I am exhausted from all the talk about returning. Either returning once we are back in the classroom this term, or when late August rolls around. There’s too much denial in it all.

Denial:

• That this has been dreadful. That we are going to need time and space to mourn.
• That things aren’t going to be entirely back to how they once were in the Fall. And that even that is probably a good thing in the long run.
• That we need to be asking questions about what we should never allow to return. To our culture. To our norms. To our campus.

I’m tired of each Zoom session starting with how hard it is to not see each other, as we see each other in that moment without seeing each other. Maybe instead you could start by seeing me?