The rule of three, part 2
Somewhere in my academic life l learned, or came to believe, that one should use the 2/3/1 rule in structuring an argument, writing a poem, or eating dinner. Lead off with the second-best point, line, or food--in my case, mashed potatoes--then bury the worst one (broccoli) in the middle. Save the strongest point, the real insight, the ice cream for last. Draw them in, rush past the bad stuff, and wow them at the end.
So, here are my three best take-a-ways from living in the corona, in order of most deliciously dramatic effect.
#2. At first I was afraid, I was petrified
Those words could start a reflection on any new experience. They are as iconic as “Call me Ishmael” or “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning...”. Or the note on the jacket flap of Keith Richards’s biography, “Believe it or not, I haven’t forgotten any of it.”
Back on March 24, I wrote about how much I hated working from home. I also did not want to yoga from home, eat from home, Easter from home, and home school from home. Now, a month in, I survived Easter, prefer eating at home to going out, and I love live-stream yoga--it has changed the experience (perhaps the paradigm) of yoga.
The second best thing to come from living in the corona is my quasi-home yoga practice. I can enjoy my own space and partake in a social activity. Without location or transportation limitations, yoga is more available to those who would otherwise be unable or embarrassed to go to a studio. I can creak and groan and fart; I can wear sweatpants. It’s cheaper than traditional in-person yoga--about half the cost for the classes I have been taking--because there’s no overhead for space, props, or amenities. And the classes are huge! I was participating in a class a couple of days ago that was over 20 people. Few studios can accommodate that many yogis and a lot of teachers would find that too many students to manage. Granted, the personal support and adjustments most people enjoy in an in-person class are not available. But teachers and classes that you couldn’t even imagine experiencing in early March are obvious options in mid-April. I’m taking classes again with my teacher who moved to North Carolina two years ago and left me in Chicago. Why did it take the near shut-down of the planet to figure out live-streaming yoga?
#3 School’s out for summer, school’s out forever
This was a terrible academic year. In November, the teachers went on strike for two weeks and the kids had no school at all. In mid-March, the schools closed and students started online learning. Yesterday, the Governor announced that all schools in Illinois will continue in remote learning-mode through June--the buildings will remain closed until at least Fall 2020 and teachers will deliver lessons online. Kids are not going back to school this year. In other words, my children are home for the rest of the school year and the summer. To put it more clearly, I am homeschooling until September.
The socially-acceptable and meme-appropriate thing to do now would be to go to the refrigerator, get a bottle of wine, pull the cork out with my teeth, and start guzzling. I would do that except I have only two bottles of wine left, and I have to make it through the weekend. And I don’t really want to drink myself silly over having my kids at home—there are plenty of other reasons to do that. I like being home with them.
So here I am perhaps speaking from privilege. I teach and right now, I teach from home. My academic year ends in early May and my kids will (technically) be in school through late June. I have the time and wherewithal to support them through this. No, it is not my fantasy spring and summer experience, but I know this experience has been given me for a reason.
In 2017, when I left my ft job, I was given the gift of time with myself and used it to undo years of damage from that job and recreate myself as someone I wanted to be. Now, three years later, I have been given the gift of time with my children. They will never be this young again; I will never have this moment again. We will either come out of this experience more understanding of each other and less critical of our foibles, or we won’t come out at all.
#1 You’ll never read that book again because the ending’s just too hard to take
Writing is dangerous business. Good writing demands adherence to rules to be understood. If you disregard the rules, you lose credibility and look like an idiot. Good writing requires insight and experimentation. If you adhere to the rules, you lose credibility and look like an idiot. What’s worse, writing is a process of discovery--when you, as a writer, hedge between following and breaking the rules; when you fill the space between unknown and obvious, you find things in yourself and in the world around you that you may not have wanted to know. And now, staring at the page in front of you, you feel the truth of your words prickling down your spine and into your bowels like a centipede wearing crampons. What you have done you can edit, re-write, or delete, but you can’t undo.
The about on my website says I am going to keep writing “as long as the occasions present themselves; as long as there are things to capture.” In the corona, I have things to capture and occasions to capture them. I haven’t done this much writing since graduate school--and I wrote a book then (a book of poetry, but it was still a book). Part of me was afraid I would forget how to write--not the technicalities, but the voice. I would have lost my voice and my vision. But voice runs deep and no matter how much you try, you can never stop seeing once you start looking.
I asked my daughter what she would miss most about sheltering in place when this was finally over, and she said she would miss the shelter. She likes being home and protected--she doesn’t want to go out into the world and deal with all its challenges. It pains me to believe that because of this experience, she has more fear of the world, but it thrills me to hear her say that she wants to be here. I want to be here, too. In this my capturing device, my web, my frayed asterisk at the corner.
