Month: June 2020

Today is Friday, Day 115 in Bahrain’s stay-at-home time, day 80 of The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad. The prompt today, on Juneteenth, is by Marcus G. Miller, “How did you learn (or how are you learning) to balance work and play?” First, you should really read the reflection he wrote about this prompt on his Instagram account. It is stunningly beautiful.

 

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Today I was featured in #theisolationjournals, creative project by my good friend @suleikajaouad, a brilliant writer and inspiring speaker. Here are my reflections on this Juneteenth Jubilee celebration. “My father once told me that success is the price of admission to the next challenge. He told this to me after having received high praise for leading a successful project at work, and at that moment, I could detect, but could not yet name, several emotional colors blazing out of his eyes. There was the simple crimson pride of a job well done, there was the effervescent azure ebullience induced by the promise of a bright future, there was earthy brown contemplation of a warrior taking a moment’s rest, and there was black love. The love was black because he, in his blackness, was able to claim a level of victory that eluded so many men of his father’s generation, and men of his own. And he could take that lesson, a life-affirming blueprint for managing success, and teach it—from the full weight of the experience—to his black son. The words were clever enough as an aphorism, but what was transmitted to me was the full spectrum of what it meant to him to say those words. It nearly brought me to tears. And so when considering Juneteenth, that shining golden day in 1865 when General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas, and proclaimed the freedom of the black women and men who were enslaved there, even though the Emancipation Proclamation had come two and a half years earlier; when considering their joy, and jubilee, and dancing, I hear the words of my father. I see the pink and purple and candied red of their celebration, and I see the long grey road ahead, through history, connecting them to the colorful eyes of my father, connecting them to me. Let us hold labor and liberation in balance. Let us refuse to work without rest and reward, but also let us not eat, drink, and be merry, believing that tomorrow we will die. Let us mark every accomplishment with its deserved color, then let us not forget to look up at the ominous white snow-capped peaks of the mountains we must yet climb.” #math #saxophone #BAM #Juneteenth #Jubilee #freedom #philosophy #music

A post shared by Marcus G. Miller (@imaginewithmarcus) on Jun 19, 2020 at 8:36am PDT

I know as a white person on Juneteenth, I look at this prompt differently than Marcus did. He said so eloquently, “Let us hold labor and liberation in balance. Let us refuse to work without rest and reward, but also let us not eat, drink, and be merry, believing that tomorrow we will die. Let us mark every accomplishment with its deserved color, then let us not forget to look up at the ominous white snow-capped peaks of the mountains we must yet climb.” I know he speaks these words from a place that I cannot understand. My balancing work and play has been a trifling exercise in privilege. I have had ample opportunities to work and play. Sadly, I have spent too little of my time working for the liberation of oppressed people in our country and around the world. I am repenting of this fact now.

However, I will write about this prompt for me as I am today. “How did you learn (or how are you learning) to balance work and play?” I’m kind of a workaholic, and I’m a teacher. So put those two together and I’ve always worked too many hours. I love the work and it is never finished, so that is my teacher life. But, even for the ten years I took off to be at home with my kids, I seemed to always find other “work” to keep me busy–not always having to do with children. Now that my daughters are grown and married, I work even more hours. My husband works six days a week, so I always do too. We try to take Fridays off and relax and do some work that needs doing too–like today we went grocery shopping and changed the bed sheets. Then I find myself at the computer on Friday too, writing this journal entry and reading a few student novels.

For me play often consists of writing, cooking, creating. I do love to play games and read too. But really most of my “play” could be summed up in staying busy, making something, finishing something, publishing something. Why? I don’t know. I am always amazed that my husband can just sit and chill. I have never been able to do that much, but I have learned from him after lots of years of marriage.

I am still learning there is value in being bored.

Today is Wednesday, Day 113 in Bahrain’s stay-at-home time, day 78 of The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad. The prompt from Lindsay Ryan will wait until another day, as you see, school is not finished yet for the summer for me. I’m reading last-minute novels by my students. They will be part of the links I share with my students for the summer.

So, I’m just laying some prompts here on some blog posts that I will come back to in the summer when I can stop and think about them. The prompt is to “Write about a time when you interacted with someone in a moment when both of you were vulnerable. How did you react to your own vulnerability and that of the other? What went acknowledged and what remained silent? Would you have handled the situation differently in retrospect? How did it change you?”

Today is my 109th day being at home after the Ministry of Education asked the children and teachers to not come back to school the next day. That was 25 February 2020.

I reach over, grab the pencil in my darkened room and scribble a message on the notepad. Email Fatima’s mom about the Flipgrid video, send Zoom link to Ali, write minutes and share with team, reply to Flipgrid responses. Later I see the words are barely decipherable, piled on top of each other, but I’ll figure them out. It’s one of the puzzles of this day, and I know it’s something I need, so I keep working to break the code. It’s worth it to have my four o’clock in the morning questions in the dark. The dark room is due to the black poster board taped to the windows in our bedroom. Otherwise, it would be bright in our room by 4:30 a.m. My notes would be easier to write, but my sleep wouldn’t be as good. The darkness means I can usually go back to sleep for a while.

Get up between 5:30 and 6:30, shower, dry my hair, put on a little bit of makeup. (Because there are always videos to make!) I tear off the wee-hours to-do list from my nightstand. Sit at my computer. Read emails, do the things on my list. Sip the tea my husband brought me. By 7:00 a.m., my husband is out the door to his job. I start recording my feedback videos for students. By 8:00 a.m. I’m on a schedule of making sure I’m available for emails, What’sApps and phone calls. The goal is to answer within 15 minutes on all emails.

So many distractions, though. I record a few replies on Flipgrid. I see an email of a parent needing information on a late assignment. I ask if I can start a Zoom meeting to explain something to the child. Then I get a phone call from my VP about something I need to do before our meeting tomorrow. So many things to juggle and balance, and they all happen as I’m anchored to my dining room chair. How can I have continual work for 8-10 hours a day with hardly a break and never finish? At least when I’m working at school, I get to get up and go to recess or teach a class to students with skin on. I go up and down stairs, eat lunch, page through real papers and books, go to real meetings with people. Everything is not all digital.

This continues until 2:00 p.m. Then I can be off duty! But I’m not, there is always something more, always more emails and more feedback to be given and more videos to make and more and more and more. I never stop working at 2:00.

Ah, but I don’t work every moment. Between emails I plop the no-knead sourdough into the flour-covered bowl for a two-hour rest/rising and set the timer for 1-1/2 hours. When the timer goes off, I turn the oven on to 550 degrees F and set the timer for 15 minutes. Then I put the pan in the oven, set it for 15 more. When the pan is hot, I dump the bread into it, cover it, and put it back in the oven. 30 minutes more, remove the cover, 20 minutes more, remove the hot loaf of sourdough and turn off the oven. Every time the timer goes off I jump up and do something for a minute or two. It’s become a routine that I rarely mess up. On my first loaf of sourdough, I failed to set the timer for the last twenty minutes. I left it in for over an hour more until it got to dried-up-brick stage.

When my Fitbit reminds me to take 250 steps in the hour, I try to listen. If I notice the subtle notification and I’m not in a meeting, I get up and walk. I get a drink of water. I think about lunch or dinner and what I’ll be making.

At noon, I check my personal email, hoping Suleika’s prompt is there. I read through it and think about it for a few minutes. Then I get back to work.

Two of the things that sustain me during this virtual learning are taking opportunities to be creative in the kitchen and write on my blog. These are life-givers and helps the monotony.

Today is Saturday, Day 109 in Bahrain, day 74 of The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad. The prompt is by Cat Hollyer. She tells us to “Think about a day where you felt a range of emotions—things like joy, boredom, contentment. Summarize your day through the lens of one of these emotions. Then, choose another emotion, and summarize the same day again.”

Dear friend,

I sat by the sea today. It was hot out, over 100 degrees F, a bit steamy with the humidity. The fishing boats were anchored in the Gulf, gently moving up and down. A couple of fishermen were bobbing in the water, not really swimming, just floating and cooling off. My husband and I enjoyed being out of the house. We mostly stay home, except for required work hours. It’s Covid-19 that is keeping people home most of the time. On Friday mornings, the Muslim holy day and my husband’s day off, we go to the supermarket during the first hour, which is for older people. (I don’t feel like an older person, but I guess the calendar disagrees.) Today after shopping, Keith got a cup of coffee at Starbucks, and we sat by the sea as he drank it. It’s nice to be out of the four walls of our flat.

The supermarket is a wonderful place to go. There are groceries from all the continents. Today I bought butter from New Zealand because it was in a wide  shallow can that I will later use as a ring to bake crumpets. The produce section is a colorful extravaganza for my husband and me. We were always accustomed to small town Iowa grocery stores where there wasn’t much use for exotic fruits and vegetables. Because there are expatriate workers in Bahrain from over 120 countries, the supermarkets have buyers for hundreds of items, many of which I had never seen before coming here–chikoo, Dragonfruit, mangosteen, tamarind, and rambutan. We are learning new names for common items too–eggplant is also known as aubergine and brinjal. Who knew? Bell peppers are capsicum.

We used to try to avoid zucchini and cucumber “gifts” in Iowa in the summer. Home gardeners always grew too many (and too large) zucchinis and cucumbers. It seems like a bag of one or the other would always end up on our doorstep. However, now that  we’ve discovered Persian cucumbers and Middle Eastern zucchini, we have a new found admiration for the formerly despised vegetables. They are small, seedless and delicious. I remember the first time I watched a kindergartener at recess eat a whole cucumber. I wondered to myself if I could ever stomach doing that. It probably took me a year before I even tried one. Now I eat them all the time.

Well, now it’s time for me to go. It’s bedtime in Bahrain, but morning in California.  Have a good day.

Sincerely,

Denise

Today is Friday, Day 108 in Bahrain, day 73 of The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad. The prompt is from Mitchell Jackson. We are asked to write letters to people in prison, especially those who are sick and in prison hospice units. He recommends that you look at things that you find beautiful or mysterious and write to someone about what you see, about why they are beautiful, sublime. Give them some joy. Be as particular as you can.

Send your letter to this address and they will be delivered:
California Medical Facility
Attn: David Maldonado, CRM
1600 California Dr.
Vacaville, CA 95687

Learn more about today’s prompt contributor, Mitchell S. Jackson, and his latest book Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family.