Burnout and Days Off

I worked last Friday.

I biked to work last Friday.

I was late picking up most of my student groups. I kept getting stuck. Difficult to move. Difficult to leave my chair. I only wanted to put my head down. I didn’t get lunch until later afternoon. I had to assess several students and then I had to cover a kindergarten class for a teacher who was gone. I didn’t get my usual prep time.

I biked home from work last Friday.

I arrived home and started prepping for my scheduled massage when I realized I didn’t have my wallet. Lost. At school or somewhere on the bike path. Then I lost my keys looking for my wallet.

I worked on Monday. I came home from work and cried and cried.

I’m off now. I ended up taking the rest of the week. And I feel horrible about it.

Burnout is a real disease, just like anything else. What’s the difference between me taking a week because my brain needs healing and someone recovering from a surgery? Or a sinus infection? Or COVID (which requires just as long even if there are no symptoms)?

But burnout feels different. Burnout feels like my own fault. Why can’t I tough it out like everyone else? Do I think my job is so much harder than theirs? Classroom teachers don’t get this luxury. They can’t just stay home and cancel their groups. They have to worry about sub plans and not falling behind in curriculum.

And yet… we have sick days. We are all allocated sick days. Classroom teachers can choose to take time off just like I can. And it isn’t their fault that the system is built on guilt and peer pressure. Specifically designed so that if you take time off, your colleagues will have to work extra. So don’t take time unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Absolutely necessary. Meaning… unless you physically can’t stand, you’d better be in and working?

What about if you just lost your wallet and keys? If you are physically exhausted before and after work? If it’s hard to do your duties because of mental and physical exhaustion during the day? What if you spend your afternoon crying? Can’t tolerate noise – even the radio while driving? Feel resentment toward your friends and your family and only want to sit in an empty room on the weekends? What if you currently have a caseload five times larger than it was three years ago, which increases every few weeks with no cap?

I believe we should all get what we need. I believe this Human Giver Syndrome is a horrible system that runs people into the ground. I believe the answer is in us all taking care of each other, celebrating each other, and believing one another. Not in comparing workloads with a race to the bottom.

Taking a week off is really not a big deal. It’s not shameful. Why do I feel like it’s a personal reflection on me? That it demonstrates an inability to perform my job? Because this is true! It absolutely demonstrates an inability to perform my job, which is not at all my fault! It’s the fact that my job is currently unmanageable and continues to grow!

When I tell my coworkers I’m taking time off, they are dramatic.

“I’m so sorry! Is there anything I can do for you?? Take as much as you need! Don’t worry about us at school. Your students are resilient.”

Or hesitant. “Maybe don’t take the whole week. Take it day by day. See if you can come back. Then make plans so this doesn’t happen again.” Code for Force yourself to get by. Why didn’t you start three weeks ago to make changes to make it more manageable? Why did you let it get so bad?

Why did I let it get so bad?

Again, a misnomer. Why did I enroll 16 new students in the past three months? Why did I bring in 4 more just this week? Why did I leave classroom teachers feeling overwhelmed and under resourced? Why did I do any of this? Well golly. I stopped enrolling new students… wait, I don’t enroll students. And when you ask me whether I can take on 4 more, 5 more, 16 more… wait. No one asks me. Why did I let it get this bad? Seems that I had nothing to do with it. And therefore I am not responsible for cleaning it all up, caring for each family and student, supporting all the teachers while I am out recovering from complete burnout. Seems these are natural consequences of someone’s choices. But not mine.

Let me tell you the things I have done. I’m happy to put together that list and it’s far more useful to everyone.

While other teachers are having “soft landing” time and prepping for their day, I check in with as many students as I can. I practice letter names and sounds with a few who are lacking literacy skills. I put together math packets for students who aren’t yet at grade level. I cut my prep time short so I can step in during math time, even though my job is teaching oral English language. I print out visual aids and share Google presentations with classroom teachers so their students can participate. I created a professional development class and offered four hours of practice specific to teaching newcomers in the classroom. No one signed up for the class. So when they come to me saying they don’t know what to do with their students, well, that’s not because I haven’t done my job.

I tell my therapist I’m taking two days off. And she says 7-10 is the recommended amount.

“You have 54 sick days. They are yours. You have earned them and they belong to you. Take them.”

I breath.

I still feel shame. I don’t push it away. I allow it. Because the shame is part of the burnout. It’s part of what needs to be healed.

It’s the road to allowing all parts of ourselves – our abilities and strengths along with our limits and exhaustion.

Gifts of the School Year

June 2023

A surprise of a school year. June 2022 found me completely wrung out. I forced myself to work every morning, but by lunch time, all I wanted to do was put my head down on my desk and close my eyes. Why? Exhaustion. Continued uncertainty of COVID. Over-work. Depression. Who knows why. But in September, the gifts started arriving.

First, the blessed miracle of medication. I’ve been on anti-depressants for years. Sometimes ones that work wonders, sometimes ones that do nothing. But September 2022 was the first time I took anything specifically for anxiety. And I was amazed. Suddenly the thoughts (mostly harsh criticism) that had been bombarding me nonstop were silent. Instead of running faster, faster to do the thousand things I’d never possibly finish as the horrible failure I am, I could walk. I could sit. Time expanded. Everything slowed down. For years I’d been trying to fight the loop of horrible messages and now, at last, I could. I stopped feeling like a failure. I started feeling like enough.

The second gift? Perhaps it was meditation. I took it as a paid course offered by my district (what a blessing to have a district that pays teachers to rest instead of burning out). I thought that in sitting quietly, I would find noise and anger. Instead, I found stillness. I found quiet. With practice, I found gratitude. A secret inner sanctuary I carried with me. A hidden retreat for when the noise became too much.

And then there was gratitude. I can’t remember whether it was in reading Brene Brown or Elena Aguilar (or maybe finally paying attention to what so many wise people have been saying for years) that I decided to try the recipe gratitude = joy. The deep sadness that was sucking me down by June 2022? Perhaps I had a weapon against it. Perhaps gratitude was the answer.

Gratitude became the haven. Gratitude means silence and stillness. It is the opposite of anxiety and panic. The opposite of the constant race of never being enough.

When I look back on the 22-23 school year, the most prominent gift, which I note with surprise, is a deep capacity to love. Love for the six-year-old who would lay on the floor and scream when asked to do anything she didn’t like, love for the two clever devils who used matches to light the bathroom trash on fire, love for the nine-year-old who put his head down and growled any time he was asked to write.

Because the six-year-old sometimes cleans up even though she wants to keep playing, and sometimes throws everything on the floor. But no longer screams.

The devils are thick frenemies who cling to my arms and try to make me laugh, since they are not allowed to walk anywhere without a teacher escort.

And the nine-year-old? We have to force him to write because he is a poet.

But perhaps the most important love is one I’m trying to foster for myself. Not constant guilt over all the things I’ve done and left undone, over all the sins I’ve committed knowing and unknowing, but rather constant gratitude.

I used to find myself repeating over and over, “I’m terrible at this. I’m always running late. I have no idea what I’m doing,” as I walked the halls between my classes. But I don’t hear this anymore. It’s taken medication, meditation, and gratitude, but more and more I find that I am thanking myself. For coming. For trying. For not giving up. Because my work has given me so many gifts.

Where’s the Bomb? Relationships and Unconscious Bias

Around the murder of Philando Castile, I had a jarring realization about danger.

Studies have shown that when a black man walks into the room, white people’s blood pressure rises. It happens inside of them, regardless of their consent. The story that black men are dangerous has been told so often and so well that white people don’t even need to think it for their bodies to respond.

And yet, who really poses a danger to whom? How many tales do we know of black men murdered for supposedly saying or looking or simply being near a white woman? It is not at all unfathomable that one well placed scream from my white, blonde body in the right neighborhood could lead to the arrest or murder of a black man. I am far more dangerous to them than they are to me.

This realization is where all the trouble started. My presence changes things. Racism, white supremacy, the white racial frame. So many names, and we know they affect us all, regardless of our skin color. We know that certain people hold the wealth, the jobs, the political sway. And certain people are condemned and murdered without trial and sent to prisons in mass quantities.

Much of the discussion has been around unconscious bias. What we (especially we as white people) say and do because we hold beliefs that we don’t even see. How can you fix something you can’t see? How do you switch from being a danger to being a help when you don’t know where you’re hiding the weapon? The solution seems obvious: if there is a bomb in a bag, you remove the bag. If I care about BIPOC, the best thing I can do is to leave them alone.

This line of reasoning is way too familiar. Evil hidden deep within me. Sin in thought and word, in what is done and all that’s left undone. Sin that I didn’t know was sin.

It’s paralyzing. What can you do if no matter how hard you try, even your best will be as “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6)? As in any abusive relationship, the only option is for one person to disappear since they can never, ever get it right.

But I don’t believe that. I don’t believe humans are rotten to the core. I believe humans are full of love and generosity. I believe we have surprising power of connection and empathy. More specifically, I believe I have this power. I have seen it in myself.

Maybe this is just another way that racism keeps us divided and constrained. It says that we, especially white people, can’t see other people’s reality. We can’t feel what others feel. We must continue the status quo of keeping the power. It’s not true. I experience anger at unfair treatment. I make connections when my BIPOC friends tell me about not being seen or heard. I want my black and brown students to see people who look and sound like them in the media because I believe that would be good for all my students – no matter what their skin looks like. Do I feel the same as BIPOC do? Do I experience the same anger or fear or loss or helplessness? Of course not. My experience is my own. Just as their experience is their own.

Their experience is their own.

I texted a friend the other day that I am not sure black men should date me. A weird thing to say. Grounded in relationships with passive aggressive people who wouldn’t say anything to me in the moment, but would later berate me for doing something I had no idea was wrong. Grounded in the belief that my very presence poses a threat. That I will hurt you without knowing it. That for your own good, I will stay away.

Talk about superiority. Talk about arrogance. Who am I to decide I know what’s best for anyone? Let alone for an adult stranger? Let them choose! If they meet me and like me, great! If they meet me and feel they can’t trust me, also great! I don’t force anyone to be with me! Maybe they’d meet me and decide they don’t want to date me because I know nothing about hip hop or pop-culture or chess or fishing or reggae or ballroom dancing or living in Sweden. Because people get to decide for themselves. The friends I have are friends with me because they know me and they trust me. Period. My job is not to decide why they can trust.

In an emotional tornado, I blubbered out all of this in a circle discussion with my Racial Equity Advocate cohort. I cried. I apologized for crying. I berated myself. I rejected the berating. And after all of it, here’s what they said:

What we need is for you to show up as your authentic, empathetic self.

That’s it. That is my job. Be my empathetic self. Respect boundaries and back off if that’s what someone wants (this is how I am trustworthy to others) and stay true to my own needs and wants (this is how I can trust myself).

Circle. Breath. Power.

We sit in circle.

I was accepted into the Education Minnesota teacher’s union Racial Equity Advocate Cohort #6. We meet four times during the year and when we meet, we sit in a circle.

In the middle is something to represent life and community. Of course, this would originally have been a fire. Or perhaps a water source. Our circle happens in a large conference room on rolling office chairs, so the center for us is more symbolic.

The speaker holds a talking piece. Often at REA, this is a circle cut from a tree, sanded smooth and soothing, and engraved with a word that ties us together.

The rules are clear. Everyone speaks – even one word. Everyone gets as much time as they wish. Everyone respects the talking piece.

There is no interruption. There is no time keeper. No feedback. No comments. No judgement. The circle builds the conversation. The circle comments on itself.

My job is not to be the smartest. It’s not to say the best idea. It isn’t to speak better than anyone else or to contribute the most or to cut off the person who’s talking too long. If someone is bored by my voice or knows more than I do, they can not take the time from me or speak over me. When I hold the talking piece, the power is mine. And when I pass the piece, I breath and remind myself that my only job is to listen and open my heart.

This is a form of meditation.

I’ve started doing circles in my classes. Students who have lived in the US for a few weeks sit with students who have been here for a year. We pass the talking piece – in my class, a breathing ball because as the holder fidgets, the rest of us are reminded to breath.

When a student holds the piece, they hold the power. For as long as they wish. We practice every day to respect the talking piece, six-year-olds and teachers alike. No one gets to interrupt. Sometimes we all sit in silence for whole minutes while a student expands and contracts the ball. Inhale. Exhale. And the community comes around. The community might whisper suggestions or wordlessly point to words or pictures. The community might quietly translate a question. For my part, I smile. I bring as much warmth as I can to remind everyone that sitting, waiting, and listening is exactly our plan for the day. We are missing nothing.

And those who have hours of English language to say remember how scary it is to hold a talking piece when you’re not sure about any words in a new language or how they will sound in your voice. Those who have heard their voice in a US classroom know that it takes practice. They smile too. And sometimes, when someone finally finds the words for a full sentence, they clap.

Then I know that our class has been successful. We have spoken. We have listened.

Sweetie Beastie

I don’t care if you think I’m nice.

Okay. I’m trying not to care if you think I’m nice.

This is a bit of a trap for me and probably for a lot of women. I just broke up with a man I’d been seeing for a year. It was heartbreaking and completely necessary. And when I break up, I do it cleanly. No lingering conversations. No getting back together and then having to break up again. No obsessive texts or emails. I say what I need to say, I allow for a response, and then I block all communication. Done.

And of course he appealed to my sweetness. Dear sweet Charity.

A man cancelled on me at the last minute because he’d met someone and when I responded, he called me endearing.

I’ve been exchanging texts with another fellow who, coincidentally, also canceled our date though begged for another chance, and he repeated tells me I have a kind vibe.

I’m beginning to think this is patronizing manipulation. Call me sweet, tell me I’m kind, and I’ll keep being that to you no matter how you act. Classic beauty and the beast.

Except that I will cut you off. And then I won’t look back.

November Poem for Pacifists

For toast with cream cheese and blueberries, we give thanks.

For medications that calm our bodies and our minds, we are thankful.

For jobs and trips and relationships that were once a nightmare of worry but are now a joy, we are grateful!

For original poems, for time to write and time to read,

For loving, cuddly dogs,

For coffee and for walks,

For caring friends and partners and children, for sisters and mothers, we are thankful.

For the children who made it out of wars in Somalia, Afghanistan, and war-like places in El Salvador, Ecuador, and Mexico, who have come to my classroom, I am grateful.

For recess time, for refugee resettlement agencies, for churches and community groups, for shared meals, for lakes and parks and picnics and music, we are grateful

-for it is these things that make us safe.

___________________________________

What do you do when you feel something in your heart – a feeling you eventually identify as a belief – so strong that it chokes you up and leaves you looking like a fool in front of your boss because, it would seem, no one else shares it?

Each year my school, like many, hosts a Veteran’s Day program. Red, white and blue streamers, eagles and banners cover the walls. Clipart soldiers line the halls holding signs that read “Because of you, I am safe and able to ________.” The students fill the blanks with “play basketball,” “go to school,” and “ride my bike.” On the day of the program, the entire student body sits on the floor of the lunch room while grandpas, uncles and aunts, dads and moms who have served in our country’s military join as guests of honor. We say the Pledge of Allegiance. We listen to the songs from each military branch and we clap as members from each group stand. At last the students sing the song we’ve all had in our heads for weeks:

When I lay my head down every night and go to sleep in peace,
I can stay there knowing all is well while you’re standing on your feet.

Keeping watch, protecting shore to shore, in the air and oceans too.
Defending freedom at all costs for the red, the white, and blue.

Thank you, oh thank you, men and women brave and strong!
To those who serve so gallantly, we sing this grateful song.

And I am so uncomfortable.

Subtly, I start asking around to my colleagues. “How do you feel about this program? Do you… get uncomfortable?” They shrug. “I mean, I’m surprised we don’t do anything for MLK  or World Kindness Day. Weird that we can’t celebrate any holidays at all in school, but we celebrate this one. But I’m fine with it.”

I’m not. November 10 found me teary eyed and irritable.

Conversations not combat, relationships not military ranks, quiet presence, listening ears, and shared music – not weapons, drones, guns or soldiers – protect our rights and bring us peace.

Billions of dollars in military spending do not keep these students safe. Stock piles of weapons have not kept guns out of schools. The brave and loyal members of our armed forces did not stop the shooting from happening outside of our high school’s homecoming football game – nor was it their job to do so. Weapons of mass destruction do not keep black boys alive on our streets. If we do have freedom to hold our opinions and to say what we feel and believe, I do not see how men and women going into combat guarantees this. Unless we’re talking about the Revolutionary War, which I agree did grant the United States freedom from Great Britain and with it the ability to craft our own constitution. These days, our elections, our constitution, our court system and civil liberties organizations defend our rights – and isn’t that they way we want it?

When they sing of going to sleep in peace, my heart hurts. Which children sleep in peace? Not the children who are living in active military areas. Our Afghan families tell stories of lying awake – waiting, hoping that their fathers, brothers and uncles would come home. One student explains, in cartoonish dramatization, that her father cried like a baby when the Taliban wounded his leg. Of course, these children are here now. Was it the U.S. military that brought them to this safety? Out of Afghanistan, Somalia, Ecuador, and Mexico? And perhaps engaging in combat was necessary.

It’s complicated. It’s difficult. It’s painful.

When I mention my discomfort to my friend, she says, “I don’t think many veterans do feel honored. I think many of them feel ashamed of the things they’ve seen and the things they’ve had to do.”

Joining the forces is brave choice to make, certainly. And one with a deep and lasting cost. What do we say to these students, five- to eleven-year-olds, about the wounds – internal and external – that plague our veterans? Do we mention that destroying other humans destroys the self? Do we let slip that wounding the other – even in the name of loyalty and patriotism – wounds the self?

As our principal probably wondered I sat ridiculously blubbering in her office, what am I trying to say?

Do I think we should not honor veterans? Huh? Am I against children saying thank you to those who’ve served our country? Don’t I care about the troops? Am I trying to say that our armed forces don’t keep us safe and defend our freedom?

It’s delicate. It’s fragile. And it’s not happy.

Every day in our schools, we teach children to work out conflict and to create relationships without violence. While I realize that others feel differently, I believe – vehemently – that guns make us less safe. Never, ever, ever would I condone a weapon inside the school. No finger guns, no Lego guns, no pencils used as guns. No. My work is to teach nonviolent strategies. Connections, relationships, new ways of managing that might, possibly, replace combat.

So let us gather in grief and let us say that we are thankful to those who had to serve. And that we are sorry – so deeply sorry – for the pain that they endure and the pain they’ve been obligated to inflict. And let us commit, over and over again, to creating a world in which kindness and peace rule and where no human will never be sent out to destroy humans.

“You’re a pacifist!” my boyfriend exclaimed after I read this to him. Oh. I guess I am. And that’s okay.

As it turns out, the same values that make me so uncomfortable with a program that glorifies the military also make it very difficult for me to talk about them. Because I believe in relationship and connection. I believe that we need more community involvement in school. Yes – bring in the grandpas, the uncles, and the dads. (But could we also bring in a few more grandmas, mamas and aunties?) Let’s serve coffee and cinnamon rolls! I don’t want to force my perspective on anyone.  I don’t want to be disrespectful. I want to listen. I want to be grateful.

I just need to figure out how to do that in a way that teaches and honors this other way.

Why Wasn’t this Done Yesterday? And Other Songs on KFKD

Lately at my job (and I will say probably at all schools) there have been a lot of panicked voices.

“No one assessed these students!”

“How can we go to distance learning when the students don’t even have devices? Or Wi-Fi?”

“They don’t speak English – do they know math? No one has checked! Why didn’t anyone check?”

“Why don’t we have work packets for these students? This should be ready even before they step in the door!”

In other words – “Nothing is ready! Nothing is done! We’ve all been working here for X number of years and we have NOT DONE A THING!!!”

This is the radio station that plays in my head all day unless I consciously turn it off and, since so many other people sing this same song, I know that the signal extends beyond just me. Anne Lammot calls it KFKD. Apt. When my brain is telling me nonstop that I am not doing enough, that I should have done three times more than I did and now I’ll have to slog like crazy with no hope of catching up, well, it feels just a tiny bit easier if I can shift that burden to someone else.

I did everything I was supposed to. I have been working my ass off! It’s the system. It’s the people above me. It’s my co-workers! Get over here, you schmucks! Why isn’t everything finished? Why isn’t everything working? What have you been doing all this time? Work smarter, not harder!

Oh. Wait. It’s a hamster wheel, actually.

Let’s take a moment and take a breath. We’ve been working ourselves to exhaustio. I, at least, have been at my job for six years. And…nothing has been done?

Of course we have done the work. Of course we have what we need. We are what we need. It’s all here. Nope, it wasn’t done yesterday because yesterday, we were taking care of everything else. Today is the day. Today is the day we can work with. Today, and tomorrow. Actually, we have all week.

Coincidentally, this radio station doesn’t just play in my brain at school. It follows me on the weekends too. At my house, it sounds more like “This kitchen is a mess! Why didn’t I clean it? Why haven’t I remodeled my bathroom? The dog is neglected! Why haven’t I already taken him for a walk? And no wonder I’m sore – I didn’t do yoga!”

Seriously, KFKD DJs? You’re yelling at me because I didn’t do my laundry yesterday? Laundry is a Saturday activity. I don’t do it on Fridays.

Today, I as I put each item into the washing machine, I said, “Yay, me. Look. I’m washing one sock. I’m washing this shirt. I’m doing it. Because I do things. This is not nothing. This is everything.”

We have wheels. And, actually, they have not fallen off. We can stop trying to reinvent them. We’ve done the work. Let’s just get on and ride.

A Bit of Burnout for Everyone

For those of us who feel exhausted and overwhelmed by all we are doing… and still worry that we are not doing enough…

“You get paid to do my job. Why don’t I get paid to do your job??”

So much for lunch break. Oof.

It’s true that when I am pulled from my job as an ESL teacher and instead made to work as a substitute teacher, I get $35 extra.

It’s also true that we now have 20 students in my school who are brand new to the U.S. and I am the elementary newcomer teacher. For the district. For, supposedly, half of my working hours.

“How do I even know where to start? Can they do math? How am I supposed to know how much they can read?”

The answer, of course, is to assess them. When? How? Using which language? And the ever recurring question, “Who’s job is it?”

The newcomers need backpacks. They need snow pants. Their parents need to choose a time for parent/teacher conferences. Their computer log ins don’t work. Those who don’t yet know how to write need something to do while the rest of the class is writing short stories. While the rest of the class is reading. While the class is partnering up to play the multiplication frog-hop game. The newcomers came from Afghanistan last month. They are sleeping during class. They are crying. They are running out of the classroom. They are playing in the bathroom. They won’t come back when it’s time to come inside from recess. This one has lost his backpack and coat because he can’t yet read his name on his locker.

Who’s job is it?

Excuse me – they’re wandering around in the basement. Have you shown them where their classroom is?

Excuse me – this one ate hot Cheetos while walking down the hall yesterday and then couldn’t ask the nurse for a new mask in English.

Excuse me – this one doesn’t each anything for lunch. Ever.

Excuse me – these two are way too loud in the hall and run everywhere they go.

Would you tell them they need to finish their homework? Would you tell them not to pick their noses? Would you tell them to wear pants under their snow pants? Would you find something for them to do during the reading test?

Isn’t this the newcomer site? Aren’t you the newcomer teacher?

This child doesn’t even know how to wear a scar! What have you been doing with them all this time??

When your job is cancelled so that you can teach for me, you get $35. So why am I not getting paid to do your job when I have to teach newcomers in my class?

“The cure for Burnout is not self care. 

Self-care is the fallout shelter you build in your basement. This is the metaphor we use because you know, it’s your job to protect yourself from nuclear war. 

That’s why the cure instead is simply care. It’s all of us caring for each other. What this looks like in practice is when you think you need more grit or persistence, what you really need is more help. When you think you need more discipline,  you need more kindness. And when you look at others and think they need more grit, what they need is more help. And when you think they need more discipline, what they need is more kindness.”

• Emily and Amelia Nagoski, Feminist Survival Project 2020, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

Another Type of Tandem, Or Why I Don’t Own an Electric Bicycle II

“You bike with your dog?”

I agree. It sounds dangerous. The first time I tried it with a canine, the ride was cut short (as were my khaki pants) when the dog saw a squirrel and we took a fast, unexpected detour.

But that dog was not mine. Not in the way that Oatmeal is.

Dogs are, in a way, scientists. They are students. And we are their subjects.

What does Oatmeal have to do all day besides anticipate my moves?

As a pup, he joined the household tenuously, a bit gingerly, and looking to me for the very basic elements: Food, companionship, fun. His first days, he made the dining room table his den, sitting at my feet as I worked. When I stood to go to the bathroom, he followed me. Soon, he wanted to play and chew all the time and I worried that when it was time to sleep, he wouldn’t calm down. I worried he would wake me too early.

He lays at the foot of my bed and waits. Even on weekends when I sleep late, he does not stir until I do. When he sees me pick up my shoes, his tale starts to wag and he watches me even more intently. One day last summer, I was preparing for my day when Oatmeal started to bark at me, watching me intently, tail whizzing back and forth. It took me a moment to realize what was happening. I was putting on sunscreen, which, unconscious to me, had become a cue for Oatmeal. Sunscreen means we’re going outside.

With all of this watching, it was little surprise that biking together came so easily.

“What does he do when you turn? What about when you stop?”

He knows. He knows the sound of the breaks and slows his gait. He watches the tire as it veers left or right, anticipates and waits for my moves.

At first, other dogs would throw us off. Oatmeal thrives on interaction–human or dog– and cries to greet every dog we meet. But when we are biking, we are working. His job is to watch me and to run and greeting other dogs is not part of that.

When we come up on a dog, I start to encourage him. “Go, Oatmeal! Go!” Quickly he learned. He maintains focus. He goes.

I love the rhythm, the synchronicity, the communion of biking together. His paws pound as he and I both push our muscles. With his leash attached to my waist, we are both aware of the other’s every move. I talk to him constantly.

“Okay, Puppy. Good run! Good run! Yes, Oatmeal! Okay… slow, slow, slow, wait. Turning right. Now go!”

This partnership is not only an addition to my bike rides. A few weeks after we started our daily rides, I stopped in at a bike shop on my daily commute to work to use their tire pump.

The attendant felt my tires. “They’re pretty full,” he said. “I don’t think you need more air.”

“Really? My bike is feeling slower than usual.”

Then I remembered. Without my pedal-assist, without my riding partner, of course it feels slow. Of course it’s a little harder to get going.

There’s another part to this story. This synergy that now molds my days, often connected to my waist, lying across my lap, or sleeping with his back pressed close to my chest and stomach. The other part is that even from here, I see the curve of the days. His muscles will age and tire. His run will become slower. Right now, we bike together for five or six miles, and still he runs ahead of me. His only limiting factor seems to be heat and his thirst (if the temperature is above 70, two miles seem to be our limit). But the day will come when he cannot run beside me.

And then, one day, I will say goodbye. Barring unforeseen events, we will have another ten years together. Fifteen at the most. Much will happen in those years, and that time is not nothing. And yet, when I think how quickly this first year as gone, I can already taste his leaving. This dog, more than any other creature in my current life, shapes me. Together, we are dog+, human+.

Maybe this is part of why we love dogs so much. When I think of it, Jason Isbell’s “Vampires” runs through my head.

Maybe time running out is a gift.
I’ll work hard to the end of my shift.
And give you every second I can find
And hope it isn’t me who’s left behind.

It’s knowing that this can’t go on forever-
Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone.
Maybe we’ll get forty years together,
But one day I’ll be gone.
Or one day you’ll be gone.

Fitting, Delicious Loss

Affirmation
    by Donald Hall

To grow old is to lose everything. 
Aging, everybody knows it. 
Even when we are young, 
we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads 
when a grandfather dies.
Then we row for years on the midsummer 
pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage,
that began without harm, scatters 
into debris on the shore, 
and a friend from school drops 
cold on a rocky strand.
If a new love carries us 
past middle age, our wife will die 
at her strongest and most beautiful. 
New women come and go. All go. 
The pretty lover who announces 
that she is temporary
is temporary. The bold woman,
middle-aged against our old age,
sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand. 
Another friend of decades estranges himself 
in words that pollute thirty years. 
Let us stifle under mud at the pond's edge 
and affirm that it is fitting
and delicious to lose everything.

Father’s mind, with his body, dissolves in a rare disease.
You say goodbye, much too soon.

A man you thought to be your soulmate,
a marriage that started with joy
turns suffocating, turns frightening, terminates.

These large losses crack your mind to each inevitable loss.

You hold your puppy and know
– ten, twelve years from now –
he’ll die in your arms,
a knowledge which sparks an illogical love.

Find someone kind and thoughtful,
someone who listens and respects you
and feel your life tracks pulling apart as soon as you meet.
A month later, you can no longer grasp fingers.
You said it was temporary. And it was.

What around here is permanent?
We are clouds. We are lightning bolts.
      We are stories.
      We always are. 

We are fitting, we are delicious,
      if only because
      we are gone.