COVID Comes to Our House

Most Sundays, I would be in the car headed across the mountains to preach at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee.  This week-end, I expected to head across the mountains after a fun time at the Crafts for Christmas retreat.  My week-end plans were thrown into disarray when my spouse tested positive for COVID on Friday afternoon.

Unfortunately, it was after he had helped me bring the evening meal down to the Crafts for Christmas retreat.  I am hoping that it was such a brief exposure that those participants will be safe.  When we were driving back to the house, my spouse said that his throat felt rough, like he had eaten a whole bag of Doritos without chewing them.  I noticed his congestion, and I suggested that he take a COVID test.  Earlier, I thought he was congested because he's been smoking more heavily later, but with the addition of a sore throat, and knowing that we had been traveling, a COVID test made sense to me.

I was stunned when it came back positive, so stunned that we did another test.  And then, I did one too.  I was negative.

I walked back to the retreat and had two of the retreat leaders join me outside.  I told them what had happened and expressed remorse for not doing the COVID test before we came down.  The nurse among them had hope that the exposure would be so brief that no one would be infected.  I continue to be worried about the mutual friend that he hugged.

Because I'd been exposed, even though I was negative, we decided that it was best for me not to attend the retreat.  I went back to get the car, and they left the food that we'd just brought on the porch.  I had spent the morning buying and preparing food for 17 people to have a make your own Mexican main dish kind of buffet (think tortillas, chips, salsa, shredded chicken, and a pot of beans).  Happily it's the kind of meal that my spouse and I never get tired of, so we've been eating well all afternoon.

Yesterday, although I tested negative again, I strategized about Sunday worship service.  I sent the church leadership an e-mail that listed options, and they decided that I should stay home and send them the sermon for someone else to read.  I don't blame them.  Many of the church members are older.  Perhaps they are in more danger from the 5-8 children who attend every week, but I was clearly a disease vector too.

This morning, I tested positive for COVID, which really isn't a surprise.  I, too, had been travelling, and I've been around my sick spouse.  At this point, I have a bit of stuffiness and a headache, but it doesn't seem worse than non-COVID days.  If my spouse hadn't had symptoms, I wouldn't have taken a COVID test for my symptoms--they are extremely mild, at least this morning.  I might not even have seen them as symptoms.    Hopefully this experience with COVID won't be much worse.

I feel lucky that I'm taking seminary classes from a distance, so I won't need to miss class, the way I would if I was taking classes in person.  I feel lucky that the sick leave policies at Spartanburg Methodist College are reasonable.  My students have essays due in the next week, so it's easy to plan for my absence.  I'll be available to them by way of e-mail.

I know that I am lucky, that this experience could be much worse, and hopefully it won't be.  I am lucky that I am vaccinated, so the disease will be less severe.

A Good Day Teaching

While I have enjoyed my four weeks teaching in person classes again, they haven't all been fabulous classes.  I had forgotten how exhausting it can be to teach in person.  At the end of my three hour teaching stint, my legs ache, and then there's the drive on either end.  There have been days when I've felt like I'm the only one who has any enthusiasm for the work at hand, days that I wish that my students had less expressive faces or better skill at handling their irritation at being asked to put away their phones and concentrate on something else.  But there are days I feel that way about the world at large.

Yesterday was different, so let me document a good teaching day.

In my English Composition II class, we talked about the upcoming paper, and then we looked at Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings."  I had my students do a quick daily writing, having them write a list of the ways the old man was God/Jesus/Vishnu/Allah/other Divine One in Charge.  It became clear that they were baffled, so I shifted gears.  I projected the story on the big screen, and I pointed to elements to guide them.

For example, I pointed to the text and said, "Here the Old Man is put in a chicken coop.  How is that similar to other God stories?"  "Here he is branded with an iron stick . . . Here he grows new feathers and flies away.  Tell me how that's similar to Jesus."  Then I did a quick review of the life of Jesus and had us focus on the Old Man as representing Jesus.  My students did much better when I asked the pointed questions, had them write for a minute or two with each question, and then we had a discussion.  It was more involvement with the text than I've seen so far.

It may be because the text wasn't completely unfamiliar; some of them said they'd read it in high school.  Or maybe they did better because it's a short story which is less overwhelming than a poem.  Or maybe it was just a better day because of something I can't track--maybe they all had something to eat.

Then I went on to my English Composition I class, where we did peer editing.  Instead of having the 9 students sit in a circle or in groups, I was the one moving--distributing essays, having them read and comment, taking them back up and distributing them to new readers.  It worked fairly well, although it was tiring for me.

As I left the classroom, a group of five students stood in the hall, talking about their essays and the feedback they'd gotten, and it sounded like it was a mostly positive experience.  By the time I left my office 10 minutes later, they had moved to one of the lounge areas in the big hallway; they stretched out on sofas and read each other's rough drafts.

I couldn't resist saying, "Y'all know how to warm a teacher's heart."  They smiled, and indeed, my teacher's heart stayed warm the rest of the day.

I have never had students stay after class to continue the peer editing--wow!  Yes, my teacher's heart continues to be happy.

Seasonal Stealing Away

I have been awake for hours, and I'm inordinately proud of myself for not spending my time scrolling through social media feeds that have minimal value.  I've been preparing poetry submissions, which means various kinds of scrolling:  through my submission log, through websites, across the Submittable platform.  I'm astonished at how much it costs to submit now, and no, I don't think it's a similar cost to paper, ink, envelopes, and stamps.

I've just been to the post office, so I have a sense of how much stamps cost.  My local post office has such a great selection of stamps.  Plus, I love getting mail.  I do love the ease of submitting online, but it's such a huge cost if I tally it up.  I don't know why I don't mind spending 84 cents on postage, but $3 is almost always a deal breaker.

I woke up thinking about upcoming events, both in classes I teach and classes that I'm taking.  You might think I would rise from my bed and get to work on those elements, but I got distracted by poetry submissions, which is better than the social media scrolling which often distracts me.

I don't know why I sprang wide awake at 2 in the morning.  I was able to get some things accomplished yesterday, like quilts for God's Work, Our Hands Sunday for people to knot.  I tried to go to the library, but got caught up in school pick up lines (grr), so I bailed.  As I pumped gas, I thought about the blazing hot sun and how hungry I was and how we didn't have anything in the house that I wanted to eat.  I had left my spouse puzzling over plumbing to go to Quilt Group, and suddenly, I thought, we should go to a brewery.  

My spouse was ready for a break, and we had a gift card from Sierra Nevada Brewing Company that had some money left on it.  Off we went, and it was a great decision.  I made this Facebook post:  "Some days when the newish technology Pex plumbing parts aren't connecting like they should, you just need to go to the local brewery and spend time in gardens that aren't yours. I didn't bring my camera, so you'll just have to imagine us at the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, enjoying the mid-afternoon heat when very few others were there, listening to a band warm up for later, trying not to droop like the huge sunflowers."

It is a strange season we're in, with summer making a surprise comeback (highs in the 90's even in the mountains), while at the same time needing to blow/sweep leaves off the back deck several times a day.  I haven't gotten essays yet from any of my students, but it feels like we've been in class together for more than just a few weeks. Soon the pace will heat up, so it was good to steal away to enjoy a beer at a beautiful place nearby.

A Trip to Maine in Pictures

In many ways, this picture sums up my impression of Maine in late summer, sailboats and trees and the bay visible from every bend of the road.   

Some of the houses were huge:

 Occasionally we came across the ruins of some older building:

The sunflowers grew as tall as people.  Lots of yards had edges of tall flowering plants that I suspect many of us might call weeds (you call the flowering plant goldenrod, I call it the ragweed that aggravates our allergies).

The shops looked quaint, and I have no idea how anyone makes money unless they're selling us something to eat.  It seems like expensive real estate.

We stayed at an inn that might have been called a motor lodge, in a different time and place.  It was comfortable.

On Saturday, we started the festivities with a gathering in a state park.  

We hiked down to the shoreline trail.  

I decided not to take the rocky steps down to the actual shore.

The wedding was at a beautiful place, the 1812 Farm in Bristol, Maine.  

The ceremony took place under trees that stretched overhead, a different sort of chuppah.

The dinner was under a tent, another sort of festive, temporary home.

I loved the long, sloping lawn, with a camper off to the side where the bar was set up.  Every picture I took of the camper bar came out blurry.  Hmm.

We posed for photos in chairs made out of lobster traps.  Honestly, I didn't realize they were lobster traps until friends from Germany told me.

It was a beautiful week-end.  I felt lucky to be part of it.

Maine Wedding Week-end in Words

This morning, I'm back from a whirlwind week-end trip to Maine.  I planned to write while I was away, but I had some computer issues or perhaps Blogger issues or perhaps Google issues or perhaps wi fi issues.  Or maybe I just felt lazy.  I did get some grading done and other work for my online classes.  

I was in Camden Maine for the wedding of the oldest son of grad school friends.  Long ago, they left for England, where she was from; they decided to settle there, not here, because she had an extensive family there and because of what England provides citizens (like health care) that the U.S. doesn't.  She was pregnant when she left, and we've seen the whole family through the years.  In 2016, we went to Arizona for the wedding of their younger son, and we met some folks that we saw again this past week-end.

I had never been to Maine before, and I was surprised to find how much it reminded me of the parts of Maryland that are near the Chesapeake Bay.  The buildings look similar, as does the landscape, and the vistas of water that seem to be at every turn of the road.  The weather was perfect, which was fortunate, because the week-end plans were mostly outdoors:  a gathering at a picnic shelter on Saturday and the wedding itself on Sunday afternoon.

We got to Maine on Friday afternoon and made our way to Camden after flying in to Portland.  One of the best meals we had was on our way, at a roadside pizza place.  It may be the most perfect pizza I've ever had.  The crust was perfectly crisp with abundant toppings:  cheeses, onions, bacon, and mushrooms.  We ate at the Sea Dog brewery Friday night after we literally bumped into the friends we had met in Arizona as we passed each other on the street.  That was one of the more perfect settings as we settled into a picnic table on a back covered terrace that overlooked the bay.

It was a week-end of various festivals around town.  In addition to Labor Day, there was a Windjammer celebration, and some other smaller events that had streets blocked off and lots of traffic.  Because we were there for a wedding and to see friends that we don't have a chance to see as often, we didn't do much sightseeing.  I didn't buy anything except for food and drink.  I didn't even really go into the small shops that looked like they had interesting stuff.

The only good cup of coffee I got was from a bookstore, The Owl and the Turtle.  It was a mocha, and the woman in line behind me recommended that I opt for the whipped cream on the top.  It was homemade and worth every calorie.  The food was good, but the company was better.

The wedding was held at a beautiful venue.  It was one of the first times I'd been to a Jewish wedding; the bride is Jewish.  I sat there as we waited for the wedding to start and went back to previous weddings I've attended--could it be possible that I've never been to a Jewish wedding?  Yes, it is possible, but then I remembered that we went to the wedding of the mother of a college friend.  In terms of the ceremony, it seemed similar to every other wedding I've attended:  a celebration of love and a reminder that marriage doesn't keep us safe from hard times.

The wedding event included an open bar and a delicious meal and cake and dancing.  We didn't stay until the very end--we had to be on the road early on Monday to get back to the airport.  We had an easy trip back.  It may have been one of the easiest zips through TSA security that I've ever had.  Returning the rental car was also quick and effortless.  The plane took off five minutes early; I guess one of the advantages of a small airport is that we don't have to wait for the one lone passenger making their way to the concourse.

And now it's back to Fall.  Today I teach, and tonight I don't have class.  Tomorrow, my schedule heats up.  But it's OK, because I'm looking forward to all the events that are coming my way.  It's very different than other times I've returned from vacation where I've dreaded all the work stuff about to fall on my head.

Tomorrow I'll post some pictures from the trip.  Today I need to make sure I'm ready for teaching.

Thinking about Labor on Labor Day

Yesterday afternoon, on our way to a wedding that I'll write more about tomorrow, I asked my friend if she thought I could wear my white skirt with blue embroidered designs into late fall or even winter.  She asked about the fabric, which is cotton.  The skirt looks summery, but with the right top, I could see it looking wintry, like something with a snowflake design.

Then I laughed at myself.  How many decades has it been since we worried about wearing white after Labor Day?  And I'm teaching in a place that will not fire me for a fashion faux pas.  Most of my fellow faculty members seem to be at midlife or older, with a preference towards comfortable clothes with a zing of stylish touch.  My skirt will not be out of place.

Many of us think about Labor Day as the end of summer, and I'm old enough to remember when college classes started the Tuesday after Labor Day.  My mom does too; she said in her generation it was because college students had jobs at country clubs that would close after Labor Day.  In terms of weather, I've always lived in places where summer will stretch on through September and perhaps beyond.

Even though many of us will see today as simply a day off, it's a good day to think about work, both the kind we do for pay and the kind we do out of love. And what about the work we feel compelled to do? I'm thinking of that kind of documenting of family history, of cultural history, of all that might be lost without our efforts.  I'm thinking of our creative work.  There's so many more different kinds of work than just work for pay.

I'm thinking about our attitude towards work too.  I am glad to see that this article, published in 2016, about the theology of work is still online.  Here's my favorite quote from it, with ideas informed by Christian monasticism:  "Taking Benedict’s approach would force us to reconsider how we think about our work. Instead of, 'What work am I called to?' we might ask, 'How does the task before me contribute to or hinder my progress toward holiness?; Not 'How does this work cooperate with material creation?' but 'How does this work contribute to the life of the community and to others’ material and spiritual well-being?' Not 'Am I doing what I love?' but 'What activity is so important that I should, without exception, drop my work in order to do it?'”

And here's a Buddhist thought about work for your Labor Day, found in an interview with Bill Moyers and Jane Hirshfield who explains, "Teahouse practice means that you don't explicitly talk about Zen. It refers to leading your life as if you were an old woman who has a teahouse by the side of the road. Nobody knows why they like to go there, they just feel good drinking her tea. She's not known as a Buddhist teacher, she doesn't say, "This is the Zen teahouse." All she does is simply serve tea--but still, her decades of attentiveness are part of the way she does it. No one knows about her faithful attention to the practice, it's just there, in the serving of the tea, and the way she cleans the counters and washes the cups" (Fooling with Words: A Celebration of Poets and Their Craft, page 112).

Wasting Away Again

I missed several days of writing--one expected because of very early morning travel, and one because I had to reset passwords after Chrome updated.  Google wanted to do additional identity establishing, and the phone number that I used long ago when I set up my Google account was attached to a land line phone that we no longer have.  Happily, I was able to establish my identity by using my phone to go to the Google site to say, "Hi, it's really me!"  I'm happy that it was a relatively easy fix, but it still consumed my one window of time that I might have spent writing.

I was sad to hear of the death of Bill Richardson, who has done more than most of us will ever know about to free US citizens detained illegally.  I understand all the reasons why people might say that he intervened in areas where he didn't belong, but this article in The Washington Post said it best:  “'There was no person that Governor Richardson would not speak with if it held the promise of returning a person to freedom," Mickey Bergman, vice president of the Richardson Center and Richardson’s longtime collaborator on hostage cases, said in a statement Saturday. 'The world has lost a champion for those held unjustly abroad."”

I was also sad to hear about the death of Jimmy Buffet at age 76 (Richardson was 75; the mid-70's seems a really young age for white men of means to die).  While Buffet's music was not the first choice for me, through the years, I've had lots of family and friends choose his music to play when we gathered together, and his music and lyrics were so vast and varied and skilled.  He also seemed like a decent human, even as he made gobs and gobs of money.  As others have said, I never came across anyone who had a bad word to say about the man.  And that's rare, especially for people with such a public presence across the decades.

I'm not going to write a longer post today.  I'm getting error messages about Blogger being unable to save this writing and then it seems to have success.  I'm worried that I'll write something that will be lost forever.  Let me send some student e-mails about work due this week instead.