No, I am not talking about the Brood X cicadas, which are emerging and making their presence known in our community. Cicadas are edible, incidentally, and I am somewhat (somewhat) intrigued by that culinary possibility. Cicadas are not kosher, but I don't keep kosher, so that alone is not a bar.
No, the woods I am emerging from are more along the lines of Dante's opening lines to The Divine Comedy:
Midway through the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
My woods were not the woods of midlife (or, truthfully), but the dark forest of a hard, heavy school year and holding attendance mediations in a pandemic school environment. I'm not talking about personal safety. My meetings were held all by Zoom and I have been able to work from home since March 12, 2020. So it's not about me.
I am talking about the devastation to students and their families that came up in mediation after mediation. Covid-19 illnesses, Covid-19 deaths, job loss, job cuts, hunger, eviction, foreclosure, children sent to other relatives living elsewhere to keep them safe, students working to help pay utilities and rent, students babysitting younger siblings so parents could work, technology barriers, transportation, anxiety, depression...the list is endless. And all true. All of us on our Court school team felt it, lived it, breathed it for weeks on end. There were meetings in which I or my colleagues held back tears. There were meetings after which school staff and I debriefed and cried. Or raged. Or asked "Are you okay?" before exiting the Zoom meeting. In the end, we held more attendance meetings than in any other school year in the last decade.
That unusual workload is why I have not written anything—a post, a poem, an article—in weeks. Weeks. I did write letters to friends; those were critical for my mental well-being. But otherwise, nothing. Nothing. By the time I reached the end of a workday, let alone the end of a week, there was nothing left in me. And it wasn't just the writing. It was everything. I bake some, I've read a lot (a lot), and I walk almost daily, but otherwise...yeah. Even my hopeful reengagement with my middle school novel and photography came to a halt in that dark forest.
All of us on the Court school teamed reached the end of the school year, which officially ended May 27, exhausted. (We were exhausted when we reached Spring Break.) I had the privilege of reaching the year's end exhausted and ill. Not ill ill, as in "Covid-19" or "random virus" or anything that would send me to a clinic. No, cancer ill, as in the night brigade has continued without pause to take down the perimeter defenses. (Thank you, Atul Gawande, for that priceless description, which serves me well.)
So I am emerging from the dark forest, from the woods, from the hard school year, with that straightforward pathway now very clear. After saying I would be retiring this year (something I think I first mentioned in a post in August 2020), now retirement is real. To borrow from Paul Kalanithi, before this school year, I knew I would be retiring. Now I acutely know it. I love this job. I am no longer well enough to do it.
My last day will be in mid-August. Between now and then, I will winding up projects, clearing out files, covering for my fellow mediators when they take vacation, and doing whatever the Court calls upon me to do. Warren and I head to Mayo Clinic next Monday, our first time there since January 2020, so that my specialist can see me in person, so I can see him in person, and so we can talk about treatment and other key topics, including what continuing limitations I face because of my myeloma and ongoing treatment. (For the record, I am fully vaccinated, but the myeloma medical community does not have the answers yet as to whether vaccination protects people like me. We don't do restaurants; I don't meet friends for coffee in our local coffee shops. Those things will not change.)
I have a lot to write about. I have been tracking our grocery expenses in 2021; our approach to what we buy and what we eat continues to evolve. My 2021 gardens are either in (the kitchen garden) or in the works (the Hej garden). There may be some personal travel this summer, although I am not allowed on planes or trains. Dear, close friends are coming to Ohio later in June. And the tomatoes have flowers just starting to form.
I can't wait.
