I’ve set a one-hour timer. I’ve come to work to take advantage of the quiet space and the time. My duties and classes begin at 11:30 this morning and it is now 9:05 am. It is a beautiful morning here in Washington, DC. The early morning fog has dissipated, the leaves are turning, it is a day with a huge temperature variance- cool this morning, warm like a late summer day this afternoon. The soundtrack of the space I’m in is a mix of HVAC white noise, birds, and the roars of the students on the field playing some sort of group game.
If you close your eyes it almost feels like a pre-pandemic normal school day. Pandemic adjustments are being normalized- the smaller class sizes, the spacing of the tables in the classroom, the limited mobility/proximity to students, faculty, and other humans. The accessories next to your computer now include hand sanitizer and a mask. There is almost energy enough to consider going ‘above and beyond’- nope, it was a flicker, writing that sentence that even contemplated it depleted that energy.
Yesterday, I did not get to write as much as I have in previous days. It was a busy day, an almost “normal’ pre-pandemic workday kinda busy. It was a very satisfying day. I felt useful, I felt productive, I felt I made a difference and I felt I was doing the thing I love to do- teaching and interacting with young people.
It was a beautiful foggy morning and I had a first-period, 8:15am, photography, film, and design class.
I’m still wearing my self-fashioned uniform of a capsule wardrobe to work to limit exposure to the virus. I am an African American person, I am a person who has had a complicated medical history as an adult, my partner, also an African-American person, is recovering from a major organ transplant like surgery for a cancer diagnosis- we are high risk. I’ve been wearing a face-shield in addition to a mask to work every day for the past two and a half weeks. I’m the only person on my campus who has been doing so. I feel odd but I’ve done it anyway for my own protection- I don’t want to get sick and I don’t want to die from the Coronavirus, COVID19.
What we are doing- this return to campus even in a hybrid model is risky. And if my risks are higher than the average person due to some of my identifiers and personal medical history- this is even riskier for me and yet I’m expected to perform as others who do not share the same risks.
The writing started off as a way to express the frustrations of this transition to campus at a time when I did not feel safe to do- but had no other choice because if I live in the American reality of if I don’t work my family does not have much-needed health insurance. Then the writing was like a comforting hug from a dear friend who you love and loves you ever so much in a time when we cannot have a casual touch or even hugs among friends or family that do not live with you due to the risk of transmission. We NEED that hug, I need that hug. I miss other people’s bodies in this way- connecting with other humans.
The writing was also a record. Just in case, ya know?
As I’ve had the now three-week adjustment time I want the writing to also be a place to process what lives in the notebook.
The notebook- the three-dimensional tactile place where I record, keep track of and process the world of ‘work’ and the associated endeavors. Thining back to why I do this and when it started- many years ago it was still preferred that when in meeting people took notes by hand instead of on a laptop- the screens were considered invasive, cold and a tool to separate people- funny foreshadowing, huh? So I took written notes then transcribed them into ‘as per our recent meeting’ emails or to-do lists. Or, I took written notes and never transcribed to keep track of things that should not be on ‘the record.’ Living through the analog to digital transition in society has been a ride. Watching and managing the shifting values around public and private life, the continual tug and tension of privacy vs. safety, and the private made personal that is commercial via the rapid rise and fall of various social media platforms- I’m still sussing.
As laptops became ubiquitous the notebook turned more personal. In the years between a high powered, 60+ hour a week edtech job and my current faculty job the notebook charged from excellent writing paper, suitable for a fountain pen to multimedia paper suitable for watercolors and brush makers and large enough for doodles, diagrams, and sketchnotes. As my life became more and more digital I gravitated toward the natural, wooden floors made of sustainable materials, clothes made from eco-friendly materials, companies that are striving toward carbon neutrality, houseplants, paper, and art pencils- 4B being my all-time favorite.
I still struggle with the digital/analog, online/offline, public/private divides, and partnerships.
For the past 7 years, I’ve been blogging for work. For each of my classes, I blog, and my students blog as well. I’ve used blogs as digital notebooks for the course. I love the idea of creating an artifact of learning that chronicles your journey. I think this started 40+ years ago when as a kindergarten student myself part of my day, every school day, included quiet time after lunch and recess for napping and drawing. We drew pictures and eventually learned to caption them ourselves, every day in a black and white composition book. What a gift my teachers have me. My teachers were a married couple, Mr. & Mrs. K, holocaust survivors who had made their way to the United States of America and spent their lives teaching kindergarten. Yeah.
When I first started to blog and publish over 15 years ago, in the early 2000’s, I received a call from my father while I was at work. Unusual because my father like me is hard of hearing and doesn’t engage in a phone conversation by choice often unless urgent or important. He asked me to take down my blog for fear that it would jeopardize my employment. There was a situation in the news where someone of prominence- I really don’t recall now- was reprimanded then fired for something that they published about their personal lives. Suddenly, the personal and the professional were not so separate and there were many professional and personal casualties as the world moved into social media and learned the rules of sharing, limiting their audience and increasingly being held accountable professionally for published personal beliefs that were not in line with the values of your company or organization.
If you were a multi-dimensional person with interests that seemed divergent, un-related, or deemed inappropriate in relation to your primary profession- people were aghast and there could be professional consequences. So I stopped, sort of. Fascinated by the multimedia publishing ability of emerging technology- and it was also part of my profession to be an early adopter, tester, and evaluator of these technologies for educational application- I continued to play with blogs, vlogs, microblogging, and social media- knowing all the while my risks were greater than the average person. Risks to my job, profession, and/or career because I was already an outlier or a trailblazer depending on your vantage- my presence in these spaces and conversations was not as one of the ‘mainstream’ where I had the license to play, perhaps make mistakes and/or be understood by others as part of norm. I digress.
Blogging. The notebook. I want this to be more than for the record, more than sussing to keep separate the professional and the personal. I want this to be an expression of the whole person as she moves forward- the fascinating things I’ve learning and doing in the digital media arts space professionally and personally; the record of my professional and personal journey as I continually update and expand my understanding of the world, the people and systems around me. It is going to be both and all. Time is too short for it to be otherwise.
4:15 second left on that one-hour timer.