One week done working from home and I have thoughts.

First, there are two squirrels that hang out in the tree right outside the window where I have my makeshift office space set up. They are there every morning, chasing each other and chattering. It’s a dying or dead tree with a large hole on the side of the trunk, so they sneak in there quite often. They also go near the bunny hutch to visit; maybe the bunny has pushed some food out for them? I think Bunster likes the attention, though, because he comes out to hangout with them.

Next, I don’t know what I’ve done right to deserve these awesome kids, but they have been helpful and self-sufficient. The biggest complaint has been over the rationing of the Oreos. Pretty amazing.

I’m also extremely impressed with how well the teachers I know are going with the flow, staying flexible, and rising to this occasion. We’re changing the entire delivery system of the Minnesotan educational system in the span of two weeks. It’s break-neck speed and we are mostly keeping up.

In the Minnesota Writing Project, I read a book called Pose, Wobble, and Flow that had a yoga metaphor as a vehicle for the book. The idea, basically, is that we take a pose, but we probably aren’t great at it at first, because it’s new and we don’t have the strength or flexibility in the right areas, so we wobble. At some point, we get into the flow of things, but the cycle begins again. It’s a matter of accepting the wobbles and persevering.

At the time, I was kind of put off by the metaphor. I’ve never gotten into yoga. I don’t know why. I know, fundamentally, it’s a really healthy activity. I know that flexibility is important as I grow older (and I do stretch). I guess it just always had a “woo” factor that I was kind of uncomfortable with; finding enlightenment in $90 Lululemon see-through yoga capris seemed like a fad-driven, performative, wealthy person endeavor. I know, I KNOW, it’s not necessarily that. I know that it has great benefits. It’s fabulous. But still.

Now, I’m really appreciating the central point, though. We strike a pose: we make these “distance learning” lessons, we record the videos, and we learn all kinds of new ways to use technology. And now it’s time to wobble: we “go back to school” in less than a week. I anticipate a whole lot of wobbling and falling down.

I don’t know the names to super-intricate yoga poses, so I’m just going to make one up here: teaching right now is like we are brand-new to yoga and the instructor is starting with the Double-Warrior Downward-Facing Chicken pose. And I’m like, “can we just do the one where we lay on the mat quietly? Maybe with a warm pack on our eyes?” But I’m NOT saying that (too loudly). Instead, I’m trying really hard on that Chicken pose, even though I’m falling down every few seconds.

Every teacher I know is trying really hard to get that Chicken pose down by Monday.  And it feels like we will be pretty close. And we will probably look really funny doing it at first.

But soon enough, we’ll strengthen in areas we didn’t know we had to strengthen, we’ll find a different center to balance, and we’ll do this better. I’m not expecting to find moments where we “flow” too much, but maybe that will come too. A different kind of flow than what happens when we are with our classes in person, I’m sure, but some flow nevertheless.

Finally, after a week of seeing myself in the now-ubiquitous videochats, I’ve come to realize just how bad my resting bitch face really is. It’s real and it’s SPECTACULAR. I have no idea how to fix it either, aside from raising my eyebrows (but then I just looked surprised all the time) or trying to real-smile all the time. None of these fake smiles, I need to do a full-on Duchenne smile to look friendly. You have no idea how hard that is. Maybe you do. But it’s hard. So any advice you have (aside from plastic surgery or botox) would be welcomed.