Assignments

The schools around us are closing. My daughter's school is trying to hold out until Friday. Some of their reasons are good. The schools are the primary meal service for many city children and arrangements must be made to feed them. Some of their reasons aren't as good. There's the idea that schooling has to continue. Let's face that schooling will be limited-to-nonexistent over the next month or two (or three). I say close the schools immediately, take aggressive action to flatten the curve, then address feeding the kids, but I'm not in charge of anyone but myself and my child, so there's that.

A couple schools are opening Monday so students can get homework and technology . I get that and kind of support it though I still think we need to be much more aggressive responding to this virus. I also have little faith in homework making much difference. Still, as a recovering English teacher, I have ideas about what I would assign.

1. Send them with a couple books. I'd grab a few class sets of books and give each kid a couple. While separated physically we might connect a little around the same text. I'm not stupid enough to think every kid would read these things and don't care about getting everyone. It might be a comfort and use for some of them and that's good enough.

2. More books. Raid the library for a couple hundred books and get kids to choose two. If they read them, great. If they think about reading them, okay. If they don't read them, that's fine too. The books would be there in case they tired of Instagram. (Yeah, right.) I'd send no assignment with the books other than to take them and maybe read for fun. Crazy thought, I know.

3. If I had them, I would send every kid home with a fresh notebook to write while we are out of school. A page a day, but don't get stuck on the numbers. Write when you see, read, hear, or say something interesting. Paste into it. Draw. Write what you think and feel. Write questions, answers, plans, fears, and dreams. Just write. Create a record of this time in your lives.

4. Do some kindness for someone. Stay eight feet away but make contact. Call, text, send video. Leave food outside someone's door. Do secret, anonymous good deeds. Write it all in your notebook.

5. Don't sweat school. You'll learn more during this experience than you'd ever could in my damn classroom. Be strong, be brave, be curious, and for God's sake wash your hands.

Then I'd tell them to get the hell out and go home. School closed, I'd pack my things, wash my hands, and return to my family to wait this thing out, write, read, and hope for the best.

Good Things To Do

1. Wake up early when the house is quiet. Make a great cup of coffee. Write three pages while drinking it.

2. Walk the dog. Do it alone (well, bring the dog) or with others. I went with my daughter. If you don't have a daughter, just bring someone you love. If you don't have a dog, go out anyway. Just don't poop on someone's lawn.

3. While outside, notice the people walking and running. Wave. Say hello. Maintain eight feet of distance.

4. Pick up your dog's poop. I mean, come on. Do a little laundry. Wash the dishes. Take care of things.

5. Indulge in a hot shower. Feel clean and warm. Let water run over your head while you close your eyes and think nothing at all.

6. Put on a record. If you don't have a turntable (God help you), play music some other way. Don't wear headphones. Fill the room with music and feel yourself eddy through it.

7. Read a book. A paper book. One that doesn't ever have to be charged. Read until you're sleepy.

8. Take a nap. Preferably on the couch. Preferably under a cat.

9. Eat something good that you made yourself. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich maybe. Make some to share and enjoy it with someone.

10. Call a friend. Check in with your mother. If you can, call your father. I can't, but I'm talking to him anyway. Being alone is good, being lonely is terrible. Leaving someone alone can be good, leaving them lonely is a sin.

11. Make your own list of good things and tell me about it.

Twenty Second Curiosity

I just washed my hands. Pretty much everyone can say that all the time now. We've all just washed our hands and been singing or otherwise trying to time twenty seconds. I'm a counter, but I count too fast so I go up to thirty-eight and then rinse for twelve more counts. I give my hands three shakes into the sink then dry them on the towel, wondering, "when was that last washed?" Got to keep clean and try to stay healthy.

It got me thinking about the things people study and the ways other people mock such things until needing them. I imagine a few months ago when a study asking exactly how long to wash hands would have been ridiculed. Our local paper recently (mercifully) suspended comments, but an article on such a study would have driven the old-white-male commenting mob to complain about liberals wasting hard-earned money on nonsense. There would have been back-in-my-day comments. A hand-washing study would have been a joke, a waste, a typical bit of foolishness from those who seek to know more.

Until the old white guys caught fevers.

There are things worth learning that seem to have no use in the moment. My daughter is in college and unsure what to study. She wants something interesting and has been pressured to do something useful, but what does that mean? All her school life she has been urged toward "college and career readiness," but we are born college and career ready so long as we are born curious.

"College and career readiness" decides what we are supposed to study based on short-term thinking. I was an English teacher and "college and career readiness" meant no more novels. Just have 'em read informational texts. That turned out to be part of the war on intelligence, the battle against wisdom, and the hatred of expertise. Everything had to be clearly useful right away, damn it.

Useful to whom?

Once upon a time, a researcher wondered, "how long should we wash our hands?" She was a medical student or a surgeon, a lab technician or a professor. She was curious. The question tugged at the brain. She wanted to know what would be best for all of us. A minute seemed too long, ten seconds, too short. She was thinking of ordinary people. Ask too much and they'll skip washing all together. Ask too little and they might as well skip.

A hand-washing study began, continued, and came to the conclusion that twenty seconds is optimal for public health. I'm sure those results are still being questioned and tested. Curiosity shouldn't ever end.

Some studies turn out to be frivolous, sure, but others seem frivolous only until we need them. Remember the stories about Post-It notes? And Corning's Gorilla Glass was designed for 1960's race cars but later turned out to be great for phones.

I don't know what I'll need to know in the future, but I want curious people studying weird and wondrous things, checking their stopwatches to see how long I should wash and, through small miracles of wondering, keeping me alive. I want my daughter to simply be curious and follow where that leads. I want my country to be less afraid of and much more appreciative of those who serve through curiosity, research, and expertise.

I also want to go wash that hand towel and give my hands another wash while I'm at it. I'm not curious enough to want to catch this virus.

A Bench In The Park

I couldn't sleep last night. I was worrying about the virus, trying to find answers for things I don't know yet. I was planning days that don't exist and spinning up into anxiety that only kept me awake. This morning's pages told me this story. You've probably heard it before.

An old guy sits on a bench in a park across from a pond and near a playground. The late afternoon sun shines softly. It's an ordinary kind of day, warm enough to enjoy, not so hot as to notice. He sits alone. He is calm, patient, accepting of whatever the day brings.

On the playground a boy runs and screams. He moves from slide to swing to teeter-totter. He spins and jumps, hangs and rolls. He's me. I'm going as fast as I can. I don't know if there are other kids there. I'm too busy.

I know the old guy on the bench. I know he's waiting. I try to ignore him. I don't want to slow down, don't want to stop, don't want to go home. I don't want to grow up.

But children tire and get hungry. I walk away from the playground, heart still pounding, blood racing, breath uneven. I sit on the bench and look toward the pond. Two ducks glide out of the sky, splash into the water, then settle in calmly. My breathing slows. The afternoon shifts one minute into evening. The light changes, the trees sigh, a squirrel pauses to see its world.

I turn to tell the old man that I'm ready to go, but there's no one there. I'm sitting in his place. Calm, patient, accepting of what has happened.

I turn from the pond toward the playground where a boy runs and screams. He tries not to look my way.

And I understand just exactly how he feels.