This morning, my seventh grade classroom was as welcoming as ever. Bright, cheerful and ready for all the wacky wonder that twelve and thirteen year olds wear around themselves like cloaks. But I've noticed that my returns to school after bouts of forced remote learning are feeling heavier. It's getting harder to get my energy up, to feel charged and ready to embrace my day. These days often start with a sense of weariness and end the same way. At least that's what I was thinking about as I walked in.
And then today happened.
The real live kids came in and I felt a lift as we gave each other distance air hugs, caught up on each other's pets (since they are all honorary members of class by now) and talked about what life's been like on the other side of zoom. As my first class started and we began talking about the books we've been reading and our writing, I started to settle into a comfortable conferencing groove zipping around the room on my stool on wheels. When I reached Alex, normally so taciturn, animating only for conversations about Marvel comic or Baby Yoda, he couldn't stop talking about what he's been reading and writing about. As I wheeled around the room, ricocheting from desk to desk for a short writerly chat, he'd rope me in with a quiet call and kept reeling me back in with, "One more thing...".
He's been home, alone during the days, for two weeks. He had things to say. Things about his book: Samuel, searching for his folks in the woods of Pennsylvania during the Revolutionary War. Things about his writing: "I'm not a writing kind of kid except this is good so I'm going to keep writing". Things about his life: the dog he hopes he'll get soon and the dad, absent from his life for the past year, he's not sure he'll see again. Isn't sure he wants to.
And my weariness fades for now. This is why I show up.
None of this is easy, but right now, it's what we've got. And the moments of connect make it worth it.