With a little help from our friends

It's hard enough to be expected to believe six impossible things before breakfast, but now we're supposed to do many things daily that seem impossible: to have frequent contact with students while avoiding viral spread, to adapt to unfamiliar technology in unfamiliar classrooms where that soft-spoken student who sits in the back is so far away that there's no hope of hearing her through her mask, to conduct effective class discussion among students who aren't in the same room, and on and on, every day a new challenge. Today's minor challenge was making sure my mask was rightside-up, and just go ahead and kick me for buying a mask that requires that much attention.

I've been baffled a few times this week but never more than when a neighbor knocked on my door the other day and told me that a deer had run across the road in front of his car and leapt down the embankment to the creek, breaking its legs in the process. It was lying there suffering on the creek bank on our property, so the neighbor suggested that I put it out of its misery.

With what--an eggbeater? I could recite poetry until the young buck died of boredom, but I don't believe that's what my neighbor had in mind. Impossible! So the neighbor offered to go get a gun and pretty soon we had a whole host of neighbors I never see out along the embankment offering suggestions, and then we had a carcass on our hands. The situation provided sad evidence of the brutality inherent in everyday life, but on the other hand it was a handy reminder that tasks that seem impossible sometimes just require a little help from our friends.

Today I was teaching in an unfamiliar classroom when I encountered a tech glitch that I feared would destroy my lesson plan, but fortunately I was able to nab a passing colleague who teaches down there all the time and together we worked it out. If we're asked to do the impossible, it's good to have helpers nearby who have the right tools to solve the problems, and if they can do it without leaving behind a smelly carcass, so much the better.

If I wear it upside-down, the books will fall off the shelf.