Talking to Myself

 One of my favourite songs is Robyn’s Dancing on My Own (2010). This song is a decade old and it still, as the younger folk say these days, slaps. I often come back to this song when I am feeling particularly lonely. The song and the video does an excellent job of reflecting on what it is to feel completely alone in a sea of people- a feeling I am sure many people can connect with. During the pandemic I have spent a lot more time talking to myself than I have in my whole life. There’s this running line that my grandmother used to say, before we had to move her into the nursing home where she is now (at almost 99 years old bless her), that she could talk to the pots and pans as much as she wanted, it was when the pots and pans started talking back to her that we needed to investigate. The pots and pans never started talking back, but I often wonder if given how long this pandemic will go on if mine will. 

Mental health and wellness is so important and I think we don’t talk about it enough, mainly because we are all too busy just getting by to delve into what it really means to “get by.” There is some ridiculously heavy empathy work going on right now, and in some cases that empathy work has had to stop because there was simply no more capacity for it. I am sure I am not the only one who is spending a lot of time talking to themselves because their support systems simply can’t talk to them anymore. The work that we do necessitates reflection and feedback, and sometimes when you have no one to give you that feedback you need to work through that feedback yourself. The alternative is not to reflect at all, which to be honest, has been me as well, especially early on in the pandemic because there was simply no time or space for this reflection.

I am trying to be very intentional with my reflection time and space, but I am finding that I don’t have the emotional capacity to work through that reflection, and I think the reason is because reflection is one thing, but if you have no way to work through what you have come up with, with someone else, reflection becomes meaningless in some ways. This blog is a weekly way for me to textualize my reflections and I know some of you read them and respond on Twitter, I can see the click and engagement counter on my Blogger (175 views for last week’s post on the pedagogy of anxiety for example, one of the highest yet since the pandemic started) but again there’s a lot of speaking into the void feeling. 

I decided this week that I wanted to do something productive (question mark) with all this talking to myself that I do and I am going to start a podcast on Accessibility and Pedagogy in January. I mean if I am going to all this random talking I may as well give it a purpose and record it I suppose. So look out for that. I am going to use the holiday season to think through the logistics of this new thing. The other thing I decided to do is sign up for a course (because I have copious amounts of time for a course clearly, not). I am already part of the STLHE Educational Developers Institute, but that is winding down. So I signed up for the EdX Inclusive Teaching course which is a MOOC created by Columbia University and comes well recommended by colleagues and Bonni Stachowiak who hosts the Teaching in Higher Ed Podcast.  So for the next 6 weeks I am going to work through the course in the hopes that I gain some resources and reflective space that I have not had already. I spent most of the afternoon doing the introductory module and after this blog post I am going to delve into Module 1. Some thoughts from this course will probably end up here on the blog. Already I am working through what it means to create an “intellectually safe” educational space. 

So I guess your homework, dear reader, if you choose to accept it, is tell me if you have been doing a lot more talking to yourself, and maybe we could talk to each other instead? I mean that Emily Dickinson poem, “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” is pretty on point in this case.

“I'm Nobody! Who are you?

Are you - Nobody - too?

Then there's a pair of us!

Dont tell! they'd advertise - you know!”