Long Weekends and Coming Ice/Snow Storms

 Hurrah for Friday! 

It's a three-day weekend already, with MLK Day on Monday. And then, just today, my southern university announced its closure for Tuesday as well, perhaps extending into Wednesday. Mirabile dictu: snow! Or . . . ice, maybe? In any case, freezing temperatures will sweep down into the swamp lands, terrorizing us warmbloods with lows in the mid-teens. They tell us we're sure to awaken Tuesday morning either to a winter wonderland--3-6 inches (!!) of snow--or a winter nightmare: several inches of freezing rain destined to paralyze traffic, down power lines, and sheathe every surface with a coating of ice. 

We don't know which we'll get on Monday night/Tuesday morning. Snow would be lovely! I haven't seen accumulated snow here in over a decade. Ice would be dreadful. Our infrastructure--never a strong point in my cherry-red state--protects against flood, not ice. I think of all the hanging oaks in our neighborhoods, with their gnarled, tentacular branches extending outward in every direction. Beautiful! Shady! Add inches of ice, though, and each limb becomes a potential bomb ready to crash down from the sky. 

And the driving! I'm typing from the second floor of my house, and still I wonder if I'm far enough away from the roads to be safe. From my bedroom windows, I can see and hear the constant traffic of the interstate, which cuts through town almost completely elevated. Friends who have lived here longer than I tell of an ice storm in the nineties that shut it all down. You know those signs that say "Bridge may ice in cold weather?" The interstate here is almost all bridge, and in that storm (and perhaps in next week's storm), it was almost all ice.

A worse possibility lurks, my meteorological friends tell me, in a dreaded ice/snow combo: an inviting, snowy surface hiding (and insulating) a nasty layer of ice. Thanks to the snow, the ice stays, melting only a bit under the sun and mixing with the wet snow, only to re-freeze overnight Tuesday/Wednesday.

Snow or ice, we will have a hard time either way, methinks. My partner has an MRI scheduled early Tuesday morning. I have a dentist appointment later that day. I suspect both may need rescheduling--a much bigger deal for the MRI, of course. 

We'll be in a worse fix, though, if the power fails. A few years ago, my sister and brother-in-law up in Oklahoma City endured three weeks without power thanks to an ice-storm decimating main powerlines into their neighborhood. They invested in a natural-gas-powered generator that guarantees they stay toasty no matter what. We have nothing of the sort here (no natural gas hookups). Our only comfort lies in the fact that our freezes don't last long. Temperatures inevitably rise. But it could be a tough few days for us and the cats.

Oh, well. 

Meanwhile: I'm preaching next Sunday! More on that later.

Low Batteries and All Saints'

Wuff. I think I may be fighting off a minor cold. There's an undercurrent of tired that makes the notion of writing a blog, running errands, and working out seem far more onerous than it has any right to be.

The errand I have to run involves getting my car battery changed. My car also exhibits an undercurrent of tired. Every time I start it, it's doing that uh-huh-huh-huh-huuuuuh thing before the engine catches. I'd prefer not to be caught out with a dead battery and have to look up the rigamarole of jumping the car (this cable to that lead, get the order just right or you'll burn out the car). I've done it before, but it's not information that stays in my sieve of a brain.

Auto Zone sells batteries and advertises that they'll replace them for you. And they have before. In practice, though, when I've gone before, I always get a blast of impatience and shame from the folks working there. Do I really have to do this thing for you that any adult male should be capable of doing blindfolded? Do you even lift, bro? That last bit I just imagine. Actually, I probably imagine a lot of it. But it still makes going to Auto Zone to ask if they will, please, replace my battery for me an onerous task.

But it's gotta be done.

I also have to prep a Children's Moment for church tomorrow. I've set myself a high bar. People expect theatrical flourishes, humor, tears (pity and fear, hamartia, reversals, recognitions, etc.). The sermon, in light of All Saints's Day, is about the Communion of Saints. The verse is Hebrews 12: 1-3, about the "great cloud of witnesses."

The cute approaches here might include buying some New Orleans Saints flair or perhaps talking about what it means to be "on the cloud" in internet-speak.

But I think I might instead talk about death--my mom. My grandmother. My friends.

I need to find some pictures, make a storybook of my mother's life, talk about how the story doesn't end when it seems to.

That may be a little heavy for children's moment. But I think I can make it.

Huh. I don't feel quite so tired now.

Strains and Drains and Letting Go

Ufta. It's the end of a looooong finals week, and today was particularly draining--partially because all I had to eat through most of the day were the sugary treats I bought for my class taking its final.

The other reason--the main reason--for the drain involved some difficult meetings with a student in crisis. I can't go into detail, even in this semi-anonymous environment. Suffice it to say this student is facing a potentially life-altering (even life-ending) challenge and is understandably unclear about how she'll deal with it. It's affected her work in classes this semester, and we (the faculty) have been forced to make various difficult decisions to protect the student as best we can as she faces her problem....

...or doesn't. Given the magnitude of the crisis facing her, the student has thus far made the decision not to do anything, convinced that she should continue to enjoy her life as best she can while ignoring the problem at hand. Her past experience (i.e., relatives facing similar situations) has convinced her that any proactive response on her part may just make the situation worse. She seems hopeless and resigned.

The emotional drain from today came from a small meeting between the student and the handful of her professors (me included) that know about her crisis. We had made the difficult decision--on the basis of the student's crisis and its apparent impact on her studies--that she should withdraw from extracurricular activities (i.e., productions) for a time. This is hard news for any theatre person, especially as theatre serves as a release, an escape, for many. But using theatre as that kind of escape does disservice both to the craft and to the people who practice it. The crisis would only get worse, and its impact would eventually affect any production she participated in. Thus we made the choice to enforce a pause.

All of us were worried how the student would take the news. All of us were worried just what we could say, what we could do. In such a situation, you (and I'm doing what I tell my students never to do, using you in a general sense) want to take the student and say, "You need to take X, Y, and Z step right now to address this problem before it becomes any worse." You want to argue with them, break down their defenses and convince them--batter them, if need be--into doing what you know is necessary.

But you can't. College students are adults; this student has the right to do whatever she wants--including ignore the problem. No matter how wise we think ourselves, theatre professors aren't gods. Heck, we aren't even psychologists. Who are we to tell someone how to navigate a personal crisis? Past asking whether there's an immediate danger to self or others (there is not), we can only listen.

So the meeting today consisted of the few of us cautiously probing, explaining, reassuring, trying to listen, and encouraging--all while reminding the student and ourselves that the student alone wields the power to decide on a next step.

I've been on multi-mile-long runs that were less exhausting than just sitting there, mostly being silent, exuding as much love and care and concern and support as possible, ever-sensitive to seeming too bossy or know-it-all, telling a student that we'll support her decision even though we desperately want her to do X or Y to save herself.

The strain of stepping back, of letting go, when the stakes are so high is extreme--not, of course, as extreme as the student's strain. It's tricky: you have to show that your hands are extended to support the student while making sure that you're not coercing the student down a path she may not want or be ready to take. I suppose it's a bit like a parent teaching a child to ride a bike. You run alongside the bike as the kid pedals, keeping a firm hand on the back of the bikeseat to make sure it doesn't topple. But eventually you have to let go, accepting the fact the the risk of falling must be the child's to face. Your job shifts from "keep him from falling" to "be there to cheer when he rides or to comfort when he falls."

I suppose (and here I exhibit my mother's tendency to insert God as cheesily as possible into a scenario), this is the position my faith imagines God as taking--letting go of God's children, giving them a space to fall or stand, to choose wisely or unwisely, even as God knows the stakes involved. And, similarly, I believe God is there to cheer our successes and join us in times of failure or (in this case) random disaster.

When I was young, I used to ask my father all the time what super power he would have if he could choose. He'd inevitably give the same answer: a magic wand that could make problems disappear. Boy howdy do I want that wand. It would make this letting go thing easier.

I wonder if God--God the Omnipotent Almighty Everlasting--wants a wand, too.'

More tomorrow,

JF