Well. I think I just made more work for myself. As always. What’s new? The end of this school year is so weird, so surreal, but it is ending…in fire and disease, right? Well, not really. But I’m intrigued by how my students don’t want to talk about the protests and police, but they do want to talk about the beach and food and seeing their friends and being done with homework. And cheese. One kid only wants to talk about cheese. I think it would be different in person, in a different world, one where things weren’t so scary, but this is what we have right now…scary and different. It’s safe to talk to me about cheese.
Normally, I’d be one of the protesters, out marching, but I’m worried about the transmission of this virus. Really worried. For myself and others. I see too many unmasked people at the protests. Normally, standing with a large crowd of chanting marchers, holding signs, that’s a thing I can do…some friends don’t or can’t, and it’s OK, because I can. But when I get sick with this thing, and a lot of us will, I want it to be as far along in the process as possible. That is my privilege talking…I’m not getting shot at for my skin color or knelt upon or unfairly jailed. So I have to put my protest energy somewhere. I’m still reading, I’m still watching…finished When They See Us on Netflix last night…the episode with Korey Wise in jail is difficult to watch. But necessary. It’s been on my list for a year, since it came out. One of my few white, non-immigrant students told me to watch it. There’s nothing easy about watching our white dumbassery hurting anyone, especially kids, and there’s the reality of the families who went through this and those boys becoming men. It’s not enough for it to sicken our hearts and stomachs though…like the Breonna Taylor story does. Something has to change. We have to change. It was her birthday yesterday…
Go to @battmamzelle for links to how to Say Her Name and get Breonna and her family some justice. Check out @arielsinhaha for more amazing graphic art.
I’m still working on BIPOC embroiderers and fiber artists and other artists. Some I was already following because of their work popping up in my feed when a friend liked it, but that’s not good enough. I need to go search more out and find a way to support it.
Locally, we might still be on curfew. It’s hard to tell. Our neighboring city is, still with the National Guard. Fear is a hard one, y’all. We want everything to be nice and pretty and cleaned up, but the reality for most is that that police are not doing that for them. We must continue to protest until they really do protect and serve all of us.
I want to draw today; it helps my brain process, but I know how much other work I have going on. Grades are due. I had completed everything I thought I was going to do, and then I thought about how much more I could do…and so I emailed every kid that was missing enough to not get credit, and we’ll see what comes of that. Maybe nothing. Maybe they will do it. As a teacher, what I’m doing now is so far away from how I usually teach and want kids to process and learn, and yet I am lucky to have a job and a paycheck and a calling (however annoying it may be), so there’s that. Next year will be different. It will not necessarily be better. It will probably be hard. But hopefully I will do a better job of reaching kids…I say that every year. How many kids did you reach? Hard to say. That one. And maybe this one. And in 5 years, one will come back and tell me they were one I didn’t even know about. So there’s that too.
I’m almost done with cutting this thing out, this giant-ass quilt that has dominated my COVID not-time-off. Thursday’s meeting time…
You can see how much is left in the box…
There’s a whole bunch of flesh cut out…this is probably Figure 2…
And the pile grows…or shrinks…depending on which one you’re looking at.
That was Thursday night…here’s Friday night…I can see the bottom of the box!
I’m cutting out pieces of the background hillside. That’s cool. That’s close to the end.
That’s almost 19 hours of cutting. I said 20? It will probably be 21 or 22 hours, but I was close. Then sort, then iron. In the middle of all the grades and a million meetings next week. I love how my school district decides to just ADD meetings to the mix, two weeks before we’re done. Like y’all have no idea what we’re actually doing with our time. I finished the “7-hour” training (it wasn’t 7 hours), so that’s a thing. My classroom still needs some work, but I’m waiting for the floors to be done. I signed up for curriculum stuff. Because I can’t stand certain people deciding on the curriculum for my kids. My fault for caring.
But this quilt will eventually get done. I’m hoping by the end of the month, but it might just be July. Too many other things going on. Like yesterday, my niece graduated from high school!
Online, of course, but I hadn’t made plans to GO to the graduation (it’s a rough time of year for teachers), so it was cool to see what they did online.
Probably a better view than we normally see.
She should be going to college in the Fall…it remains to be seen what that will look like. That’s true for everything right now though.
Simba carefully watched the whole thing.
And the dots! We’re in the last few weeks of this crazy thing. I had another online meeting Thursday night and did my bee dot, just under the white ball. Which isn’t really white.
Some commentary there. I’m not actually sure why that ball is there. I didn’t use it. Whoops. Those bees are also fucking tiny.
So there’s that.
Two years ago, our 7th-grade science teacher motto was “Whatever.” This last year, it was (ironically now), “It’s Fine.” (It’s not. But you get it.). For next year? It probably involves cussing. But “So there’s that” might be a close second.
Last night’s dot was easy peasy…kitty corner to the left of the bottom spool.
Bullion knots no longer frighten me.
Although that was true before I started this project.
Twenty one to go.
Today is a day free from school work. Well, except for what I already did. I have a quilt guild meeting and I want to finish cutting out pieces and maybe sort them, and I need a long walk outside in nature. It’s a cool, cloudy, and slightly rainy day. Should make walking nice, unlike next week, when Satan arrives on his 95-degree-Fahrenheit horse. I might read or draw some too. But first, a shower and some more tea, because I didn’t sleep, yet again. Gotta love this old lady body and her stupid hormones. I mean, it’s all I got, so I gotta love it. Peace to all; protesters today, stay safe, but make change the obvious choice. And cops, knock it the fuck off. Quit your job. Go do something more humane. Sigh.
Kathy Nida 