02/04/2022
By Kate Stone Lombardi
We keep hearing about how Covid has constrained our lives. Well, that is not the experience of my cat, Van Gogh.
Van Gogh has really expanded his social and intellectual life during the pandemic. Above, you will see the cat participating in a barre class I take virtually. Since I don’t actually own a ballet barre, I use a kitchen chair for the class.
Van Gogh enjoys barre, and he also attends my virtual stability class, but his real love is yoga. I’ve done more than one pose with the cat on my back, or under my downward dog.
But Van Gogh doesn’t only attend exercise class. He also has joined me in virtual therapy. He rarely misses an online session, and if he isn’t content to cross my lap back and forth in a kind of obsessive-compulsive – not to mention distracting – way, he hangs out and eats the plant in my office. The plant is in view of my therapist, so she points out when he’s chomping on the leaves. I’m confident that Van Gogh’s mental health continues to improve, despite the toll he takes on mine.
But there’s more. Van Gogh is now fully versed in Diversity and Equity Training. Because I teach in a prison (or did before Covid temporarily shut down program) I have been taking all sorts of courses – not just DEI training, but also trauma-informed pedagogy. And so has Van Gogh.
As I write this, Van Gogh’s sister, Lily, is in my lap. She considers herself my true “laptop” and resents the silver metal one that I’m writing on. Lily is less interested in education, but seems to feel she is far more important than anything I have to write.
She’s probably right.