Marnie DesMarteau

Mar 20. 2020 – Observations and Thoughts:

Necessity is the mother of invention. Our youngest daughter (in the picture to the left), desperately craves connection. I found her this morning doing classwork with two classmates. Her work done on her school Chromebook via Google Classroom. Her friend connection is with Facetime on our iPad.

Speaking up helped my stress. Last night, I looked like Carol Burnett in Day 3 of the picture below. Many of us feel helpless right now and limited in what we are able to do…but we can speak up and ask for help from the school when we see our kids pushed to the max.

Yesterday, we encountered a large issue with our oldest daughter’s schooling. She has dyslexia and anxiety and the workload was overwhelming her, especially since most work is now done by reading long assignments and writing long responses on the computer. We emailed her teacher and found a quick reply of concern and willingness to adapt. Like that, my stress level quickly fell to well within a normal range, rather than hovering at the rate of a ballistic missile right before take off.

Humans learn when they feel safe and connected. We also sent a message to the school principal with our feedback on how the online learning is going, in hopes of encouraging schools to assign less work and connect kids more. Is it reasonable to expect a student in this upended world to sit and perform at a computer for more than 6-7 hours a day?

These kids have lost everything that is “normal: ” routine, graduation, prom, activities, sports, in-person learning, physical contact with friends and classmates, etc.  We feel it’s even more important that they remain connected. Please, schools and teachers, incorporate streaming lectures, google hangouts and group chats, anything that encourages kids to see and connect with others. Right now, assign less work and connect more.

I don’t need as much as I thought I did. Funny how crisis puts life into perspective, as well as the true definition of “needs.” What I truly need now is a God who loves and comforts me, my husband’s support, my kids’ and family’s safety, my health, enough food to eat, a roof over my head, connection with the outside world, fresh air…and, yes, maybe even some toilet paper (although not 6 months worth).

#thisiscoronalife #newnormal

My observations and thoughts living in the age of Corona Virus:

1. People are generally falling into three camps (or a combination of the three, based on the hour or day):

• Optimistic – Looking for the opportunities this quarantine creates and ways to cope in a positive light
• Attacking – attacking others’ choices, or the government, or whomever
• Making Jokes – funny or sarcastic memes about the state of the world

2. More and more people are looking to connect on social media. I had sworn off Facebook but find myself spending a lot of time scanning, reacting, and commenting on posts. Looking for connection where I see it.

3. Tensions are running high at home. My kids are like a tea pot about to boil. The slightest thing sets them off. So far, online schooling has taken 20-50% longer than when they were in school.

The status quo appears for teachers to assign a lot of work…better to have too much, than not enough. But at least for our kids, who are the perverbial perfectionists and over-achievers, this means high stress, many breakdowns and spending WAY too much time on their computers, not interacting with others or getting exercise.

4. I don’t have a way to help my daughter, who has dyslexia and anxiety, cope or function in this new reality. There’s no accounting for her challenges. There’s more reading and writing than in a regular class room. I’m hoping schools and teachers get creative and post lectures that are videos, or do a video chat, or have them look at slides rather than read an article or 10 and write 3 paragraphs on what your thoughts are. I hope they can turn in their work by doing a video, drawing something, or submitting an audio file, so that those who have reading and writing challenges can stay caught up and feel successful.

I recently read The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, by Abbi Waxman. If you or someone you know struggles with anxiety and/or shows strong introverted traits, this book is for you. It’s an entertaining, irrevererent, embarrassing, hopeful and yet thruthful look at anxiety, introversion, and book lovers. Stick it out past the long details and seemingly unimportant circular descriptions and you’ll be happy you did. I wish I had taken more time to enjoy the first part of the book, rather than wondering where it was all going to lead. If you’re interested in reading this book, check out my review below and let me know what you think.

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, by Abbi Waxman, is a novel about an introverted woman in her late ’20s, who works at an independent book store in a quiet corner of LA. Nina Hill struggles with sometimes debilitating anxiety and typically prefers books to people. She leads a quiet, organized, and controlled life until she discovers she is part of a large, complicated family and that she may be inheriting a large sum of money. To further complicate matters, Nina discovers she is attracted to the team captain of a rival trivia team, which is indeed a horrifying thought. She feels she doesn’t have time or emotional strength to deal with all these new people in her life and would prefer to shut them all out to retreat to the comfort of a good book in her quiet reading chair.

At first, I struggled to get into this book. I found Waxman’s language too verbose and circular for this type of book (what I thought was a light and entertaining read). Additionally, I felt the first third of the book moved too slow, with overly complicated descriptions of everything.

However, thankfully for me, I stuck it out and began to understand why the author chose to include such long and seemingly unimportant details in the first third of the book. They help the reader understand the underlying causes of Nina’s anxiety and serve as a frame of reference for later in the book. I often found myself referring back to the first few chapters to clarify Nina’s new-found family’s complicated structure.

I also liked how the author used Nina’s planner–both in illustration and description–to progress the plot and Nina’s growth as a character. I found myself grimacing as I related to Nina’s hyper-organization and frequent inflexibility with her schedule. In one comical scene, Nina declined a date with the guy she liked because she had scheduled “nothing” as a calendar entry and loathed to change her plans. I hope I wouldn’t do something like that but, still, the point hits home.

Additionally, I found it interesting how the author subtly employed satire to highlight the clashes of various sub-cultures, economic status, and generations in Los Angeles. At first, I felt that Waxman hit the reader a little too hard over the head with it, especially about Millenials and their habits. However, as the book progressed, I delighted in how she used satire in Nina’s vivid imagination, as well as in describing events that unfolded in front of the beloved independent bookstore. I was surprised, though, that the author omitted satire from the Reader’s Guide topics at the end of the book. It seems to be a missed opportunity for readers to discuss the clever and subtle points the author makes.

Finally, having an anxious and introverted child, I appreciated that the author created a character who displays realistic anxious traits and lets the reader into Nina’s deepest thoughts so the reader might understand how anxiety feels. I liked how Waxman normalizes the disorder while paying tribute to its crippling effects; all the while dealing with this heavy topic in a lighter, more hopeful way. It’s a book I will give my child to read when a little older. I think my child will be able to relate to Nina Hill and her struggles with anxiety.

In the end, I became fully engrossed in The Bookish Life of Nina Hill. I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to reading it again, though next time, I will slow down to enjoy the details and descriptions from the beginning of the book.

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Heart leaping, racing faster than my hand can keep pace. Write faster, Marnie, or you’ll lose the amazing thoughts and descriptions flowing from within. Oh, how to make these words come faster?

Excitement when what begins to be revealed on the page precisely describes the events, people, and feelings unfolding in my mind.

Fear that I cannot sustain a) the pace or b) the quality of the content. What if I get blocked? Can’t find the words? Or worse yet, lose interest?

But then a metamorphosis occurs. Pen, which was feverishly pushing to capture the thoughts, suddenly stops…it is finished! A butterfly emerges from its cocoon, stretching its beautiful wings and proudly fluttering about, shows off its wondrous transformation.

Image courtesy of Wonderopolis (www.wonderopolis.org)