The Man Who Invented Christmas

 

I don't generally have much use for films made for adults.

Given my nature and my profession, both as a teacher and as a writer of children's books, my preference is almost always for films aimed at families or children.  Entertainment aimed at adults, I often find, is too grim or too disturbing, too vulgar or too focused on romance and relationships.  I just don't enjoy it, regardless of what the critics say.   Oh, sure, I'll go to almost any superhero movie - and fantasies are a safe bet for me, too, but realistic cinema?  Historical?  Biopics?  No thank you.

While visiting my parents for a few days, my son requested a movie night.  He's very congizant of what I like and I don't like, and humors me - at 15, he's got a much wider range of acceptable cinematic entertainment than his mother.  He suggested an old favorite of both of ours - The Princess Bride - but when that was unavailable, we started scrolling through other potential options.

Our wants, as mother and son, were fairly simple - something lighthearted, with a happy ending.  After watching about half a dozen trailers, with reactions ranging from a "meh" from my son to an "I don't think so" from me, we reached the trailer for The Man Who Invented Christmas.  I can't say we leapt with joy at seeing it... but we both agreed that it didn't look half bad, and my parents agreed.  

I loved it.

Now, granted, I know a bit about Charles Dickens from my teaching experience... I've read short biographies of the man, and while I did think the actor (cleanshaven - didn't Dickens have a moustache and beard?) looked rather young for the Dickens I pictured, I was pleased with the casting.  The acting was wonderful, the script had just the right combination of laughs and serious notes, and as an exploration of a writer's process of creation, I found it spot on.

In fact, I loved that aspect of the film above all others.  The notion of a character coming to life and interacting with its creator tickled me silly, since the best characters do just that with their readers.  But yes, they also do that with their creators... and I howled with laughter at the point in the film where Dickens wailed protest to a friend that his characters were refusing to do what he wanted them to.  I've been there myself!  I loved the idea that the characters were physically following their writer around... at one point, he peeked out a window and - hello, dearie! - the characters assembled on the street corner below waved cheerfully up at him.  Scrooge, the old reprobate, even had the temerity to inform Dickens that he felt the book was too one-sided, and had prepared notes to give his own perspective to the story!  I'm not sure my family understood why I was giggling so much, but in many ways, this is a writer's movie, and one that nobody but a writer could truly appreciate.

If you're a reader or a writer, and you're looking for a pleasant way to pass a couple of hours on a winter's night... I'd strongly recommend The Man Who Invented Christmas.  Even if it isn't the holidays anymore.  It's definitely worth a viewing.

How Do You Feel?

I remember this poster from my high school guidance counselor's office.  I liked it because I enjoyed going through the faces one by one, doing a mental checklist... "Is this how I feel today?  How about this?"

But if you asked me to do that today, I wouldn't be able to.  These days, it's rare that I feel any one thing for a protracted period of time... in fact, there are swaths of time when I'm honestly not sure that I'm feeling anything at all.  In the Calm app that I use to track my daily emotions, I find the lack of an icon for "mixed" or "neutral" distressing.  There are times when I really need something more than the nine emotions allotted to me for choices.  Luckily, when I'm settled enough to track my emotions, I'm usually in a place removed from anything distressing or stressful - so I've got a lovely streak of "calm" and "relaxed" and "content" icons in my calendar.   But I feel that's not an accurate assessment of my days... rather, it's a log of how I felt at a particular moment in my day.

I long to know how I feel.  I truly want to be able to answer the question, "How are you feeling?" with a single, specific adjective.  I want it for me, for my own peace of mind... so that I know for sure how I feel, and can defend it with evidence:  Yes, right now I am feeling happy, because I feel a lightness inside of me and I'm smiling and I want this feeling to go on and on.  Or, At this moment, I'm feeling frustrated.  I want to write something, but my mind is drawing a blank and I've never trained myself to write when the words aren't coming.  None of this Well, honestly, I don't feel particularly sad or particularly happy - but I'm not angry or lonely or anxious, either; is the absence of negative emotions "happiness?"  But I don't feel anything particularly positive, either, so what does that say?

I may have nobody but myself to blame.  When I was having frequent panic attacks, I used to long for nothingness... absence of all emotion, I thought, would be infinitely better than having fear and anxiety all the time.  Maybe I learned to do just that - to shut off my emotions, so that I no longer have any strong feelings to cope with.  No joy, no grief, no fear, no exultation.  No... anything.  

I'm not sure how I feel about that.

The Unknown

Xenophobia is the irrational sensation of fear experienced about a person or a group of persons as well as situations that are perceived as strange or foreign. It is the fear of anything that is beyond one’s comfort zone. 

- Jacob Olesen, www.fearof.net

The world is a crazy place right now.  People are angry, people are frightened... between the ongoing pandemic and racial unrest, it almost feels like the world as we've known it is falling apart.  My own anxiety is at a steady mid-to-high level, regardless of what I try to think about... work, home, family, society. 

"This is the new normal," some people say. "We've got to adjust, understand that nothing is going to be the way it was."

And that's the problem, I think.

When we say "nothing is going to be the way it was" or "things have to change" - regardless of whether they're changing for a good reason, or changing for the better - we forget that for most people, change is SCARY.  Change is the Unknown.  And the Unknown is something nobody that I personally know handles well.

We, as humans, are creatures that thrive in our comfort zones.  So long as we feel that we know what to expect, know where the limits or boundaries lie, know who we're dealing with, we can manage pretty much anything.  Push us beyond those limits, and... well, we don't manage quite so much.

The unknown can be moving into a future where we honestly don't know what the world is going to look like, physically.  Face masks?  Social distancing?  For how long, we want to know.  We want things to go back to the world we have always known, have always been comfortable with.  We don't WANT to change.  Change means effort, and effort is not something humans - who are happiest when facing minimal obstacles - embrace.

The unknown can mean forcing ourselves to think about people who don't usually cross our minds.  When it comes to racial inequality and social injustice, the problem isn't necessarily the minority of people who are committed racists.  The problem is that we've allowed horrible things to happen, awful patterns and cycles to develop, because we just don't notice them.  Not that we willfully ignore them, no, but we don't choose to open our eyes to see things that would make us uncomfortable.  We don't LIKE being uncomfortable; it's easier and less stressful to just focus on our own circle of existence.

And the unknown can mean accepting that in this moment, we cannot know all things, cannot have the answer to all things.  There are precious few quick fixes in the universe, and those that exist may not always be the best fixes for the long term.  And the answers to all questions can never be known in the now.  This means that we need to be able to accept living with a certain degree of uncertainty... and that does not sit easily with most of us. 

Speaking for myself, I'd love to know what is going to happen to my career come fall... the only certainty, I've been told, is that teaching will NOT look like the teaching I've been doing.  But what exactly it WILL look like is anyone's guess.  I'd love to know for certain what is going to happen, if only so that I could get a head start on finding a different job, if it turns out to be something I can't manage.  But I'm not going to get that wish.... and so I fret, and my muscles work themselves into knots, and my blood pressure rises.  I am NOT good at the Unknown.  But what good is my worrying and mentally gnawing on the question until it's a frayed and ragged thing?  It doesn't bring the answer any closer.  It doesn't bring me any peace.  The only choice I really have is to try to learn to deal with the fact that I am not going to get any answers any time soon.

There isn't a chance, of course, that humanity will rise up, all together, and embrace the Unknown.  No, it's much more likely that as a species we'll continue to fight it, wrestle it, run from it.  But embracing the Unknown, fighting the Unknown, that's not even the first step.  The first step has to be recognizing the Unknown.  Knowing that it's out there.  Knowing that nothing that we do will ever change that.  Only once we can look into the future and reconcile ourselves with the fact that there will always be a certain Unknown in front of us can we start to act on it.

Quarantine Life

I was feeling quite anxious about the statewide "shelter-in-place" dictate... until I realized how very little has changed in my daily life.  And really, if I stop to list out what I did Before and Now, not much is all that different.

These days, I don't go out much.  But when I stopped to think about it... I never REALLY went out much.  I'd run errands, sure, to places I can mostly still go, if I need to... the pet store, WalMart, the grocery store.  I've never been much for clothes or shoe shopping as a form of entertainment, so the closures of those stores haven't affected me all that much.  So much for "everything being closed."  I do miss hanging out at the book store, and being able to just pop into the craft store, but those aren't really necessary to my mental health, it seems.  I really don't miss them.

I do miss my self-care locations.  The hair salon (every 6-8 weeks), the nail salon, my Weight Watchers meetings, the place I go for foot reflexology.  Those are places more necessary to my mental health, because without regular haircuts and facial waxings, I start to feel less attractive than I usually do, which isn't saying much. (I'm not a vain creature, and harbor no illusions about my physical beauty.  I'll do, but I'm no Scarlett Johansson.)  Pedicures and reflexology are my treats, the little rewards I give myself for making it through another week.  Without them, there's not much to reward myself with... other than food, and that negates the purpose of my now-virtual Weight Watchers meetings.

What do I do now?  Well, one thing I don't do is go to stores just for the sake of getting out.  I don't think I'll actually catch Covid-19, nor do I think I'm an asymptomatic carrier who could infect the hapless fool who gets inside my 6 foot bubble, but I don't see the point in going out masked just to wander aimlessly through the aisles.  Shopping these days is for people who need something - and right now, there isn't that much that I actually need that I can't get online.

Generally, my go-to activity after a day of online teaching is just to get out of the house.  I take my dog to the local dog park which isn't, miracle of miracles, closed yet.  I do go in masked, and stay at least 6 feet away from other owners... I still pet the dogs, which some people are leery about, but I figure that unless someone's coughed or sneezed directly on their pup fairly recently, I'm safe enough.  I could be wrong, but there's only so much paranoia a girl can handle.  Going to the dog park at least gets me out into the sunlight, standing up rather than sitting, and gives me a chance to speak to people I'm not related to.  And that's good for me.

I occasionally take walks with my dog and my son, and on weekends, our whole family (all three of us, plus dog) heads out together to find some new literal stomping grounds.  I'm not fond of walking, but I go because I know it's good for me to be outside and moving.  From the numbers of other people we see on these outings, it seems that we're far from the only ones to have this idea. 

And sometimes I just drive.  I don't know what's so appealing about that, since I'm driving with no real destination in mind, just driving for the sake of going somewhere that isn't "here," but it's what I do these days.  And what I used to do, pre-quarantine.  Only then, I'd occasionally stop at a store and go in just to walk around.  Now, I can't... but I still drive.

I miss being able to go visit my friends of a weekend.  I miss my Friday night dinners with my friend Lisa, miss taking in the latest Disney movie with my friend Sue.  I miss my parents, and being able to go visit them... though I supposed I could, and stay masked and six feet away.  I miss going to zoos and museums, and the occasional trek into New York City to take in the sights and sounds of a metropolis.  Mostly, I miss being able to do what I want, when I want.

But if I stop to think about it, and be honest with myself... my life really hasn't changed much from what it was, pre-Coronavirus.  And I'm not sure if that's comforting... or just pathetic.

Distance (Learning) Makes the Heart Grow Fonder?

It's been two weeks since my anxiety started about Covid-19.  Things are not going well Out There... stores are shut, for the most part, as are restaurants.  There's no place to go and nothing to do once you get there.  It reminds me a lot of Sundays when I was little, when all the stores were closed... too quiet, too still.  You are able to go to the grocery store or to other stores that sell necessities, like WalMart, but with everyone online and in the real world screaming at you to stay the heck home, you feel guilty - and scared - to go there.

Schools are closed, but that doesn't mean we teachers are out of work.  After a short break, we were all informed that we're now doing Distance Learning... teaching via computer.  That instigated a bit of a panic among my colleagues and myself, let me tell you!  HOW are we supposed to teach on a computer????  WHAT are we supposed to use to deliver our lessons????  HOW THE HECK DO YOU USE THESE PROGRAMS WE'VE NEVER BEFORE HEARD OF?????

But, as with many things, that panic eased as we gamely threw ourselves into the breach and started trying to figure out how to do what we were supposed to be doing.  I learned how to Zoom a meeting.  I learned how to Screencastify my lessons, making videos that my students could watch.  I figured out how to effectively navigate Google Classroom - though I have not yet figured out what on EARTH the use of the "stream" is.  Seriously, Google people... get rid of that.  It's bloody useless.

And... much to my own shock... I'm finding that I'm actually enjoying teaching again, for the first time in I don't know how long.  Why?  Darned if I know.  It's definitely not the lack of kids... I really, truly enjoy my students, being with them, giving them their daily dose of knowledge.  I'm not one of those wonderful teachers who is miserably lonely without them, mind you.  But I do enjoy being with them, when I am.

It might be that classroom management is much, much easier.  I'm definitely happier that I don't need to spend so very much of my time hushing one student, telling another to stop eating paper, telling a third to open up to the right page, and then telling that first student to hush again.  I am able to interact, in text, with each and every kid who posts an assignment.  I'm able to answer questions as they come up, and encourage students as they go along.  I'm not expected to pull small groups for instruction while at the same time monitoring the rest of the class, trying to assure that everyone is dutifully engaged in some sort of learning activity - small groups, honestly, are the bane of my teaching existence.  And I don't worry about having an administrator show up unannounced, or having a lesson interrupted by a call from the office, or telling that kid who won't stop yakking to SHUT UP ALREADY (which I can't, but wish I could).

I'm actually working much harder putting together my lessons than I have for many, many years - but it isn't wearing on me the way it usually does.  In fact, I can go for several hours at a clip not really being aware of how much work I'm actually doing.  I'm collaborating with colleagues the way we should ALWAYS be doing, because every one of us is in the same boat that we're building even as we're sailing it.  And as a result, I feel a good deal fonder of my colleagues than I usually do.

I'm not thrilled with the amount of time I'm sitting down.  My body is really feeling that, and I'm not getting out and walking around as much as I know I should.  But... I'm happier than I thought I possibly could be, two weeks ago.  I'm still anxious, yes, but it's not the all-pervasive anxiety that consumed me at the start of this pandemic.  Maybe it's having something productive to do each day - something that vitally needs doing.  Having a task to do is a great way to alleviate anxiety.

All in all, I'd say that thus far, the social distancing and isolation hasn't hit me as hard as I'd been afraid it would.  I hope it stays that way.

The Coronavirus Post

I struggle with anxiety.  I have for most of my life.  In dire situations, however, I'm generally oddly calm.  It's like my brain can only process so much anxiety at a time before it stops processing it altogether.

I wish now was one of those times.

On Thursday night, we got the calls that we'd been dreading but expecting... my son's school district and the district that I teach in were both closing for an undetermined amount of time.  We're thinking two weeks, but nobody knows for sure.

Up until that time, I'd been only half-paying attention to the whole coronavirus thing.  It was something Out There, but not near me.  I was concerned, but not worried.  Not really.  In fact, part of me was feeling that the media was blowing it a bit out of proportion.  After all, the flu killed more people every year than coronavirus did, didn't it?  And nobody was freaking out about THAT.

But now, people in my own profession had deemed that being in school was suddenly Not Safe.  We'd made two weeks' worth of online lessons for our students, "just in case we close."  Unfortunately, we were later told, they would not be sufficient to count as "school days" or as "virtual learning."  We were also told that we need to expect to be in school until June 30... not something any teacher in an un-air-conditioned building wants to hear.  But that's as may be.  Right now, the focus is on keeping our staff and students as far away from disease-transmitting crowds as possible.

This has left me at something of loose ends.  I do not do well with unstructured time.  Even in the summer, when I'm supposed to be resting and recuperating from the school year, I find myself getting twitchy, even anxious, when I don't have enough to occupy my mind.  Cleaning and doing indefinite "stuff around the house" doesn't help.  I don't enjoy it or find any release in it.  Writing, as I've addressed elsewhere on this blog, doesn't always materialize.  Exercise?  Taking a walk?  Don't make me laugh... that never helps, and generally only makes me more miserable.  I tend to fill my time instead by running errands, window shopping, visiting family and friends.

None of which is apparently safe to do in this current situation.

I did go out yesterday to buy a charger for my dying iPad.  I felt... odd.  Exposed.  I fled back to my car with my purchase, shaking.  A friend and I had plans for dinner that night, plans I did not want to break despite my mounting anxiety.  After being excoriated by my younger sister for voicing my fears - to quote, "This is not a vacation!  You do not go out to dinner in the middle of a pandemic!" - I went out anyway.  And fretted almost the entire time.  What, exactly, was I afraid of?  Not of getting the dreaded virus... I don't LIKE the idea of getting sick, not at all, but I'm not really afraid of getting it.

I'm afraid of being trapped at home.

I'm afraid that going out and conducting life as usual is something I am not supposed to be doing, and that thought makes me feel positively claustrophobic.

I love my family, and like my home.  But I don't like spending all my time there.  The "why" of that would take up an entire blog post in itself, so I won't even try to explain... the fact is, I'm happiest with my home when I can get away from it on a regular basis, and then come back.  But if the coronavirus is as bad as I'm beginning to think it is... it's simply not safe to leave the house.  And to do so is a sign of denial or irresponsibility.

And so my anxiety is spiking.

My mother and my best friend both tell me I need to make a schedule for my days out of school, and plan in times to take walks with my son and the dog, time to write, time to work on projects around the house like cleaning out closets and such.  They're probably right.  My younger sister says I just need to tough it out and stay at home.  Another friend says we need to be ordering groceries and household necessities online rather than going out to get them.  They may be right, too.  Do I want to listen to any of them?

Not really.

I just want my life to continue as I'm accustomed to it, without the specter of a deadly virus looming over everything.  I'd say, "Is that so much to ask?" - but right now, it probably is.

So I probably will make the schedule, or at least a to-do list.  And I'll try to stay home as much as I can... and instead of going to stores, I'll see if substituting the dog park and walks with my son will help any.

But am I looking forward to the next few weeks?

Oh, no.

I am certainly not.

50 Precious Words, Take 2

A New Pet

Mama says

NO PET DINOSAURS.

A dinosaur’s too big.

WAY too big!

Where would it sleep?

Not inside!

What would it eat?

Tons of food!

And how about cleaning up dinosaur mess?

You’d need a BULLDOZER, Mama says!

I guess she’s right.

But she didn’t say no

To a dragon!

I think I like this better than last night's attempt... it's more cheerful, for one. While most adults would get the subtle humor of "Writer's Block," I don't think a child would. And I don't like the idea of having a child see writing as work (even if many of them do). So this will probably be my submission for "50 Precious Words." Wish me luck!

50 Precious Words

I've decided that I'm going to try to enter the "50 Precious Words" writing contest... but so far, my entry ideas aren't turning out so well.  I have a very hard time limiting my word count!  After a few hours of work, only one has come out cohesive and within the fifty word limit...

Teacher says

I need to write a story

That’s fifty words long.

Fifty words!

How can I fill up a page

With FIFTY WORDS?

Can’t do it.

Not today, not tomorrow.

My ideas just aren’t that big.

I simply cannot strrrrreeeeeeeetch

My story that far.

Ain’t gonna happen.

Ever.

Phooey.

I don't think it's bad, for a start. I just want something a bit more... "wow." Something that leaves the readers with a smile or a chuckle.  But for now, at least I have a start!

Where Ideas Come From

Sometimes, ideas are slow in coming to me.  I used to tell my students to carry around a small notebook, because you can never tell what in life is going to trigger an idea - a sound, a sight, a whisp of scent.  To be perfectly truthful, it's been a long time since I've carried around a writer's notebook.  I tell myself it's because I have a smartphone now, and a note on my notetaking app will be faster and easier to read than a handwritten jot - but the truth is, that notebook was shaming me.  It didn't like not being written in, not one bit.

But sometimes ideas do still come from the most unlikely places - the everyday places that shouldn't, really, generate ideas.  After all, when was the last time an author came up with a novel concept while, say, washing her hands?  Or unloading the dishwasher?  And yet, there it was... sitting on the plate of arugula I was mincing for my Bearded Dragon, Figment.

All animals eat something... dogs and cats eat kibble, horses eat grain, cows graze on grass.  But dragons eat salad and bugs.

It was that last thought that stuck with me.  Dragons eat salad... and bugs.  It became a refrain of sorts.  Here's a list of familiar animals and what they have for dinner - but Dragon eats salad and bugs.  OR... and now my mind started whirring... suppose it's lunchtime in the animal schoolyard.  Suppose Dragon is looking forward to his lunch of salad and bugs, but every time he sits down next to another critter, they look at his lunch and go "EWWWW!"  What then?  Who would he eventually sit next to?  Lots of animals eat greens, but they'd turn up their noses at insects.  And the insect eaters, they don't like greens ("How can you EAT that stuff!" whined Leopard Gecko, chomping down a mealworm.)  It would take another omnivore to make Dragon feel comfortable.

So there you have it... that's where ideas come from.

Dragon salads.