Pertinent to my Interests

We are experiencing Second False Spring here in Minnesota, which means that it’s currently 50 degrees (fleece weather! my favorite!) but also there is snow in the forecast next week.

Despite the inviting weather, I am currently occupied by my favorite afternoon activity: shutting myself up in the den with both doors closed, the space heater on, and a documentary I’ve already watched 53 times playing on the TV. It’s like the nerdiest, dryest sauna in here and I love it. My husband is disturbed every time he finds me engaged in this activity because for the first twenty years of our relationship, I was one of those rare females who never get cold. Well, middle age changes you.

I am currently playing three pieces of music for my piano lessons, and they are all written in a different key: two flats, three flats, and four flats. I am practicing them in that order because I am pretty sure it’s easier to add flats in my brain than it is to take them away.

My piano teacher asked me the other day if I prefer playing in keys with sharps or keys with flats and I had never considered this question before, but I immediately knew the answer: I very much prefer flats.

I guess you could say I’m living my best piano life right now.

A strange thing happened at work the other day, and unfortunately, I can’t really tell the story without betraying the privacy of some people. I am obliged both professionally and morally to protect our students, and this really hobbles me when it comes to writing about work.

I will boil this story down to the basic elements.

A child said something had happened. The three adults who were present (including me) heard this and expressed both sympathy and alarm to the student. After resolving the immediate issue with the student, the adults reconvened and decided that the child’s story needed to be reported.

I was surprised because I have heard similar stories before, second-hand, from other adults. I have, in fact, heard a similar story first-hand myself, and had reported that one months ago. It seemed that nothing was done, and that was the end.

The appearance of non-action read like tolerance.

But I think it’s just an appearance of non-action, not an actual lack of action. And every incident should be reported, every time. I am ashamed that I was ready to just shrug my shoulders and move on with my day.

That’s not how this should work. I’m glad I had this reminder. I learn more about human nature and morality every day at this job.

It’s time for another report on how Casey’s resolutions are going. Recall that this year my resolutions are twofold:

1. A meaningful but simple fitness and nutrition goal that lasts the entire year
2. One additional rotating goal per month

This month I am happy to report that I actually met my fitness and nutrition goals. And, as if the universe was trying to double down on the message, my last workout of the month (on Thursday) was the first workout I’ve done since the beginning of the year that actually made me feel strong. It has been a true fucking slog, let me tell you.

My additional goal this month was a fun one: learn a new ASL sign every day.

The school I work at has a small population of deaf staff and deaf students and while I know I’ll never acquire enough ASL to have a full conversation with them, I want to do better. I’m actually pretty good at fingerspelling, already, so I kept my ears open and tried to come up with a list of frequently used words at school that might come in handy. The post before this one is the list of ASL I learned.

(Note: I already knew a number of useful school signs like “name” and “attendance” and “poop,” so this is a list of additional signs.)

As you can see, I only made it to 26 signs, not 28. As I pointed out to my youngest, that’s like 92% of my goal: an A-. I am okay with that.

This was a fun and useful resolution, but I’m happy it’s over. Now I get to use what I learned and also move forward with a new resolution next month.

Fine (can be used as a response to “thank you”)

Interpreter

Teacher

Sick

Where

Phone

Help (as in “how can I help you?)

Hot

Cold

Lunch

Delicious

Lucky

Sorry

Stop

Wait

Squirrel

Science

Music

Dance

Fire

Clean

Doctor

Color

Broken

Printer

How do you sign…?

I had a weird Saturday.

We had a nice family trip to one of the local Asian supermarkets. Our goals: to find some snacks that we fondly remember from our trip to Japan last summer, and to acquire mochi donuts.

The kids and I were discussing this Asian market and how it compared to one that we had gone to in a local suburb.

“I don’t know why, but this one feels more real,” my oldest said.

“Yes,” I agreed. “I always feel a little out of place here, and that’s how I know it’s authentic.”

I got a taro-flavored mochi donut and it was delicious.

The next outing of the day was to a funeral. It was in a lovely old church that smelled properly of old stone and generations of careful care. Wooden pews and stained glass. I opened the bulletin, located the first hymn in the new red hymnal, and I was ready to go.

I was not ready to go. Guys, did you know that you can just forget how to do church if you don’t go frequently enough? I did not know this. I couldn’t remember the responses to the readings and the gospel without looking. We sang the Lord’s Prayer. Who sings the Lord’s Prayer? At one point during the preparation of communion I got extremely lost in the bulletin and just stopped trying to figure it out. I mumbled along enthusiastically, hoping to look like I fit in.

Am I bad at church now? I didn’t realize that attending a church service was a skill that I might lose. I guess I thought all the Lutheran churches would always be out there reciting the Lord’s Prayer with the word “trespasses” intact and that everyone would always sing the same version of Lamb of God as the first song during communion. How many versions of Lamb of God could there possibly be and why would anyone ever pick anything else for communion?

I felt so out of place, an obvious foreigner fumbling with the psalmody as if she’s never sung a psalm in her entire life.

The last outing of the day was to a fancy dinner with my husband’s work team. This is an annual event that I dread. What are appropriate topics of conversation when you struggle to relate to anything about another person’s life? For the most part, this is the generational wealth set: they travel internationally with their kids every year, they have never and will never set foot in a public school. Inevitably the conversation will turn to the details of a recent SEC filing and I will struggle to maintain my interest in the conversation. Even the open bar does nothing to help–I am too concerned with maintaining appropriate behavior to allow myself to imbibe much.

Usually it’s just an evening of cocktails and a buffet of heavy hors d’oeuvres, but this year it was a fancy sit-down dinner: the kind with multiple layers of utensils. Which bread plate is mine? Which water cup? Dear Lord, it’s only a matter of time before they all realize that we are frauds, raised in households that resemble the Roseanne sitcom while they just walked off the set of Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

Out of place.

So it was a weird Saturday indeed.

One thing that has surprised me about life is how many different lifetimes I am actually fitting into this one life.

I am only 42 years old, but here are, approximately, all the lifetimes I have lived:

1983-1992: Pre-divorce childhood

1992-1998ish: Post-divorce childhood

1999-2002: High School

2002-2006: College

2006-2012: Young adult years in New York City

2013-2021: Young motherhood years as a stay-at-home parent

2022-2024: Weird lost years when I wasn’t working but the kids were both in school full-time, weekly existential crisis and bored out of my mind but damn I hate volunteering

2024-present: working half-time with older kids, living the dream

You could potentially collapse those last two eras into one, and that would still leave me with seven distinct lifetimes within this one life. And if all goes according to plan, I am only halfway through!

There are so many other ways to divide up my life.

What about time zones?
1983-1984: Central Time
1984-2002: Pacific Time
2002-2006: Central Time
2006-2012: Eastern Time
2012-2026: Central TIme

Camping
1983-2002: Camping years
2002-2012: Non-camping years
2013-2021: Camping years
2021-present: Non-camping years

Cabin Ownership
1983-2021: No cabin
2021-present: Cabin

Number of Living Parents
1983-2019: Two parents
2019-present: One parent

And it’s interesting to think about how these things overlap. I could list the years that I’ve lived with a piano and the years I have lived with a cat and they would be roughly the same, but not quite. My knitting years line up very neatly with those young adult years in New York City.

I think I have finally entered the part of life where there will be fewer changes. Adulthood and parenthood are supposed to be a long plod where nothing changes and you’re just fixing up shit that breaks around your house and getting your kid through their education and puberty.

It does feel like my life has held more lifetimes than most people. My childhood comes in a set of two due to the divorce. Moving to New York City as a young adult created a distinct NYC lifetime. When I stopped working to stay home with the kids that broke things up further, and then the pandemic and my inability to figure out what to do with my life (and my struggle to figure out what had changed with job applications in the fifteen years since I had last applied to anything) gave me that weird little interregnum of boredom and wondering if I would spend the rest of my life just cleaning and cooking.

So I think there is less change ahead, although we will eventually become empty nesters (maybe?), and then have to deal with retirement. I think the chances of becoming a grandparent are fairly low (I think this is true for all millennial parents, not just me), but then there’s the ultimate or penultimate lifetime that I am very much eagerly anticipating: assisted living.

This year I couldn’t decide on a new year resolution. Am I always trying to improve my eating habits and exercise more? Yes. And I find it so utterly boring. It’s a major part of my life that needs work, yes, but God isn’t there more to life than Jillian Michaels Ripped in 30?

So I have my fitness/eating goals as a background resolution. Every month I start fresh and if I meet my goals for that month I get a little prize.

But I also set a separate resolution for each month, something new and different and interesting. Or something that I really need to get done.

This month’s resolution had to do with finishing the house. We’ve lived here six months now, and we’re doing okay–there are only three boxes still left to unpack and they are full of books that we don’t have a shelf for yet. But I also haven’t hung much art on the walls. The boys have these old dressers in their rooms that we inherited from the previous owners and these dressers suck. The attic annex playroom is kind of a mess.

My goal this month was to finish the boys’ rooms, finish the attic annex, and hang some pictures on the second floor and in my bedroom.

I did not accomplish my goals. The boys’ rooms are closer to done. They have much better dressers from IKEA. We finally got a bed frame for my youngest so his mattress is no longer just plopped on the floor. He and I both also got new desk chairs for our desks.

I did get some art hung in the upstairs hallway. I did not get anything hung in my room. I did not get started on any of my attic annex project.

And I didn’t make my fitness and eating goals for this month either.

I am trying to remind myself that influenza took a whole week from me, and threw everything off schedule, but it’s still a frustrating way to kick off the new year.

Today is February 1 and this month’s resolution might be easier. We will see.

(Written last Saturday, 1/24.)

Influenza A has come for my family.

My youngest woke up with pink cheeks last Sunday morning: red flag. Temperature in the 99s: not a fever, but definitely a red flag.

Flu season: red flag.

I dug up a covid/flu test and within thirty seconds the diagnosis was in: influenza A.

Today is Friday, so my youngest is on Day Six of the flu. My oldest is on Day Five. I am on Day Three. My husband is the last man standing.

You guys know I like to tell you long-winded stories about my life, and even influenza cannot change this about me. I present to you: All The Times That Casey Has Had The Flu.

December 2005

I was home for Christmas from my senior year at college. On December 23, my mother began to feel ill and soon became a part of the couch.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll take care of you and make Christmas dinner.”

On Christmas Eve, I began to feel ill and soon became a part of the other couch.

“It’s okay,” I gasped through the fever. “My sister can take care of us and make Christmas dinner.” My sister’s eyes widened and she backed slowly down the stairs.

No, actually my sister took pretty good care of us, delivering Theraflu and water at regular intervals. This was my first time having the flu, and I was miserable with the fever. I remember being soaked in sweat for days, and so sick I couldn’t make it to my basement bedroom. I slept in my mom’s room on the main floor with her.

I don’t think we had Christmas dinner in the end.

November 2009

Anyone who has known me for more than ten minutes has already heard this story, but I’m going to tell it anyway.

My husband and I had just moved to a new apartment in Queens. Our furniture hadn’t been delivered from storage yet–we were temporarily sleeping on a borrowed air mattress with a set of sheets and only our coats for blankets. We had big plans to get some painting done before our stuff arrived, and we had walked back and forth to the Sherwin-Williams store with heavy paint buckets, paint supplies, and a really nice stepstool.

My husband started to feel ill almost immediately when we got back from the paint store. He became one with the air mattress quickly. I did not realize what was happening and instead of running to the local pharmacy for sick supplies, I foolishly started prepping for painting.

I was also sick the next day. And the day after. I think. We lost some days in there–I am still not sure how many. I mostly just remember waking up from fever dreams and being aware that the sheets were soaked and the air mattress was running out of air, but I wasn’t able to do anything about either of these problems. I don’t remember if I was even aware of my husband suffering on the other side of the air mattress.

I remember trying to take a shower on the first day that I was feeling better. I stood in the shower for about thirty seconds before realizing I had made a terrible mistake. I enjoyed a nice sit-down shower that day, and several days after that.

This was the sickest I have ever been, and I am a little surprised I didn’t die. We figured out later that we were likely part of the swine flu epidemic that had engulfed New York City that year.

This round of influenza has been significantly easier than my first two experiences, and it occurs to me that this is the first time I’ve gotten the flu since I started getting the annual flu shot in 2010. Like I said earlier, I’m on Day Three, and I’ve already showered standing up. I am going up and down stairs and cleaning up the kitchen again. A truly miraculous recovery.

We did eventually get the painting done in our new Queens apartment, after the furniture was delivered. And we still have that nice stepstool from that Sherwin-Williams. I think about the swine flu every time I use it.

YOSHI IS THE BEST

YOSHI IS THE BEST

YOSHI IS THE BEST

YOSHI IS THE BEST

BETTER THAN ALL THE REST

YOSHI IS THE BEST

YOSHI IS THE BEST

YOSHI IS THE BEST

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES YOSHI EVEN COOLER

YOSHI IS STILL THE BEST

I am really struggling with work lately.

I wrote back in December about how work was getting both easier and harder. Now it’s just harder.

The surge of ICE agents in Minnesota has had a profound effect on my school. It was bad in December, and it has been far worse since January 7. I am usually pretty good at keeping my inner peace during times of supposed turmoil. I see so many people on social media who are so upset all the time.

“The past ten years have just been really hard,” they say, referencing the nation’s political divisiveness and All The Things.

“Yes, very hard,” I agree, as I narrow my eyes in order to better see their healthy children, secure housing situation, their blossoming career, and their annual international trip. I love you all, my deeply liberal friends, but if I was being honest with you, I would tell you that you are choosing to make your life more difficult by internalizing everything you read in the news and on social media. I don’t buy into the idea that we have to take everything so seriously in order to prove that we are good people.

I am very good at ignoring the handwringing and the angst, and a lot of people have been honest with me and told me that by choosing to ignore what is going on in the world I am benefitting from my white privilege.

This is true. I absolutely am. But it’s my choice to make and I have made it over and over again. There will always be suffering in this world. I am not going to waste this great life I’ve been given by taking on suffering that is not mine. There will be plenty of time for suffering later, or in my next life.

But this ICE surge in Minnesota, this is something I can’t ignore by closing Instagram or scrolling past it in the New York Times.

Here are some moments I would like to share from the last six weeks at work.

“I can’t come to school today because there are too many eye police outside.” This, the voice of one of my favorite second graders, a newish immigrant whose parents speak no English. She had to call the school herself because her parents could not. We all knew what she meant by “eye” police.

“Hi, I’m sorry my kids aren’t in school today; we are moving back to Tucson tomorrow. My abuela had an incident with the ICE yesterday, and she’s fine but it’s just not safe to stay here. Can you pack up my daughter’s inhaler and I think my son left his glasses and coat at school? Can you find them? We have to leave right away.” This family are all citizens, born in the United States, but their skin color and culture has made them a target. They departed for Tucson 48 hours after making that phone call. The boy’s class made cards for him. His teacher cried in the office when she gave them to us.

“I don’t know where my cousin is; I was at the federal building all last week and they still won’t give us any information.” This was our favorite substitute teacher, a Somali-American woman whom we all adore. She did eventually locate her cousin, but he had to wait an entire month for his first hearing. I have not yet heard the outcome of that hearing.

“Please, we are so scared. We have not left the house for a month. We cannot go to work and my son cannot go to school. Please, do you know of anyone who could bring us food?” This came to me over the phone through an interpreter helping me to reach out to a student who had seemingly vanished. I put them on the growing list of families who need food delivery. We moved their bus stop closer to their house to help with safety. Still, he has not come to school.

“It’s just a lot going on my neighborhood right now, you know what I mean? Every day there’s some sort of bullshit going down and I just don’t know if it’s really safe for him to be going to the bus by himself, but I don’t get home from work until eight, so I don’t know what to do.” This from a frustrated Black American mom whose son has been missing the bus due to ongoing ICE activity in their neighborhood.

“The girls can’t come to school today. Their father was detained by immigration yesterday, and they are too worried to come.” These are the words of an uncle of two students at our school, another newish immigrant family. The students’ father had the right documentation and was released a day later, but the girls have not been the same since.

“The following student has been transferred to the online school.” This from an email I have received too many times now as students transfer from our school to my district’s online school. The district took note and we are now offering a virtual option within our school for students who cannot make it to the building safely right now. Hopefully I won’t get this email again this year and we’ll be able to keep our community mostly intact. Still, my heart breaks for the students who I know would rather be at school with their friends and will now be stuck inside on a screen for months on end.

“Her mom texted me that they are moving back to Guatemala.” This has happened twice now with families assessing the situation and deciding that their home country is a better bet at the moment.

“I don’t mean to be alarmist or weird, but here’s my wife’s number in case something happens to me.” This from our principal, a father of three and also the unfortunate first line of defense in all emergency situations.

“When we turned the corner we saw ICE right in front of their apartment building. I didn’t feel comfortable getting in the middle of that. Could you call the family and check on them?” This was from a white mom who is helping to drive some of our non-white students to and from school. We tried to reach the family that day but never did get through. We still don’t know what the situation is.

I feel like a husk of a person when I come home from work every day to my safe house in my safe neighborhood where very little has changed. I want desperately to only exist in this cocoon of stability. But the white privilege spell has been broken, and the suffering has come home into my heart.

These are just families trying to live their lives and raise good kids. How is this helping anyone when parents can’t go to work and kids can’t go to school?

So here I am, finally ready to be outraged, finally ready to join the rest of my friends in indignation. Here I am and all I can find inside of myself is sadness.

We had a small Christmas tragedy mid-December when my cat jumped on the piano and knocked one of the three wise men to the floor, shattering the entire lower half of his body.

Actually, it didn’t feel like a tragedy when it happened. Partially because it was like 6:20 AM and I was frantically trying to do all my last-minute preparations to depart for work. I didn’t even pick up the pieces; I just left all his wise little bits all over the floor to deal with that afternoon.

I was annoyed, but not devastated, because this nativity set is not precious–it’s just a placeholder. And to make this story make sense we have to travel back in time to… I think the 1980s?

My grandmother made a ceramic nativity set for my mom in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Apparently this was A Thing for a little bit, to go to a class and paint this pre-made nativity yourself before firing. My mom’s set is an unusual brown glaze with darker highlights in the folds of clothing. It was the only nativity she had when I was little, and it was my favorite Christmas decor. I loved unpackaging and rediscovering each piece, and carefully setting them on her desk for display. She has other nativity sets now, most of them significantly more beautiful than the brown one, but the weird glazed 1980s set has always been my favorite.

When my husband and I moved to a new apartment in Queens in 2009, I suddenly had the space for a nativity set. What I really wanted was my mom’s set, but that wasn’t going to happen. So I scoured ebay for weeks and finally found this set: made from the same molds with the same figures. Incomplete because it was already missing a camel. Also it’s not brown–it’s painted in actual colors, and it has an unknown woman’s initials carved into the bottom of each figure.

It was strange: the same but different. It was Not Quite Right. But… it was a placeholder. This, I figured, would do until I could convince my mother to pass along her brown set.

So when I returned home from work and finally set to cleaning up the shattered wise man, my initial thought was that the time had come to dispose of this set and ask my mom for hers. After all, you cannot have a nativity set with only two wise men. And–fortuitously–my mom has been making solid progress downsizing her possessions in preparation for a big move to the other side of the state. She is probably done hosting big Christmas celebrations, and it seems reasonable to think she would be ready to hand off her heirloom set to me, her beloved and responsible eldest daughter.

But as I picked up the pieces of my wise man, I was struck by a realization.

I really like this nativity set. It is precious to me. It is not a placeholder, and hasn’t been for years. The colors, which seemed so gaudy to me at first, are actually really lovely and the pieces complement each other really well despite all being painted in different colors. I have repaired the horns on the cow several times over the years, and Joseph’s fingers are glued on at a weird angle (cats are the worst). This is the only nativity set my kids have ever known, and I’ve set it up in two apartments and two houses. I’ve packaged it up in old issues of the New York Times, and old issues of the Star Tribune, and in my husband’s old Christmas sweaters.

I don’t want a different nativity set. I want this one. This is my beloved set.

I fixed the damn wise man. I set up a little workspace with a lamp and some krazy glue and worked that afternoon getting him put back together. The cat watched, unrepentant, from the other side of the table.

I did a pretty good job–he looks okay and stands just fine. His cracks seem to present us with a fun seasonal metaphor (we all get broken on our way to Jesus?). The nativity will live another season, and hopefully another and another after that.

I packed each of them away yesterday with a new reverence.