Stress List....sometimes it is helpful to just lay it all out!

 

It’s been kind of a stressful week, so far….partly, it is the change of seasons, knowing that I have to move inside soon, back to a classroom, out of a garden and trails. But, this year, it feels bigger, like I am carrying so much more.  And it is hard to see what I can impact and what I need to let go.

1.       Climate Change. Even in the middle of pandemic, climate change is still happening. In April, emissions decreased by 17%, but it will not stay there—probably has already climbed back up. This is a huge threat to our lives and our planet.

2.       The elections. If they are close, especially, I am very worried about a national crisis. I’ve never been worried about the sanctity of the vote before, but I am this year.

3.       Systemic racism and violence, exacerbated by #2.

4.       Pandemic:

a.       OSU students returning, bringing more cases of the virus to my neighborhood. Constituents are afraid for their health and lives.

b.      Campgrounds are packed, as are other gathering places. We are not practicing social distancing, as a society.

c.       The economic fallout from this pandemic, which will impact both school and the city budgets. I get to make difficult choices in the next two years.

d.      This winter. We have made some adaptations because it is sunny and warm out. Stone Soup eats on the porch. What happens when winter comes? What happens to the homeless then?

5.       School starting.

a.       Online, which is so not my style.  School works because we bump into each other all the times. Online, we do not.

b.      Health concerns—mine and my students and colleagues. My eyes were giving out in the spring, when many students were not working hard and we were not required to be online 80 minutes at a stretch.

c.       No schedule yet. Although school is starting very soon, I do not know what I am teaching or when. I have five distinct preps that I teach- -which ones this year? Which semester? I would not care, but see point 5.a….

d.      All of the issues around school…. Access, equity, engagement…..they have not gone away. And I don’t think there is enough bandwidth on the planet for us all to be online at the same time.

6.       Fire season is about to begin. I saw lots of people with campfires in the wilderness a few weeks ago.

7.       Loss of community input because of changes at the city level. I am getting the fishy eye from people who are concerned that their voices will not be heard.

8.       Rogue councilor, because the concerns of my ward are unique in the city. We worry way more about some things—OSU, Climate Change—and less about others.

I know that I am healthy, I have a job that is stable and provides health insurance, that I can go outside and be in the woods in 20 minutes if I need to, that there is a community that surrounds me. I am lucky. But I am also deeply concerned about the health and welfare of that community, looking towards the future.

 

August

    

 I believe we all love the time around when we were born the best…it resonates deeply in our bodies. This is what the world should look like. For me, that time is late August, the time when the light shifts down in the sky and the end of summer is near. There’s a beauty in the aching sadness of ripe fruit, dry grass, and golden light tinged by dust and distant fires that brings my life to a standstill every year. The cat and I sit in the back garden, moving with the sun, soaking up the light for the long grey winter ahead.  

Mark and I pressed apples yesterday, using our new press. I wandered the neighborhood with my picker, harvesting apples from several abandoned trees that lean over rental housing fences. It’s a good year; I can feel the trees breathe a sigh of relief when I remove the fruit and the branches can reach upward again. In half an hour, I had two laundry baskets full of fruit, including some of our own. It took a while to figure out the new system, as we did not have a pre-pressing chopper, so the first round of just quarter fruit went nowhere. After I realized that the food processer could chop quartered apples quickly, we made progress. Juice flowed from all of the cracks, gushing into the bowl below. After two and a half hours, there was fruit pulp everywhere and a full professional kitchen pasta pot of juice. 14 quarts! And still lots of fruit in the neighborhood!

The house is painted and the tool bucket is unpacked, brushes and sandpaper returned to the basement shelves. In early mornings, the house glows against the deep blue sky—yellow and green, with dark red gutters and storm windows. We also repaired windows, and posts, and cracks in the bathroom. I painted bookshelves and the bedroom trim…if the pandemic keeps me in all winter, I will take on the kitchen.  If you add in a closet clean-out, reorganization of a the shed, and a purge of the lost space behind the shed, the house is in much better shape than it was last winter. According to the salesperson at Miller paint, I am not the only one tackling home repair this summer.

Late August and early September are the most beautiful months in the high Cascades….I miss the solitude of mountains this summer, because the trails have been packed with people escaping tourists to their towns and looking for a safe place to be. We spent the night at Duffy lake last week—every site was taken in the middle of the week. We need to go further in if we want to find peace and quiet, or wait a few weeks until school begins again.

Meanwhile, the cat and I are sitting in the back yard in the morning, watching the hummingbirds dive around the flowers, the woodpecker check out the greenhouse—no bugs here!—and the light shine on the seedheads of lovage and mustard. Mr. Beezhold nibbles on the dried cherries on the ground. The chickens argue over who owns the nesting box. Late August.

 

Letter to OSU Trustees on school reopening

 

Dear trustees of Oregon State University,

 

I am addressing you today because of my deep concerns around OSU reopening in the fall for in person instruction.  As the City Councilor for Ward Five, which has the highest proportion of Oregon State students in the city, I was gathering signatures for my re-election campaign.  I talked with many of my constituents. The common concern—OSU students returning in the fall. What is the plan to keep us safe? How will we monitor and control for the virus and its spread?  What is the community testing schedule?  Is OSU coming back? Why?

We live in the heart of the student community, north of campus. We observe OSU student behavior every day. Many are very respectful, serious, focused, working hard, wearing a mask when they cannot maintain social distancing—ideal members of the community during a pandemic. However, others are not. We have regularly seen groups of students gathered in backyards, drinking, playing beer pong, lighting off fireworks, mingling and talking loudly, without masks, without social distancing.  We have seen large groups of students hanging out in front of townhouses, as if the entire block of five bedroom apartments was one quarantine pod. We have raised these concerns with Steve Clark and Benton County Health, and the response has been “Students live in congregate housing. That’s what you are seeing.” It is not. We know who are neighbors are—we know there is considerable mixing of households happening throughout the ward.  We also know that, because of the design of the infill “student” housing, many students are living five—or more—to a unit. We cannot monitor behavior in private homes and backyards and we should not.  It is nearly impossible to control the spread of a virus in these conditions.

Nothing has really changed about the pandemic since we closed schools in March. The county now has a plan for where to store the dead, if we have a spike in severe cases. We have some regulations in place that allow businesses to hobble along for the time being. But, we do not have a cure or a vaccine. We do not fully understand how the virus is spread, how long antibodies last—if they do—and how to test the entire community regularly. We do know that the virus load will go up in the winter, as people move inside with the coming of the rains. We also know that the virus load will rise much more dramatically if we add ten thousand new people, from around the state and the country, to the community mix.

Schools across the country are weighing their options and making the very hard choice to go online this fall. I understand the difficulty of that choice. As a high school English teacher, I would give up many things—eating out on Friday nights for ever—to be able to work with my students face to face this fall. I would much rather be speaking to you directly right now.  I have experienced the difficulties of working with struggling students online. I have seen many a meeting fall apart because of a failure of technology. I deeply believe the most meaningful teaching and learning occurs face to face, when you can build relationships through daily proximity. However, I am not willing to put the lives of our elders, the long term economic success of our small businesses, and the real education of our children—all of our children—at risk for the short term financial  and educational gains of a few.

Please make the right choice for the health of us all and cancel in person instruction for the fall term and longer, if needed.

 

Sincerely,

Charlyn Ellis

Corvallis City Councilor, Ward Five

Corvallis High School English teacher