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In a post at Creek Running North, commenter jmartin offered a great response to the question of how do we give kids the straight story about the condition of the world without destroying their hopes for the future. I'm quoting what jmartin said, because I think it works well for adults too.
The cat and I have developed a game. Most of the time when I play with the cat, it is me taking advantage of her instincts to provide entertainment. I trail a feather along the back of the chair, roll acorns at her feet, toss milk bottle rings in the air for her to catch.
This game is one that she helped invent. It is a game with rules, designed for two players taking turns. It is fascinating to me that such a thing can exist, between two such different creatures, one a tall bipedal primate with lousy stalking skills and the other a small black feline who is not always very bright, even by cat standards.
The game is a combination of tag and hide and go seek. One person hides behind the edge of something - a door, a wall, a piece of furniture. The other slowly sneaks up. Both players are hoping to catch the other one unawares; the hider by peeking out while the sneaker is still mid-sneak, the sneaker by surprising the hider first.
Usually she is the one who hides, and I'm the one who "sneaks," poorly, in squeaky clogs over creaky wooden floors, my big two-footed self ill-suited to quiet dashes. I'm almost always caught.
Sometimes, I'm the one who hides, peering around the edge of the door in an enticing manner until she begins her creeping attack. Last night I was hiding behind the bathroom door, and she kept creeping, and running away, and creeping back. I had been looking around the edge of the door at head-height, and she was beginning to catch on, watching that spot before I'd even poked my head out. So - a new strategy. I hunkered down, and looked around the edge below the doorknob.
I surprised her, but she had quick reflexes and leaped at my head, feet and toes spread wide. Yikes!
I decided to go back to peeking out above the doorknob.
She leaps four feet into the air!
I startle!
I think she won that round.
Flugue State
I do not have the energy
for walking
fast
quick
confident
I drift along
at the pace
of
a breath
I tell
myself
that it is
a moving
meditation
a chance
to reflect
on
the world
as it
goes by
But really
it is
just...
slow.
I spent the weekend sleeping, drinking fluids, and occasionally reading or watching tv.
I have the flu. My students gave it to me, along with their papers.
I did not get much grading done this weekend. This seems appropriate.
It has not been a "bad" flu, at least in the sense of symptoms. For the first couple of days my head (including face) and shoulders ached. I'm sneezing, but it's not much worse than my usual allergies. Mostly I'm just tired.
It is a bad flu in the sense that I have it at all. I had my flu shot, after all. My mother and I are people with robust immune systems, and most illnesses are mild inconveniences at best.
The flip side of that is that when we get sick, we get sick. The contrast between our usually lively selves and our ailing selves is pretty striking.
It is tiring walking up stairs. It is tiring walking down stairs. It was certainly tiring walking to campus this morning, and tiring discovering that the projector was not working in my classroom.
It was tiring walking to lunch.
It was tiring have it drizzle on my head.
I must lift my feet high and pound them down normally, because I felt very slow and light-footed today, as I drooped along, expending as little energy as I could while still moving forward.
I'm tired.
I'm going to go home and sleep.
Just as soon as I get up the energy to move.
Tired.
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