Mama Tree

At last count, we have 19 fruit trees in our yard. I say "last count" because just this last summer I discovered that a struggling sapling was a mango tree. Our house has had at least two previous owners in its 60 year life, and the owner just before us tried really hard to turn this 1/3 acre into a tropical paradise. So I'm not sure if he planted all these fruit trees or if some of them predate him. At any rate, some very fruit-loving people have gone before our family in this fabulous little home.

I've included the banana trees in my count but maybe I shouldn't. Bananas aren't even real trees--they are a perennial herb. But I'm not going to say "Oh, yes, over in this part of the yard, you'll see the banana plant herb garden." We have harvested bananas a few times now, a process I had to look up in order to do. The first time the banana trees fruited, I couldn't figure out why the fruit never ripened. Then I realized that they don't ripen until cut, and after cutting off the stalk the first time, I was alarmed to see the whole plant wither and die! But then I did some reading online and realized that the "mama" banana plant always dies after the fruit is picked and a new sucker or, "pup," will shoot up from the rhizome. In fact, many times a plant has multiple pups but only the oldest grows to fruition after the mother plant has given her fruit.

The analogies here are just so obvious. You don't have to be an English professor to notice them.

After the fruit is cut off, the mother plant dies. The next oldest pup grows up in order to take its turn producing a flower and then fruit. Man, nature can be so cruel.

My 10 year old took this picture of me with a freshly picked stalk. Notice the bell of the remaining flower at the bottom. Pretty cool! My daughter thoughtfully edited the photo--in case you were unsure what I'm holding.

Yesterday I had a hard conversation with some family members. We were talking over the wisdom of sending kids back to school in the midst of this discouraging scourge of coronavirus. (Again, let's note the cruelty of nature.) I may have gotten a little emotional when I informed my brother that I would be sending my kids back to school and preschool this fall. I told him that I just could not bear to repeat last March through May during which time I tried to get my kids to do school via distance learning only and also maintain a full teaching schedule via Zoom for my own students. My brother coolly (and correctly) pointed out that my feelings about distance learning were not as pertinent to this conversation as assessing and responding to the risks of children returning to the classroom.

He's right. But I still tried to tell him that my past experiences do weigh into my decision for the next school year. I tried to say just what those experiences were but all I succeeded in doing was saying how I felt about those experiences. I was surprised at how emotional I got when I really thought over those months last spring semester.

It was such a hard time. I didn't do a great job of talking about it.

After this conversation, I felt emotionally and physically worn out. As I was getting my kids ready for bed I kept asking them dumb things like, "Am I bad mom?" and "Do you think I'm wimpy?" and "What was so hard about distance learning last school year?" and again "Am I bad mom?"

If there's one thing you shouldn't demand of your kids, it's affirmation.

If there's one thing I will always be grateful for, it's the fact that all three of my daughters give me affirmation, even when I'm being unreasonable. My son, who's only 4, just looks at me. He knows I'm nuts. My girls know that too but they have merciful hearts. My oldest daughter even composed a cheekily funny email to me, listing all the reasons I'm not a wimp and reassuring me that distance learning is hard but I'm a badass mom who can handle hard things. (She did not use the word "badass." She's a good girl.)

One of the things I tell my writing students over and over again is this: use details to describe the experience/event/person/thing. Don't just tell me how you feel! Here's an example of writing that tells me only how one feels: "I really liked this roller coaster. My heart was in my throat the whole time!" The reader knows nothing about the roller coaster--only your experience. Here's an example of writing that uses details: "Right out of the gate, the roller coaster zooms up 100 feet and drops before entering the first of three loops." Now the reader knows about the roller coaster.

Let's apply this writing advice to my experience of last March through May. I could tell you, "Last school year was really hard. Every day that I had to help my kids through distance learning made me crazy. Teaching via Zoom sucked the life out of me." Now you know how I felt.

But if I told you, "I get up every morning at 6 or earlier with my three year old. I drink two cups of coffee while getting him breakfast, taking care of our rambunctious puppy, and reading or writing to prepare for class. Then I plop the boy in front of a screen, hoping that I have picked a show suitably enticing to keep him there for the next 4 hours. It's now almost 8 am. I make sure my school age daughters drag themselves out of bed. While they are making themselves tea and breakfast, I write down the instructions for the day on sticky notes for the younger two. I organize their tasks under these notes. I make sure they have all the markers or scissors or headphones or whatever else the day's tasks require because for the first half of the day, I won't be available to help them much. I then shower and dress real quick in order to make sure I looked professional for my Zoom classes. If it is my heavier teaching day, I start Zooming with students at 8:30 and finish between 11:20 and 12:30 or so, depending on the day. My husband begins his Zoom classes at 7 am. During my class time, I sit in the family room because our house is small and I don't have a separate off. My son is (hopefully) watching TV behind me. My students can't see, but my second grader is five feet to my left so I can periodically answer her questions or help her out, which my students do witness because I'm in the midst of teaching classes while giving this help. My seventh grader is in the dining room, working mostly on her computer. In the next room over, my fourth grader sits at another table, usually working really slowly because she's not that internally motivated. As I conduct classes, I often have to pick up my computer and walk from room to room, searching for quiet, which is elusive. Kids are loud. My son loves to run through the house and pretend to be a screeching car or, worse, an ambulance. This his house. This is his life. I have to work around that. So does my husband, though he usually uses the master bedroom for his classes. My children have a deeply ingrained habit of asking me for everything. They only ask dad when they want candy or ice cream because he's more permissive. So the kids constantly come to me as I conduct class discussions, run breakout rooms, give quizzes, check student work, meet with independent study students, and keep my classes current on our school's online platform. As I actively teach Zoom classes, I keep an eye on the time in order to remind my 3 school age children when to get on the computer for their Zoom classes. I plan breakout rooms or online quizzes into my classes so I can step away for a few minutes to get my second grader or fourth grader going on their Zoom classes. Sometimes I can't step away from teaching, and frantically make signs to my oldest child to help a sibling for me, which she can usually figure out how to do. After I say goodbye to my last class, I close the computer, get up and started making lunch. Sometimes my oldest daughter has already started this, for which I am always grateful. After lunch, it is time to clean up lunch and the debris of a morning of basically unsupervised children. I enlist the kids to help with this clean up, but any parent can tell you that getting kids to do cleaning can be more troublesome than doing the cleaning yourself. After clean up, I read stories to my son and put him in bed for a nap. (One of God's small mercies to me is this boy's continued need for a nap.) By this point in the afternoon, I really would like a break. Remember that I've been on "go" mode since about 6 am. But this is the time of the day to give my daughters the attention and direction they need. Reading practice. Help with math questions. Checking over homework to submit grades to teachers. Spelling tests. When I've finished helping with these things, I work on my asynchronous online class, which has a ton of students in it, and therefore requires quite a bit of grading and discussion interaction. When the boy wakes up from his nap around 3:30 or 4, the kids mostly play outside. Thank God for good weather and a big yard. If I'm done working on my online class, I make dinner. If I'm not, my husband makes dinner. We eat as a family. At 5:30 or 6, we load into the car, drive down the hill to a nearby neighborhood and take a family plus new puppy walk. If it's farther into the pandemic, we meet family members who walk with us, distancing by 6 feet. If it's even later into the pandemic and we have all been isolated for a long time, we just walk together and enjoy being outside. After the walk, it's time to get kids ready for bed, which is a very long and involved process. But I'm a believer in bedtime stories and snuggles. I usually kiss the last child goodnight around 9 pm. Then I read for class the next day. Most of the time, this means reading The Brothers Karamazov or some Gothic short stories, so I really enjoy this part of the day. Lights out around 10:30."

Now you know about last March through May, not just how I feel about that time.

My life during that time was not bad. It was just a lot to adjust to and juggle. And to be honest, I've just described my Tuesday/Thursday day. On Monday/Wednesday, I taught online less and focused more on the kids. I didn't teach at all on Fridays and eventually turned that day into a house cleaning/errands/chores/finish late work day. I gradually got better at working in some fun activities with the kids. But still, by the end of the spring semester, I felt like the withering mama banana tree whose fruit had been plucked.

And here I am, facing another (possibly entire?!) school year that might look pretty similar.

Excuse me while I go breathe into a paper bag.

I'm back. I'm going to be okay. Two things help me as a face the 20-21 school year. 1) I'm the mama tree right now. The banana tree needs a lot of water, temperate weather, and nutrient-rich soil in order to flower and fruit. A banana tree will produce smaller and less sweet fruit under less optimal conditions. It's like I'm heading into a season with poor growing conditions. Let's be real--whatever I do over the next school year won't be the best ever. Same is true for every parent or person involved in education. We need to all be okay with small fruit this year.  2) This school year is going to be hard. It helps to remember that there will be a new season on the other side of this pandemic. I am looking forward to that season . . . but I want to see these struggles as larger than this present concern. It is part of every person's life to have difficult seasons, and a submission to "dying back" does not mean a resignation to loss and hopelessness. Remember Jesus' words to the Greek visitors to Jerusalem when they questioned him the very week before his death: "unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24).