I bought a set of 24 watercolors. Of the 24, my favorites are Cerulean Blue, and Prussian Blue, in no particular order. Sky. Water. You get it. I watched 2.5 YouTube tutorials on how to paint a tree. A few weeks ago, I wrote exactly one journal entry in the “Dream Big” rainbow unicorn journal my dear friend bought me for my birthday last year. Last year, when I spent my 45th birthday with my dearest and closest friends. We went to Barroco. After, we went to our patriarch’s house, the one responsible for introducing us all in the beginning, and demolished a rainbow unicorn birthday cake, but I digress. My one and only journal entry begins with, “It’s a freaking pandemic… ,” except, it doesn’t say “freaking.” The entry is dated 3/22, but speaks of 3/10, when the nightmare began. My students aren’t listening… so I can say that now. Nightmare. Of everything, it’s the lack of an end date that gets to me. We’re in darkness. I watched 1.5 YouTube tutorials on how to paint a dark forest, with a glorious infestation of fireflies. That journal entry, it recalls that first day. I had evening classes for Spring semester. Did you know they came with a gift? At the end of each class, you walk out into darkness, but as days grow longer and the semester stretches out in front of you, the sky begins to brighten, until finally, daylight. Warmth. It’s magical. Week eight, a Tuesday. Heads started to lift in the middle of my lecture. They never turn off their goddamn phones. They knew before I did, because of course they did. There had been an email, and another, and 10 minutes of speculation with a colleague in the parking lot. We talked of weeks, maybe days, but it was hours. Around 90 minutes, actually. They were all staring at me. What’s happening? I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure. Fake it, till you make it. Or don’t. “It’s the Apocalypse,” one of them said. I laughed. “No,” I promised him, “it’s not… it’s the fauxpocalypse at best, so stay calm. And don’t believe anything without doing your due diligence first.” I’d repeat that a lot in the coming months. I stopped lecturing. “How is everyone feeling?” Scared. On the verge of panic. Confused. The class ran over. No one seemed to want to leave, but eventually we all left together, exiting into a semester that had not yet made it to the light, to the warmth. We’d be deprived of that. So many more emails, trying to be helpful. Forwards of forwards and a desperate throbbing in my head. I missed one best friend’s birthday, and then another. Next year, we all said. We said that, a half a dozen times. A week and a half to move it all online. Scared, unprepared students. People are surprised to discover that many college students don’t have the internet, and some don’t have computers. But they do have phones. Tiny little portals to the world. There wasn’t a day in the next nine weeks I didn’t talk to them. I held my classes in a Discord chatroom. My students wanted some normalcy, and that normalcy was me. Classes stretched out for hours. No one ever wanted to leave the chatroom. Quarantine. There’s a bright-side. We’ll find it. We’ll make the best of it. That’s what we do. We have all this time. Nope. Stay in Place. No gym. Taped off bathrooms at the park. Taped off picnic tables. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here, because you’ll pee yourself. So I bought the watercolors. I bought workout bands. I made plans. And my students started losing their jobs. Some had shifts doubled. Some vanished. One morning a student emailed me, “I have to give up my dreams, because I’m the only one in my family who still has a job.” A 19-year-old boy. He was awkward, and drifting, but would stop me after class to show me his drawings. He had a sketchbook full of superheroes. He wanted to draw comics. Now he was the only person supporting his family. Why is a 19-year-old supporting his family? I cried. I told him that these are the times that test us, that this was temporary. Helplessness. Then my students started asking where to find toilet paper, and everyone banded together in the search. We’re in this together, after all. A dear friend’s father got sick, then he died. No comforting hugs. No just being there. A memorial, someday. Somewhere in the timeline, entitled, maladjusted adults started screaming about their rights. They refused to wear masks. They refused to be distant. When it started an older man in the grocery store got very close to me and growled, “So, I guess we’re doing this now, “ like the universe had just asked him to take off his shoes at the front door. My students serve their food, take care of their elderly parents, and my own mother works at a grocery store. I bought a mask covered in rainbow unicorns. I bought hand sanitizer in my sleep, somewhere around 3 a.m. on a Monday morning. The most fruitful of angst-ridden lucid dreams. I realized that my selectively social, beastly writer self, desperately missed her best friends, her students, her coworkers. And I also realized there were a lot of things I didn’t miss. I realized how much we inflict on ourselves. And how unnecessary it all really is. Thus far, I have yet to paint a damn thing, but against the dark background, everything that really matters, has become a beacon in the distance. There is no heading back to “normal.” Normal wasn’t working. There is only forward.
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
Lessons in Discord (Willoh)
I bought a set of 24 watercolors. Of the 24, my favorites are Cerulean Blue, and Prussian Blue, in no particular order. Sky. Water. You get it. I watched 2.5 YouTube tutorials on how to paint a tree. A few weeks ago, I wrote exactly one journal entry in the “Dream Big” rainbow unicorn journal my dear friend bought me for my birthday last year. Last year, when I spent my 45th birthday with my dearest and closest friends. We went to Barroco. After, we went to our patriarch’s house, the one responsible for introducing us all in the beginning, and demolished a rainbow unicorn birthday cake, but I digress. My one and only journal entry begins with, “It’s a freaking pandemic… ,” except, it doesn’t say “freaking.” The entry is dated 3/22, but speaks of 3/10, when the nightmare began. My students aren’t listening… so I can say that now. Nightmare. Of everything, it’s the lack of an end date that gets to me. We’re in darkness. I watched 1.5 YouTube tutorials on how to paint a dark forest, with a glorious infestation of fireflies. That journal entry, it recalls that first day. I had evening classes for Spring semester. Did you know they came with a gift? At the end of each class, you walk out into darkness, but as days grow longer and the semester stretches out in front of you, the sky begins to brighten, until finally, daylight. Warmth. It’s magical. Week eight, a Tuesday. Heads started to lift in the middle of my lecture. They never turn off their goddamn phones. They knew before I did, because of course they did. There had been an email, and another, and 10 minutes of speculation with a colleague in the parking lot. We talked of weeks, maybe days, but it was hours. Around 90 minutes, actually. They were all staring at me. What’s happening? I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure. Fake it, till you make it. Or don’t. “It’s the Apocalypse,” one of them said. I laughed. “No,” I promised him, “it’s not… it’s the fauxpocalypse at best, so stay calm. And don’t believe anything without doing your due diligence first.” I’d repeat that a lot in the coming months. I stopped lecturing. “How is everyone feeling?” Scared. On the verge of panic. Confused. The class ran over. No one seemed to want to leave, but eventually we all left together, exiting into a semester that had not yet made it to the light, to the warmth. We’d be deprived of that. So many more emails, trying to be helpful. Forwards of forwards and a desperate throbbing in my head. I missed one best friend’s birthday, and then another. Next year, we all said. We said that, a half a dozen times. A week and a half to move it all online. Scared, unprepared students. People are surprised to discover that many college students don’t have the internet, and some don’t have computers. But they do have phones. Tiny little portals to the world. There wasn’t a day in the next nine weeks I didn’t talk to them. I held my classes in a Discord chatroom. My students wanted some normalcy, and that normalcy was me. Classes stretched out for hours. No one ever wanted to leave the chatroom. Quarantine. There’s a bright-side. We’ll find it. We’ll make the best of it. That’s what we do. We have all this time. Nope. Stay in Place. No gym. Taped off bathrooms at the park. Taped off picnic tables. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here, because you’ll pee yourself. So I bought the watercolors. I bought workout bands. I made plans. And my students started losing their jobs. Some had shifts doubled. Some vanished. One morning a student emailed me, “I have to give up my dreams, because I’m the only one in my family who still has a job.” A 19-year-old boy. He was awkward, and drifting, but would stop me after class to show me his drawings. He had a sketchbook full of superheroes. He wanted to draw comics. Now he was the only person supporting his family. Why is a 19-year-old supporting his family? I cried. I told him that these are the times that test us, that this was temporary. Helplessness. Then my students started asking where to find toilet paper, and everyone banded together in the search. We’re in this together, after all. A dear friend’s father got sick, then he died. No comforting hugs. No just being there. A memorial, someday. Somewhere in the timeline, entitled, maladjusted adults started screaming about their rights. They refused to wear masks. They refused to be distant. When it started an older man in the grocery store got very close to me and growled, “So, I guess we’re doing this now, “ like the universe had just asked him to take off his shoes at the front door. My students serve their food, take care of their elderly parents, and my own mother works at a grocery store. I bought a mask covered in rainbow unicorns. I bought hand sanitizer in my sleep, somewhere around 3 a.m. on a Monday morning. The most fruitful of angst-ridden lucid dreams. I realized that my selectively social, beastly writer self, desperately missed her best friends, her students, her coworkers. And I also realized there were a lot of things I didn’t miss. I realized how much we inflict on ourselves. And how unnecessary it all really is. Thus far, I have yet to paint a damn thing, but against the dark background, everything that really matters, has become a beacon in the distance. There is no heading back to “normal.” Normal wasn’t working. There is only forward.
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