Project Description
A Teacher, a Classroom, and a Pandemic
From isolation, the students wrote how everything is connected
For Sierra magazine
For the first half of the semester, we discussed literature in the classroom, desks in a circle, breathing the air together, my students testing their voices in the world. After spring break, the campus closed. We retreated to our separate spheres.
At home, I walked the driveway to see the crab apple blossoms, the white flowers lacing the blue sky. The strangest thing about a pandemic is that everything keeps blooming. Pollen whirled on the air and piled into drifts with rippling lines like sand dunes. I thought about how this year will be recorded in the pollen record, as every year is, laid down into the layers of time for the future.
{illustration by Michelle Kondrich}