Over the course of the past year, participating in book clubs at my local library, one of the things that came up was video conferencing etiquette around pronouns. One of the moderators asked us to state our gender pronouns at the beginning of the call. I went with it that first time, but I felt really uncomfortable about it.
Any week, I could begin to tell you how I’m doing by saying I’ve been striving, and each week it would be no less true than the one before.
Today, many times, my eighteen year old son flew past the house on his motorized scooter wearing slides and no helmet, doing wheelies in the rain. I debated internally whether to call out to him to put a helmet on, and maybe proper shoes. He is of age, and he knows how I feel about safety.
I didn’t say anything.
The past several years, seasonal affective disorder (SAD) has been slamming me to the mat pretty hard.
Why mention that when we are closing in on the longest day of the year? Maybe it’s that the days’ scandalous length are a constant reminder of the contrast come winter. Having a doomsday attitude about life helps me prepare for the rougher bits, and part of that is Summer Laura making gifts for Winter Laura.
Today I slugged it out with the last two and a half hours of bell hooks book Ain’t I A Woman on audio. The heat and humidity were oppressive, as was the overwhelming feeling of defensiveness every time I pressed play.
Then, on one of my breaks, I read this article from the Washington Post, “Germany faced its horrible past. Can we do the same?” by Michele L. Norris. The article described in great detail the way Germany has faced its painful history, with small reminders of it everywhere.
We have just a few days left of homeschool. The past eighteen months long ago bled out any desire anyone has to do schoolwork (or in my case, enforce it – see, I’m not even calling it teaching anymore). We still plod on, but I feel like I spend the vast majority of my waking hours doing things I’d rather not.
New York State requires us to finish 80% of our curriculum, and at this point in the year, we’ve certainly achieved that. It would be completely reasonable to call it quits. But to a fault, I am not a quitter. I can see how close we are to the end of the books we’re reading, and I’m determined to finish. I want to get my money’s worth from our online math curriculum. I don’t want my kids’ brains to turn to sludge until at least July.
