Reading

Reading a thesis all day in preparation for a beloved student's final review. It annoys me to discover how my ability to concentrate with the intensity and duration I am used to bringing to bear on theoretically complex texts has been diminished, sometimes to the point of wreckage, by the anxieties preying on my mind about the pandemic, about the school closure, about the amplified demands of remote teaching (and my sense that I am failing at it), about Trump marauding, about everything else... Finding it hard to sleep, to concentrate, to work, to read carefully, to do much of anything as well as I'd like. My colleagues seem like towers of strength, but I feel like scattered salt.