This week is the first week of the semester at Babson College, and last night I dreamt I had to teach my classes from a hotel room.
In the alternate universe that is dreamtime, there was no pandemic, no masks, and no need for social distancing, but for some reason the college announced I couldn’t teach on-campus or from home. Instead, my “remote” classes were booked in a hotel room where J and I stayed overnight. Because the room had been booked at the last minute, neither one of us had any luggage, and I didn’t have a laptop, so I had to keep checking my phone for emails from students asking where we were supposed to meet.
Although the class was billed as “remote,” it was actually a face-to-face session, so at the scheduled time my students and a guest speaker (writer Walter Mosley, who wrote an essay I assigned last semester) somehow piled into my hotel room, which by then had morphed into a suite containing an odd assortment of furniture, none of which was conducive to an actual class session. Fortunately, Mosley had a laptop and was able to show slides during his talk, and I was reduced to “teaching” from bed, first in a babydoll nightgown, and later in a pair of flannel pajamas.
January 2021
Jan 18, 2021
Quarantine dreams, revisited
Posted by Lorianne under Life in the time of Coronavirus, Teaching & learning | Tags: dreams, teaching dreams |1 Comment
Jan 7, 2021
The day turned strange
Posted by Lorianne under Life as Lorianne | Tags: birthday, DeCordova Sculpture Park |[3] Comments
I’ve had 52 birthdays in my life, and yesterday’s was by far the weirdest.
For many years I’ve had a tradition of going to the Museum of Fine Arts on my birthday, but since the museum is closed due to COVID, J and I reserved timed tickets for the DeCordova Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA. It was a lovely change of pace, a chance to take a stroll on a gray day. I was enchanted by the stone cairns next to Andy Goldsworthy’s Watershed as well as an impromptu collection of wrapped and painted stones (“small hopes”) created by local children and wedged into the stone walls in the now-empty rectangle where Big, With Rift used to stand.
That was the normal part of the day, where J and I celebrated my birthday and relished the morning news that Rev. Raphael Warnock had won his Senate race in Georgia. As we wandered the sculpture park taking pictures, I occasionally glanced at my smartwatch, awaiting word of Jon Ossoff’s projected Senate win.
But then the day turned strange. On the way home from the DeCordova, J and I stopped at the bank to get a document notarized, and while waiting our turn with a teller, I saw a notification on my phone that pro-Trump protestors had breached the Capitol where Congress was certifying the Electoral College results. With the Capitol on lockdown and lawmakers evacuated, the certification was paused, DC was in chaos, and we spent the rest of the day watching the news in dismay.
Nothing I saw on the news yesterday was surprising: Trump has been encouraging rebellion since he lost in November, and it was widely known that right-wing zealots planned to gather in DC on January 6. But what was disheartening was the way security basically stood back and allowed riotous thugs to run roughshod through the Capitol. Apparently it’s easier to storm a joint session of Congress than it is to get through airport security or into a municipal courthouse.
And if the news out of Washington wasn’t bad enough, yesterday afternoon I learned a longtime friend had lost his week’s-long battle with COVID-19: a bright light extinguished on the darkest of days. While my heart already ached for America, it broke again for M’s wife and many friends, and for all the people who have died because some people’s definition of “freedom” ignores the simple responsibility of keeping other people safe.
So, yesterday was a strange day…and an even weirder birthday. By nightfall I was wrung out by a mix of emotions: happiness and small hopes, heartbreak and incredulity. After 52 years on this strange planet, I still don’t understand what possesses people to behave the way they do.
CLICK HERE to view an album of photos from yesterday’s trip to the DeCordova Sculpture Park.
Jan 4, 2021
The music of a Someday Spring
Posted by Lorianne under In a humdrum | Tags: coping strategies, winter |[2] Comments
Yesterday afternoon-into-evening, I had a brief crisis of faith: the kind of quiet questioning that happens frequently after our alarmingly early winter sunsets.
Last night’s crisis occurred first as a simple strain of restlessness, the craving for color that usually sets in much later in the winter, when Winter Drab threatens to crush my spirit. In past years, I’ve amassed a slew of Winter Coping Strategies, like going to a greenhouse to photograph flowers, strolling through an elegant or exotic museum exhibit, going to an aquarium to stare at the soothing serenity and bright hues of tropical fish, or even lingering long in the grocery store produce section, drawn and sustained by the abundance of greens, reds, oranges, and yellows.
But this year, many museums, aquariums, and greenhouses are closed, and I haven’t set foot in a grocery store since March. Going anywhere indoors and lingering to look–or going anywhere with shared air and stopping to take a deep breath–is risky in these pandemic days, and scrolling through online galleries or virtual aquariums doesn’t have the same appeal.
Last night, I pulled out the big guns, relying upon a Winter Coping Strategy I typically reserve for the dismal days of February-into-March, when I’ve given up all hope of Spring every arriving: while slogging through my evening chores, I tuned to a salsa station on Pandora and danced like nobody was watching. The world outside is dark and monochromatic, but if I close my eyes and listen, I can pretend I hear the music of a Someday Spring.
Jan 1, 2021
Goals on hold
Posted by Lorianne under Life in the time of Coronavirus | Tags: New Year's Day, resolutions |[3] Comments
This morning when I replaced my old planner, I paged through some of my entries from the first few months of 2020, when the year was new and we had no idea what the future held.
Last January, friends and I met in Northampton to celebrate my birthday, and last February I met a friend for lunch and a walk at Tower Hill Botanic Garden: two outings I took for granted at the time but seem unimaginably exotic now. Right before my birthday last year, I went to the Zen Center on a Sunday morning then walked to Harvard Square to drink hot chocolate and write in my journal at Burdick’s Cafe, and a few days later, I went to a postcard-writing meetup in Chelmsford: the last two times I set foot in a cafe.
Every year, I make more or less the same goals for the New Year, renewing my intention to write in my journal daily, blog three times a week, and go to the Zen Center and a museum at least once a month. Although I’ve been journaling throughout the pandemic, I haven’t blogged much: with so much of life happening virtually these days, I’ve looked for any excuse to unplug. And with both the Zen Center and many museums closed, those two goals are officially on hold.
Last year started innocently enough then turned weird in March. I’m hoping that as more people have access to one of several COVID-19 vaccines, life will return to some semblance of normal-ish by the end of this year: not life as it was, but a life that allows outings and gatherings and other planner-worthy activities.
Hoarded Ordinaries 