Notes from Quarantine 4.3.20- A Librarian’s Lament

Just a couple of days ago, our governor closed schools for the rest of the school year. I was devastated. There is no closure from this year. I miss the students more than I ever believed I could, but now my fifth graders- they’re just faces on a screen before they head off to Middle School.

I’m honestly still processing it all. There so much left unsaid, left undone, left uncelebrated.
There are students who will move, students whom I will never see again. I feel like I took it all for granted. That line of hugs that would file into my office each morning, those kid that would halfway do their work, and those kids that would drive me nuts. I cared about them all. I still do, but I am having to relearn how to be a librarian from a computer screen and that’s not what it’s supposed to be.

My library isn’t always a quiet place, it’s a revolving door of laughter- books being dropped on the desk to turn in, the beep of the check-out. It’s collaborative conversations and ones that are not so collaborative. It’s the click of the keys looking up a book, it’s the clicking of a mouse taking an AR tests. It’s the murmur of voices sharing books, book talks, and completing tasks. It’s read alouds with little people that laugh and share their silly answers. It’s the competition of the keyboard seeing if anyone could type faster than me. It’s pages turning in the reading corner and the laughter there. It’s the cries of frustration of not being able to understand or the struggle of independence. It’s the books that are too hard and too easy. It’s the research that is too much or not enough. It’s a place of community and my home away from home. It’s teachers making small talk and redirecting. It’s encouragement and hope of tomorrow when this one isn’t quite right. It’s the fifth grade leaders who made the bus call one of my favorite times of the day. It’s the little people who loved me despite myself. It’s the relationships that I have been blessed to build and know. It’s all these things and so much more. And I miss every single bit of it.

To all you teachers who just miss your babies faces, I am with you.

To all of you who are sad, I am with you.

But on Monday, we will wake up and meet our students in our new virtual normal world and it will be okay. They will be okay and we will too, because ultimately this is for their safety and we would do anything to make sure that they were that.