The Key Word is "Imaginary"

Apologies for another WOD post so close on the heels of the last!

The word of the day yesterday was "Cockaigne", a word I recognized but could not define. According to my calendar, Cockaigne is "an imaginary land of great luxury and ease". Reading the definition, I took a deep, centering breath and acknowledged its relevancy.

You see, for me Cockaigne is simply the adjective that Irma Rombauer and her daughter Marion affixed to the names of their signature recipes in The Joy of Cooking. It is a weird, but quaint, shorthand signifying some sort of stamp of approval, and a word that I have skimmed thoughtlessly over hundreds of times.

Of course, a bit of research was in order to determine why the Rombauers chose such a label; as wonderfully metaphorical as it is now that I know its definition, I think I can safely say that Cockaigne is a pretty obscure reference. As it turns out, the family named their country home Cockaigne, and the dishes so labeled were those that were favorites of the guests they entertained there.

So informed, I looked up from my computer at my own dining table, the center of all the entertaining I have done for the last 21 years. 8 weeks ago, when I set up my lap top and monitor, I draped the bags for them over one of the chairs on the other side of the table. "I'm going to put this school stuff away every weekend!" I promised Heidi.

"Why?" she shrugged. "It's not like we're having anybody over."

Farfetched

I've been working on "getting right" with the election results if they don't go my way. As unimaginable as it seems, there is a real possibility the next four years are going to be hellish, and I feel like I need to be psychologically and emotionally ready. I haven't been applying the same practice to returning to in-person teaching before a vaccine is available, though, and the messaging today from central office indicates that I really should get on that.

Because as equally unimaginable as it seems, there is a real chance that I may soon have to spend my days doing this same exact type of teaching I am now, except in a poorly ventilated classroom full of 11 year olds. The kids will be directed to wear masks and stay 6 feet away from me each other, but I will be teaching them in person, on their iPads, and, at the same time, teaching the other two-thirds of their class remotely. Most kids will come to school two days a week, and I will see them once. That can only mean distance learning for all, with the distance varying from 6 feet to a couple of miles. 

Earlier today, a friend and I were texting about this proposal. "I'm wondering if this is a show to appease the vocal public with no plan of following through," I wrote. "Because if it's a real plan? It sucks."

It's Going to Leave a Mark

The word of the day on my calendar today is "demarcate" meaning to fix or define the limits of. 

The challenges of demarcation neatly sums up the good and the bad of working from home. No longer do I need to stay late at school just trying to finish that last thing before I can pack up and go home with clear conscience to enjoy the evening. 

But, no longer do I leave work at all. My desk is in my dining room, and any unfinished business greets me several times a day.

But, I can eat and drink and bake and stretch and pet the cats and dog any time during my day. Which is good, because the days are really long.

My calendar tells me that the word probably comes from the Italian, marcare, or to mark. Funny, I can't decide if I'm marking the days until we return to normal, or if the days are marking me. Either way, there has got to be a limit.

Rocktober

We hauled out the rock painting stuff for a couple of 7-year-olds in the neighborhood yesterday. All involved sat outside and wore masks. The adults half-heartedly brushed a little paint on a few rocks, but it just wasn't the same as those therapeutic summer paint-sessions. 

Perhaps it was the angle of the afternoon the sun, or the chill in the breezeway where we set up, but once I went to the trouble of trying to mix a perfect chocolate-chip-cookie golden brown tint and, after applying it, realized that I had just literally painted a rock brown, I was done.

The kids had a good time though, and their liberal use of all the glitter and paint we had so carefully collected and cared for over the summer reminded Heidi of why she could never be an elementary school teacher. I don't think it was quite as hard for me to watch them slather contrasting colors over wet paint, smearing it all into a muddy mess and then strewing it with glitter and abandon, but it wasn't very satisfying either.

Until this morning when I heard excited voices outside the door. It was the kids showing off the rocks they had left to dry to a dad who hadn't been there. Then, their pride became mine, too, and I knew that all that paint and glitter had been for a good cause. This world can use all the sparkle we can find.

Anywhere, USA

I despise this fall

most--

you can

vote early and worry

that your ballot won't be counted

and mourn RBG

and rage about the hypocrisy

of the Senate majority

and the corruption of the president

who is also a buffoon and a bully

who cheapens every discourse

and then gets hospitalized

with the same virus 

he's lied about for months

that has already killed

more than 200,000 people

in our

fragile 

democracy.

Faking and Making

One of my homeroom students asked if he could "stay after class" to talk to me. When all the other students had left the call, he said that he was having a situation with one of his teachers. "Part of the problem is that she's not good at technology," he explained. 

"We're all doing our best," I told him sympathetically.

"I know," he admitted, "but she's not professionally trained or anything, like you."

"I'm glad you have confidence in me!" I laughed. "Now let's see what we can do about that misunderstanding."

Left to Carry On

We spent a little time last weekend watching the new bio-pic about Helen Reddy. Telling the tale of her hardscrabble journey from a single mom scraping by in New York City thousands of miles from her family to a pop superstar of the seventies, it featured every one of her greatest hits in a context of both time and narrative. The film ended with Reddy coming out of retirement to perform I Am Woman at the Women's March on January 22, 2017. 

It was a pretty good Saturday night movie, and although I sang along with every. single. song. You and Me Against the World was still stuck in my head yesterday when the news broke that Helen Reddy had died. 

After watching the movie, I read that she was in a memory care unit, but there was something a little comforting about knowing that Helen Reddy, that radio icon of my childhood, was still out there somewhere. Her passing made me sad to lose another link to those days.

Coincidentally, in one scene of the movie, she was recording I Believe in Music, which was originally to be the A side of what would become her first top 40 hit, I Don't Know How to Love Him. 

"Who sang that song?" I asked Heidi, but she shrugged.

"You know, it goes Music is love and love is music if you know what I mean," I sang. "People who believe in music are the happiest people I've ever seen! I think it was Mac Davis." A quick search of the world wide web confirmed my rusty memory. "I bet I could play that song on my ukulele!" I continued, and another search brought up the tabs for the song. 

And so it happened that I was also singing I Believe in Music when I found out that Mac Davis had died, too. I know the 1970 was 50 years ago, but it doesn't really feel that far away, except for all the people who are gone.