Unsafe

I’m not angry 

I’m not scared. 

I’ve no regret for what has happened. 

But I am feeling a bit gobsmacked to learn that after all these months of carefully distancing myself from Covid, swiftly arranging for a vaccine as soon as I was eligible, and powering through a few hours of decidedly unpleasant side effects, I have now fallen into the crevasse of concern regarding blood clots. 

Yep, last Saturday I received the Johnson & Johnson version, just three days ahead of the CDC’s decision to pause distribution because of a possible if mostly implausible link to blood clots, as discovered in six U.S. women. Granted, they are all considerably younger than me, which is good to know. 

But did I mention that my eldest daughter also got the J&J jab, just a few days before me, and she’s smack dab in the middle of the affected women’s age range?

Yeah. That does not make me happy. 

At least the good news is that my third- and forth-born were headed off to get their own J&J vaccines on the morning that the story broke, so thankfully, their appoints were clancwlled and they remain unvaccinated and waiting for an all-clear before they move ahead. 

In the meantime, I will happily cross every passing day off my calendar until the two-weeks danger period has passed, and my first-born and I are in the clear. 

And then, I suppose, I shall wait for the next lurking danger to snarl menacingly from the shadows. Because, despite the pretty pink flowers on the trees and the promises of spring, the world still feels rather unsafe. 

Reading | Space and Moondust

"I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth." -President John F. Kennedy in a special State of the Union message on May 25, 1961

Space | James A. Michener

Another epic tome by this legendary author who ingeniously threads ribbons of fictitious characters through the warp and woof of mankind's real-life adventures in space. Start with a handful of survivors clinging to life after World War II's Battle of Leyete Gulf, and follow the intrigue of politicians, pilots, computer developers, PR men, and rocket engineers as they pursue their dreams of exploring the heavens. Enjoy the symphony of public reaction and wackadoodle push-back in response to their resounding triumphs. If you're not familiar with the story of how mankind came to travel in space, or if you remember well the days of Wernher von Braun, Yuri Gargarin, and the Mercury Seven, you will find this story equally spellbinding. Just keep your phone handy because consulting Wikipedia to sort fiction from fact is a delightful part of the journey.

I am a child of the sixties, and the space race stood front and center in my imagination for the first decade of my life. My mother shook me from my sleep to watch the glorious early morning lift-offs with their billowing clouds of fire and flame, and we stayed riveted to television coverage till the tiny capsules fell back to earth and safely splashed down. I memorized the astronauts' names and the faces of their wives and kids; I understood the different kinds of space vehicles, their intricate docking maneuvers, and strategic objectives of each mission; I felt endlessly reassured by the calm, cool ship-to-earth banter between the astronauts and their care-taking humans in Houston. Michener's creative reconstruction of these years, wrapped up in the fascinating before-and-after events that put the space race into historical context, brings all those memories to life for me, and fills in many of the gaps in my less-than-ten-year-old brain. 

What I remember most about the days of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo; of NASA and Cape Canaveral and EVAs and LMs and "T-minus ten, nine, eight," as Michener so beautifully lays them out like stars shining in the black velvet sky, is our collective thrill at the miracle of it all. And if there is anything about me that is true, it's that I've grown up to believe that if going to the moon is possible, then anything is possible. For my unending trust in the power of human endeavor, I thank the hundreds of thousands of people who drove our space programs forward during those exciting, crazy, critical years for proving to me that it's true, and I thank Michener for reminding me. Anything really is possible. 

* * * * * 

Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth | Andrew Smith

In the entire history of mankind, only twelve humans have ever set foot on the moon, and during a chance encounter with one of them around the year 2000, the author realized that that number was already down to nine and would soon dwindle to zero. So he set himself the challenge of interviewing each one of the Moonwalkers to ask, "What was it like to walk on the moon, and what did you do after that?" The results are surprising, predictable, emotional, laughably rational, funny, sad, and entirely thought-provoking. Smith is truly an artist with words, and brought deep compassion and insight to these fascinating men. 

If I were to write a book about the space program, I'd want to write one just like Moondust. Though I can plow through and even enjoy the more typical technical prose calmly laid down by the technocrats who dreamed up these incredible missions and made them come true, this book tells the kind of story that fascinates me most: 

Who were these humans who went to the moon? 

What made them tick? 

What did they feel when they walked on the moon?

How did their experience affect them, change them, illuminate the rest of their lives? 

And then, with breathtaking insight, the author turns the tables upside down and nails the best question of all: what do the stories of these Moonwalkers tell us about ourselves? 

Smith writes with the compassion and profundity deserving of the subject, but he's also freaking hilarious and I smiled at every page. It helps that he's very close to my age, which makes him feel like a friend, and his clever cultural references and signs of the times resonate with accuracy and charm. 

* * * * *

I give both of these books top marks, and both have earned a well-deserved place on my Space Exploration bookshelf. (Yes, I really have one.) Please allow me to clarify their difference:

Space is like a college education, filling the mind with an orderly progression of information about man's pursuit of the moon and beyond, providing not only structure but a deep sense of competence and thorough understanding of the subject. 

Moondust is the hilarious and brilliant fellow student who strolls into your senior year capstone class, helps you re-write your thesis paper, and makes you feel like you've been best friends forever. 

If I had to choose one book over the other, I'd be hard pressed to make a choice. But yay! I don't have to choose, and neither do you. Like so many pairs of books on a common topic, reading them together, one after the other, creates a synergy that fills me with joy. If you have any interest in the Apollo program and man's achievements in space flight, I say run, don't walk, to your nearest library or book shop and grab these two gems!

* * * * *

Hey, wanna read more reviews of books I've read in 2021? Here you go:

Magnificent Desolation

Moon Shot and Falling To Earth

A Man On The Moon and Apollo 13

First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong

The Astronauts Wives Club

Rocket Men

Mission To Mars

The Right Stuff

Earth + Sky and In The Stream Of Stars

At Home In Joshua Tree and Abandoned Detroit

Carrying The Fire

See San Francisco and Corbis Royalty Free RF004

Space and Moondust 

Where The Crawdads Sing

A Million Little Pieces

The Art Of Racing In The Rain

Normal People

Centennial

Honey, I Love

All My Darling Dogs

"Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole." -Roger Caras

Gracie on a leashless walk. She could certainly find work as a crosswalk safety guard. 

 "Wait, did you get a new dog?"

Stepping back a respectful six feet from the woman I'd just passed, I called the leashless Gracie to my side in a heel, and stopped to chat with this stranger on the street. 

Well. She was a stranger to me; I'd never seen her before in my life. But apparently, I was not so unfamiliar to her.

"Umm, four years ago?" I stammered, wondering what exactly she was getting at.

Glancing at Gracie, she smiled. "You used to have a different dog. He was so wonderful." 

Oh. She was remembering Ranger.

Yes, he was wonderful. Like anyone whose lost a beloved pup, my grief for my dog in heaven normally lies quiet, molten lava under the surface of my heart, but quickly bubbles up at his mention.

"I loved to watch him walk with you, on that long, long leash. He would strut along such a handsome way; he always looked like he was having so much fun.

What a wonderful, familiar, treasured picture her words made in my head.

Sunday Grace, the lovely lady who currently keeps me on my toes, last week. 

I thanked this kind soul for sharing her memories with me, turned and continued on my walk with Grace.

As I strolled along, one eye ever watchful on my well-behaved girl up ahead as she marching down the middle of the sidewalk and carefully stopped to wait for me at the crosswalk, catching the eye of every astonished human driving past as a model of proper deportment, my own memories of sweet Ranger burned bright in my heart.

Ranger Streicher chilling at Kalaloch Beach, 2006

He was a tender-hearted boy, but up for a bit of mischief now and then, such as waiting until everyone had gone to bed and the house was dark and quiet before he stole back downstairs to the kitchen where he was fully capable of opening the fridge and rummaging through the sturdy storage containers to find the non-dog-proof take-out boxes, and carrying them off to the privacy of the dining room where he might help himself to the delicious leftovers. Still, I could only smile at these very occasional and incredibly clever outbursts of naughtiness, and every night, as I laid down to sleep, he would hop up on the foot of the bed, circle once or twice, then curl himself in a tight little ball perfectly snuggled into the crook of my knees. He always managed to land just so - cuddled up to my side-sleeping legs so we made pleasant contact, but never crushing or overcrowding me. A sweet way to end each day, and I was endlessly grateful for his cozy companionship.

* * * * *

As I mused over my years with Ranger, my thoughts drifted back even further to the dog of my childhood, Kelly, and the first dog of my own family, Casey.

Hillpoint Shamrock Kelly slept under a forsythia bush 

in our front yard when he wasn't sailing the open seas, circa 1971.

Kelly lived a charmed life on a country lake in Michigan, slipping and sliding through the snowy winters as my brothers and I ice skated and sledded our days away. Summers we spent swimming and sunning around the lake, and I logged many hours in our aluminum rowboat, usually powered with a ten horse outboard, and Kelly loved nothing more than to travel with me. As we skimmed along the waves, headed for maybe the sandbar in the middle of our Ore Lake where I might drop anchor, lie back on the seats and gaze at the clouds till we were ready to swim, or possibly down through Little Ore to the quiet spots missed by the main currents, where we slipped among the water lilies and scouted out turtles taking lazy sun naps on the flat, floating leaves, Kelly assumed command of our little ship. Paws up on the shiny triangular bow, standing tall on outstretched legs with his lush red coat flowing out behind him in the wind, he barked at the top of his lungs for the sheer joy of living. God love him, he was an adventurous soul.

* * * * *

Case O'Whiskey, escape artist extraordinaire and a fence-jumping Evil Knievel, didn't mind a little quality time swaddled in a baby blanket, 1990.

More than any of my other dogs, Casey was bred for the hunt, and I spent a considerable amount of time and energy during our life together trying to help him scratch that instinctive itch. He was a notorious bolter, and since I couldn't dream of letting him off leash in the middle of suburbia to follow his nose - he had zero respect for streets and the superior might of human vehicles - I was constantly challenged to find him a safe place to scent quail and run free. At the downhill end of our neighborhood lay an untamed retention pond, a man-made wetland wild with grasses, cattails and a lovely bit of water, lots of room for an energetic red beast to romp, and best of all, securely fenced in on all four sides save for a single opening about ten feet wide. During the years of my daughters' babyhoods, I spent many an afternoon at that opening, entertaining the girls with little games and songs while also defending the goal-sized gap against my marauding pup who, while satisfied to romp about in this muddy paradise, would much rather slip past me like a caroming puck and run the streets of the neighborhood in gleeful, utter abandon. And oftentimes, that's exactly what he did. 

* * * * *

Happily caught up in my memories, I suddenly remembered. Today, April 8, is the birthday of both Kelly and Casey, 1969 and 1986 respectively, a very special date in my dog-loving life

And in her kind recollection of my boy, Ranger, my newfound friend has helped me celebrate this sentimental day by reminding me of all my darling dogs. 

Be You, Be Me

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

^ Watercolor paper cut into 4-inch by 6-inch squares and painted with acrylics. 

I went with an uncharacteristic pastel palette but what can I say, it just felt right. 

* * * * *

^ Letters cut freehand from white cardstock in my trademark font. What can I say, the shape of these letters lives in a special corner of my brain, directly connected to the neurons that fire up my scissors reflex. And I use a paper punch to snip out those tiny inner circles. 

* * * * *

^ I made and gave away these framed bits of inspiration to a couple dozen of my nearest and dearest this past year. Word art is not normally my thing, but how else to convey - simply, directly - the best advice that exists in the universe?

* * * * *

Be you. 

Screw society, the media, schools, workplaces, well-meaning friends and neighbors, even our beloved parents, if they try to shape us into who they want us to be, rather than letting us find our own way in the world.

I well remember the resistance I've faced, my metaphorical hands over my ears to block out the voices that have tried to tell me what to do with my life, and the hard feelings I've stirred up by doing things my own way.

Choosing to go to college.

Choosing where to go to college. 

Moving to Seattle...and not eventually moving back to the Midwest. 

Homeschooling my kids.

Welcoming my kids back home after college. 

These are the mere tip of the individualist's iceberg that I've floated out into the ocean of my life, and I've had to deal with plenty of push back in my quest to be me. 

But guess how many of these be me decisions I regret?

Zero.

* * * * *

But this whole thing of being me does not just apply to major life decisions. I've learned that trusting my gut happens on the daily.

I listen to that voice that whispers inside my head, 

I feel the sense of rightness that brings calm to my body, 

I notice how certain ideas float back to me again and again, lighting up in front of my eyes like sunshine hitting a disco ball. 

Those are the moments that tell me I'm on the right track to doing what's right for me.

And the more I pay attention to those moments, 

the more I recognize them when they happen, 

the more opportunities I find to make the choice to be me, 

the more I am rewarded by a sense of rightness when I do.

Being true to myself creates a self-perpetuating cycle, a repetitive reward system that encourages me to keep being me, and teaches me how to get better at being me over the years. 

* * * * *

Somehow I stumbled onto this simple truth, that being me is the answer to every single question life can possibly throw at me, and frankly, I love how it's all worked out.

And I plan to keep on heeding this advice for the rest of my life.

So, even though you have probably worked this all out for yourself too, let me encourage you:. 

Be you.

  

Be true to the amazing, one-of-a-kind treasure that you are.

Be who you see yourself to be, and don't listen to anyone who tries to tell you differently. 

You are perfectly made to be you.

And the world needs you to be exactly as you are.

So please, by all means, be you.

And I will try my best to be me. 

Turning Point

 This is my story about negative body image, disordered eating, dieting, and ultimately, healing. 

In no way am I judging, shaming, or giving advice to anyone who is dealing with similar issues. If that is you, I wish you well on your journey. 

^ For the past fourteen months, I have eaten countless steaks the size of my face, and entire mountains of green vegetables.  A cup of fresh berries (or cherries, my summer indulgence) serves as a luscious dessert.

The turning point came on a Friday afternoon in January 2020, as I sat in my sleep doctor's office, crying. 

Now, there's no shame in crying in a doctor's office. That can often be a rational and reasonable response to many such conversations, and I don't mean to suggest otherwise.

But for me, it was a sure sign that my emotional stress from a lifetime of weight loss issues, disordered eating, and sleep dysfunction was finally and furiously boiling over. 

"My general practitioners are not listening to me," I told him. "They don't understand about Delayed Sleep Phase, how it affects every aspect of my life, and when I try to explain, they brush me off." 

Tears still streaming, I explained that back in 2018, my blood glucose levels had suddenly popped off the charts. After some rudimentary Googling, I had evidence that this was probably due to either 

a) the chronic effects of a lifetime of mistimed sleep or 

b) the fallout from an intense dosage of steroids I'd taken just a few months earlier to combat Bell's Palsy. 

Or, most likely, both. 

But rather than help me adjust my sleep schedule or talk about steroids, my doctors had simply and unceremoniously ignored my concerns. I needed to understand that I had Type 2 Diabetes because I was overweight and under-exercised, they condescendingly corrected me, and this talk about sleep and steroids was nothing more than wishful thinking and my pitiful attempts to deny reality. 

"Well, they didn't tell you that you can't adjust your sleep schedule, right? So sleep whenever you want and don't worry about it. I don't understand why this is a problem for you," my sleep doctor said, a statement of such outrageous insensitivity and misguided logic that the tears only fell faster, blazing hot rivers down my cheeks and dripping into my lap.

Seeing that he was really botching this conversation and finally acknowledging that a patient probably did have a right to a doctor who would actually listen and address their concerns, he wisely decided to pivot.

"Let me take off my sleep doctor hat for a minute," he suggested, literally taking an imaginary cap off his head and setting it on his credenza, which made me smile through my tears. "I know someone who may be able to help you."

And this was how I came to meet Dr. Ted Naiman.

* * * * *

^ Sometimes I can leverage my dinner in with the family menu; on this night, the rest of the clan ate fajitas while I stuck to my own (massive) serving of beef (plate on the bottom right) and tapped into the shared serving dish of grilled peppers, onions, and mushrooms. 

Two weeks later, I was sitting in Dr. Naiman's exam room, waiting for him to join me. I looked over his credentials, framed and fabulous on the walls, and wondered what possible combination of nature and nurture might be bubbling in his brain, and whether he could truly deliver more than just the usual risk-management flow-chart diagnoses that the average doctor has served up to me lately.

At the sound of a light knock, I looked up as he playfully popped his head around the half-open door, grinned easily, and said, "Hi, I'm Ted." And in that moment, my life changed.

* * * * *

^ Salmon is a huge mainstay of my eating plan, and here I tried it with my daily dose of green veggies tucked into a simple omelet. But eggs are not really my jam, so this was more of a one-time experiment. 

With a three-sentence intro from me:

I was recently diagnosed with Diabetes 2,

I am pretty sure it was triggered by either Prednisone or my sleep issues,

My sleep doctor thinks you might be able to help me;

he looked me in the eye, smiled, and said, "We got this."

* * * * *

Sure enough, over the next hour, he assured me that Prednisone taken orally always, ALWAYS increases blood glucose levels, and that my theory that Prednisone had caused my diabetes was almost certainly accurate. 

And with a well-practiced one-two punch, he laid out a simple plan for diet and exercise that he assured me would cause me to drop weight like gangbusters, build a ton of muscle, and thereby coax my body into processing my blood glucose with renewed ease. 

He showed me some articles from medical journals written in the 1950s that promoted the same eating plan he was recommending to me.

He described how economic forces within modern food processing corporations and among government lobbyists have overrun this scientifically proven approach and created the Frankenstein's monster that has become today's diet economy. 

And using stories from his personal journey down this same path, including shirtless before-and-after pics of his own now-ripped physique, he assured me that with just a little bit of grit, I could achieve the same jaw-dropping results. 

Dr. Ted Naiman, I quickly learned, is pure rock and roll. 

* * * * *

^ When I travel, I take along my trusty air fryer and sizzle up my usual dinner on the road. 

Works like a charm. (This is only half of my steak; the other part was still cooking.)

While I don't mean to drag the entire medical profession, because I have had my fair share of good doctors over the years, Dr. Naiman is like none other.

He talks directly, using straightforward, conversational, colorfully animated sentences and a bare minimum of tedious jargon. He's funny and irreverent.

He handles himself with an informal, causal style but burns with deep passion for the issues he's discussing. He loves his work and it shows.

He bluntly speaks his mind, and feels free to disagree with any so-called experts who don't back up their conclusions with hard scientific evidence. He is all about the science. 

Dr. Naiman is exactly the kind of doctor I would want to be, if I was a doctor, and I told him so.

* * * * *

He scrolled me through the highlights of his book, The PE Diet, and gave me a free copy. 

"Read it," he said. "You'll understand all the chemistry behind this advice, but here's what I want you to do:

Go home. 

Start intermittent fasting: eight hours of eating, sixteen hours of fasting.

Eat a pound and a half of protein every day, and a ton of green vegetables. Every night for dinner, I want you to eat a steak as big as your face. 

And if you're really serious about this, go to the gym and hire a personal trainer. Build as much muscle mass as you can.

Come back and see me in a month.

* * * * *

^ Sometimes I bend my rules ever so slightly and that's okay. Ground beef is the main ingredient in meatloaf as well as onions and egg, all of which are great for me. The ketchup and the handful of bread crumbs? Not so much, but eaten occasionally and in such small doses, they're fine. 

So that's what I did. 

I followed his rules.

I read his book.

I joined a gym, hired a trainer, and started a serious exercise plan.

And a month later, I showed up in Dr. Naiman's office to discover that, as he promised, my numbers had tumbled in a delightfully steep decline on both my weight and blood glucose charts. 

"You are my hero," Dr. Naiman told me. "Come back in five more months." 

* * * * *

July's numbers looked even better, and while I was well chuffed, Dr. Naiman was positively stoked. 

"Your blood glucose level is down to 5.7; that's one tenth of a percentage point above normal. You have pretty much kicked diabetes' butt in six months," he beamed. "I'm so proud of you. Do you want to keep going?" 

Um, yes. Yes, I do.

"Okay, come back in a year."

* * * * *

The months tick by. 

I happily follow Dr. Naiman's eating guidelines and yes, I eat steaks the size of my face for dinner almost every night. 

I allow myself enough treats and indulgences that I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. 

I stick to my intermittent fasting hours.

Though Covid ruined my time at the gym, and came between me and my adorable personal trainer, I transitioned to a home workout routine that is getting the job done. 

And even though I don't measure my progress by any quantifiable means, I know that I'm getting healthier with each passing day. I feel great. I love what I eat, and I'm satisfied after every meal. I know that I can eat like this for the rest of my life.

* * * * *

^ But most of the time, I am perfectly happy to eat my tried and true face-sized steak and green veggies.

When July rolls around, I'll happily go back to Dr. Naiman and find out how my numbers are doing. 

Who knows, I may even cry. But this time, since I've reached a turning point in my journey toward a healthy relationship with food and a positive self-image, they will be tears of joy. 

* * * * *

What in the world kind of healthy eating plan has me consuming steaks the size of my face on a daily basis? 

I know. I too was skeptical at first, but as promised, Dr. Naiman's book lays out the science behind this apparently antithetical concept, and I'm now a believer. I'll explain more in my next post on this topic. 

* * * * *

Read about my body image journey:

The Day I Changed

Fat

Turning Point

Alive

"Here's a test to find if your mission on Earth is finished: 

if you're alive, it isn't." -Richard Bach

This painting came to me in a dream. It is a timeline of my soul's journey through this life.

On the left, the pink dot represents my soul on the day I was born, simple and small. The white space represents my earthly life, and reflects the way my soul has expanded and grown over the years. At the end of my life, as shown on the right side of the painting, my soul will transition into something new and different, much more complex than it was before, and will continue on in ways that I can't begin to imagine. 

When we are born, we come from heaven, and into our newborn bodies are planted our tiny souls.

We know this because we've experienced the incredible mystery of newborn babies. 

When we hold their tiny bodies and look into their searching eyes, we see

wisdom, 

truth,

eternity.

We are deeply and profoundly touched by the connection we feel through newborn babies to some sort of Great Power, and we don't need a formal religion to explain this to us. 

We experience a baby's spirit and we know that they - and we - must surely be creatures of some deep and powerful place, which we sometimes call heaven.

* * * * *

Yet we are also creatures of this earth. 

And so, from our very first days, we grow and learn and change in earthly ways - 

building up our biceps, 

losing our baby teeth,

learning to throw a baseball, 

as we journey toward adulthood and the full flowering of our earthly strength. 

If we survive, we hit our physical peak somewhere around age 25, and ride the top of the wave for maybe ten or fifteen years till we start the long slide toward middle age and the unspeakable beyond. Our bodies age and decline; our brains strain for telephone numbers and street names that used to pop to the surface in a snap, we do the horrifying math that tells us we likely have more birthdays behind us than we do ahead. 

* * * * *

Because I'll tell you what. Life goes fast. And if we're not careful, we can spend the later years of our lives focused on the decline of our earthly power - the falling arc of our lifetime's competencies - and waste valuable years of our lives feeling broken in body and declining in mind. 

I refuse to do that.  

I will not look upon my physical body as the measure of my life's work. 

I know in my bones that the real journey we take here on Planet Earth is more about growing our souls than our physical bodies. 

We're here to learn about

love and compassion,

loneliness and pain,

wisdom and joy, 

anger and grief,

and it's when we look past the limits of our earthly strength and into the depths of our souls that we can truly live. 

* * * * *

I believe that my soul will continue to grow until the very last breath of my life. 

And then, rich and full, my soul will return to wherever it came from. 

To heaven.

To the Great Power.

To eternity.

(I don't need a formal religion to explain this to me.)

And believing that this is true makes me very excited to be alive. 

Life Of A Math Teacher: Eccentric Connections

"The people that matter most to me are the people that are in my life. That's really who I learn from, and it's always a very personal kind of connection." -Missy Peregrym

One of the biggest problems with math education is that most math teachers come across as disconnected eccentrics.

In my humble opinion, of course.

To be fair, I'm sure that all math educators are fascinating people because math is a fascinating subject, so given their choice of study, they simply can't be all that bad.

But it's an undeniable truth a lot of ineffective math teachers do exist. 

The problem, I believe, is that many people who teach math are more interested in math than they are in teaching. Which is to say that they enjoy the finer points of 

graphing a line, 

factoring a quadratic expression, 

or simplifying a radical, 

but do not necessarily grasp the fundamentals of how we learn.

See what I said there?

How we learn.

Not how we teach.

Because no one can teach something to a student who doesn't want to learn.

Cannot be done.

As so-called teachers - especially those of us working with high schoolers - the best we can hope to do is open our dear students' minds to the possibility that what we have to say just might be interesting and/or useful, and then pray to the almighty gods of teen hormones that they will give a rip.

But even then, before we can ever expect them to listen to us, we teachers need to show our students that we care.

Well, yes. The entire venture of modern education rests on the cornerstone that teachers must genuinely care about their students.

Not just as obedient learning machines

or the "adults of tomorrow" 

but as actual humans of infinite worth and value, 

exactly as they are,

in this moment. 

We teachers - especially us math teachers, who are often perceived as robotic and unemotional - simply must take time to build human connections with our students, on the daily. We must demonstrate to our students in ways that make sense to them that we actually care about them as human beings. 

Honestly, I love this part of my job. 

Like many - but sadly, not all - high school teachers, I genuinely enjoy spending time with teenagers. I find them to be equal parts fascinating, hilarious, adorable, and heartachingly vulnerable. If you have ever spent time with me as my student, or eavesdropped on me when I'm with my students, you know that there is a great deal of rollicking good fun that goes along with my teaching style, and it's completely intentional. Nonsensical horseplay is at the core of what makes my approach successful. It's one of the best ways I show my students that I care. 

But look. Covid has ruined all that. 

My classroom antics have been reduced to late-night rantings on YouTube, often involving me dashing away from the camera to chase my dog out of various ridiculous food-stealing scenarios, and allow for very little exchange with my students or attention to the details of their lives.

And by very little, I mean none. 

Our weekly one-on-one video chats help. It's lovely to have a moment with each student, to get a chance to ask how their actual life is going. Especially given the uptick in mental health challenges that these Covid teens are facing, I try to bring my A game of intentional care into these short moments of connection.

But lately, I've been feeling the need to do something more. 

So I've turned to my favorite tool of dispensing love and care - the homemade postcard.

Every week - usually when I'm killing time between my students' video chats - I drag out a few art supplies and a handful of blank cardstock, and whip up a little something to pop into the mail.

I provide a quick update on each student's progress, and offer a few words of encouragement and praise. 

These little scraps of paper are a far cry from the fun moments we share when we are meeting face-to-face, my students and I. But while Covid rages on, I'm doing everything I can to keep up the eccentric connections. 

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My love of postcards is fairly well documented.

Bringing Joy

Eccentric Connections

Saying Thank You

My 2018 Homemade Valentines

London Calling

Tick Tock

A Day To Myself

Garage Cleaning Haiku

Handmade Valentine Love

Pretty Postcards

The Power Of The Postcard

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Read more stories about my life as a math teacher. I'm building up quite a collection.

Test Drives

Bringing Joy

Math By Phone

Yabba Dabba Do

Eccentric Connections

Math Mammals
Socially Distant
Playing With A Full Deck

The (Math) Joke's On Me

Sharing Life

Little Brothers

Sweet Inspiration

My Hero

What I Do

Number 15

Christmas Edition

3.1415926

Buy It And Burn It

In Honor Of James K. Polk

House Tours

My Deep Gladness

Isolating The Radical

By The Numbers

Teaching My Own: High School Art And Algebra