As we settle in, my posts become further apart and fragmented. Painting and drawing and playdough and making stuffed animals dance and little walks and muddy puddles and possibly too much macaroni. (A few days ago during lunch, the toddler climbed on my lap, took my hands and wrapped them around her waist, and said, ‘Mommy cuddles. I eat ‘roni.” And then ate her macaroni lunch while being snuggled).

We went to the beach and found the half-burned notebook of a graffiti artist. The toddler selected some perfect sticks for herself, then gave some to my husband and I. “This is for you,” she said, seriously, as if giving us a wand or sword. We advanced towards the beach fully armed and ready for whatever the day threw at us. After the beach, we went through the McDonald’s drive-through for lunch.

It’s cherry blossom season and we threw the blossoms up in the air and pretended it was snowing, and all day the toddler’s curls smelled sweet. People stopped to take photos of her, and one even asked me to get out of the shot.

A toddler in a pink coat covered in blossoms

I have hit a wall when it comes to working. My semester is over, and I’m so proud of the wonderful work my students did. Their Coronavirus archives are far superior to my own. But now it’s time to prepare for the summer semester, and my brain has become curdled and sludgy. If I could just get a full day’s work in, I could get everything together. But I’m working in fits and starts: while she’s napping, while she’s sleeping. I hide in the bedroom but then I can hear her. (“Mommy? Mommy coming? Hi Mommy!” and my husband saying, “Mommy’s playing on her computer right now and doesn’t have time to play right now” — which — oof).

Right now, I’ve had 45 minutes to work, but instead I’ve just stared straight ahead: rudderless. I feel as if I spent the first few weeks of the pandemic busy in a million directions, trying to get students through, and now that I have a pedagogical empty nest, I’ve been forced to look up and realize what’s happening all around me. And all I see is an empty expanse: this pandemic stretching on and on.