learning to choreograph together as he recognizes when he’s stepping on my toes and I practice steps that aren’t always my preferred style. Most of the time, though, we're at least dancing to the same music. Open a document.
Watch the cursor blink. (What if there is someone on other end sending Morse code in those blinks? Does she need help? What can I do?) I can write. I will help by writing: gather some words. Sentences can help, but any words will do. Let her know she's not alone. But first. Open a new tab. Time to check the news. When this all first started, every day felt like a new century with enough news to fill a World War. Now, the stories bleed together, trickles of facts, stats, mask patterns -- creating pools of doctors' warnings, desperate parents, death counts. Too much. Return to the blank document. Find solace in the emptiness. But that blinking cursor still calls for help. The white space stares. A gaping mouth. A never-ending cave. The bottom of the ocean. An overflowing morgue. Maybe that girl behind the Morse-code cursor needs advice: Where should I order takeout from? Will the store have flour this afternoon? When will life return to "normal"? Will my parents stay healthy? Will my kids be okay? But you don't have those answers. Take a deep breath. She's still there, blinking, waiting for your words. They matter. So does she. Bring her to life. Begin to write. I miss my extended family.
I don't miss wearing makeup. I miss seeing my students on campus. I don't miss my bleak underground shared office space. I miss going out to restaurants. I don't miss finding parking. I miss walking around our lake. I don't miss the weird guy who would sometimes yell at people. I miss hugging friends at church. I don't miss the awkward handshakes with strangers. I miss watching my kids play basketball in weekend tournaments. I don't miss the entrance fees. I miss my kids having a school routine. I don't miss the social drama that one experiences there. Dear Wesley from the Lumineers, This is a love letter of sorts, but I'm writing it with my husband's permission On Friday, March 13, we were scheduled to see you play at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. My husband and I met at a concert over 17 years ago, so live music is kind of in our relationship's DNA. Your concert was on our bucket list of live music. In anticipation of your show, we listened to your new album, iii, on repeat. In the kitchen, while we worked, in AirPods as we exercised. That music became the soundtrack to the end of our winter. At the time, we were dealing with a difficult parenting situation, and the tragic family story interwoven in that album became cathartic. We watched your videos on repeat, too. Your music, sad as it was, gave us hope. Eventually you postponed the show as COVID-19 spread. My feelings of uncertainty and fear of the pandemic overshadowed my sadness about your show, though. We would see you again. The last few weeks, collectively, have been hard. I'm safe at home with my family, but I'm scared for the future. I'm grieving missed opportunities. Many days feel like Groundhog Day. I don't need to list all of my worries here; I'm sure you have your own. Yesterday, though, you provided a gift. As I browsed through Facebook, I saw your face. And your guitar! You were doing a live show to raise money for restaurant workers. I called my husband upstairs, and we contributed some money, settling in as you played song after song, long past the scheduled 30 minutes. Great music often makes me cry. Soon tears were flowing down my cheeks as you sang "Angela." Home at last.... You shared the story behind "Gun Song," and I thought of my own dad, sheltered in place with my mom on my childhood farm in Iowa. Things I knew when I was young... "Ho Hey" took me back to kitchen dance parties with my adopted sons when they first joined our family eight years ago. I belong with you, you belong with me... You even threw in a cover of Coldplay's "Green Eyes," a song that will forever remind me of the season of falling in love with my husband. You're the one that I wanted to find... So thanks, Wesley. For the more than $25,000 you raised for restaurant workers and for giving us exactly what we needed yesterday afternoon. We hope to see you in the fall. Stay safe. Love, Kim Every time I've posted these past few days, my blog title looks ironic. I'm not exactly a vessel of joy these days. I selected this title years ago not because I'm some happy-go-lucky, sticky-sweet optimist but because I try to cultivate joy as a spiritual discipline. For me, my joy is tied tightly up with gratitude. In other words, when I practice gratitude, I feel more centered joy. That isn't to be confused with happiness. Oh no, I'm walking through dark storms of grief sprinkled with puddles of despair on pretty much a daily basis right now. But still, I can find joy.
I know, I know. Regrets serve no purpose. Blah, blah, blah.
Do you have any regrets you're thinking of now that we're living in the COVID-19 era? What will you try to do differently when life returns to "normal"? (I'm fully aware that life will never return to "normal" as we knew it.) During my high school years I worried about my grades, about my upcoming music and cheerleading competitions, and about my on again/off again relationship with the first boy I ever loved. I fretted about my out-of-control thick hair and why that girl never liked me. (I still don’t know.) The list of worries was lengthy.
In college I was mistakenly taught that because Jesus clearly says, “Do not worry,” I was sinning when I worried because I wasn’t following His command. So then I worried about my worrying. I didn’t want to be sinning with my frequent anxiety, but at times I felt helpless. I spent many nights awake at 2 and 3 a.m., thinking of an endless to-do list, fretting about an upcoming deadline, and feeling anxious about my on again/off again relationship with the second boy I ever loved. (Eventually I married the third boy I ever loved, so that got crossed off the list. Whew!) Being a mother led me face-to-face with my anxiety in new, more palpable ways. Now I had two more humans beings to worry about during my sleepless nights. Were they making friends? What about that geometry test on Monday? Did I remember to sign up for rec league basketball? Why won't they eat vegetables? I've come a long way since the night I didn't sleep at all as a 6th grader worried about a standardized test, but there are still nights that I will wake at 1 or 2 a.m. and struggle to get back to sleep. My faith in Christ provides a firm foundation as I remember to entrust Him with my cares. But it's not a Magic Eraser that has cured me forever of my proclivity to worry. It should come as no surprise, then, that COVID-19 has added to my list of worry. In addition to the health of my immediate family, I think about my parents and mother-in-law, all in the age category that puts them at a higher risk. My physician brother will be face-to-face with the virus, and my dear cousin is currently holed up in his apartment in New York City. As a mother, of course, my mind always turns to my kids. Are they handling this okay? How much will their academic life suffer? Again, why won't they eat vegetables? In terms of financial uncertainty, I worry for my friends who own small businesses or have been laid off from their jobs. I think about our local economy -- restaurants and breweries and museums I've come to love. What will this world look like when we come out on the other side? The uncertainty of it all steals my breath, causes my pulse to quicken. Is this shortness of breath anxiety or the first symptoms of the virus? Last night, however, when I woke and my busy mind whirled to life, I practiced some visualization. I pictured myself wrapping my worries in boxes according to category. HEALTH CONCERNS, FINANCIAL CONCERNS, KID CONCERNS. After my boxes were wrapped and sealed tight, I pushed them away to Jesus. I knew they would still be there in the morning, but I let Him hold them for the night. And just like that, I fell back to sleep. I am a work in progress. If I don't limit my intake of news and social media, I feel overwhelmed and frantic. So I breathe. And pause. And push my worries away for a time. Are you worrier? What's helping you handle this unbelievable world we find ourselves living in? I've decided to do a short series on this dusty blog. I'll be writing some vignettes about how my various roles in the world have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Today I'll start with the original focus of this blog: teaching. (Shout out to Allison for prompting me to write again!)
"I will show you grace. Please do the same for me." On Tuesday I made a short video on Zoom to load into my Moodle class for my Composition I students. We were exactly halfway through our semester when we parted ways for spring break, the coronavirus usually a second-place news story behind the primary election season. "Enjoy your time away!" I said as they walk about the door. And then, as we all know, things changed quickly. First we heard that the campus leaders were monitoring the situation. Then we would extend spring break for a week. Finally, we would finish classes online for the rest of the semester. On Thursday, March 19 (10 days ago? 30 days ago? a lifetime ago?), I sat in my car in the grocery store parking lot and wept as I realized that at that time I should have been packing my bag and leaving campus after a day of teaching. Instead, I was stockpiling like some kind of character in a dystopian novel, purchasing weird-shaped square spaghetti noodles and feeling guilty for taking the last container of oatmeal. I do teach online already, and I don't hate it. But I don't love it. It's difficult to convey my personality and genuine care for my students through a computer screen. Even though it's 2020, I still prefer writing comments on papers with a fine-point marker (blue or green, never red.) I look forward to talking with my students before class about Brooklyn Nine-Nine and our favorite live music. At the end of the semester, I offer a "high five, handshake, or hug" at the door. As an instructor, I think I'm better in person. And this teaching during the pandemic brings an entirely new layer, doesn't it? A student emails that an assignment will be submitted late because he had to help his sister pack up her dorm room because their parents are sick. Is it the virus? I wonder. But I don't ask. Another student wants to write a paper about the causes of the "unnecessary hype" about the pandemic. I bristle as I read his idea, thinking of the anxious texts I read that morning from my brother, a doctor in Des Moines who feels as if he's "in the boat before D-Day." So I made a video that talked about grace. Because I think that shall be the theme for the rest of my semester. My feedback might not be as thorough. You might turn in an assignment a bit late. Maybe some weeks we won't have many assignments because I just want you to take your time writing. But still, we will write. Dear Parents of White Children, This week a dear friend, the mother of a precious Black boy, related a horrible story of racism. The story isn’t mine to tell, but the boy was victimized blatantly because of the color of his skin. He’s very young, and he was traumatized. There are no excuses. The same day I learned of this story, I had an activity planned for my on-campus Comp I students. Our first essay of the year is an evaluation, and in order to introduce the concept, I had the students evaluate a children’s book. (The length makes it accessible for a short in-class activity.) We brainstormed some criteria for evaluating the genre -- illustrations, theme, accessibility, etc. -- and then each group was given a book and a few minutes to discuss strengths and weaknesses and come up with an overall impression. At the end of the lesson, we discussed how to turn that overall impression into a non-obvious, arguable thesis statement with implications. I grabbed a few books off of the family book shelf: A Mother for Choco, Shades of People, If a Bus Could Talk, Freedom Summer. These were books I loved to read to my children, and I was excited to share them with my students. Because I teach at a campus with a majority white student body, I’m always looking for ways to bring issues of diversity and inclusion into the conversation, even in my writing class. I chose these books intentionally. (If I hadn’t been the mother of transracially adopted family, my bookshelf may have looked differently. That’s a layer I need to pull back and sit with, too.) After I distributed the books, I wandered among my students, listening to their conversations. “This book is too mature for young children,” I heard one group analyze as they flipped through a book about Rosa Parks. It talks about lynching and the Klan. “Kids don’t need to know about that,” they concluded. “This one would require too much background knowledge for kids to understand,” another group quipped. “They would need to understand segregation before they could understand what Freedom Summer is about. And the pictures are too dark.” As I listened to them, I added a few comments of my own (“You may be the parents of white children someday. They need to know these stories.”), but mostly I thought about my friend’s son. What if the boy who bullied him because of his skin and hair had been introduced to issues of equality and justice at home? What if his parents had taught him, in an age appropriate manner, about our country’s sordid history with race? What if they had read to him books like If a Bus Could Talk and Freedom Summer to give a basic framework for history and used books like Shades of People and We Are Family to explore the beauty of diversity in individuals and in families? Would the situation with my friend’s son had been different then? I think so. And what about the other white bystanders? What if they had read these books with their families? What if they had been taught to stand up in the face of injustice and went to tell a safe adult? What if they spoke out against the bullying student and protected my friend’s son? Eventually my thoughts turned to my own sons who’ve been called names because of their skin color and experienced firsthand the sting of implicit bias and racial profiling. I remembered my younger son being told to “go back to Africa” by a student from another school when he was on a trip with his 6th grade class. The list of these instances isn’t short; I wish I could erase it. Of course, I can’t. “Mom,” my oldest son last week as we walked down the street together to his job at the state fair. “I’ve been thinking about what I will do when a white person says something racist to me. I know I will want to retaliate with violence or by saying something really mean or cussing them out, but you want me to come home alive. And I want that, too. So I’ll just walk away. I know the limits. I don’t know who might have a gun, who might be mad enough to really hurt me.” These are the thoughts that keep him awake at night, the decisions he is making for his life. I’m not naive enough to think a few children’s books will solve the country’s problem with race, but I also know that ignoring the problems and not addressing the roots won’t do a darn thing to make things better. So yes, the books might be difficult. The content might be painful, and the illustrations might be dark. But the conversations are necessary. For the sake of my kids, read them to yours. Love, Kim |
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September 2020
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