Life 2.0 as an involuntary introvert, eight months in

Remember January 1, 2020? Were you one of the many people like me who was really excited for 2020 because things were just falling into place for you and you knew that it was going to be an awesome year? 

Joke's on us, huh.

A couple of times, I've wondered what my life would be like today if it hadn't been for the pandemic. I think I know ... I have a pretty good idea where I was headed -- Then I just shut that line of thinking down. It doesn't matter. It's a moot point. It ain't happenin'. 

So here's where I am. A LOT has changed since exactly eight months ago tonight when schools across the state started closing like dominoes falling in a row.

Starting with the big change right up front: I un-retired and went back to teaching. The abrupt loss of subbing in mid-March + some big car repair bills = a need to go back to work. Not sporadic subbing. Steady work. Plus, there was no point in being retired if I couldn't do the two things I wanted to do, which was go to Québec (the border has been closed since March 21) and pursue music-making opportunities (just about non-existent).  

But I'm not at "Falcon High School." They had two openings in my department. I applied and didn't even get a courtesy interview. They were right up front with me that they wanted someone younger. And of course they're entitled to pick whomever they want, so that closed that door for me. I was upset for a while, then started looking to see what other opportunities were out there. 

It didn't take long to find something. A small high school with an excellent reputation posted an opening for a full-time French teacher. The ad said they were seeking someone "with a true love of the French language." Hey, that's me!! And I was really impressed that enthusiasm about the subject matter was important to them. Finding out that the principal was someone I had participated in a leadership workshop with and was really impressed by sealed the deal. I applied. A few weeks later, I had an interview on a Monday morning. A second interview followed on Thursday morning. By Friday afternoon, I had a job offer at what I will call "Raider High School." Whereas "Falcon High School" thought my age was a liability, "Raider High School" thought my experience was an asset.

So this is a week in my Life 2.0 in pandemic-land. My new normal. It's very possible that absolutely no one will read this to the end. That's o.k., I wrote it mostly for myself. I want a record of what this life 2.0 is like.

Starting on Sunday, I play guitar and sing a song for a Zoom church service for a small church in western Maine whose minister is a college classmate of mine. Then at 9:30 I participate in an online Zumba (like what used to be called aerobic dance) class from one of the area YMCA's. In both cases the faces have become familiar, even through Zoom. On many Sundays, those are the only people I talk to all day, and I can't remember the last time I saw family or friends on a Sunday, or any weekend day for that matter, in person. I do laundry, and on my drying rack along with a row of underwear and a row of socks is a row of masks. I write lesson plans for the week and try to get it all done on Sunday. It takes a lot longer because of the new circumstances, especially having some students in each of my classes who are 100% remote (an option available for families who wanted it). I've made myself very available to help those students by e-mail or Google Meet (like Zoom for schools), but they generally don't respond. Indeed in a few cases, I have no idea what they even look like. Every activity and every assignment has to be something students can do independently at home, or at least online since we've been asked not to use paper in school if we can help it. Furthermore, even the students I see in person are only in school two days a week. Half the students attend Monday and Tuesday, and half on Thursday and Friday, to enable social distancing. So school prep takes me several hours. I try to wrap up by 8 p.m. to watch a TV show online from Québec that is like 60 Minutes but live, and very timely. If something big is in the news on Wednesday, they will have the parties in the studio on Sunday night to be interviewed. It helps me keep up with Québec news and with my French.

On Monday my alarm goes off at 5 a.m. and I meditate or just get my thoughts organized before heading out the door at 6 a.m. My outfit for the day, laid out the night before, includes a color-coordinated fabric mask. My lunch for the day includes an extra bottle of water since people at school are discouraged from using the fountains (and can't take a drink straight out of the fountain at all, can only fill a bottle). And my getting-ready-for-the-day preparations include taking and recording my temperature, required by the school. My commute is 45 minutes, nearly all of that on the Maine Turnpike. I thought that would be a hardship. It isn't at all. It's a nice drive and a great way to warm up for the day by listening to the music or the news, and a great way to unwind on the way home in the afternoon.

There is no point in arriving before 7 a.m. because everyone has to have their temperature taken (yes, again) as they enter the building, and 7 a.m. is when it starts, so that is when I put my mask on and get out of my car and head in. The principal himself, a very gregarious guy, is out there himself with the forehead scanner which looks like he is aiming a water pistol at my forehead and that of every student and adult who enters the building. Then in I go and have about a half-hour of quiet for getting ready for the day. My classroom is at the end of a wing and I'm the first one there, so it's quiet, all right. As the students arrive, they are not allowed to go anywhere they want in the building as they were in normal times. Their choices are the auditorium, cafeteria, or gym, with socially distanced seating. Then at 7:30 a.m. they are released to classrooms one group at a time, single file in the halls, six feet apart, masked. They come into the room and take seats which are in fixed positions six feet apart. Because with the cohort system we only have half a class at a time, my smallest class has three students and my biggest one has 12. Class is all either me talking or them on their laptops; no group work allowed, no sharing of materials allowed. At the end of each class, they are each given a sanitary wipe to wipe their desk and chair, and the principal summons them to leave and proceed to their next class, one wing at a time, single file in the halls, six feet apart, masked. At lunch time the students go to the cafeteria and sit not at cafeteria tables but at regular student desks, six feet apart. Teachers eat in our own rooms alone; that's all we're allowed. 

At 1 p.m. the students are done for the day and they HAVE to leave; no detention, no after-school help.  They are dismissed one wing at a time, single file in the halls, six feet apart, masked. Sports teams (the ones allowed to play) and the drama club have to come back later on their own. From 1-2, teachers are expected to be reaching out to remote students. Let's just say I'm trying. Then our day ends at 2 p.m. If we want to stay longer, we have to be out by 3:30.

Monday nights I Zoom into a University of Maine course, my first since 1978: poetry of Québec. Not only is it a topic I'm really enthusiastic about, but the professor is Québécois and did his dissertation on this very topic. This is about my only opportunity to carry on a conversation in French any more, 5-7 p.m. on Monday nights.

Tuesday from 5 a.m. to arriving home looks a lot like Monday. The evening is spent in another Zumba class and getting ready for Wednesday teaching ...

Wednesday is all remote for students and teachers alike. Only custodians are in the school. Each class is allotted 45 minutes. Our assigned game plan is to teach for 30 minutes, then stay on 15 more for questions or giving help. Students may leave at the 30-minute mark if they don't have questions or need/want help. Then there is a 90-minute lunch break, during which time school buses are delivering student lunches around the district. Then a half hour of online advisory. Those of us with freshman advisories are trying to come up with ways to get acquainted with our advisees. Then an hour of office hours from 1-2 p.m. like on the other days, then our day ends. I will see a different group of students on Thursday and Friday, but their lesson plan is all done since it is the same one I used on Monday and Tuesday. So Wednesday and Thursday evenings are pretty relaxed. Just me at home, though, or taking a walk, or practicing guitar. No family or friends contact unless you count social media. Over the past few weeks I've gotten back into the small fitness studio where I used to go work out a few times a week. He can only have one client at a time now. Over the summer I took a 7 a.m. slot, but once I started school I couldn't do that any more, and other people had already taken the afternoon slots. Eventually a 2:45 p.m. slot opened up on Wednesday, so that's mine now. Once a week is better than nothing. He stays in his office so his clients can work out without a mask, and I have to be out 15 minutes before his next client so he can wipe everything down.

Thursday and Friday school days look like Monday and Tuesday but with different kids.

Friday afternoons are my other rare opportunity (in addition to Wednesday workouts) for face-to-face human contact outside of school. I alternate back and forth with a bodywork session with the same practitioner I've been going to for 18 years now I think (polarity therapy, it's like acupuncture without the needles) which has been consistent because he never closed, and on the other Fridays, a guitar lesson. I insist on keeping music in my life in some way, and right now solo guitar performance is it. I sing a Sunday morning song as mentioned above, I have a guitar lesson every other Friday, I play at home for my own enjoyment, and every now and then I video myself doing a song and post it on Facebook. I did a couple of Zoom open mic nights but have let those go as I got busy with school.

Friday nights have become my time to do grading. Since the students are on a couple of different schedules, my across-the-board schedule is that I post the assignment on Sunday and it's due Friday at 1. I was doing it Sunday, but since prep is taking more and more time, I moved grading to Friday night. - followed by going to bed early the second it's done.

Saturdays I insist on one day not working. So I drive up to my little piece of lakefront property (undeveloped) in eastern Maine. I have to be a lot more selective now about where I'll stop for road food or the bathroom; most of my old regular destinations are too casual about masks for me to be comfortable buying food there, so I just bring food with me now. Then Saturday night I start my work for my college classes and finish it if at all possible. That's another thing I was doing on Sunday that I moved elsewhere in my schedule because school prep takes so much time.

And then back to Sunday and starting the weekly routine again.

I can live with this. I'm teaching again in a really good school, so I have a purpose. I feel as safe as possible given what's going on in the world. 

But ... no performing music in ensembles. No concerts or plays or sports events, except the final home girls' soccer game at Falcon H.S. because the coach, in an incredibly compassionate gesture, invited me.  No eating in restaurants, not for me, anyway. No traveling up to eastern Maine and getting a hotel room; I make the round trip in a day on Saturday. No trips to Québec; the border has been closed since March 21 as noted, and Canada doesn't intend to reopen it anytime soon. I haven't even been out of Maine since last December. And almost never any in-person time with family or friends. Falcontown friendships have fallen away even though I left out of necessity, not rejection; people are busy with their own lives and just self-isolating at home -- not that staying home during a pandemic is a bad thing. And social media is a shallow substitute.

And out in the world beyond, the times are very dark. Pandemic. Racism. Climate change. Wildfires. The 1% and the 99%. Government by a fascist dictatorship led by a corrupt madman whom everyone feared would cheat his way into a second term; he tried, but he didn't succeed, thank God. I gave up on TV news long before the pandemic. I rarely read COVID-19 news anymore as nothing seems to change or improve. I did vote, though, but any positive change the outcome may create will be slow, and solving the list of problems above will take years. And closer to home, there seems to be more bad news than good. As I write this, three people in my immediate circle are seriously suffering: one from COVID-19, one from a life-threatening condition with a life-changing procedure pending, and one new baby whose mother is on day 3 of labor in the hospital as I write this, labor which isn't progressing. Maybe the baby is seeing and hearing what's going on in the world and is thinking "Nuts to that, I'm not going out there, I'm staying in here." (Update: the person close to me who had COVID is better, the baby is here and both mom and baby are fine, and no word on the other friend yet.)

So I've become an involuntary introvert at home, doing two kinds of schoolwork, teacher work and college student work, and playing guitar and singing so as not to let music completely disappear from my life. My poetry writing has been silenced; no inspiration. The one pandemic poem I wrote is so depressing that I don't want anyone to see it.

But I'm not depressed. Nor am I anxious like I was in the spring. I sought treatment for anxiety in April and it was successful. So my mental health is fine. I've grieved the parts of my life that are gone, and I've learned the art of acceptance as I wait to see whether any of them will return. I miss doing things with people out in the world, and I don't like spending so much evening and weekend time alone. Social media is not a substitute. Zoom is a substitute, to a point. I don't count days until the vaccine is available, because who knows. I actually try not to think about the future at all. Staying in the present is plenty for right now. One thing that provoked my anxiety last spring is feeling like I was living in a dystopian novel. Again, I've forced myself to just shut those thoughts off. It may be true, but it's unhelpful.

UPDATE: My school is now closed as of Monday 11/9/2020 and we are teaching from home five days a week until November 30 -- although with cases rising all over the state, who knows if we will go back on that date. I won't be a bit surprised if we're out for December as well.

Teaching from home: an hour's more sleep in the morning. No need to prepare an outfit or a lunch or a mask or extra water bottles the night before. Neat hair and dressy clothes from the waist up, sweat pants and slippers from the waist down. Talking into the green camera light on my laptop all morning as most of my students turn their laptop cameras off. Long lunch. Early end to the day. I've gotten all kinds of cooking and cleaning done with the extra time. This really isn't affecting my actual teaching all that much; I've been conducting business all year knowing that this was likely to happen at some point. Indeed with the numbers of cases rising so far so fast, I believe that history will tell that we attempted to go back to normal too soon.

But I'm grateful that at least I got a full September and October with my classes to get to know them. As with Falcon H.S., I have great interactions with the kids. I will never be "D-Whit" at Raider H.S. like I was at Falcon H.S. It's a different school culture. But it's a great fit for me. I'm the only French teacher and love teaching all the levels of French, which I never got to do at Falcon H.S. I'm in a department with the music teachers. And the school leadership is top-shelf.

If I can't have Québec or live performance in my life, at least I'm glad I landed in a great school with a great job. Yes, even under these circumstances, it's a great job at a great school. French teaching at Raider H.S. is not a bad way at all to spend Life 2.0.

*****

p.s. to anyone who made it this far and wants to comment: I heard after my last few blog posts that people tried to comment and couldn't. I've since learned that you have to have a Google account to comment. If you don't, then please feel free to comment on the Facebook post where you saw this posted, or contact me privately. Thanks for reading the whole thing!!

100 days in

Today is the 100th day of the pandemic. Hmmm. Maybe that's why I felt like something shifted today.

Here's the recap of the early days. I wrote about it in an earlier post to this blog and lots of people responded to it. I was struggling pretty badly emotionally about a month into the pandemic as plans and initiatives for the future got suspended, then postponed, then cancelled not to be rescheduled. And social isolation really, really got to me. I kept walking around, or sitting around, feeling like I was in the midst of some surreal bad dream or dystopian novel. Finally after a long weekend of sobbing uncontrollably, having nightmares, and watching my blood pressure spike up to scary high numbers (provoked by the cancellation of the last thing I was looking forward to, my summer program in Québec), I called my doctor expecting to be put on blood pressure meds. Instead she put me on anti-anxiety meds. And what helped as much as the medication did was having her and her nurse say these words to me from the other end of the phone call: "You are not alone."

As noted, I shared that story in a blog post, just in case it helped someone else. And oh, did it ever. SO many people sent me texts or private messages saying that it had happened to them too, that they were dealing with anxiety or depression or both. One person told me that reading my story helped them come to terms with "not being o.k." and convinced them to call their doctor like I had. So I'm glad I shared my story. We all need each other right now.

So fast forward to today, day 100.

I don't have sobbing meltdowns and nightmares any more. I can't even remember when I had the last one, in either case.

Here's what I learned to do to cope. As before, I share this in case anyone else would benefit from hearing this.

1. Before, I was trying to heed the recommendation only to go to the supermarket every two weeks. That didn't last long for me. I needed to see other humans and hear other voices, even masked strangers. So I went back to going every couple of days which is normal for me.

2. I learned that I needed to reach out to people more. Just about all of my friends were working plus dealing with kids at home doing schoolwork, so I felt like I couldn't bother them. Now I know just to shoot a message when I'm feeling the urge and I know that they will get back to me when they can.

3. I learned to Zoom. I have enjoyed connecting with my brothers; they bring their spouses and kids in when possible and the record was eleven participants. I've also had regular chats with two friends who were actually undergrad professors of mine.

4. I've gotten together with people for walks or dooryard chats. Ground rules for home visits that everyone has been comfortable with: everyone brings their own chair and water bottle, everyone sits six feet apart, and no one goes in the house except the people who live there.

(This is still so, so, so surreal and weird to feel like we all need to be scared of each other.)

5. I've found ways to keep music in my life. I'm taking Zoom voice lessons with a local teacher and Zoom guitar lessons with the teacher I had up in Québec last fall. I've done some Zoom open mic nights and am providing vocal + guitar solos every Sunday morning for a college friend who is a minister doing Zoom services on Sunday mornings. I'm back with a choral group I used to sing with; they are Zooming on Thursday nights and individually recording short unison pieces which a sound engineer merges into a song. I'm back with my "senior citizen beginner band" that I gave up because of a schedule conflict (nothing on the schedule any more so no conflicts!); the director has been offering music theory lessons once a week, and they are planning a one-time very socially distanced practice session in someone's dooryard next week for anyone who is comfortable with it. Sadly, live ensemble playing and singing for rehearsal or performance is not considered safe now because COVID-19 can be spread easily that way. It won't be back anytime soon. So I've reinvented myself as a soloist.

6. Saving the most surprising for last: I've learned to live at a slower pace. Being home so much is weird, but with the nicer weather I've been going for a couple of walks a day. -- especially this past week when my car was in the garage for exactly a week, Thursday to Thursday. I made a game of it to see how much I could do just by walking places. I can get to three delis, one supermarket, three restaurants, one bakery, and an ice cream stand. I can mail a letter. And I can get to the fitness studio (a small operation, not a gym) where I work out. There are also city buses too; I was checking out the schedules online when I got the call that my car was ready. Back to the point of the slower pace, I've adjusted to having entire days with nothing on the agenda. I have never been bored. I've learned to get the heck off the computer when I get sick of it and go for a walk or play one of my instruments, or even, when absolutely necessary, do household chores. 😄 A slow-paced life was a tough adjustment because I was used to being on the go all the time. That probably contributed a lot to my melting down in April because I honestly felt like I had lost everything.

One thing that I will probably let go of is my online degree program in translation from the Université du Québec. I'm following pandemic news from Québec just as closely as I'm following it from here. But I'm not enjoying online classes as much as in-person classes. I do the minimum needed to get the assignments done. Great example for my former students, huh. 😄 I'll just work on my French the way I have been doing; reading, listening to the news online, taking Zoom guitar lessons in French with my teacher in Québec, and going back there ... someday ... when the border reopens, which Canada doesn't want to have happen anytime soon because so many states are seeing COVID-19 cases continue to rise in number.

Which brings me to the one thing that's unresolved ...

I don't know what I'm going to do professionally going forward. People have said to me, "you're retired. Why work at all?" My retirement pension does what pensions are supposed to do; it covers my basic living expenses. For anything extra, I have to earn the money. I don't use identifying details in this blog, but when I say "my school," you all know where I mean. When schools everywhere closed the second weekend in March, we all thought we were in for two weeks of snow days, then we'd be back. Then it became six weeks. Then schools closed for the rest of the year. So my substitute teaching ended in mid-March, and I haven't found a way to replace that income. My school had two openings for next year in my department. I applied and did not get hired or even considered. They only want me back as a sub. They said as much. Long way from August 1, 2018 when they called and invited me back because no one applied to fill my position. In any case, no one knows what school will look like next year, only that the virus isn't going away. So there is a strong possibility of no subbing opportunities. So I'm coming to terms with the fact that my 19-year career there will probably end at 19. There probably won't be a 20th year. I need and want to go back to work. So now I will have to see what I can find. It's a real loss; the school has been the center of my life for 19 years. I picked up my yearbook today, and for the first time since the 2002 yearbook, my name and photo weren't in it. Subs are never in the yearbook, so it was nothing personal. 😉  In any case, I believe in signs, so I take my disappearance from the yearbook as a sign and will decide which direction to head in now.

So even though I know some people hate the expression I'm about to use, with the exception of the job-professional bit I've found my "new normal." I'm living at a slower pace, everything about my life looks different and plays out differently now than it did before, and I'm grateful that wearing a mask is working and I'm staying healthy. When I leave my apartment to go somewhere now, instead of just grabbing my wallet I grab my wallet and hand sanitizer, and I slip a mask onto my wrist and wear it like a prom corsage until I get to where I'm going. The new normal.

Well, except for avoiding close physical contact with people I'm emotionally close to. That will never be normal to me.

my mental health challenge under social isolation

When social isolation first started in mid-March, I thought it would be kind of like two weeks of snow days. I've almost always lived alone and thought I would be o.k. There are solitary things I like to do: read, practice music, write poetry. I figured school would reopen soon and I'd get back to subbing, and my music endeavors would pick up where we left off.

But by the fifth week, social isolation was starting to really get to me. School had closed for the year and I was essentially cut off from the place that has been the center of my life for 19 years. I reached out and offered support in different ways; most of those reach-outs went unacknowledged. My music groups had suspended operations. I went some whole days without hearing another person's voice. (I now believe that a lack of in-person contact is not healthy and not how we are meant to live.) And I'm lucky enough to be in a community where people like to hug. I was missing that. When I would see people at the local grocery or when out for a walk, we would joke about not hugging. But it was starting to become less and less funny. I wasn't sure whether it was better than not at all to see people and not be able to touch or hug them, or whether that just made it worse. I spent time on Facebook, Instagram, and e-mail until I was just sick of it. Zoom gatherings helped, but when the session was over, I felt bereft. Every night when it got dark and really quiet outside, I started feeling a little freaked out, like everything had taken on an eerie tone.

Then two things happened that knocked my foundation out from under me. First was a 48-hour period of really bad news about the devastating short and long-term effects of COVID-19 combined with the news that this isn't going to go away for a long time. That made virus avoidance a more pressing and scary prospect, and made the extended future of social isolation even more grim. It wasn't even about the loss of subbing income anymore. It was about the lack of human contact.

The final blow was the cancellation of my fourth annual summer program in Québec which had been one of the highlights of my life in recent years and a reunion with people who are really special to me. With some of them in Québec on the other side of a closed border and the others scattered all over the United States, there was no hope of any gathering time or place. That did it. Over about a two-day period, I slowly came to terms with the losses of Québec, my school community, my music community. I spent most of my time sobbing and my blood pressure skyrocketed. I got sufficiently scared by my blood pressure numbers that I called my doctor's office and asked whether there was any way I could talk to my doctor. I needed help. They made a phone appointment for me and explained how that would work. I assumed that I would be going on blood pressure medication.

Right at the appointed time, the doctor's nurse called and did the intake interview. I shared with her the results of the blood pressure readings I'd done. Then the conversation turned to lifestyle questions: was I eating and exercising and sleeping, what I was doing with my time. The sobbing started up again. I can't remember when I've cried so hard. I don't think I've cried that hard since my father died nine years ago. As that part of the intake ended, the nurse paused, then said, with the utmost of compassion, "You are not alone." It was very reassuring to hear her say that, to hear acknowledgement that other people were going through the same thing I was.

The nurse wrapped up the intake, told me she would end the call and share all this with the doctor, and that the doctor would call back. And the doctor did so right at the time I was told to expect her to.

One of the things I've always appreciated about my doctor is that she never seems to be in a hurry. She is compassionate, caring, and thorough. And even in the context of a phone visit, that didn't change. To summarize briefly what was actually a lengthy conversation, she thought it made sense first to treat the hypertension by treating me for anxiety. She prescribed me a tiny dose of an anti-anxiety drug and said we would check in after two weeks. And by the end of the day, her scheduler had called me to make the appointment. Of course I researched the drug online. It's prescribed to people who have panic attacks and post-traumatic stress disorder. Seems to fit.

Any med like this takes a couple of days to start doing its thing. I am writing this paragraph one week after my first dose. My blood pressure numbers still occasionally have a little room for improvement, but there have been no more super-high readings and many right in the normal range. And I haven't sobbed since my appointment. Hearing "you are not alone" was huge. Being heard compassionately was huge.

I have one more big take-away from all this. I didn't tell anyone how much I was struggling emotionally as the weeks progressed. I tried to put up a positive front. I good-naturedly complained with a smile on my face about social distancing. But I didn't let anyone know that I was really suffering. I'm not even sure that I was honest with myself about it. When one of my best friends who has known me since age 7 heard my story and implored me to call her if it happens again, I told her that I had been like the frog in the boiling water who doesn't know he's in boiling water until it's too late. -- except that for me it wasn't too late because I had a great doctor whom I trust 100%. She diagnosed anxiety instead of hypertension, and as always, her instincts were spot on.

So that's why I'm writing this. I want people to know that COVID-19 and social isolation take a toll on mental health. And I want people to hear that it happened to me, someone who is known around town as kind of a goofy easy-going free spirit who had a long career as a (can I say successful?) teacher and who even in retirement showed up loud and proud and having a blast at student games and performances. I want to say and have people hear me say that it REALLY pisses me off when people don't take COVID-19 seriously, from the local level all the way to Washington, DC. Every doofus who thinks this is a hoax, who refuses to wear a mask out of vanity, who goes to protests, who insists on having big gatherings, who thinks science is something you choose to believe in or not, is contributing to this lasting longer. Absolutely no one wants this to last longer!! This is unprecedented and this is serious business!! Although I continue to be grateful that none of my family members are ill from this (sadly, I can no longer state that none of my friends are ill from this), I have lost a lot because of this: time with family and friends, my connections to the school, my connections to Québec, my performing. And an unexpected $4000 car engine repair this week was the icing on the cake. That would have been recoverable when I was subbing but won't be so easily now. And a lot of people have lost much more. For myself and for others, we need EVERYONE to take it seriously.

And now I'm writing this paragraph 2.5 weeks after talking to my doctor. I'm doing much better now, 8 weeks into the pandemic. I've accepted that pretty much every endeavor that was important in my life is gone for the foreseeable future or forever, and am grateful that family members and friends are all healthy, even if time with them is limited to phone / text / e-mail / Facebook / Zoom. I've accepted that retirement is over and that I have to go back to work, hopefully teaching somewhere. And I've gotten used to being alone a lot and learned what I need to do to not be unhappy (healthy diet and exercise, more creativity, less Facebook, more activity even it's in within my four walls, less following the news which never changes nowadays anyway). That doesn't mean I'm happy about what has come to pass, it just means I've accepted it. I still have trouble, though, coming to terms with the fact that we're living in a dystopian novel with a raving lunatic for a leader. But I've learned that the most productive way to deal with that is to do what I can to see that he and his minions are voted out.

And the other reason I'm writing this: if you who are reading this are starting to struggle mentally or emotionally, please reach out to me. Don't follow my bad example and try to tough it out. I will listen and I will help you get help. We all need to be helping each other right now.

P.S. 24 hours later: Several people have tried to comment on here and not had their comments post. I don't know why that's happening but will try to find out! If you check back and your comment didn't appear, please know that I didn't delete it! I'll try to solve the mystery.

social isolation

2020 started out great. After a disappointing fall 2019 venture into being a resident full-time student at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières where I'd spent three great summers, I was back home, subbing at school, enjoying being at school for sports and performances as well, and enjoying spending time with family and friends again. I was getting a lot out of my new UQTR all-online major program in translation and pleased to be able to keep up my education online while living back home. I was back performing music. I was planning to go back to Québec for the same summer program I'd done the past three summers. (The memories of the great summers overshadowed the disappointing fall experience.) I was even in great physical shape, eating healthy and getting lots of exercise. 2020 was shaping up to be an absolutely fantastic year.

Or so I thought.

So here we are, about a month into living in a dystopian novel with an invisible life-threatening enemy as the principal character. I need to say this before I say anything else: things with me could be a LOT worse, in that none of my family members or friends are ill or working with people who are. So for that I'm very grateful.

Now to the changes. I lost my subbing job when school closed. I've offered several times to help out at school, but they don't need me. It's very sobering after 19 years of making the school the center of my life that it is not part of my life any more. As a retiree and sub, I'm not considered a staff member so am not allowed to even set foot in the building. All my pending music performances were cancelled. I am still taking voice lessons and guitar lessons by video conference, but no ensemble work and no performances. (The voice lessons were already paid for, and my guitar teacher is in Québec and charges very little, plus the exchange rate is favorable.) I have little hope that my summer program in Québec will run, as all events in Québec have been cancelled through September and they are under extremely strict social distancing laws right now -- not guidelines, laws, with $1500 fines for violation -- and it is reported in the news when they assess those fines, so I know it's happening. (Update 4/21: the Québec summer program is now officially cancelled. I had a pretty good idea that that was coming, but I'm profoundly disappointed. )

As I write the first draft of this on a Saturday night, I am struck by the fact that I have not heard a human voice all day. Through the kitchen window I saw the next-door neighbor outside for a minute, and other than that I have not seen another person all day either. I've had a couple of exchanges with friends by text, Messenger, or e-mail. And I have a couple of socially distanced friend dates for tomorrow, a Sunday. But I do not remember one day in my entire life in which I have not heard another human voice or seen a human face all day. It's very jarring; it feels vulnerable and a little scary.

I do see friends once in a while, in pre-arranged socially distanced settings or in video chat. My brothers and I have had FaceTime dates three times -- which never happened before this. I honestly don't know what the state of my mental health would be right now if I didn't have my family and friends, even distantly and remotely. But at the end of most days I definitely feel alone and a little freaked out. It is getting better, simply because I'm getting used to that as my default state and know that I will get through it, and because I know that social isolation is protecting me.

I realize that my position is a minority position that few people can relate to: isolated alone with no useful function in society beyond obeying the guidelines so as not to get sick or make anyone else sick. I know most people have had it with constantly being with their family and are desperate for some quiet or private time. I have not been successful in making most people understand that too much alone time isn't healthy either.

Up until last week, I had hopes that school would reopen and I could get back to subbing. Now it's official that that's not going to happen. So my next logical step is to find other paid work. I had hoped to find it within the school or the school district, but that's not going to happen either. And so I prepare for yet another transition I didn't want or ask for. I have been accepted to teach on outschool.com, a sort of freelance online teaching web site. We'll see how that goes. If that's not successful, then I'll see who's hiring around here.

The authorities ask us to try not to go to the grocery store more than once every two weeks. I can't pull that off. I go once a week. Even that is a reminder of widespread fear and anxiety. I keep my mask and gloves in the car. I don't carry a purse any more and we aren't allowed to bring our own shopping bags into stores. So I keep my driver's license in the car and put my debit card in my zipped pocket. No stores take cash any more. I go to a small local grocery store, not one of the big supermarket chains, because the small one has everything I need or want. In the store, everyone is taking pains to keep six feet apart. Everyone is masked. No one speaks. People just want to get in and out. The same familiar faces as always are at the checkout behind plexiglass. Yesterday, April 17, I went to one of the big supermarkets for the first time since March 15 simply because I had some store coupons to use before they expired. It was an exercise in futility. The shelves were picked clean. That was disturbing and anxiety-producing in its own right. I understand now why hoarding happens -- I don't excuse it, and don't intend to engage in it, but I understand it. I won't go back there again for the duration.

The one good thing about my extreme-isolation day yesterday was not confronting the fear and anxiety that exist in the outside world. No mask. No avoiding other people in the store. Not that I was immune from current reality, as I regularly read six daily newspapers and one news magazine online: the Portland and Bangor papers from Maine, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and three publications in French, the daily newspapers from Montréal and Trois-Rivières and the news magazine that covers the province of Québec. So I'm well informed. This latest round of protests, egged on by the president, infuriates me to the point I have to just choose not to read that coverage. The lack of respect for and understanding of science and data appall me. Do these people seriously think that the restrictions are in place to ruin their lives? They are there to SAVE lives!! Yes, I understand the economic consequences; I lost my job too! But I'm not blaming Governor Mills for that!! In the Canadian media yesterday, the U.S. story that got the most coverage was the protest. The Canadian border has been closed since March 21 and is to remain so until May 20. The majority of Canadians appear to not want it reopened. They think we are all Trump worshippers and that they would be at risk from us.

I would be remiss if I did not more specifically acknowledge the people who are worse off than me right now. Category #1, the essential workers. One of my nephews is a paramedic. One of the nurses in the COVID-19 unit at Maine Med is one of my former students. Another former student is an ER tech at Maine Med. Another one is an intake worker at the Cumberland County Jail. Several work at supermarkets. That must be a constant source of tension. Category #2, the people who lost their jobs or livelihoods: another nephew, the owner of the small gym where I work out, the owners of the small independent bookstore I frequent, my hairstylist. They'll be a long time coming back from this. Category #3, friends with seriously ill family members whom they are not allowed to go see right now in the hospital or rehab facility. Category #4, high school and college seniors who are losing out on all their ceremonies which are an important life passage marker. My niece and yet another nephew (they are cousins, not siblings) are among those whose college year ended abruptly. My niece was a nationally ranked lacrosse player who only got a couple of games in for her senior season before it ended abruptly. Category #5, schoolteachers who are stressed and exhausted from having to immediately transition to online teaching with no warning. I have a fair amount of survivor's guilt toward that last category. A year ago that would have been me. As noted, I have tried to offer help and support. But I'm told there is nothing I can do. Category #6, people who are trying to work from home and simultaneously parent younger children, especially children who are too young to understand what's going on.

So I said all this just to document my current reality. I am o.k. The hard parts: the isolation, staving off fear and anxiety from other people (I had enough of my own at first in the face of a potentially fatal virus), the feeling like I have no more place at school after it being the center of my life for 19 years, the feeling that I'm not doing anything useful, and not knowing how I'm going to replace the lost income. What's helping: reaching out to people, video conference family and friend dates, making music and writing poetry, and staying healthy.

Let us hope that important lessons will be learned from all of this so we will never again know the worst of this: the deaths, the exhausted caregivers, the families unable to be with their elderly or ill relatives, the economic collapse, the fear, the panic. Please, let us never have to live through something like this ever again. Please let us learn from this. That's why I wrote and shared this post. I realize that it may sound whiny. But in order to learn from living like this, I don't want to forget what it felt like at its worst.

Epilogue to the Québec story

I never realized until just now that I fell off posting Québec updates on my blog. I know I notified everyone by e-mail that I came home in October and why. Very ironically since I'm writing this one month into the pandemic, my biggest motivation for coming home was social isolation. The people with whom I had hoped I would connect up there were busy with their own lives. And I didn't have a peer group up there. There were no adult students, even though I had been told that there were and that the traditional college-age students were in a minority. That wasn't my experience at all. By the second week in October there was only one class I was doing well in. So I moved out of my apartment in Trois-Rivières on Wednesday morning, October 7, and was back home in Portland that night.

My one remaining course was cancelled for the week, so I had a week at home to decide what to do. And my decision was to commute up and finish the one course I was still enrolled in. I drove up Wednesdays, stayed in the very reasonably priced Trois-Rivières Comfort Inn on Wednesday nights, had class from 8:30 - 11:30 Thursday mornings, then came home. It was very well worth it. The course was "Difficulties of French Grammar." I'd wanted to take an advanced French grammar course for a long time. And the professor, in his final year of teaching before retirement, had a reputation for being outstanding. And he was. Brilliant, witty, kind, supremely well-organized and clear. I learned so much. And he was especially generous to me and another student. She and I took it seriously. We sat in the front seats, took notes, laughed at his jokes. By the end of the semester, he had given us both several of his books from his private collection as he was cleaning out his office. I worked very hard in that course -- mind you, a course about features of French grammar that French-speaking university-level students find difficult -- and am probably prouder of getting an A in that course than anything else I've ever accomplished for myself.

My routine for October, November, and December was to sub at the school Monday and Tuesday, head up to Trois-Rivières on Wednesday, have class and come home on Thursday, and sub on Friday. Once the session was over on December 12, I settled into subbing nearly every day. I had had such a good experience in the one course I did finish that I wanted to find a way to keep it going. So I switched majors to a bachelor's degree in translation. The appeal was that the entire program is done online, that I could do it part-time, and that all students in the program pay the same tuition that the Québec residents do, or about $350 US per three-credit course. So I enrolled in two courses to start off, a French stylistics course and the required course of ... "Advanced English Grammar." Needless to say, I'm carrying an A+ in that one!

I think I prefer being in a class with the professor to learning online. But I can't deny that I'm still learning and doing it very affordably. Will I make it all the way to a degree? Hard to say. But I'm enjoying it for now and that's all that matters.

And even though my experience of living up in Trois-Rivières kind of crashed and burned because of the isolation, I don't regret one second of it. I learned a lot, I'm still learning, and am grateful that learning will continue.