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Month: March 2021

COVID, week 55 + orange tier, hybrid ed *maybe*, + vaccines for all

COVID, week 55 + orange tier, hybrid ed *maybe*, + vaccines for all

Admittedly, it was nice to not write about COVID for a couple weeks, though in its absence, a lot seemed to happen. Some weeks are so slow on this front, and others are so fast; it’s very disorienting. I have very little hope that my  messed-up-since-March-13-2020-sense-of-time will be able to recover, quickly, and once again be able to discern how different a day, a week, or a month feels from each other. We’ve been in this Twilight Zone phase for a while now. It’s hard to tell which dimension we’re in.

The biggest news around here is that last week, the governor announced that as of 4/1, Californians who are 50+ years old would become eligible to receive a vaccine, and as of 4/15, all Californians 16+ years old would become eligible. 

IT’S WHAT WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR ALL ALONG!!!!

Pop the champagne, and put on some fancy pants because hot damn, the day is finally (almost) here.

Of course, the machinery behind this varies tremendously county-by-county; I have similar-aged friends — who reside in different counties, an important distinction — who have been or will be able to get their vaccine earlier than I can mine. It’s all good; there’s nothing salty or bitter coming their way from my standpoint. I live in a county with ~2 million people, and in a city with a little more than 1 million; it’ll be a while before it’s my turn.  

That said, in the interim, I feel like I’m playing the lottery every morning when I open up SCC’s COVID page, navigate to the various “make an appointment” slots under the different providers, and hope with bated breath that there is availability posted on or after 4/15. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there isn’t yet, and when I called the SCC Health Department over the weekend for clarification on the matter — and waited on hold for about 33 minutes, if memory serves — the county, itself, hasn’t yet gotten any directions from the state or better clarification on when all these millions of vaccines (and their corresponding supplies) will be arriving.

(A quick aside to note that yes, I was calling for clarification on Sunday morning, but I was also calling because I wanted to talk to a human about my observations. Around 6am on Sunday, as I was getting ready for my run, I noticed that there were vaccine appointments that day — many of them, actually — over at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara. There weren’t any appointments closer to me, but over there, about 20 minutes away, there were tons. I’m not yet eligible, nor do I plan to lie about my status, but I had to ask someone from the county what the protocol was here: aren’t shots in arms the most important goal right now? If there’s an available vaccine spot same day, is it ok to take it since no one else has? The answer: hard no. Mystery solved.) 

So…moving on and continuing to wait, go I.

In a strange but understandable way, I feel like I’m getting a dopamine hit every morning when I go through this weird song-and-dance routine on the SCC site, hoping that with each refresh, That Which I Seek will finally be granted to me. 

I’m expecting to be let down on a daily basis, at least through 4/15, but I’m hyped up on the mere chance that something, some date, will become available for booking soon after the 4/15 eligibility pool opens. 

It’s like the strangest, most competitive, yet best race I have ever wanted to be a part of. 

Perhaps more immediate than the likelihood of my getting vaccinated is in-person, hybrid schooling in my children’s district beginning — and its machinery seems comparably complicated. 

A few weeks ago, the district surveyed all parents and essentially asked us two questions: first, if given the opportunity to return to school for a hybrid set-up for the rest of the school year — where your child would attend in-person school on Monday/Tuesday or Thursday/Friday — would you send your child? Or would you prefer that your child finishes the school-year in a 100% distance learning set-up? The second question: would your answer change if your child’s teacher changed (meaning if your child weren’t guaranteed to have the same teacher for the rest of the school-year that he/she has had since August, would you change your answer)? 

The initial survey results expressed that an overwhelming majority of respondents — close to sixty percent — said they’d opt for completing the ‘20-21 school-year in a distance learning format. We, collectively, weren’t committed to our initial answers, however, since the school board of trustees were meeting a few days later and would possibly be discussing a return-to-reopening schedule.

Long story short, the board did what I suspected they would, and now families get to make more decisions. The board decided that some students (based on grade, between the elementary and middle school levels) would be able to return to in-person, hybrid schooling the week of April 19th, while others would be able to return the following week, April 26th. That would mean, at maximum, if families opted for the hybrid option, students could potentially have 13-14 in-person, REAL LIFE schooling opportunities for the rest of the school-year. 

But wait, there’s more! More recently, by this week yesterday (IIRC), families were asked to declare their intentions (but not being wed to them) of sending their children in for the hybrid set-up or keeping them in distance learning, knowing that students would potentially have only ~7 weeks’ worth of twice/weekly in-person schooling opportunities between when they’d start, in mid-to-late April, to when the year would end in early June. 

Beyond that though, the new board-issued schedule — which has yet to be agreed upon by all the various unions, if I’m understanding this all correctly — is that all students in the district, regardless if they’re doing in-person hybrid or 100% remote through the end of the school-year, would be doing morning work, break, and lunch from home, remotely. If your child is doing in-person hybrid, the student would only come to school for the afternoon session, on your assigned two days a week, ostensibly for a couple hours, max. 

Suddenly, if you’re a family opting for hybrid for the rest of the school-year, that means your child will be interfacing with/at school for like three, maybe five hours a week, over two days, max, unless they qualify for supplementary, assistive services on Wednesday. That’s it.

Families still aren’t locked in to their choices that they expressed as of 3/30, but I think it’ll be really fascinating how and whether our local district can pull this off. I’m in no way faulting or criticizing the board or anyone at all here because it’s a huge calculus to make — not only in terms of the obvious health and safety aspects, yes, but also the (for lack of a better term) opportunity costs that families will have to make if they choose to send their children. 

Many families can’t swing part-time, afternoon-only, twice-a-week school schedules due to their restrictive work schedules. Even if some families want to have their children in-person schooling right now — for whatever reason — their employment circumstances may preclude it (and here, it’s important to note that there’s no bussing in our district. Families drop-off their kids or walk them in). Plus, families have to wonder if it’s even worth it? to take the risk, time, and hassle (during the middle of a work day) for their child/children to get a little bit of in-person school time. 

Everything about this is so maddeningly difficult, and it’s no one’s fault.  

It makes me wonder if in some way, the local district is hoping to deter families from choosing in-person hybrid for the final 5-7 weeks of school while simultaneously saying that they at least offered it, as I’m guessing it all affects the funding that the governor has dangled in front of districts statewide (which, related, I feel is fairly unethical, but what do I know). 

Oh! I’m a thousand words in by now and have failed to mention that SCC has entered into the ‘orange’ tier, as of 3/24, which means that more is open than before, that there are fewer restrictions than before, that occupancies can be higher than they have been, but that — importantly! — we aren’t out of the woods yet and could backslide if a lot of people make a lot of poor decisions.  

If you’re not dizzy with this deluge of details and information yet, please share with me your robotic ways because I am genuinely impressed. Seriously. 

I hope you are staying healthy and well and safe and that you are at least adequately navigating all these weird-ass uncharted and ever-changing waters. The seasickness some days just sucks, eh? 

COVID, week 54 + Alexi Pappas’s Bravey – book review

COVID, week 54 + Alexi Pappas’s Bravey – book review

I mentioned last week that a COVID-induced change that I hope sticks around is the relatively new openness, or comfort, that more people seem to have when it comes to talking about mental illness. 

As we all can attest, the pandemic has upended life, so profoundly, in so many different ways, for so many, that more people are citing mental health maladies in the past year, than perhaps ever before. (Admittedly though, let me own that I don’t have the actual stats to back that up, but I think it’s a logical conclusion, based on what we do know. The pandemic also forced many providers into telehealth settings, which is another COVID-induced change that I hope sticks around. More treatment options = more opportunities for people to seek care. That’s a win in my book). 

Anyway. With mental health becoming a significant conversation piece over the past year, it has been illuminating to see additional coverage of mental health-related topics. I think it’s especially interesting coming from athletes (and runners, in particular), people whom you may, at first glance, assume have it all, have their shit together, what have you. Many people unduly think that one’s prestige or accolades may protect him/her from the grips of mental health despair, but cursory observations show that that’s not always the case.  

Enter: Alexi Pappas and the New York Times, early December, 2020. 

A lot of runners may know her for her time at the University of Oregon, her impressive track speed, perhaps her debut at the marathon distance in Chicago a few years back, and/or that she set a Greek 10k national record during the ‘16 Olympics in Rio; she’s a decorated athlete, for sure. (And of course, this is to say nothing of her creative pursuits). 

Before the New York Times op-doc she and Lindsay Crouse released in December — ahead of her book’s publication in January — many of us, myself included, probably didn’t connect her and mental health in the same breath. 

If you haven’t yet watched or read the NYT piece, do that first; I’ll be here. 

It’s pretty powerful stuff and an excellent segue into Alexi’s newly-released memoir-in-essay, Bravey.

I recently procured a library copy of Bravey and tore through it in a few days’ time, between pockets of distance learning. Admittedly, I knew very little about Alexi Pappas’s life, beyond what I just mentioned above; I had little-to-no knowledge about the filmmaker side of her life, her marriage, her upbringing, nothing. She’s even from the Bay Area (Alameda), and I had no clue; I feel like everyone local should know that!  

I knew from watching the aforementioned NYT op-doc in December that she suffered from depression after the ‘16 Olympics, but I was gleefully ignorant about its severity or depth — or her family history — until the earliest pages of her memoir-in-essay. 

Powerful is what I keep returning to, as I try to describe Alexi’s life story, but I think that sells it short. There’s a lot going on in its three-hundred-plus pages. 

It’s a woman’s life story, yes, but it’s more than that. 

It’s ruminations from an Olympic professional runner, yes, but it’s more than that.  

It’s the life story from a mental health consumer — whose own life and upbringing was very deeply affected by her mother’s mental health challenges — yes, but it’s more than that. 

I don’t really know how best to describe it, to be honest. 

When I finished reading it, I knew I needed to write about it, but where to begin?

Or how exactly to convince you that you need to read it? I don’t know, but it’s urgent that you add it to your queue. 

Alexi punctuates each chapter in Bravey with lines of her own poetry — she turned down competitive, rare MFA poetry scholarships to pursue a fifth year at Oregon to eventually launch her pro career —  and as readers become more familiar with her life, the short verses read less like the whimsical “gotchas” they may seem at first glance and more melancholic, given her story

In the earliest pages of her memoir, Alexi shares with readers that she lost her mother when she was four years old to suicide and that for years, she, Alexi, didn’t know. Her mother smoked cigarettes; as a young girl, Alexi knew that cigarettes could kill you; her logical conclusion, as a four year-old, then was that her mother died because she smoked cigarettes. 

It is absolutely gutting to read.  

Alexi describes some of the numerous times when her mother sought in-patient treatment for her mental illness — and her periodic, harrowing reprieves at home, and what Alexi remembers witnessing — and her descriptions give readers the type of unfiltered, heart-breaking, and honest impressions of the gravity of her mother’s precarious health that only a small child, witnessing it all go down, can provide. 

It is profoundly tragic and uncomfortable to read but obviously critically important. 

Each essay in her book could stand on its own, independent from the rest of the chapters, but I think as a writer, Alexi brilliantly wove her story together. Not every essay is about her mother’s death, per se, but clearly the loss of her mother permeates her life in obvious and not-so-obvious ways. 

It’s the same with her running career and her filmmaking, writing, and creative career; it’s disingenuous to think that each lives on its own island, liberated from the other, but she doesn’t necessarily devote every single piece to all of the aforementioned. 

She makes all of her decisions — about her Olympic aspirations, her professional running career, her creative pursuits and unconventional career with her husband — informed by all of it, even when, at times, it may appear to be competing interests.   

In many ways, readers could describe much of her memoir-in-essays as a love and appreciation letter to her father, who single-handedly raised her and her older brother, void of most female mentors, for much of her life. It is from the dearth of female role models that her father felt compelled to enroll her in both Girl Scouts and sports from a young age, and the latter — certainly influenced by her father’s athleticism when she was growing up — arguably helped get her wheels in motion to aspire to Olympic greatness, even as a young child.

I absolutely love and gravitate toward professional athletes’ memoirs (and runners’ in particular) because I like to learn about how everything played out, getting them to where they ultimately end up, because in some small way, us plebs can usually relate. 

Alexi’s story is so memorable because, yes, it’s about the aforedescribed and her obvious innate and earned talent, but it’s also a front-row seat to her ongoing self-examination for which a lot of the time, she has no clear-cut, direct answers. 

Her acute awareness that she lacked female role models in her life for so long — and her attempts to fill that void (a la Girl Scouts, initially) — permeate her story and definitely inform her experience, even down to the scrutiny she places on her social media presence. She knows that there is always someone watching — perhaps a little girl like she once was, someone looking for a female role model to fill a void — and it’s fascinating to see this thread wind through her lived experience.  

When Alexi, herself, becomes severely ill after the Rio Olympics with her own mental health maladies, in time, she — and us readers, along for the ride — realize that the connection she shares with her mother is much less abstract than she once thought. Just as it is elsewhere in the book, when she explores her mother’s illness, the vulnerability through which Alexi describes her own illness — and how it affected her life, career, relationships, her Nike contract, all of it — is deeply uncomfortable and may leave you feeling like a bit of a voyeur, like you’re passing by a terrible car accident but can’t not look. 

That’s the point, I’d argue. The less we talk about this stuff — or rather, the more we continue not talking about it — the more it lives and breeds in darkness and isolation, and the more it’s fueled by unnecessary shame, embarrassment, and stigma.

…which gets us to the point, of what it means to be brave, or to be in Alexi’s crew of braveys. She rightfully acknowledges that systemic issues like racism preclude many people from being able to fully realize that which they seek, regardless of how brave they may be. 

For her, being brave — becoming a bravey — has meant seeking out the opportunities for growth, even if it means that said growth is accompanied by a whole bunch of discomfort. Mood follows action. 

“not your first     

not your last

enjoy your now

now will go fast” 

(112)

“run like a bravey

sleep like a baby

dream like a crazy

replace can’t with maybe” 

(6) 

This “mini-movement” of braveys that she created is 

inward facing, a choice you make about your relationship with yourself. We all have dreams that we’re chasing, however big or small, and we can all decide to be brave enough to give ourselves a chance. I think that’s why the term resonated with so many people: Anyone can be a Bravey, and the permutations of what that means are infinite. It’s a switch you flip in your mind.”

(7)

Re-reading these excerpts, the foundation of Alexi’s story, certainly lands a little bit differently once you know what it took to get her there, to that realization. It is shitty that she has had to endure so much to get to that place, but we are lucky that she has so graciously tried to share her painful, lived experiences with us. 

I, for sure, am most grateful for Alexi Pappas’s bravery.

Be safe and well, friends. xo