School starts tomorrow and this is 110,000% not how it was supposed to look. It’s still March, isn’t it? We can’t possibly have been under quarantine for 162 days… it just doesn’t seem real. And yet, here we are just trying to find a rhythm, purpose, and joy in the endless monotony.
After so many weeks of not being able to do, it feels good to finally get back to work, albeit not at all what I had intended. There are students and staff scattered across multiple continents, countries, and timezones (and you thought it was bad that your local school would be some hybrid version of “remote”). It’s a lot, trying to prepare for classes that were not designed or intended to be taught online, but I’ve seen our staff come together in amazing ways over the last 2 weeks as we work on getting this school year off the ground.
90% of what I would normally do, remains on hiatus. I miss my work, my team, the kids, and the theater life. I could say “if only we’d known that this time last year we were starting the last production we’d stage for a very long time…”, but the truth is we didn’t take it for granted and I’m even more grateful now than when Curtains was canceled, that we didn’t. We knew it was special and that God was in control. And he still is. As a wise student recently said to me, I need to stop mourning the loss of what should have been and do whatever I can to make the most of what is.
So I will do my best to give the students a good experience with photography and oral interp, work with the student leaders to redefine what their leadership looks like in this insanity, play staff meeting videos on 2x speed, and send marco polos all over the world. (Those last two are just some of the benefits that have come along with all this, heh. )
In the words of the HSD bard, “Stay safe, stay sane.”
I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains. –Anne Frank
