Every year teachers start in the same manner. Potlucks, back to school meetings, district cheer sessions, more meetings, and time spent readying our rooms for the year ahead. It is a special time and a highlight of mine, as it marks the dreams I shape for the year ahead, and the next students that cross my path. This year will be a tad different as most teachers, parents and kids are living in the harsh realities outside the classroom doors. I want to escape from all of this as often as possible, for my kids and myself, and bring my students into the world of creative writing and the bravery of colonists that wanted a new life, as I teach writing and history, and these scenarios fit my yearly curriculum. Our escape will allow us to travel to a different time and place, and for a moment or two the heaviness of life will be taken away. I long for this, but I still do not know how or when any of this will take place.

The struggle with all the logistics of the school year, aka the unknown, and the waiting pattern that leaders are painfully putting us through, make my mind race through the various possibilities of the year to come. The questions always outweigh the known at this time leading me back to the same questions. Online or off-line? Six-feet apart (ha) or in our former reality mode armed only with a facial shield for the protection of a virus that can simply go right through my colored choice of the day? Do I wear gloves, or leave my pretty fingers www.dashingdiva.com to chance?

With nine days and counting to my technical start date, I have no answers. None. I wait, knowing that this year there will be no potlucks or in-person meetings and the decoration of our rooms will come in slow stages, with time limits and less “fun” in our rooms for hands to touch. This, however is our moment, our year, and I am ready to shine for my kids, and elbow bump each and everyday. If I only knew when and how. My wait continues and I look forward to its end.