Bessie and Me: Shifting Gears

Children returned to school this past week in my district after months of quarantine and a few more months of statewide wrangling over what safely opening schools 'looked like.'  I personally chose eSchool online teaching and was granted that assignment; many of my colleagues were not granted their requests for eSchool. That's a whole different blog post. After weeks of frustration, resistance, emails, social media posts...I have resigned myself to the task at hand and that is educating children. This is the hand I've been dealt, I will play it as deftly as I can. I enter an empty classroom each morning; void of student desks, void of student product or motivational posters on the walls, void of noisy chatter, and void of smiling anxious faces looking back at me as I sit down to my lone desk. I have 240 kids on my roster in 3 different grade levels. I am on campus, but not interacting with any of the F2F students or teachers; eSchool teachers are dangling out there on o...

 In his book "Tuesdays With Morrie," author Mitch Album writes about the time he spent with a former college professor who suffered from ALS and the lessons he learned from the dying. According to Morrie, the way you put meaning in your life is to devote yourself to loving others, the community around you and a devotion to something that gives you purpose. My grandson will probably not recall the summer he spent with Mimi when the pandemic of 2020 shut all life down as we know it. But Mimi will certainly remember it. Today was the last Wednesday for my grandson and I as I return to school next week. It is just as well, he moved into the two-year-old class at daycare and I can tell he misses interacting with the other toddlers, his buds.  Under 'normal' circumstances if I agreed to provide care for my grandson we would not be confined to home and the surrounding area. As I did with my own two daughters at this age we would set out each day for Legoland, Disney World, ...

  An audible gasp escaped from Della’s mouth with the same velocity as if she had been punched in the gut, robbing her of air. Her eyes flew from the doctor to Bree who perched serenely on the edge of the exam table, the flimsy patient gown seemed to swallow her slight body whole, one thin bare shoulder peeking out of the too big neckline. Bree’s facial expression was frozen in a tight, thin lipped half smile as she received the news.   Dr. Jordan, supposedly the best oncologist in the Chicago area, delivered the diagnosis in a wearisome tone as if he did this too many times already today, “I’m sorry Ms. Maxwell your recent CT scan reveals the cancer has metastasized to your liver, meaning it is no longer confined to the pancreas.”   Bree’s shoulders drooped slightly, her chin jutted forward valiantly, and her voice quivered as she asked, “What are my treatment options Doctor?” Della, seated in a chair in a corner behind Bree, moved to the edge her hands on either armres...

" No no no Don't it always seem to go, That you don't know what you've got Til its gone They paved paradise And put up a parking lot" ~ Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi lyrics Catching a Sunrise Joni Mitchell's song ran through my head this morning as I watched the sunrise then left home for an early morning cruise on Bessie. A few years ago I could leave my comfortable subdivision and in five minutes tops be cruising a cool, moss-draped oak tree shaded backroad surrounded by the fragrant smell of orange blossoms. This morning I realized it was a good twenty minutes before traffic thinned then disappeared. I love Central Florida because of the wide open spaces; the close (but not too close) proximity to the metropolitan areas of Orlando and Tampa as well as easy access to the beaches of either coast. The Florida backroads I've known and loved for the past three decades are becoming as elusive as the Florida panther; hard to find and on the endangered list. ...