As I drove to school this morning, I tried to quell the anxiety I felt. I was optimistic that while my school seemed to be the last hold out for pandemic-related school closure, that I could go and get good work done with people who are fabulous, and at least it was a PD day and there would not be students feeling similar anxiety. My fabulous department hunkered down for hours today and created online curriculum that students could both access from home, and have printed and pick up in the school office.

(If you have an 8th grader and need a little ELA guidance, here you go: https://sites.google.com/mjusd.k12.ca.us/ela820/home – we compiled our own resources and heavily used commonlit.org – which if you don’t know about and you teach or have kids or penchant for learning, you should)

Just after lunch, the email came that schools would close, and I couldn’t help but feel relieved.

I know that in times of uncertainty, humans practice a bit of mob mentality and fall into unhealthy rhythms more often than not. However, when faced with the ability to avoid exposure to hundreds of people a day in order to keep my family safe, the closures do not seem overreactive at all. Not taking action to keep people away from unnecessary exposures would be irresponsible, and I’m thankful to live in a time when – while it may take a little bit of scary stuff – we are trying to learn from history.

It was strange to leave school today and not have a clear idea of when I might return. I was the silly teacher packing books into my car because I might need to read them – or my children might need to read them. I know as I type that what feels strange today will become surreal quite soon, and there will be good days and bad days.

So, as we enter into the uncertainty and embrace each day, this is what I know for sure today – no uncertainty at all:

I am thankful for my family;

I am thankful for my community;

I am thankful for rain when we so need it;

I am thankful for words and stories and other beautiful things in the world.

I am thankful for a God that weeps when we weep and loves harder than we could ever love;

and I’m thankful for people in my life to remind me.

I listen to many things as I drive to work each day, and it may be one of the things I miss doing daily as I start a new routine at home for a while – this morning I listened “Welcome to Nightvale”, a bit of “Stuff you MIssed in History Class”, NPR, and the “Pray as you Go” for the day. The last one had some beautiful music this morning, and I feel like it may be just as meditative and inspiring to someone else, as it was for me.

So, I end this meandering post – finally home, and finding it strange – with a song for you to enjoy.

Praying for Peace and Health and Hope and Love for you all tonight.