IN THE DARKNESS, LIGHT

One morning somewhere in the nexus of Daylight Savings Time when the world was springing forward from a November that had fallen backward, I swiped my fob on the outdoor keypad at school, entering the small, dark elevator foyer into a world in which time celebrated its inconsequential victory over someone who had lost the ability to distinguish the past from the future. 

My black jacket, drooping on my sagging shoulders, covered the wrinkles in the khakis and unpressed shirt I had worn two days earlier. A dark toboggan and black Under Armour mask swathed my entire head except for my eyes which locked onto the glow of my cell phone. As the elevator slowly ascended from the first floor to the third floor,  I checked my text messages, my email, and all of my social media, looking for a tidbit of light to start my day. I remained focused on my cell phone, reading the last of the emails I should have read days ago as the doors to the elevator slid open into the third-floor elevator corridor.

I had no sooner left the elevator, my head still fixated on my phone, when I found myself jumping, grabbing my chest to capture the breath I expelled, and yelling, "Ahhh! Oh! Shit!" A dark figure stood in the shadows of a gray morning light emanating from the only window in this corridor. Childhood nightmares of discovering a fanged clown under my bed or a lead-footed boogeyman in the closet poured back into my adult psyche, assuming their grip on my soul once again. I tinkled a little, too. Just a little, not a lot. Enough to make me uncomfortably check for wet spots.

I pushed myself up against the adjacent wall as I switched on the phone's flashlight. I uncomfortably examined the figure from a distance as I slowly moved the light up and down. "Damn it. Shit," I grunted. "It's Joseph holding Baby Jesus." I took a picture while I laughed and attempted to catch my breath. As I rushed to my classroom, an uneasy feeling remained with me throughout the morning as I warmed the cold chills of fear out of my body. 

As I left school at the end of the day, I ventured back to the elevator. Since I had become despicably lazy over the past year, voices told me to take the stairs as a futile means of exercise after a day of sedentary activity. I ignored those voices, wanting to address my need to confront the statue. Not confront Baby Jesus or Joseph. Just the statue. Confronting Joseph and Baby Jesus is disturbed and would only add fuel to gossip around the school that I have not "been right" since the pandemic began.

Those multiple cups of coffee and stacks of research papers had ignited small vestiges of critical thinking as I examined the statue for what it was. I can see why I was startled early that morning. The statue stood nearly my height and had been placed uncomfortably close to the doors of the elevator. Sure, it was far enough away from the doors so that a person would not walk directly into it, but it was definitely close enough to scare the shit out of anyone who was not paying attention. And now I did not think that was Joseph or Baby Jesus. Joseph had that circular, self-inflicted bald spot atop his head and Baby Jesus did not have that holy glow or halo around his tiny head. It was probably Saint Francis of Assisi and a child. Shouldn't that be a baby deer, raccoon, or some other small animal then?

Clearly, I am still obsessed with this statue. I recently started a small group text of people I thought would know the identity of the statue. According to the Catholic Online link a member of our group sent me, this statue is of Saint Anthony of Padua who is traditionally seen holding - Baby Jesus.😨 I am a failure of a Catholic who is teaching Catholic children in a Catholic School. Do not tell the religion teachers or my mom. The guilt! The Catholic guilt!

Saint Anthony. Franciscan Friar. Man of poverty. Speaker to fish. This is who scared me this morning.

As I was reading about Saint Anthony on this website, I discovered an intriguing tale about him – a fish tale, if you will. 🐟🐠🐟🐟 As the story goes, a group of heretics would not listen to Saint Anthony as he attempted to talk to them, so Saint Anthony chose to "preach his message to the fish."  He did this to calm his own heart while giving glory to God. (Fascinating and quite cool, right?) According to the story, fish began to gather around him in the water, inspiring the people who refused to listen to Saint Anthony. I guess if the fish were listening then perhaps they should give Saint Anthony a listen.

Saint Anthony? He is recognized as the Patron Saint of Lost Articles: lost things, religious articles, and, of course, lost people. Oh, the irony.

I took the stairs and walked outside to a chilly, sunny afternoon. I carried my black jacket at my side, practically dragging it along the sidewalk. My cell phone remained in my book bag as I walked to my car with my head up thinking about tomorrow.

Works Consulted

Chircop, Philip. “Anthony Preaching to the Fishes.” A-MUSED, 13 June 2016, www.philipchircop.com/post/145856760467/anthony-preaching-to-the-fishes-christ-the.

“St. Anthony of Padua - Saints & Angels.” Catholic Online, www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=24.

OPEN TABS

It seems I really cannot identify days anymore. Sometime this week I was sitting at my desk at school looking at my screen when I asked myself what exactly I was doing. The question was nothing overly existential at that time; I just simply forgot what I was doing as my eyes slid left to right and back again over an unknown number of tabs that had gathered as a collection of gremlins to taunt me that morning.

I pulled my already slipping glasses away from my face, shifting my black covid gear in the process. I squinted at the blurry figures sitting behind the plexiglass at the front of my desk. I knew who they were as much as a teacher could in this situation. We were in class. They were my students. We were in second period or maybe first. I don't know. Honestly, this could have been my fourth period. I am embarrassed to say that I just do not remember.

I returned my glasses to my face and adjusted the ear bands of my mask under the frames. My group of similarly masked students looked around at one another talking among themselves in a muffled, undecipherable chit-chat while they awaited me to remember what exactly I was doing. "The tabs. The tabs will tell me," I mumbled to myself. 

"Mr. Bucon, are you ok?" one of them asked.

That was a loaded question that propelled me on one of my unannounced free-flowing, rambling self-talks meant to sort through a scattering of thoughts. "Do any of you feel as if you have so many tabs open on your computers that everything just starts blurring together?" Many of them nodded enthusiastically as I turned from them back to my screen. "You know, we had spent so much time remote-learning. I was constantly organizing these stupid tabs so that I could move from one topic to the next in those Google Meets that now I worry that all I see are open tabs everywhere. I think it is making me sick."

I looked up at them again, needing a bit of understanding and compassion.

My eyes started to well-up a little. We have all been there over the past year as the way we have typically navigated our harried days has morphed into some bizarre control-fest which has led to frustration, disappointment, and tears. I used my hand to point out the open tabs on my screen. 

"I have Renweb open on the left to do attendance then I slide to the right to go over the agenda for the day. I have Classcraft ready for the random event and Google Classroom open for our assignment today. Look at all of these other documents. I am grading work, I am creating documents for next week, I am constantly checking my email. I think I could do all of this and not even look at you. This is not normal."

I sat there, frozen in a moment of helplessness of my own making. My life had become this dystopian reflecting mirror of computer tabs traveling endlessly into the ether. 

"I love teaching. I know other people are going through similar feelings at their jobs," I continued. "Life could be a heck of a lot worse out there. I am just waiting for a time when I do not need to sit here looking at a bunch of open tabs. I just want to close them all right now." 

I sighed. Most of them nodded. 

I am positive that my students and I all have different perspectives on what I mean by closing all of these tabs right now. I actually spent the latter part of this week considering what carried me to this moment. 

The most obvious has been what it means to be teaching during a pandemic. I struggled last spring being thrust into a situation none of us were truly prepared to undertake. This year began with the hope that if everyone wore masks, we sat six feet apart, we cleaned the desks after each class, and we did a "deep-clean" at the end of the day that we could have a full school year with some minor tweaks and interruptions. However, a recent long stretch of remote-learning has blended with current in-person instruction, and we have become attached to technology, locked into gliding through tabs and joining Google Meets. 

I have tried hard to keep remote-learning as personal as possible. I did not want to fall into the trap of handouts and videos and slides and impersonal instructional programs. I did not become a teacher to teach remotely. Being there for my students when they need my assistance is one part of the job I continue to embrace. The past year is the epitome of one of those times. 

The figurative tabs, though. Maybe those are my deeper concern. The figurative tabs are those ones that are not attached to technology. They are the ones we constantly keep open in our minds: families, jobs, doctor's appointments, shopping lists, car servicing, housekeeping, birthdays, holidays. What do I need to do today? Which "tab" is at the forefront?

Everything we have done in the past with varying degrees of challenges has had a dark haze of red, orange, and gold pandemic colors hovering over us for a year. What do we want to do? What do we need to do? What can we do? What should we do? What shouldn't we do? How can we keep ourselves and our loved ones safe? How much longer can this last? These questions have become additional tabs in my mind.

I do not foresee the days becoming any more recognizable to me. Unfortunately, I will still have numerous open tabs in mind as well as on my computer in my classroom. The challenge will ultimately remain as it always has been. 

The past year has been a learning experience in so many ways. I have had to make adjustments in how I look at life and how I address the twists and detours a pandemic can place in my path. I have relearned lessons that I discovered long ago. I am reminded to move to the forefront those things which are most important, those which require our immediate attention, those in our hearts. I am reminded to be OK with not finishing every item on a list because tomorrow will come as a new opportunity. I am reminded to be patient with myself and others as we all struggle to do our best in challenging times.