Monday

aren J Keim

8058191333

kjgendusie@gmail.com

#233 WRITING CONTEST:  THE PROMPT:  Start your story with a character struggling to remember the date, because everyday is like the last one.

Monday

By Karen J Keim

She woke up before light, as she did every morning. Her alarm clock never beat her. She always had to dismiss it while she was showering, or making coffee, or feeding her cat. Yet, she always set it for 6:00 am to just turn off when it was usually inconvenient. She lived alone in a one bedroom apartment in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was within a complex on the second floor, and she drew the blinds to let in the bright light of its ever-present sunshine. Her Cat Calendar reflected that it was March 3, 2020. 

Golden rays streamed into her living room, reaching the kitchen counter where her herb garden grew in terra cotta pots. It also beamed in overhead through the skylight above her bathroom which was off her master bedroom. 

Brushing her teeth, fashioning her long, dark hair into a high ponytail, she set up and started the Keurig coffee maker with French Roast coffee. She was the only person she knew who used real cream, half and half, not some sweetened artificial creamer. She used the same mug; it had her name on it, a gift from her niece, with a cat on it. It was a black cat, but her real cat, Minou was Siamese. She used it every morning, even though her cabinets held several other mugs.

She dressed in sweats with gray drawstring pants, Nike Women’s XT’s shoes, random tee shirt, Arizona Cardinals Cap and sunglasses. She scratched Minou’s neck and head and locked her in as she bounced down the steps and started her run. She stopped by her Jeep parked under the carport in slot 333 to open the door and put her keys under the back seat. She took off from there to make her two-mile run. 

North on Apache, left on Navajo, left on Sunset, then she entered the Desert Park path to run up the dirt trail that reached a low mesa. One mile up to the apex, she put hands on her hips and paced, panting, viewing the valley below. She spun around in circles, inhaling in and out. Sweat beaded over her forehead and above her upper lip. She took her cap off for airing. A slight wind blew through and relieved her rising temperature. She took a few minutes to cool down, and viewed the beautiful stately Terra Mesa miles in the distance.

Cacti flourished at its base. Cholla and Beehive succulents abounded in the state. Fire agates and Apache Tears were found in formations dotting the desert. Turquoise with veins of gold, silver or copper were crafted into beautiful jewelry by local Navajos. The beauty of the State of Enchantment was phenomenal, thousands of years old, and would stand thousands of years from now; fewer people, less malls and drive throughs, more sky and ground and rock were cherished by the people who lived here. There were never more than wisps of clouds in the high light blue skies. Rain came, but stayed for no longer than two weeks average in winter. Coyote and Diamondhead snakes appeared, along with Armadillos and Javelina, but they were rarely threatening to people. 

Native American culture includes Pueblos, Apache, Jicarilla, Mescalero and Navajo indigenous people. The Navajo Nation consisted of over 100,000 members here, in a reservation on 27,000 square miles.

She loved her home, and she enjoyed her mornings. 

She ran home.

After her shower, she went online to connect with other teachers. The COVID-19 virus had spread globally, and had caused the closing of hundreds of businesses, including schools, forcing teachers and students to complete the 2020 year online, but many students did not have access to the internet, and that meant many of her 2nd Grade students were bound to fall through the academic cracks that the country frustratedly had to endure, for now…

Her school day started at 9:00 am, breaking at noon, restarting at 1:00 pm, and ending at 3:00. She and her peers had gone through meetings at the beginning of the start of a statewide quarantine in late February as the number of deaths rose daily to up to 400,000 in the country. Schools’ administration and faculty had scrambled to learn how to teach their student population using the new Zoom software. Laptops were purchased and distributed to homes that didn’t have computers. Access for each home in the beginning was impossible to provide, and more and more funds were needed for this purpose. At first it was awkward to teach in this way, to reach students in a virtual method. All text books were online. Parents were the new teaching assistants by necessity, and thousands of people lost their jobs in a cross section of businesses. 

Another vital absence were the two meals low income students had received and counted on by poor families during the regular school year; breakfast and lunch. Food banks and donors stepped up, but it took time to organize and distribute meals which left many in her state especially hungry, daily.

She had a total of 25 students in her 2nd grade class, but not were present online every day, or they signed off after noon. Many could not engage well in this way, having special needs, needing more one-on-one attention. 

Nevertheless, she showed up at her dining room table, used artificial lights to brighten up her teaching area, and she came up with interesting props that evolved along the way for class engagement. She found she needed to slow the pace way down to reach an entire class at one time. Breaking up into groups wasn’t possible at this time. Teachers shared strategies over Zoom and the phone but it just couldn’t be the same as in-person instruction.

She would dress up for her “work day” as if she were really in the classroom. She used Power Point for visual aids, and she made lessons as interesting as she could. The students could view the slides and she would let them describe pictures, or read texts with them.  Some slides were ordered pictures that they would create their own story out of. They would then read the story of the week and continue for that week in Let’s Read, with questions to be answered at the end, and pictures to be drawn of the story’s main theme.

For Math, they would follow along in the Let’s Count online text and complete two pages together, then do one independently online, then do one for homework.

Assessments were taken by computer and sent to her for grading, which had multiple technical glitches in the beginning, but were now ironed out. Grades were sent into the district website from her own classroom site. She received emails from parents about the work, and constant questioning about when their child could attend school in person again. She’d always respond in the same way:

“We are all working on it. We are adhering to CDC guidelines for everyone’s safety.”

During lunch break, she would go for a walk and then eat. She’d answer emails or check in with her teacher friends.

In the last session of class work, she brought in concrete visuals and slides of science-related material, historical lessons and she spent the last fifteen minutes asking questions about what anyone wanted to share, any problems with the work, anything she could do to help. She sent them their homework for the night to email to her by the next day before 9:00 am the next day.

At 3:00 she said goodbye, and invited those who needed more help to stick around after a short break.

Santos and Luisa would always remain on Zoom with their parents to ask questions. Usually she was offline by 3:30.

She would stretch out after sitting for the most of five hours. She would do any chores around the house needed, like starting the dishwasher, or doing laundry. She’d also recheck emails, texts and voicemail messages if there were any. Dinner was promptly at 6:00 while she watched the news. At 7:00 she’d prep for the next day, send in her lesson plan for Tuesday, as a reminder to them what to expect, but the full week’s lesson plans had already been emailed to them Friday evenings, including reading logs for books they were to read from her list. The Library For Me site would supply them with multi-levels of texts they had been assessed at during the beginning of the year. 

At 8:00 she’d pour a glass of chardonnay or merlot and relax in her bed with plumped up pillows to enjoy her favorite prime time shows with Minou. She’d have her pad handy to note any ideas or TO DO’s she had for the next day or later in the week.

At 11:00, the TV was turned off, and she’d click off her light, falling asleep with an Ambien.

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 She woke up before light, as she did every morning. Her alarm clock never beat her. She always had to dismiss it while she was showering, or making coffee, or feeding her cat. Yet, she always set it for 6:00 am to just turn off when it was usually inconvenient. She lived alone in a one bedroom apartment in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was within a complex on the second floor, and she drew the blinds to let in the bright light of its ever-present sunshine. Her Cat Calendar reflected that it was  March 3, 2020...