Tonight, after a 3 month delay, our writing group is finally going to meet. Responsible citizens we, the plan is to sit outside at a distance of 6 feet dining on individual take out meals. Before we adjourned for the pandemic, our annual Slice of Life Story Challenge celebration was scheduled as the next meeting. It is our tradition to read back through the March writing we have all done and select a favorite piece for each of the four of us.
Truth be told, I think we all love this session because the pressure is off-- the writing is already done. I know that's true for me. I also love it because it gives me the opportunity to read and reread a month of pretty great writing from each of my friends.
And that's what I did this morning; I spent a while revisiting our posts, blog by blog, day by day. Wow! What an extraordinary month to document! On March 1 it hadn't even entered anyone's mind that the corona virus might impact school, let alone close down the entire nation. By the next week, we were considering time away from our buildings with uncertainty, and on March 13 school closed for what we thought would be a month.
Through the next weeks we wrote of distance learning and quarantine, at first a novelty but soon a steady, wearing grind fraught with worry for our students, until on March 24 the governor closed schools for the rest of the academic year.
Re-reading our writing from then, I'm struck with how unaware we were, like children waving on the beach as an enormous wave looms behind them. Even at the end of the month, how little we knew of what was yet to come. It seems like years rather than months since the challenge ended; the crawl of time has been filled with so many enormous events, and I can't help but wonder what I might think when I look back on my writing in another three months.
Truth be told, I think we all love this session because the pressure is off-- the writing is already done. I know that's true for me. I also love it because it gives me the opportunity to read and reread a month of pretty great writing from each of my friends.
And that's what I did this morning; I spent a while revisiting our posts, blog by blog, day by day. Wow! What an extraordinary month to document! On March 1 it hadn't even entered anyone's mind that the corona virus might impact school, let alone close down the entire nation. By the next week, we were considering time away from our buildings with uncertainty, and on March 13 school closed for what we thought would be a month.
Through the next weeks we wrote of distance learning and quarantine, at first a novelty but soon a steady, wearing grind fraught with worry for our students, until on March 24 the governor closed schools for the rest of the academic year.
Re-reading our writing from then, I'm struck with how unaware we were, like children waving on the beach as an enormous wave looms behind them. Even at the end of the month, how little we knew of what was yet to come. It seems like years rather than months since the challenge ended; the crawl of time has been filled with so many enormous events, and I can't help but wonder what I might think when I look back on my writing in another three months.
Documenting this progression into the teeth of a pandemic is so important, and you’ve articulated this descent effectively.
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