Down the Rabbit Hole

Heroes Among Us and the eternal Spring

"Blogging Circle of Friends "
DAY 3022 February 25, 2021
“Heroes didn't leap tall buildings or stop bullets with an outstretched hand; they didn't wear boots and capes. They bled, and they bruised, and their superpowers were as simple as listening, or loving. Heroes were ordinary people who knew that even if their own lives were impossibly knotted, they could untangle someone else's. And maybe that one act could lead someone to rescue you right back.”― Jodi Picoult,
This has been a trying year, looking back upon 2020, who's your hero? Why?

If there was anything 202 showed us it was that most heroes are ordinary people just doing the best job they can in the service of others. The unsung heroes were all the nurses that ended long shifts with bruises on their faces from the PPE and the doctors that spent the final minutes face-timing the loved ones of a dying patient so they could get to say their goodbyes. Heartbreaking images filled our feeds of healthcare workers visiting their own children through windows and glass doors or collapsed in corners of empty hallways, overwhelmed by their private burdens in dealing with a nation in crises.

My daughter has been struggling with the isolation of remote learning. Like so many children, school was her source for interaction with other children her age. It is hard for her to connect with the lessons and material via virtual classes and self-guided remote learning. I listen to her zoom meetings and hear those same notes of isolation and longing in the voices of the other kids too. It is a blessing that she got the teacher she got for 5th grade this year. Her teacher is an amazing person, not just as an educator but as a caring and compassionate mentor. Very early on, she recognized the needs of her young students and has tried her best to give them the sense of community and classroom they all very much need. She reserves the last few minutes of every daily meeting to ask them to talk about their day, about their plans and what they have going on. She's asked them to share their workspace with each other via zoom, to introduce their pets and share their funny stories. If you close your eyes and listen, it sounds very much like a normal classroom anywhere in the world with excited voices all trying to talk at once. She shared her struggles with them, like recently losing heat and having to conduct class from a friend's house and managing it all with grace, and asked them to share their struggles and how they overcame their issues. They have taken on the challenges together through this year.

I am immensely grateful to my daughter's teacher. She has put the health and well-being of her students first and foremost. In delivering the lessons, she has given them all so much more. She has tried to give them back some normalcy, which they have so desperately needed. She, and all the educators like her, are my heroes this past year.


"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
Day 2396 February 25, 2021
Prompt:"A poet dips words into springtime to season her poems with beauty." Tom Guillemets Use this quote in your Blog entry today.

This prompt is a bit tough for me. I'm not a poet and most of what I write lately seems to be seasoned more with darkness and strife. I can appreciate beauty though, and as Feb has provided us a last blast of arctic chill and snow, I long for Springtime in a way I haven't in some time.
I get that Spring is a season filled with blooms and sunshine. It seeds hope after the starkness of Winter. I can see how there is inspiration in all of that rebirth. While I don't necessarily see the quote as literal, I think some writers muses are born from the idea of an eternal Spring.