Cosmic Prose

Natasha Regehr

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2022 Gratitude List

October 13, 2022 / / 1 Comment

It’s a few days late, but here is my annual Gratitude List — 365 days’ worth of small things noticed and appreciated. I now have 12 of these lists inhabiting my hard drive, and each one gives a snapshot of a year that is unlike those that came before. This year’s seems to be dominated by work, as I started yet another new job, and then another. There is always much to learn, much to celebrate, and much to leave behind as a fresh, new year unfolds. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

  • the lost, found
  • the smell of leaves under the tires of my bike, the weight of the handlebars, the whir of the wheels
  • pedalling, noticing, breathing
  • all of the things that are better than they were
  • I, who am competent…
  • I, who rocked that lesson
  • and she who left it before it fell apart
  • when the magic letters come together to make words
  • report cards done five days early
  • a down duvet
  • zoom friends
  • deliverance
  • the paperwork
  • a long prep period to rewrite my report card comments
  • when they learn things
  • the rain put a quick end to a very painful outdoor math lesson
  • I caught S prancing to the office for a banana
  • I kept last year’s sketchbooks
  • I caught the last half of my French class
  • tag is fun
  • L had a good day
  • The yellow water on the floor was largely ignored
  • extra quizzes
  • schoolyard coding
  • hamburger soup
  • a hair shuttle
  • an autumn walk to the Value Mart
  • getting some planning done
  • approval
  • they’re always good for no good reason
  • the explosion happened on someone else’s watch
  • I slept a long sleep
  • I’ve been other places, done other things, lived other lives
  • there is more to come
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Go Gently

January 18, 2022 / / 4 Comments

Work.  All my life, I have allowed it to define me.

As a student (even as a very young student), my work was to try to be the smartest kid in class.  Let’s face it.  I was a clumsy, homely child with thick glasses and a lazy eye.  But school, I could do.  And I did it well.  It became my “thing” —  so much so, that I decided never to leave. 

And so now, decades later, I get in my car every morning and drive 45 minutes to another school, where I pour all my energy into the young lives and minds before me.  I just want them to learn, so badly.  To light up with new words, new ideas, new ways of thinking. 

But today, I went too far.  Snow had been falling all night.  It was due to continue for hours.  School buses were cancelled.  Other teachers headed onto the streets and turned back because of the weather.  And I kept going.

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2021 Gratitude List

October 12, 2021 / / 2 Comments

A glance between the lines of this year’s Gratitude List will indicate that the last 12 months have not been easy. Here are the small and large kindnesses eased those difficult days, and the people who carried me through.

Thank-you.

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Road Trip: Human Again

July 29, 2021 / / 4 Comments

My province recently announced the inauguration of the long-awaited Phase 3 of its reopening plan, after 16 months of pandemic restrictions that stripped us of so many basic human needs: needs for safety, companionship, and freedom of movement; needs for familiarity and novelty, frivolity and meaning; needs for physical contact and emotional connection.  These unpopular restrictions have been essential to the ongoing eradication of the cause of all this loss, and therefore had my full support.  The threat has not passed; ongoing vigilance is necessary, and will be for some time.  But I and those I care about have recently achieved “fully vaccinated” status, just when the powers that be have opened doors that have long been bolted fast. 

And so it was that after a lonely year of disconnection and discontent, I found my way back to humanity, in the form of a modest road trip to see people and places from my Pre-Pandemic Past.

Captain’s Log: Things I Did this Week that Made me Feel Human Again:

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You asked…

May 28, 2021 / / 2 Comments

14 months since our first school closure in March 2020, my government has finally asked for my opinion about the matter. Here it is.

Dear Mr. Ford,

Thank-you for your recent letter inviting responses to your questions regarding school re-opening in Ontario.  

I am an elementary educator and have seen firsthand the effects of crowded classrooms, inadequate facilities, understaffed buildings and under-funded programs.  Many of these issues predate COVID-19, and their effects have only multiplied under the additional stresses of pandemic conditions.  As teachers we have tried our best under difficult circumstances to provide a safe and healthy learning environment for our students — and we have tried in vain.

I teach in a portable with 28 students.  The desks are so close together that I have to walk sideways to pass between them.  In what other situation would such an environment be considered safe for anyone? I teach in a school of 400 with only two small washrooms.  Most of the classrooms don’t have sinks, and those we do have are unusable because of mould issues.  In what other situation would such facilities be considered hygienic?  We have footsteps painted on our floors and walkways indicating a distance of two metres — and four children lined up in between each one, because a line-up of properly-distanced children would send us around the block.  The masks, the children’s sole remaining layer of protection, come off twice a day while students sit side by side eating their lunches.  How many restaurants are allowed to function right now under similar circumstances?

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A Holiday Sing-Along

April 5, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Twice this year, classes in my school have had to quarantine for the holidays due to positive COVID test results in the building. I wrote this little ditty over the Christmas break, and added a special Easter update today. Feel free to sing along.

 I wore my goggles and my mask: 
   Somebody sneezed on me!
 I sanitized my withered hands: 
   Somebody sneezed on me!
 I don't have plexiglass
 In my cramped, crowded class:
 I stepped sideways, but alas!
   Somebody sneezed on me. 

     Now we're getting COVID for Christmas,
      Students and teachers are mad.
     We're getting COVID for Christmas,
      'Cause Dougie's been nothing but bad.
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Réveillon

December 28, 2020 / / 1 Comment 
 Ce virus minuscule
     se propage
   sur les ailes de notre liberté
 Enferme-le en nous enfermant
    Sans ailes
       nous tous
            tomberont
  
 Cette piqure magique:
      notre seule arme
   contre l'envahissement de notre habitat natal
 Sorciers, sorcières, donnez-la-nous,
    Nous, les becs ouverts
        dans le nid de notre folie
  
 Et puis, ayant été piqués,
     nos corps tremblants se lèveront
   Nos plumes repousseront
          Nous nous percherons
                 vacillant
              au bord de l'inconnu
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2020 Gratitude List: A Covid Thanksgiving

October 14, 2020 / / 3 Comments

Did you know that Daniel Defoe, author of the iconic Robinson Crusoe, also wrote a chilling Journal of the Plague Year? This year’s Gratitude List is a sort of Plague Journal as well, with a five-month preface and a seven-month inventory of hidden kindnesses in changing times.

And so, from 2019’s indoor festivals to 2020’s back yard Thanksgiving, here are 578 tiny treasures from an otherwise tumultuous year:

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Coronaware: A Story of Malaise

May 26, 2020 / / 1 Comment

In the beginning we had Fear.  Fear and Novelty.  And that amounted to a bracing dose of quasi-Solidarity.

The fear was first conceived as mild disinterest in a foreign malady that would never find its way Here.  It gestated in the womb of skepticism (“This will not affect us.  We are different.”) and false reassurance (“We learned from SARS.  We are prepared.”).  And then, suddenly, driving home from a normal day of work, we heard government announcements of a province-wide shut-down.  States of emergency.  Clean out your desk.  Tomorrow will be your last day.

“We heard government announcements of a province-wide shut-down.”

That was when the Fear was birthed, attended by financial panic and the stomach-gutting realization that People Would Die.  Real people.  Our people.  Right here.  Everywhere.  Store shelves emptied as the masses stockpiled toiletries in preparation for Armageddon.  Doors closed.  Everything stopped.  It was Unreality, unfolding in unreal time.  Things changed hour by hour.  We hovered, breathless, over our devices, awaiting the latest statistics.  Following the spread from one network to another, and eventually to Here.  These are “unprecedented times,” said our bewildered advisers.  We slept last night, and woke this morning in a blind Unknown.

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Out of the Closet: School Violence Revealed

March 8, 2020 / / 90 Comments

Not long ago I spent my lunch hour sobbing in a closet at school.

I can’t get into the specifics of my morning, but I can give you a composite view. 

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