No one is really talking about it now, but there really aren’t any plans for Shane – and the rest of the county’s public school system – to return to school this fall.
They are assuming that kids will go back; everyone wants things to return to normal by September. The calendar is still posted. It’s still a matter under discussion.
But it doesn’t seem likely to me, as states – including ours – reopen. Coronavirus cases are spiking since Memorial Day all over the country. There’s a possible “side ailment” that affects kids, popping up in New York City, seemingly related to COVID.
Germany was the gold standard for what to do and how to do it, at least when the virus first started making its way around the world. But even Germany is having trouble since reopening – serious trouble. But their kids are testing themselves at home – imagine! – and proceeding to school without masks if they test negative.
And what about what happened in Korea? The country that did its best to track and trace, keeping folks healthy or home – until some guy went to a nightclub – suddenly had cases spike again. Korea opened cautiously, with social distancing and masks in place. And then hundreds of schools closed again, because their children were at risk.
So when my county executive sent an email claiming that we’re now starting phase two of reopening, I silently decided that we will not be going to the capacity-conscious swimming pools this summer. We won’t be shopping in our local malls. Nor will we be heading to our local movie theater, even though we’ll have two seats between our group and the next one. (What about the people coughing and sneezing directly behind us?)
We won’t be doing any indoor dining, either, no matter how limited the capacity. We won’t go to the beach, which seems like a great idea – but is overflowing with people already.
So what about school in two months? Will Shane be able to have a junior year? Will classes start on time? Will they be online? Will school buildings be open? Will Shane even meet his teachers in person?
We’ll just have to wait and see.
And I’m okay with that. I am in no hurry.
Dylan took two classes during “Maymester.”
While he was originally supposed to be taking classes as he traveled through Italy, he switched his schedule around to get some graduation requirements completed.
The term was only three weeks long. For Dylan, this was a good thing. He only had to stay “caught up” for 20 days. And since his worst thing is procrastination, maybe it taught him how not to procrastinate.
Well – a little. His final paper is due in two days, and he still hasn’t written it.
At least it might give him a sense of accomplishment, so that he realizes how much easier life is when it’s taken one piece at a time.
After the first two weeks, he was breaking up his work and setting goals for himself for each day. On weekends, he felt like he deserved to take breaks – but he needed that time to do whatever work he hadn’t done during the week. So he goofed off for hours and hours, with the thought looming in the back of his brain that his work wasn’t done yet.
I know people who still live like this. I don’t know how they survive.
Still, it’s fun watching Dylan. He’s not only grown up this year, but he’s actually learning to organize his time. A few days ago, he wrote a whole page of his paper.
It’s not so fun when I decide to “remind” him about his classwork.
“I got this, Mom,” he says – as nicely as possible. Translation: just leave me alone!
Compare this to high school, when I would “remind” him about his classwork. He would practically roar at me: “I DON’T NEED YOUR HELP!”
But for Dylan, time organization is the most important thing he needs to learn in his lifetime. His time can be so disorganized, in spite of my efforts, that he completely forgets that he’s supposed to do anything at all.
Fortunately, he really wants to stay in college.
Dylan’s not a pro yet, and he may never do it the way I do – which is fine. But he’s growing up and learning that he’s capable of getting through things, one step at a time.
Now. If he would just finish that paper.
The thing about staying at home, having no schedule, skipping vacations is: everything I once ignored is now magnified and impossible to ignore.
For example, our 16-year-old stained carpet became unbearable. Along with it, the obnoxious (also 16-year-old) paint colors on our walls became … obnoxious. The cheap vinyl floors we’d chosen for our toddlers became embarrassing.
I don’t really care about appearances. But when we canceled our vacation and Bill suggested we spend our vacation money to fix up the house, we ended up with new paint, carpet and floors: the equivalent of a new house.
We did all of it with extreme gratitude that Bill had a job. And then we reorganized and prepared to donate a full room’s worth of stuff which, hopefully, we’ll be able to donate soon.
But fixing the house isn’t the only result of this pandemic: I’m noticing everything. For the first time in forever, I pay attention to the weather: the temperature, the clouds, the extreme green of spring. I am conscious of the birds, the squirrels, the rabbits, the deer in a new way. Outdoor life is even more precious to me now.
I’ve got vegetables growing in pots on the porch, and I check on them daily. Last year, our tomato plants were virtually ignored and didn’t do well. This year, I have seen every new sprout as it pops.
There was never any time before to notice things.
Dylan and Shane, too, have taken on new ventures. Shane has started researching subjects other than amusement parks, and he’s gotten better at Jeopardy. He’s started a regular workout routine, and he’s drumming again. He’s revamping his whole room for the first time ever.
Dylan has been working on new music. He and Shane just released an online album of comedic songs – some with real potential. They each wrote their own lyrics; some songs are quite funny. They spent almost as much time naming the band as they did recording their songs. The result is an album called Reverse Psychology by their band, Glass of Milk.
Dylan not only finished spring semester, he took additional online courses in May. With those complete, he – like many others – became enraged about police brutality and the racism in this country. But Dylan didn’t protest – we’re still in an area that’s barely open. Instead, he deleted all of his social media app’s. This gave him more time to do everything and he’s been hanging out with us, and doing more productive things, ever since.
Both boys have started bicycling again, although Shane really started the movement. After dinner, Shane would say, “I’m going out for a spin,” and disappear for an hour. After Dylan deleted his app’s, he started biking with Shane. They go so often, in fact, that I’ve had to walk the dog all by myself.
This is fine, since the weather is glorious, and I’m spending quality time with Loki, who is still learning how to belong with people. And of course, there’s the high value of being outside.
In fact, life is more precious to me now. I am so aware that we’re lucky, that we’re alive, that we’re healthy. I am so aware that what matters is more than grades or jobs. Nothing else matters when there’s a threat to health.
What matters most is family. I miss my job. I miss vacations, restaurants, movies. I miss being able to just sit and talk with my friends. But as a family, we are making the most of our time together.
And that’s simply beautiful.
Dylan’s college emailed its students: We need to know if you’re going to live on campus in the fall.
I understand why they need to know; their task is an impossible one. Still, this is an impossible choice. To what would we send Dylan back?
I wrote this letter in response:
My son is trying to decide how to answer the survey about fall residency. It makes sense that you need to know now, so that you can move on with plans for the fall, to figure out campus life in this impossible situation. I don’t envy your work!
But we, too, are stuck now. Between the protests and the beginnings of reopening, some of us are hunkered down awaiting the second wave of COVID-19. College football teams that decided to practice have had players test positive already, for example. You know all of this; I don’t need to preach to the choir.
In spite of the uncertainty, we need to make a decision now. We would LOVE to send my son back to college in the fall and have him live with his new roommates, eat at the cafeteria, play in his band, and play frisbee in the grass. He wanted to audition for an a cappella group, and he’d thought about being in a choir. But who knows if ANY of that will be safe?
And what will campus look like? What are we deciding, exactly? It’s unfair to ask us if we’re coming back when we have absolutely no idea to WHAT the students are coming back. Can you answer any of these questions, even in a vague way?
* Will students be required to stay in their dorm rooms when not in class?
* Will there be a mask requirement? (Where we live, you can’t leave the house without a mask; it is not that way in your city.)
* Will there be choirs and a cappella groups?
* Will bands be allowed to practice in the dorms?
* What measures will be put in place at the cafeteria?
* Will it be grab-and-go, or sit-and-eat?
* Will all classes be online or will students still be in the classrooms? And how will we know who will be doing what?
Perhaps most importantly for parents: can a student take a “gap year” until this blows over, or even a semester off, WITHOUT losing scholarships and financial aid?
My son desperately wants to go back and be with his friends. We ALL want a sense of normalcy again. But given that we have no idea when the second wave will be, OR what Belmont is planning to do to combat that second wave, this is an absolutely impossible decision to make without at least some idea of campus plans for the fall living situation.
Please, whatever you can tell us would be helpful.
My son said to me last night, “I’m not worried about me getting it; I think I’ll be fine. I’m worried about giving it to someone I love.” He’s got a father past retirement age, two grandparents who live very close, and a mother with an autoimmune disorder. What on earth do we tell him?
The provost wrote back immediately – which is astounding – and said that his own son goes to Belmont and lives on campus.
That was enough for me.
Yesterday we had a new experience: drive-thru yearbook pickup.
Shane’s school organized a two-day book return for kids whose textbooks were at home. Everyone wore masks; students and parents had to remain in their cars.
One might think that this would be a huge, exciting time with a line of cars waiting around the block. But no: we pulled right up. A masked staff member came out and took the book, and took his name off the list.
Shane only had one book for his seven classes. Considering it wasn’t an English book, this concerned me. But they didn’t seem surprised. Things are different than they were when I was young! We had to read those books all the time. Nowadays: not so much.
In exchange for his AP Gov book, Shane was able to pick up his yearbook. They have been doing an online signing app throughout the school, and hopefully people have signed Shane’s yearbook.
We waved goodbye to the nice lady and drove around the corner to the drama section of the parking lot. Since there was only a week left – Tech Week, in fact – before the play, all the students got their Hairspray cast and crew t-shirts.
This year, some wonderful soul decided to list the names of all the students involved on the backs of the shirts. This was such a touching gesture, especially for the seniors, who will never get to perform Hairspray as expected.
Shane also picked up his clothes – costume items for the various parts that he played – and was dismayed to tell me about the hot pink jumpsuit he’d been planning to wear, but that I would never see.
Then, more quickly than we’d come, Shane and I left the parking lot. We took off our masks, got out our hand sanitizer, and chatted a bit on the way home. It was fast – too fast for a year filled with sophomore experiences.
But Shane was just as happy to go home.
Sophomore year is officially over for him. Shane has finished every assignment, and has fantastic grades again – but he will just get a “pass” for the quarter. This, of course, will mean he’s getting straight A’s this semester – which is stupendous.
Now we just have to worry about next year: how it will be, where it will be, what it will be.
Everything about school is going to be tough for awhile, I think.
I’m old; I was born years before Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream speech. I was born ten years after desegregation became law, but long before anyone decided to change anything.
My young adulthood occurred in Pittsburgh which, as a city, should have been substantially more desegregated even then.
When I moved to D.C. in my late twenties, I had no idea how different things would be. I moved into a melting pot. I moved into an area of the world that was not segregated.
The D.C. area is hugely overpopulated with people from every corner of the world. After my lily-white formative years, D.C. is a rainbow.
While it takes awhile to get used to the phoneme differences, it takes no time at all to realize that people are the same inside, no matter what they look like on the outside.
As if that were ever a question.
In my kids’ schools, whites were a minority – and we live in the suburbs. Three miles closer to D.C., it’s rare to see a white face in the classroom. Less than half the population of my kids’ elementary school is white; besides Blacks, Hispanics and Asians make up much of the balance.
My kids grew up with members of every race, color and creed. Their friends’ ancestors came from everywhere. No one ever told them “white is better.” It’s simply not true; they could see that with their own eyes.
They didn’t see color unless it was purposefully noted, like when they did West Side Story on stage and had to figure out who fit into the Sharks and who fit into the Jets. They laughed because it was so crazy, trying to figure out who was “white enough” and who was “Hispanic enough.”
Frequent travels have reminded me that racism is rampant in the U.S. Living in a racially diverse area provides a magnifying glass, of sorts, to show what happens when people stay segregated.
The ignorance is overwhelming. And I don’t mean stupidity; I mean lack of knowledge. People who haven’t lived in this kind of melting pot simply don’t know what it’s like. I don’t mean everyone elsewhere is racist; it’s just easier to stay stuck if you’re living in a segregated society.
It took me a few weeks, maybe months, to get used to the variety of humans here. But now it’s NORMAL. It’s good and right and perfect, just as God intended. But those who haven’t lived it – they just don’t know how combat their own feelings of instant judgement.
Still, I am no expert. I judge people instantly for other things: body language, voice tone, the way they treat their kids. I am constantly guilty of judging based on appearance.
But because I am less ignorant than I used to be, I’d like to say I understand, that I have empathy.
But I don’t know if I can. I haven’t felt the sharp edge of prejudice, unless you count the kind that comes from being a woman.
Come to think of it, I’ve had plenty of that. That sucks.
Still, I feel like nothing I can do will be enough. Living here isn’t enough. Raising my kids right isn’t enough. But what is enough? And what about protesting in the middle of a pandemic – is that smart? Where I live, I think it’s still a bad idea.
So what can I do? For now, I will be aware of my own judgements, and work on eliminating those. It’s a step.
We were dirt poor when I was young, and I moved a lot. But everywhere I lived, the neighborhood was lily-white.
In 7th grade, identical twin boys joined my class. Their names were Rod and Roddy – short for Roderick and Rodney – and they moved into our small town outside of Baltimore.
It’s cool, especially when you’re 12, to see two people who look exactly alike. Rod and Roddy were funny, too. Also, they were black – the only black kids in the school.
Back then, people with dark skin were called “black.”
My late friend, Pete, once said to me, “I didn’t come from Africa; I’m not African-American. I’m black. White people made up that term, and they weren’t talking about me.”
In Pete’s honor, I rarely use the term “African American” unless I’m referring to an American who hails from Africa.
So the 7th grade twins were black. The next time I remember seeing blacks in school was in 12th grade, in a suburb of Pittsburgh.
That was when they demolished a dilapidated inner city school – one that had been 99% black – and forced its occupants to be bussed into various predominantly white schools. No one was happy being bussed out of their own neighborhoods – but I didn’t even think about that until Tyrone, whose locker was next to mine, said, “I don’t want to be here! None of us wants to be here!”
When I left Pittsburgh more than a decade later, I had still been living in a mostly white neighborhood, hanging out with mostly white people. But I met my friend, Pete, in Pittsburgh – and later we both (separately) moved to Washington, D.C. and kept in touch.
Pete taught me a lot about what it’s like to be a black man in American society. While giddily prepping for my vacation, I would announce, “I’m going to Myrtle Beach!” And Pete would say, “I’ll never step foot in South Carolina again. I stay out of the South.”
Pete didn’t have to say much to make his point.
Before that, it never occurred to me that South Carolina was “The South.” In fact, the only thing I knew is that they ate grits in The South, and I didn’t like grits. So when grits appeared on a menu, I knew I was in “The South.”
But no one ever threatened my life for walking into their restaurant.
I will never really know the depth of Pete’s fear, of his pain, of his anger. I will never know because in my life, I lived free. I am still living free.
But now – especially since my awareness has been put on high alert – I don’t feel free.
I feel ashamed. I’m ashamed to have spent my life in ignorance, not knowing what it’s really like to be black in this country. I’m ashamed that I didn’t ask Pete more about that before he died.
And I’m ashamed that I’m one of those white people who gets outraged and then gets quiet.
I don’t want that to happen again; I don’t want to get quiet.
I’ve always taught my kids that they should do what they think is right. Maybe they can’t change the whole world, but they can change their little part of the world. They can be kind and caring and speak up whenever they can. So I want to do that, too.
I just don’t know what to say, or do, to make any of this any better at all.
I found this in my archives – and it hadn’t yet been posted. It makes me remember (1) what life was like before it wasn’t normal and (2) how insignificant my worries usually are. Here’s an example:
—————————————————————————
Dylan is getting great grades. He loves college. He has friends. He’s in a band, and the band had its first gig in Nashville! It’s pretty cool.
But Dylan isn’t doing anything related to getting into the music industry – and by that I mean, he’s doing a lot but nothing related to exploring his career options.
Belmont University is in the heart of Nashville, and there are a ton of resources at his disposal. There are hundreds – literally hundreds – of clubs on campus for people interested in the music industry. There are a few dozen industry clubs that are free to join and encourage students to volunteer at professional events, like the Grammys and the Country Music Awards.
Still others encourage students to help promote various bands, which teaches students about promotion. And there are choral groups galore, none of which “work” for him this semester.
Plus, there are a slew of internship and part-time job opportunities that open up virtually every day – and go straight into Dylan’s e-mailbox.
But Dylan doesn’t open his emails. He doesn’t join those clubs. He doesn’t look for internships or relevant part-time jobs, and he’s taken up Door-Dashing instead.
I know he’s a freshman, which is why I didn’t question his behavior (much) during his first semester. He said he was adjusting to campus life – and he was. He said he had enough to worry about with his classes – and he did.
He adjusted quite nicely, in fact.
So we talked about it over the break, and I suggested that he simply “add in” some things to his schedule, one thing at a time. And I gave him some suggestions of where to find those things, and how to manage doing just one or two things toward finding a solid future in the industry he loves.
I mean, isn’t that why we sent him to this college – the one he loves so much that he gave up a full ride elsewhere?
But six weeks into the second semester, he still hadn’t added anything at all to his life – at least, not anything relevant to his career. No clubs, no internships, no volunteering.
He’s enjoying his band, sure, and that’s a really great thing. But unless his band is the best band in the whole wide world – and first bands are rarely the best band right out of the gate – he’s not going to have a lucrative future starring as the lead singer of Open Casket Wedding.
Really, I am happy for him.
But as a mom, I’d be happier if he’d put at least one foot forward, as if he were taking a step.
For much of my life, I kept my head in the sand with regard to the news. I decided ignorance is bliss. But sometime around January, I started paying attention again.
The world is collapsing around us.
Hundreds of thousands of people have died, and the virus is nowhere near its natural conclusion. Half of our country insists that it’s safe to wander mask-less through the streets; the other half warns of impending doom if we allow ourselves such freedoms.
I am in the latter half. I’ve been studying the countries ravaged by this disease before it hit our country. And everything I learn points to a sharp second wave that will sicken and kill thousands more.
To me, the protests about reopening the country seemed silly. Who’s going to cave to the vocal minority’s demands? And yet…
Here we are. The nation is opening up, even though the case numbers aren’t in the “safe” range for reopening. Even though millions are ignoring precautionary measures and selfishly doing it “their” way.
And then…
Yet another person was killed by a cold-hearted bully in the U.S. And the sociopath “leading” our country offered to defend the victim by shooting anyone who had the audacity to riot.
So our cities went up in flames. Peaceful protests were attempted. Riots erupted everywhere.
The cause is just: we expect all Americans to be treated equally. Like the Constitution says. Like the Bible says. Like common sense says.
White eggs and brown eggs are exactly the same inside, just like us. This is something I know to be true in the deepest part of my soul.
But somehow, crawling out from under countless moldy rocks, thousands of slimy racist creatures are emerging. If they weren’t so repulsive, I’d think them almost comical.
But they are real; they’ve incited riots. Which incited more riots.
While every dark-skinned person has known forever that these creatures not only existed but openly thrived in our country, I had my head in the sand on that. I spent my life believing that an 1865 speech, and another one in 1968, somehow changed the world.
After all, that’s what they taught me in school. I learned that all people living in the United States had the same inalienable rights. And those speeches that they taught us in school weren’t just words to me; they represented a change that had actually taken place.
Why wouldn’t this be true? HOW couldn’t this be true? Up until just a short time ago, I believed wholeheartedly that the color of our skin, the religion we practice, the language we speak, our sexual orientation, and the country of our ancestors’ births were 100% irrelevant factors in deciding whether or not to treat someone with kindness.
I mean, I thought we were all humans. More importantly, I thought everyone thought we were all humans.
But what I see is our country on the verge of another civil war. If our eyes weren’t opened before, they simply must be open now. The slime won’t crawl back under their rocks, and the rest of us are dumbstruck and furious that they’ve done irreparable damage to not only the people who have died, but to the very soul of this country.
And this war is beginning right in the heart of a pandemic that’s killing more than a thousand people every day.
I pray to God that we find a peaceable solution – simple acceptance of our fellow human beings – before more people have to die.
And yet, they are still dying – right now – literally, as I write.
When researching Shane’s synesthesia, I kept seeing things that said it’s likely that synesthesia is genetic. There was even some debate about whether the gene is found on the X chromosome.
I find the whole thing fascinating – probably even more so than Shane does – so I read and read about it.
I was just finishing up my reading when I caught this out of the corner of my eye:
Auditory-tactile synesthesia (a.k.a. hearing-touch synesthesia) is one of the rarest of all types of synesthesia. It (occurs) when sounds heard by the synesthete produces a tactile sensation on certain areas inside and outside of the body.
And suddenly, I knew: I have it, too.
I just have a different kind of synesthesia than Shane does. He has Colored grapheme synesthesia, and I have auditory-tactile synesthesia.
When I was young – as far back as I can remember – I had a tactile response to music. Some songs caused a reaction of actually painful goose bumps on my legs. I was young, and it was odd, but it was how my body reacted. Other than its being painful, I didn’t give it much thought until I got older.
I got more into music when I was 14. In high school, I scoured the earth looking for someone whose legs reacted to music the way mine did. When a song would come on and I would get those bumps, I would look around and ask my friends: “Does this happen to you?”
As a teen, I wanted to be like everyone else. But most people thought I was nuts, so I learned to keep quiet about it. And I never found a single person who got tangible bumps on their legs the way I did.
I grew accustomed to the bumps, and learned that if I didn’t freak out when they appeared, they weren’t painful anymore. In fact, they started to only appear when I heard songs to which I had a positive emotional attachment – and I didn’t mind the bumps anymore.
Other people got “warm fuzzies” when they liked a song, but my body nearly burst with goosebumps whenever my favorite songs played.
Somewhere along the way, I learned that those bumps would be especially prominent when I was in a large group of people, so it was even more obvious in college when I went to parties. Loud music and large groups were my life. As I grew older and went to concerts, even more bumps would appear.
Then one day, well into my forties, I was at a baseball game with my dad. “We Will Rock You” – a crowd favorite at sporting events – came on over the stadium loudspeakers. The whole stadium started stomping along. Naturally, my legs burst into goose bumps.
I looked next to me and there, on my dad’s legs, were the exact same bumps.
“You get them too?” I nearly screamed. How could I never have noticed before? I had asked every friend and colleague I’d ever known – but it never occurred to me that it might be genetic!
“Yeah,” my dad said. “It just happens.” He was almost apologetic. Like me, I doubt he’d ever found anyone else who had that reaction.
But it’s genetic.
… one of the rarest types of synesthesia.
My dad has it; I have it; Shane has it. Three generations of synesthesia.
Shane’s type of synesthesia just manifests itself differently. He sees the alphabet in a multitude of colors, and I hear music with my legs.
