[This post was started the first weekend in MAY 2026… ]
I am adding on with up-to-date news and some pictures at the end of the first draft.
3 May 2026: I spent at least 4 hours outside today, working on potting up starts from “seed starting mats” into 4-inch pots.
I used my manual wheelchair to get back and forth. It’s quicker over short runs, and allowed me to move easily back and forth from the bag of soil to the kitchen for items I forgot to bring outside, to the end of the patio to put a few of the starts directly into containers. I stood up and walked some, but mostly I used the chair outside. It’s just “safer” when I am carrying things back and forth, and I can work longer because I am not trying to keep all my joints in place.
[Note on 28 June 2026: in the end, the little mats were not fully biodegradable, and some had nematodes in them that killed the seedlings just as they got their first set of true leaves. From now on, it’s seed-starting soils for us!]
I am more and more aware of the moments when, even when I think I am moving normally and safely, a joint (today it was my right hip) slips and I risk collapse/pain/immobility.
Tom fed the birds while I was looking at, and taking pictures of, the beehive in front of our house. A mama bee was busy packing mud into the last little bit of one of the brood holes…
It was a glorious morning, and tomorrow should be more of the same. Our trees and animals are “managing” in the very early warmth. I do better when it’s sunny (mood) and warm (movement); but this year we’ve had too much dry, too much warm – too little precipitation, too little dormancy-inducing cold. The native plants and animals are not adapted to what used to be common weather for southern Oregon.
But I am trying to focus on what is RIGHT, what is POSSIBLE, and what is BEAUTIFUL these days.
It’s too easy to fall into despair when considering global events over which a “nobody” has little effect, so I am making a very conscious choice to realign my expectations and energy on those areas where I have control.
[Continuing on 24 June 2026]
With the end of the school year, there have been CHANGES.
This was a difficult school year, mostly from my health issues and issues related to the health issues; but also for “life” situations. So here an “unordered list” of considerations and concerns from the last few months:
- Exhaustion: managing pain and illness while also managing a classroom of students who are reacting not only to the teacher’s frequent absences but also to their own lives outside of school?
- PAIN: joint pain, sometimes in ALL the joints without obvious injury or inflammation, and then randomly in only one joint one day and a different joint (or joints) the next day, and the next, and the next…
- Loneliness: immobility and health concerns are isolating, not just at home and for social events, but also at work. Contact with other adults (other than spouse and our adult children) both professionally and personally is something I generally enjoy – and something that has been missing for many months at the time of writing for “all the reasons.”
- (fear): the possibility of never being good enough, strong enough, intelligent enough, mobile enough, well enough; enough? How many years longer will I exist in this state of “if only” and “I used to…?”
- New doctors: Will they believe me, will they understand if they do believe me, will they know what to do if they understand, will they be there when I need them? [I have a new primary care doc now, and so far I think she’s GREAT!]
- Accommodations, big picture: Although laws support “reasonable” accommodations that permit people with disabilities, whether permanent or temporary, to continue to work, there is currently a push by the Executive Branch of the national government to repeal such laws, forcing people who need extra support to work at lower-skilled/lower-paying jobs that don’t require accommodations – or to stop working with no compensation at all. I believe that my state will continue to protect my ability and right to work even if federal regulations and laws change; and that I will be able to receive at least partial retirement/compensation if my physical needs make it impossible for me to work even with accommodations. At least for as long as I need and want to work. But I know that is not the case in many states, and the increasingly antagonistic approach to people with differences is worrisome. On so many levels.
- Accommodations, personal picture: I have sent a letter to the school district with notes from my doctor; after input from my union president, my mother (who used to be her union president), and post-submission confirmation of okayness from the union’s district rep. We’ll see what comes of it. But by the end of the past year I realized that without some changes I would need to stop teaching entirely. This is my last-ditch attempt to continue teaching until retirement age…
- Medical Diagnoses: in the last few years I have been diagnosed with hypermobility spectrum disorder (probable EDS), had most of the allergies I experience “dismissed” by a new-to-me allergist – so I am still looking for a new one, had a doctor agree that I likely am suffering with long covid and provide a referral to a clinic that is possibly close enough for me to get to if I have to go in person… and I am still working on getting scheduled for some additional testing to rule in/rule out a couple other things.
- A dear member of the family is facing serious health issues that has necessitated Tom’s absence for weeks at a time. He’s gone again as I write this, and surviving on my own is extremely difficult. Fortunately at the moment I have no place or time commitments, so with the help of “Stidkid #2” once or twice a week we are making it work.
- A different family member has chronic and increasingly serious health issues related to an injury many years ago. These things happen more and more as we get older, but watching people we love go through them is never easy, no matter how much practice we get.
- I still worry about our “children.” Not just the Stidkids, but their friends and others we have befriended and supported over the years. This is a difficult time for young people (yes, I consider people in their 30s to be “young”) to be trying to make their way in the world. From increasing authoritarian regimes world-wide to ever-expanding cycles of economic hardship, to the fully planet-wide devastation caused by rampant abuse of resources and lack of concern for effects on natural global systems…
It’s a rough time to be alive.
Personally.
As a person who cares about others.
As an inhabitant of the planet.
AND STILL:
{continuing on 27 June 2026}
And yet, I am trying to continue being optimistic.
On “doctor’s orders” (for real), I am resting as much as possible this summer, while also gently easing into both “must do” and WANT to tasks. Some of the must-do tasks logically precede the want to projects!
I have already accomplished several things since school ended earlier this month (again, in no particular order):
- Hired another medical professional to help me make decisions about how and what to do about the hypermobility (possible EDS) issues.
- Made additional medical appointments and working on getting others in place.
- Attended a weekend steampunk event that required 2 nights away from home. Wally’s first overnights at the “doggie daycare!” It was so much fun!
- Rearranged (part of) the back patio and potted up all of the smaller trees and plants/starts. On Thursday, I even repotted some starts from the veggie garden that stidkid#2 brought up for me – collards and lettuces!
- Pruning and gentle, slow weeding as I go back and forth in the front and the back yards.
- Starting to “weed out” books and teaching materials from the library/guest room, living room, and bedroom where they have been stored – in some cases for MONTHS (and in others just since the end of the school year). <- Feel the need to point out the gardening reference…
- Started putting away/tossing/getting ready to donate clothes that I don’t wear and don’t want.
- Purchased some garden/yard items to make life easier for Tom and for me.
- Ordered a few more materials, including pins (of course I found the ones I had misplaced as soon as I ordered!), so I can finish the “steampunk” (1840s) vest I am making for Tom.
- Started drawing again, occasionally. Maybe I can paint again?
- I have so many sewing and other projects I am eager to work on!
- Working daily, just a little bit, on the BIG blanket I started for Stidkid#2 about 3 (4?) years ago. It’s a little more than halfway, and might end up being a lap blanket instead of a sofa blanket.
And as a result, things in my small summertime world are improving slowly: more room for guests to sit; I can find what I need and want when I look for it; the entry to the house is more obvious and passable; I feel calmer, knowing that I have space and time to rest while doing creative tasks.
And because of all of this, I am able to read a little bit. I have made the mistake of reading the news…
Which is not generally optimistic. Except that, as a student of history, I know that despots and dictators and their regimes do not last forever. I know that our species, despite its often short-sighted and egocentric behaviors, generally values the world and all its wonders – we have abundant evidence that our world needs us to be less greedy, and many people are taking the necessary steps – even without government regulations.
In my heart I know that my existence, a blip in time and space, is less critical to the world than I imagine, so I can stop worrying about the “big picture” and focus on what I can control.
This last is what gives me some hope: I can control (to a great extent) what I teach my students about kindness, respect, hard work, resilience, and duty; alongside history and science and the “three Rs.” I can control how I use the resources of the world (and I am getting better at only using what I need). I can control how I respond to my own crises and those of my family…
I cannot control the weather or the climate, or the effects of these on long-reliable systems of commerce or civilization.
I cannot directly control how the government works or the laws it makes (either locally or nationally).
I cannot control how others act, think, or feel.
But I can control how I respond to all of these. I can do my best to make my home and classroom calm and welcoming. I can do my best to stand up for the rights of people who need my voice and words (since my presence in public is unreliable). I can do my best to regulate my own use of resources and – as I learn more – do better over time, which allows me to model a different way for those who need it.
And I can be gentle to the natural world which sometimes is present in my space, like the young bat that had slept in our patio umbrella mid-June. It was surprised when its “tree” unfolded early in the day!
Optimism is hard to maintain. Perspective is a little easier for me: I am a small part in a large, complicated organism. My part is important, but if I fall, there are others who will take up my part. So I am not going to concern myself with the forest, or even the tree, of which I am a part. I will be the branch, or the leaf, or the flower, or the seed…
The birds can rest and nest in me. The squirrels can nibble on me. The worms and the fungal networks, the air and the clouds and the winds and the sun can nourish me and take back what I no longer need.
And you, if you need it, can rest with me, too.
It’s summer. Nurture what you can, weather what you must.
Be.
