The day that tried not to be & never should have been

I woke up Monday convinced it was Tuesday. I didn’t wonder if it was Tuesday or think to myself, Yay, it’s Tuesday, I just started doing Tuesday things. Every other Tuesday I have an early morning check-in. I got up, got coffee, and went to my office for my Zoom. When there was no one online, I sent an email to the group asking why they were not in the meeting. Then I looked at my watch and thought something was wrong with it because it said it was Monday when it was clearly Tuesday. After publicly berating friends and strangers and deigning to correct the iWatch gods, it dawned on me that it might really be Monday.

I wasn’t long into Monday before I understood why I wanted my week to start on Tuesday. Monday ran the gamut of all things terrible—from lost coffee to angry bosses to death and violent weather. It was a bad day; a Dr. Moreau unnatural hybrid of a day spliced from the DNA of broken dishes, missed trains, and Godzilla.

First, I had to go to work. Like actually, physically go to campus. I haven’t had to report in anywhere but my basement office since March. At least, I thought, I could stop and get a coffee along the way just like I used to do pre-pandemic, but my cafe was closed and I had to walk through the neighboring drive-through for coffee. Erg.

The idea of going to a communal space and sharing air and bathrooms and keyboards with others felt both adorably quaint and hilariously wrong. I had no idea where I could go in the building, which directions I could walk, what I could touch, or who I could talk to. The bathroom doors were propped open and the hallway doors were shut. There were lots of people standing around wondering what they were supposed to do. At least, I thought, I could touch base with some people on campus I hadn’t seen in months, but, of course, they weren’t on campus. I did try to visit a dean with whom I’m doing some work, but she wasn’t on campus Monday/pretend Tuesday, but she would be on campus the following day (real Tuesday) as would I, so I emailed her asking to meet. She sent me a Zoom link. 

In my department, some people came to the office, some worked from home, and a bunch called off. The few of us who showed up were ostensibly there for the students—so they could meet with someone to register for classes that are supposedly starting in a couple of weeks. But I know we were really there to provide the administration with a comforting illusion of see-things-are-getting-back-to-normal when, secretly, we all know they are not. The students certainly know. There were 10-12 advisors in the office Monday and two students registered to come to campus. I spent most of my day sitting in someone else’s cubicle answering emails and taking Zoom appointments—getting my germs all over their stuff and getting their stuff all up in my germs—a 2020 Reece’s Peanut Butter Cup gone all wrong. In this brilliant gesture of administrative generosity, I’d been allowed to come to campus to work remotely from the discomfort of not home. At least, I thought, I could go up to my office and retrieve the two boxes of Girl Scout Thin Mints that I’d left there in August. But I couldn’t.

Second, the boss was pissed. On a good day, she is a hard-working and gracious micro-manager. But, as we have established, this was not a good day. From the moment I walked in to the second I ran out, she was a hawkish and condescending control-freak. I don’t blame her—remember, her on-campus staff doesn’t know what’s going on and the rest of them either call off or are not on campus. She is in no way meeting her enrollment goals. She likely works 80+ hours a week and when she sleeps, if she sleeps, she dreams about work. Into this walked I, full of second-choice coffee and irritation at having to be there. By about 1:30, I’d had enough and asked to leave campus an hour early and pick up my Zoom calls and reply to emails from home. She allowed me to work my last hour from home—just this once. As you can see, she said, I need staff here. Just to be annoying, I worked from home for 90 minutes.

And then something really bad happened—I learned that a colleague died. She had cancer. She was young and had young children. I didn’t really know her—she sat across the hall from me and her office door was usually closed. The interactions I did have with her were not especially pleasant. In fact, I had a couple of conversations with her that made me think that I didn’t like her. I don’t feel bad about that, but I do feel bad that she is no longer here. I feel bad for her children. Events like this in a young life define a life. Last year, I wrote about a friend of my daughter whose father had died. Losing a parent forever colors how you see the world and how the world sees you. I suppose this is true no matter how old you are when a parent dies, but death has more power in formative years. These children will grow up telling people that their mother died and hearing apologies for their mother’s death. They will make and suffer excuses because they lost their mother. They are old enough to have known her and will know she is not there in every celebration and tribulation. It’s sad and unfair and what will be. It makes me feel things I don’t want to feel.

On (real) Tuesday, I made it to my office to collect things I’d left there in March. Her light was on. She didn’t leave it on, but someone did. It should probably stay on for a while.

By about 3:30, I’d Zoomed my way into an afternoon beverage. I wanted a coffee as I’d been cheated of a good one earlier, but caffeine was not the punch I was seeking. Looking out the window past my glass of sangria, the summer sky was growing strangely dark. Tornadoes had come to Chicago. I. Shit. You. Not. Sheltering in place takes on a new meaning as the civil defense sirens howl and we all retreat to the basement. We’d experienced a tornado warning about 12 years ago when my daughter was a baby. We had to get her out of her crib to come down to the basement and ride out the storms. It was a little thrilling and became a bit of a story to tell, but I wasn’t really worried.

But I worry now. I started writing this on false Tuesday and am wrapping it up on real Tuesday to post on what I hope will be an actual Wednesday—the mountaintop of the week and a day of woe. But in the corona of a pandemic, in the corona of a day that should not have been, so much that seemed impossible has become possible. In the corona, the sun doesn’t just set—it goes out.

Usually, it comes back. Until it doesn’t.