Ms. Leclaire's 2020 Pandemic Blog

I read a recent Facebook post by a psychologist listing 25 ways to take care of your mental health during quarantine. One of them was to set aside some time each to day as a "retreat--30 minutes, she suggested, of meaningful solitude. On Sunday, I decided to take her up on her offer. If a psychologist was giving me permission to take 30 minutes to not grade, not homeschool, not Zoom, not discipline, not cook, not clean, not exercise, then I was going to take it. Even though it was 5:00 pm, which is usually when I start cooking dinner, I slipped happily into my king-sized bed with my newest book. I had been reading for exactly three minutes when Sam came in. "Can I read in here, too?' he asked, Judy Blume book in hand. He was already climbing up on the bed, so I said, "Sure." The soft sounds of Sam reading--his slow breathing, leathery page turning, occasional giggles--are as meditative as a spa water feature to me, so we read, side by side, calm and happ...

Disclaimer: I'm typing without actually looking at my screen right now (because of my concussion, I"m supposed to give my brain some "rest" this week). I apologize for errors here, and I'm grateful to my sixth grade keyboarding class for forcing me to take typing tests where I had to turn the screen off. I didn't see the usefulness then, but I sure do now! To be clear: "99 Problems" by Jay Z is offensive. Its lyrics are unapologetically misogynistic. I think its video might be banned in the U.S. If I were driving my mother-in-law home from the airport and "99 Problems" came on, I would quickly switch the station. If Jay Z and I were sitting next to each other at Thanksgiving, I think one of us would end up shoving the other one's head into the stuffing. But when I need to get up a giant hill at the end of a 60-minute run? "99 Problems" is the only song I want to hear. It makes that hill my "witch," if you kno...

In our first week of quarantine, Jason came up with a game for the boys. From Sam's detective kit, we had one of those pens that can only be read with a blacklight. Jason used it to write a note to Sam; that note had a clue as to where to find the next note, and so on and so forth, sending him on a scavenger hunt. Each note was taunting like the bad guy from a cartoon: "Think you're smart? You'll never figure out this next clue..." They were all signed, "Your Arch Nemesis." Sam sank his teeth right into this scavenger hunt. Even though society was starting to lock down, it was technically the boys' spring break, so we ignored the emptying grocery shelves and parking lots and pretended we were on a voluntary staycation. This detective game helped us keep things light. Sam raced from room to room, trying to decipher the clues and find the next sheet of paper. By the time he had all five, he was breathless. Henry followed quietly at Sam's heels,...

My prompt and book list from last week: In many works of literature, there are characters who either choose solitude or are forced into solitary confinement. Often, these periods of solitude offer these characters a clear vision of themselves, of others, and/or of the world around them. Choose a novel or play of literary merit and compose an essay in which you identify a character who undergoes a period of solitude; explore the nature of the solitude, its effects on the character's view of humanity, and the ways in which the character's experience with solitude contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole. Text List East of Eden  All the Light We Cannot See Beloved A Midsummer Night's Dream The Giving Tree The Great Gatsby The Kite Runner Where the Crawdads Sing Parasite Jojo Rabbit "Acquainted with the Night" (Robert Frost) "Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes" (Billy Collins) "Maggie and Milly and Molly and May" (e...