Today is the last day of school for my first grader, and I've got nothing left. Not that I had a whole lot to begin with, but...
This is the second last day of school in a row spent at home. No kid parties. No sipping on contraband soda. No snap poppers or illegal fireworks. No circle of moms (or dads, or grandparents, or caregivers) chatting while the kids go wild in the mist of sprinklers. Just us. At home. Like every day.
It's not that I'm tired or even question Whether I'm Doing It Right. Those notions seem passive and quaint now, like a luxury. It's that I've given up, gotten up, and been knocked back down way too many times to gaf.
And that's fine. It's fine because I've got no alternative and (more importantly) because it's what he knows.
But it's also, like, not fine. Not fine in every sense of not-fineness.
We live in a rural and coastal part of California which makes us some of the luckiest people on the Earth. On top of that, everyone he comes into contact with is vaccinated. There's an old empty lot where we play baseball or skateboard or build forts five afternoons a week. Yesterday, he spent the majority of the time stalking an adult Great Blue Heron who landed on the edge of a field, staying motionless for the most part then moving slowly, one giant broken toothpick leg collapsing backward on itself at a time.
In the background, a collection of vans where people less fortunate than us are living, giant plastic Target bags with precious staples spilling out of the open doors, someone talking inside, someone taking a snooze.
That's where we're at. Whatever other people or school districts did, the pods, the tentative returns to the classrooms retrofitted like giant salad bars, kids behind the sneeze guards, separate but together, missed us here. Instead, he got his lessons the new-fashioned way, on Zoom. "Teacher, you're glitchy" was the phrase that paid.
For her part, the teacher was a miracle. Spinning the plates of twenty-plus six- and seven-year-olds each at different levels of learning, each in different home environments—many of which would change day-to-day, attempting to meet whatever state standards were still in place, because why make any changes during a pandemic? And all of this in two languages.
Sometime in the middle of last week, something went a little off the rails, and one at a time, the class started to hit unmute, and a dozen-plus tiny little voices chimed in at once, some talking to each other, some just shouting into the void.
There was no turning back. She tried to reign the little chicks in once more, and eventually removed her glasses, rubbed her temples, and breathed in deeply. "Oh boy," she exhaled. "Oh boy." She's taking next year off.
So that was it. That was what it was, what it is. I was there, every lesson, every second. I saw it, felt it. I collapsed in tears in October, got it together in November, threatened to quit in December, and again in January, and then once more (this time I mean it!) in February. I relented in March. And I don't remember the rest.
Now it's June. And the only thing I know is I don't want to have to relive this. Not in memory. Not in media. Not in real life. I want people to log off and get their shit together and get their shots. I want teachers to get paid six figures, starting. I want the curriculum to accurately reflect where we're at as a society, where we're going, and to take an honest look at where we've been. I want my kid to know two, maybe three languages. I want him to understand that being a kind individual is more important than money. I want him to learn what's happening to the environment, to government, and to know how sorry I am for forcing life on him, forcing him to fix it because I felt powerless and afraid and consumed by things that didn't really matter in the run-up to this time.
But also, I just want him to run through sprinklers, sip on a contraband soda, and know that just one day a year, summer is here, and doesn't that seem like possibility?
Nuggets at Suns
I often think about the NBA playoff bubble that ended around this time last year (aka two decades ago) when the Lakers made a Faustian bargain to find the literal fountain of youth somewhere in South Florida and the league collectively made a decision to isolate play COVID-free for the remainder of the season, and it worked.
And then, took away zero learnings and opened back up this season for a full slate of game and travel, limited- to non-existent fan interaction, and mixed results.
I understand some concessions were made. Travel was trimmed back slightly, and back-to-back games were played in some spaces. The All-Star Game was a truncated affair, and even the current playoffs hold little in terms of live viewing, but also, in this rush to return to "normal" and get people in the seats and eyes on screens, have we learned nothing.
In thinking about the source of this outbreak—which is really the Earth's revolting and accessibility and interconnectedness on top of that—one would think that this is a very clear signal to slow down, consume less, change The Way We Do Things! We're not even, as a planet, able to slog our way through or figure out this one, and already it seems, we're clamoring for the next.
Because if we say NBA teams are the elites of the elite, the luckiest of the lucky, they should also know better, set the tone. Why not continue the bubble? Why put planes in the sky to accelerate faster our hasty demise? Even with our alleged "slow-down" at the end of last year, Carbon Dioxide levels in the air are the Highest They've Ever Been since we started counting sixty-three years ago.
We're not learning from... any of this. We're not getting better. We're running in the wrong direction.
And so, back on Earth, we continue to go through the motions. We watch because there's really not much else to do, even though we know better—we go back to our old ways, even though we figured out something, even as small as gathering in one place and playing a few dozen basketball games, could yield the same results and set the example for a much smaller cost. But nope, that's not us. Blow it out, I guess.
Speaking of blowouts (sorry!) on Monday, the mighty Suns really put one on the Nuggets in Phoenix—the sprawling epicenter of all things pre-post-apocalyptic and unnatural in the West.
The Suns made the Nugs wilt in front of 16,000+ fans Monday and captured game 1 of the playoffs' second round 122-105 after scoring in a flurry to open the fourth quarter—establishing an insurmountable 102-84 lead with just over eight and a half minutes to go.
The party had already started on the Phoenix sideline even as Denver attempted to regroup and throw a few different anemic offensives sets their way in the late-going.
Phoenix's second-half eruption started from its young core led by the rejuvenated elder statesman Chris Paul. Each of the starting five scored more than 20 points, a playoff feat not seen since the mid-teens Warriors' runs.
Game 2 of their Western Conference semifinal tips off tonight in Phoenix at 6:30 PST, and it will likely be more of the same even if Denver gets forward Michael Porter Jr. and guard Will Barton back. Barton taking the court would be the first time he's seen action in more than two months.
And Porter, 22, who was listed day to day after tweaking his back in the second half Monday, still managed 15 points and seven rebounds in 31 minutes and is a critical complement to Nuggets' superstar MVP Nikola Jokic.
Barton, who hurt his hamstring on April 23 against the Golden State Warriors, is a necessary component if the Nuggets are to be at all competitive. The pre-season favorite in the West have been coming up short at guard in the second half and are without starter Jamal Murray, out for the season with a torn ACL, as well as reserve PJ Dozier, who has been plagued with injuries since February.
Will Barton's return Wednesday make a difference? Probably not. The Nuggets are playing like the team they are right now, hobbled and humbled. The Suns may have a misstep along the way to the conference finals, likely against the Utah Jazz, but it's not going to be tonight.
It's a monster spread (Suns -6), and recent history shows Phoenix tends to not rise to the occasion when favored by this much: Phoenix has a losing record against the spread when favored by at least 6 points, going 15-16 this season. However, the Nuggets also have trouble covering with only a 12-13 record against that big a spread as well.
But this is the playoffs, like it or not. And the Suns are feeling themselves and the largeness of the moment—especially at home.
Take Phoenix -6 vs. Denver at 6:30 p.m. PST on TNT.