Apocalypse No!

   More and more I keep hearing people resigned that "the world is ending" from Lady Gaga's portion of the Superbowl halftime show, to the increasingly absurd dichotomies in the United States' politics, to the doomsayers regarding nuclear proliferation, climate change, and AI. I'm no one to talk honestly because I've been internally obsessed with impending apocalypse for almost as long as I can remember. At 51, I see now the wisdom in blurring my focus, living in the moment, and trusting only in how much I don't know. But we really do manifest what we focus on, and it's obviously time to change direction.

   We need to focus on the sustainable.

   When I was a kid, I bought a book of Nostradamus' Prophesies. It included the original French which I studied in school so it was a kind of practice to really delve into these, but it also had the English translations so I could check my work. I remember the dread I felt as I read how the "city of hollow mountains" would "plunge" into a "cauldron." This was years before the World Trade Center sunk.

   I was obsessed with the notion that I would witness an inescapable impending ubiquitous disaster. I spent hours in those and other pages like those. I traded the depression of my youth for the anxiety of my adult life and rarely landed in a moment except when I taught something useful to a student or wrote something touching to another soul. The only thing to ever even slightly assuage my fears was my Granny telling me a story:

   She said that she remembered when she was a little girl, that she and her mother were walking in Times Square and one of those men with the signs and the bells was ringing and loudly proclaiming that the end was near. My Granny, then a little girl tugged on her mother's skirt and said "Mommy, do you think that's true? Is the end of the world coming? 

 

   Granny, youngest in her family, told me that her mom's face sunk darkly.  She glanced at that man, stopped, and leaned down on her knees for a moment. That's when Granny's mom, my great grandmother,  thought about it and slowly shook her head and admitting that it was possible. It sometimes seemed inevitable and one could never know for sure. Perhaps the end of the world was coming. "But you know something?" she said, "I just don't think so."

   "Why?" my nervous little Granny asked as doubt betrayed her entire countenance.  

   "Because as much as it could be, that we never know..."my great grandmother said over 100 years ago, "Men have been yelling and ringing bells like that ...since I was your age."

   I now have 2 beautiful teenage boys, and a niece, almost 22, struggling to find places in this world.  A mic drop moment like that rarely lands with any of them, (They'd never read this) so I try to keep my own spirits up and do as best I can to tend to theirs.  I teach literacy to middle and high school kids from low income neighborhoods in the South Bronx.  I'm an Xer possibly about to escape by the skin of my teeth from a tier 6 death sentence only 2 years late from a life's work as a public school teacher, despite starting as a public high school drop out.  And I'm 28 years into a love union that was literally illegal when we first met.  

   I've seen the world embrace love and hope, and I've seen the world endure danger and trepidation.  It's true that the only thing that doesn't change is change.  But when I say we must manifest a different direction, I mean more than that fact that we cause our circumstances as consequences.  And I mean more than we create our own reality.  I mean it's time to know this is all everything and all of us.  

   Every child we dismiss as a shame, - unloved, accidental, or expendable; every meal we consume some tortured animal; even every microbe we exterminate with poisons to protect the crops we clear for our exploding population - unsustainable.  It's easy to sink into a boiling cauldron of despair, or freeze from excessive escape fueled by rampant anxiety.  What can one do and how much do we hate the ones who don't love, and... But, we could also just stop.

   I've seen that too.  We've all seen the world stop spinning the same metaphorical discs on sticks.  There was a time when streets were quiet, until uniformingly rauctous with applause for the few we relied on and commended for bravery that killed no one.  Perhaps the men with the footballs won't blow up the world if they have any reason for hope.  Perhaps we can impart that to each other in ways that are just as genuine, eclectic and plentiful.  Perhaps, if we just hang on a little longer, explore our own hearts, and beliefs with openness and honesty, we'll communicate pure intentions and complete, sustainable designs for a future.  

   If we do that, perhaps that will be the wisdom we pass to the next species we empower, and they will convey to their youngest dependents the notion that it could indeed all end, but it might not.  And that would be a nice story.

Remote Learning

There are these truths that I find myself repeating over and over to students and parents of remote learners which I thought might be worth gathering and trying to organize.  One thing this pandemic has taught me to do is to value my own contribution to this world in a way that is counterintuitive to many white women like me.  We are often not poised to feel confident in our thoughts but these axioms do not seem harmful, and others have found them useful to consider.

Remote Learning is probably here in some form or another to stay.

First thing first we must face the facts.  Remote learning is a new reality.  It may currently be your only option, and that may be temporary, but biding your time and ignoring Meet after Zoom, after text, after email, after phone calls from teachers, from teacher’s aids, from school staff and from school administration is only going to further delay your own evolution.  Students procrastinating their studies, parents procrastinating their parenting need heed these facts.  Vaccines maybe on their way but they won’t be for everybody, and their protection may not even last.  And even if there are enough of us to achieve a kind of herd immunity, the kids cannot yet be vaccinated.  And even if next year they can, or numbers go low enough it is possible, even likely that a new set of circumstances could put us right back in this position.  Especially, if enough of us refuse to evolve past our fears.

Face your fears.  This one keeps coming up for me.  Fear of speaking.  Fear of turning a camera on.  Fear of the accidental unmute.  Fear of having often a written recording of even the most mundane interactions.  Fear of the pause.  Fear of remote status.  Fear of losing remote status.  Everywhere you look there is fear both ways.  Life is and has always been full of fear.  Our kids were facing an epidemic of anxieties before any threat of of any coronavirus.  They know the reigns will be theirs soon, consciously or not.  What tools were we giving them?  What direction were we headed?

See the bigger picture.  The complacency we felt before was not real.  Society was falling, not flying.   But hope is not a choice.  It’s a necessity.  Things could not have continued the way they were going.  We would not have survived.  The environment must be paid attention.  Oppression based on social location is unjust.  An unjust society breaches the social contract and will not endure.  Sustainability of power is key - in your world, in your family, in your relationships, in yourself.  Everyone needed to stop and think about what they were doing.  Humanity was put in a time out.

So embrace the chaos.  Chaos is nature’s way of righting wrongs.  It’s natural.  Don’t be consumed by the storm.  Be your own storm.  Take this time to dig deep inside yourself, and your family dynamics.  Put yourself in therapy (we could all use a little therapy).  You can do it via Zoom!  Journal!  Journal until your hand gets tired.  You’re living through a global pandemic.  This is the stuff history is made of.  Read.  Explore.  Experiment.  Grow.  If we’re going to make it we’ll value the way we did.  And why not?  You busy?  You got someplace else to be?

Have patience.  This is a biggie.  Everything - every little thing requires patience.  All too often in life we are reacting as opposed to acting.  Adults do what they believe they need to do as opposed to what they want.  Students are punished as opposed to understood and supported.  Technology can be frustrating but in each frustration there is opportunity to learn and grow.  Ironically the world won’t crumble if your wifi drops.  We’ve all come light years from where we started.  Students on government aid are now issued school laptops.  Access to the web has almost become a right.  When that access is glitched, attention is paid.  We are becoming more and more energetically connected.

So take your time.  Learn to value the coincidences.  Listen to the lessons your life is teaching you.  What are you doing?  What is it you are trying to learn in school?  Why?  What are you working towards?  Teachers are not babysitters.  They are resources.  You are your own resource, including your questions.  Subjects are all languages whether it’s English or Spanish, Mandorin, mathematics, science or coding.  You progress with your peers not just to see their faces, or to navigate the consuming nuances of social interactions and be safe until your guardians return.  You are there to progress yourself.  You must actively learn to connect and communicate.  If not, that’s sus.

Value connection.  After all this time this one may be the easiest.  It’ll feel weird and it’ll take careful thought and consideration, but sooner or later, we’ll be together again.  And this time it’s going to feel different.  This time, we’re going to talk about what we’re really feeling.  We’ll be armed with more evolved vocabulary and we’ll value the pause.  We had no choice.  We all went through this together and it changed our trajectory.  I’m really looking forward to it.  We’ll stop thoughtlessly shaking hands with strangers, and finally we’ll all embrace as friends.