Screaming at the Supreme Court: A Love Story (Part One)

If you're wondering how to manage/use/deploy your lady-rage (or even, dreamy guy allies, your on-behalf-of-ladies rage!) this book is one thousand therapy sessions. If you're in Philly, call the Big Blue Marble. https://www.bigbluemarblebooks.com/

It was a last-minute decision to go. On Friday night, October 5, Amy and I were watching Murphy Brown, newly rebooted and excoriating the fictional White House Press Corps. We were scrolling through our feeds and seething as the “on the fence” votes changed to Kavanaugh votes. I was double-seething because my “friends” on social media seemed to think that Susan Collins was the ONLY person to blame.

“I think we have to go,” I said, and I looked around on my facebook until I found the Flood the Capitol March, lead by the Women’s March and Planned Parenthood Action. I already had a sign I’d made for an anti-Kavanaugh rally we’d attended a few weeks before in Philly.

It didn’t feel like the other protests. As I cleaned the house, rearranged my Saturday plans, and went to bed early, I didn’t have as much power-to-the-people hopefulness buoying me up. Instead, I was SEETHING, so frustrated to still be doing this work, decades after my own rape experiences and millennia after women were enslaved. IT HAS NEVER NOT BEEN THIS.

Since I became politically active, this blog has often been about convincing people that protesting and other political work could be nice, friendly, loving, inclusive, and all of those things are true. But in the past few weeks, I have become less and less willing to perform polite, feminine, hopeful organizing and more willing to give voice to the feral fury that sometimes makes me feel out of control. Getting ready to Flood the Capitol, I felt almost none of my usual aren’t-humans-amazing feelings. It was more a feeling of “Survivors, let’s burn it down.”

For professional reasons, I’m hesitant to be honest about the fury. Because I work with children, it’s important for me to feel nurturing, loving, and safe. My clients and their families deserve a solid, peaceful presence in their lives, so I feel guilty to also be this raging, scary thing. But at the same time, it’s love, nurturing, and protectiveness—for myself (both adult and inner traumatized child), for my nieces and nephews, for the fear that my students, mostly children of color, will face in a future with Kavanaugh on the bench.

            As Amy and I drove Washingtonward at way-too-early-on-a-Saturday-o’clock, we decided: No getting arrested. The priority was to get safely back to the students, to not miss a single tutoring hour. As much as I admire those who get arrested (Later in the day I would sob watching a young woman have a panic attack as the handcuffs went on.) I knew my priorities were elsewhere. 

Theme and Heart Inventory for Age 44

Before I go into what an amazing, magical, transformative year this has been, I kinda need to rip off a band-aid. I’m sad that romantic love is missing. I forget about it most of the time, reveling in my singleness, content to have the world and all of its movements as partners. I’m often relieved to feel removed from the roller coaster of attraction—it makes serotonin levels drop! That’s science! But this week I have to admit that I like and miss snuggles, I miss men, and I still have no idea how to get to romantic love.

One of my birthday adventures this week was to acknowledge and start moving past a long-fluttering crush. I did everything in the being-a-grownup-about-being-rejected handbook, and the guy was perfectly nice about it, but I was surprised at how SAD I felt when I found out he didn’t like me back. Crying in the night about a guy felt weirdly healthy, though, like something in me was grateful that it had been heard.

In spite of all my fat liberation, in spite of all my ALL kinds of liberation, this morning found me wondering if he wasn’t attracted to me because of the weight I’ve gained in the last couple of years. In weak, night-crying moments, I wonder if I’ve taken myself out of the guy-running forever, or if maybe I never was in it. Objectively, I think I’m beautiful. I don’t see a single reason why anyone would NOT want to snuggle me, but I also want to acknowledge that anti-fat prejudice might be part of it. I still believe my Aunt Connie, who told me when I was young that fat is jerk repellent, but I’m not sure I can call anybody a jerk for being susceptible to societal norms of beauty. Also I have no idea why this particular guy wasn’t into me, and in clearer-headed moments I’m a big believer in “just not a match.”

Whether I weigh 310 or 250, or even if I can’t figure out a way to stop gaining weight, I think it’s important to acknowledge that I literally dream about boyfriends almost every night. The circumstances and guys in the dreams are always different, but the feeling is always the same—a secure attachment, unlike anything I’ve ever felt with a guy partner in waking life. I think Jung might say (What? You weren’t wondering AT ALL what Jung might say?!) that this is part of my psyche’s integration, that the dreams are about falling in love with my animus, with my own power. While that ALSO seems accurate, sometime a dreamboat is just a dreamboat.

Though inconvenient, I think this longing is a sign of heath. I can feel myself getting enough space from Amy to make room for new love, and this is the first time since 2016 that I’ve let somebody fire up the good ol’ imagination machine that is my heart. That’s good. Also good? That this isn’t 2016.

Speaking of finding space from Amy, the transition from bookstore life has been one of the most fruitful and impactful parts of the year. Though I’ll never not be devastated that the patriarchy took our Rosemont store away, and I’ll never not be horrified that one of my next bookstore bosses turned out to be a men’s rights activist, I’m so grateful that life insisted on pushing me out of the nest. I’m happy that I was freed by fate and my own stubborn will (and big mouth) to go all in on my tutoring business.

My tutoring work is the crown jewel of this year and, I hope, of many years to come. I’ll never stop being delighted that I can transform a suffering, anxious, tearful child into an excited learner touching her heart and singing out “Credit!” for every small accomplishment. I love the student who greets me with “BOOKS!? BOOKS!?” every time and who requested more enrichment work even though it would mean more homework time later. I love the taciturn grandmom who was moved to give me a hug when her struggling granddaughter transformed into a “pleasure to have in class.” I love that the kids get a few minutes of practicing Spanish as a reward if they’re awesome—they are ALWAYS awesome. I love our elaborate handshakes, our mini-yoga routines. I love every high-five so, so much. I can’t believe this is a job.

Week before last, my fourth-grade student, whom I’ve been with for two and a half years, had a birthday on tutoring day. His parents surprised him mid-session, turned out the lights, and brought in candled cupcakes. They had him read their cards to him aloud. As we eased into the lesson, interrupting ourselves many times with noisemakers and more cupcakes and singing “Happy birthday to ya!” I felt the deepest and most satisfying sensation: Home. Work. Times tables. Love.

So my word for the year is focus. Focus on the beauty and flow of doing my work. Focus on what I want, change what I need to change, speak up for myself, be a professional. Also, just to remind myself and to make it official:

Familywise, I feel like I’ve done a lot to repair my Thanksgiving-ruining damage of ‘016. (Sorry, SURJ, it’s a bad strategy. Not that I did it as a strategy but still.) In terms of talking politics (or anything) with my family, my mantra has become:

Being right doesn’t mean I can be a jerk.

(I still reject all calls for civility in the public sphere, though!! I’m still pro-anger all the way.)

Probably the best day of age 43 was when my SISTER AND NEPHEW CAME TO A PROTEST WITH ME!!!!! We happened to be up in Oswego the weekend when everybody was protesting family separation, and to my GREAT joy, they agreed to join us. My nephew knew what to put on his sign right away: “Superman was an immigrant too.”

It felt so, SO good to share my political self with my family, without having to feel like I was a threat or like I was making a demand. It felt extremely important to show my nephew the difference between Thanksgiving-ruining anger and political anger—I would hate for him to be afraid of his own anger just because mine is scary. I feel so, so lucky to have stood on that Oswego street corner chanting “This is what democracy looks like!” And being proud and angry and sad and wonderful.

My dad asked me last weekend how I stay so optimistic (Well, 90% optimistic, 10% apocalyptic.) about politics. I told him what has become the guiding principal of my life—when you’re on the ground, doing the work, it’s hard NOT to believe. Seeing the varied and beautiful faces of The People, reading their signs, the collective magic of yelling for justice feels good to me, it’s what I was born for. I was born to fight, and I’m learning how to use my fury and power well.

Happy year, self! Good job! Credit! 

Activist Kids Rule!

I thought Wednesday morning, March 14^th would be a solitary moment of street art for me,in solidarity with the Women’s March Youth EMPOWER’s National School Walkout. I live a block from C.W. Henry Elementary school but I had no idea if they planned to walk out, so I printed out my own series of “No More Guns” posters and planned to staple them around the neighborhood’s phone poles. The Walkout was planned for 10 A.M. in every time zone, seventeen minutes to honor the people who were killed at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School a month before.  As a self-employed teacher, (The Sandy Hook shooting happened three days before I completed my student teaching.) I felt that it should be a moment of connection and solemnity for me.

I had just started putting up the posters when there they were, the Henry students with their teachers and principal. The children were silent and serious, well, as silent and serious as elementary students get. Kid art is my favorite thing in the world, and these children’s signs, most of them on orange poster board (orange is the gun control color), saying things like “Our Lives Matter,” and “Enough,” “Guns have no place in schools,” and “Protect kids not guns,” illustrated in painstaking detail. I’m happy to say that no art I make will ever be as beautiful or meaningful as those signs. Feeling like a mini-Shepherd Fairey, I gave the kids the rest of my own posters, then stood back with other neighborhood adults to marvel and support.

“How lucky we are to be alive right now,” goes one of my favorite quotes from Hamilton, and those seventeen minutes were as complicated and bittersweet as that line.

When the seventeen minutes were up, the neighborhood cheered and the kids proceeded silently back to their classes. It was beautiful to see them speaking up for themselves and the school being so supportive of their efforts. As I watched the school walkouts follow the time zones across the country on facebook, I felt a powerful sense of hope for America, my natural optimism galvanized by my seventeen minutes with the brave kids of Mt. Airy.

Art by Cece Mulcahy, bedazzled by me post-walk-out because I wanted to spoil the neighborhood. 

On Saturday, March 24, my best friend and I were among the 800,000 people who joined the Parkland students at the March for Our Lives in Washington D.C. It was the same solemnity and power that I felt with the Henry walkout, multiplied by thousands and soundtracked by Andra Day’s anthem “Rise Up,” Lin Manuel Miranda’s new single “Found/Tonight” which reprised lyrics from Hamilton including, most importantly, “Tomorrow there’ll be more of us.”

It was at the March for Our Lives that I met Zahlia, a six-year-old young lady marching for the first time. When she saw the sparkly butterfly on my sign, her eyes lit up as though I were the queen of the universe. I asked if she would like the sign, since it was clearly meant for her. I’m so proud that I got to be a small part of her march experience, that I was able to give her just a fragment of the joy and celebration she deserves.

Sometimes, its hard to feel worthy of the children that I teach, the children that I share a movement with. They are so bright and generous, so beautiful and courageous, shining with a light we are lucky to stand near, lucky to be edified by.

It shouldn’t be their job to save us. The Parkland students should be working on their school plays and goofing around on Snapchat or whatever new weird things the kids are into these days. But instead, they are serving their country, helping us to be better and safer and wiser. I’m excited to see the country they’ll create, and I’m here to help in any way I can.

End Misogyny for Safer Schools and Better Learning

Apparently I'm using the last few weeks of grad school for feminist bird-dogging on the discussion boards. I thought this one was worth sharing more widely.

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When I was a third grade teacher here in Philadelphia, I was assaulted by a student about once per month. I had heavy lab tables pushed into me. I had a student try to break my thumb. I was shoved into a door, kicked into a desk, subject to fat-phobic, misogynist, and homophobic slurs. I had a student who walked from desk to desk, telling girls that he was going to rape them, and then the principal said he did it because I stressed him out. I had a student throw a large metal locker at me and was admonished to stop “putting myself in harm’s way.”

Marzano says that “If teachers and students do not feel safe, they will not have the necessary psychological energy for teaching and learning (53) but I would take that one step further—I experienced days in the classroom so traumatic that I felt like did not have access to my brain at all. Years later, a therapist explained that that feeling was accurate: panic shuts down the language center of the brain.

In their post “A Silent National Crisis: Violence Against Teachers”, the American Psychological Association said that EIGHTY PERCENT of teachers surveyed nationally in 2014 had been victimized within the last school year. (http://www.apa.org/education/k12/teacher-victimization.aspx) Even more disturbingly, the article didn’t make suggestions for how to change the system that led to this problem, but instead gave teachers tips to avoid being victimized. This essentially sets up an abusive relationship between the class and the teacher, with her on the lookout for signs that someone might get upset and hurt her. Because when she gets hurt, it will be her fault.

I say “she” because teaching is a traditionally female profession, and thus we are subject to the same structural problems that underlie the rest of American culture. As even a cursory glance at the internet (or the 2017 election results) will show, we are currently in the process of dismantling the system of misogyny, and I think that can have a great benefit in the classroom.

“Teacher training” chimes through every source that we read. A great deal of strategizing is done on that subject on the Common Core video that we watched. Marzano asserts that a “guaranteed and stable curriculum” is the number-one priority for school improvement (15) and the Common Core can go a long way toward attaining and standardizing that goal.

I want to make it clear here that I’m not blaming the children AT ALL. They are subject to the same power dynamics, the same toxic masculinity, the same gender enforcement, the same sludge of patriarchal contempt that we are, and then they are trapped in an environment that doesn’t respect their humanity.

But we can’t use the training we are given if all of our physical and emotional energy is devoted to a codependent relationship in which we must guard against attacks rather than enjoying a respectful and healthy rapport with students.

Add to this the now-almost-expected news of in-school mass shootings, and it is a wonder anyone ever learns anything at all.

If we as a society could find a way to treat women with respect instead of contempt, to honor teachers as professionals rather than blaming us for any imagined shortfall, and to hear us when we ask for what we really need, then the goal of a safe and orderly learning environment would be much more attainable.

Common Core: What's next for school systems? (n.d.). Retrieved November 16, 2017, from http://www.aei.org/events/common-core-whats-next-for-school-systems/

Marzano, R. J. (2003). What works in schools: translating research into action. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

(n.d.). Retrieved November 16, 2017, from http://www.apa.org/education/k12/teacher-victimization.aspx

In a World That Didn't Hate Me or My Students

I just had to draw the ideal classroom for my Educational Research class, and I found myself wanting to share what I wrote:

The last classroom I had, in North Philadelphia in 2014, had all the technological advancements that grants could buy—we had a most-of-the-time working Smartboard, a cart of 30 up-to-date laptops shared between two classes, good, Common Core Aligned textbooks, a schedule built around formative assessment and teacher training, even an enrichment program. My grade partner and fellow teachers were incredibly big-hearted, knowledgeable, extremely hardworking and tough. Yet I was the third teacher that year to go out on FMLA leave (and later resign) due to Acute Stress Disorder. No matter how dedicated I or my students were (and those kids TRIED THEIR HEARTS OUT) we couldn’t keep violence, poverty, prejudice, shame, homophobia, or stress from derailing our beautifully planned and decorated classroom culture. Though we learned to line up perfectly and sang class songs about how “everybody has a seed to sow,” I couldn’t keep the children safe. I thought constantly about the School-to-Prison Pipeline, (https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/538/is-this-working)  and the last week I was there, I dreamed that we were loading the children onto Holocaust trains, and that doesn’t seem like much of an exaggeration.

I’m still not sure how to run a classroom without becoming part of the problem, but it was very healing to imagine what a classroom in a hospitable world would look like.

What a School Lockdown Feels Like

What a School Lockdown Feels Like

At the time of my ill-fitting classroom stint, I was so busy hating the School to Prison Pipeline that it never even occurred to me to hate guns, but looking back, they were always in the background of my anxiety, hanging over my head with the other million things that hang over teachers’ heads.

I had a class full of third graders the first time I experienced a lockdown. It was almost lunch so I had that next-level needing-to-pee that teachers know so well. We were just getting ready to line up when the announcement came. They said there had been gun activity in the area. They told us that we were supposed to lock our doors, but mine didn’t lock. I’d never been trained for the proper procedure, so I sat the kids all down and told them to be as quiet as they could so we could be safe if we needed to hear directions.

I pictured what I came to always picture in those situations: the bullet coming through the glass and hitting me, or hitting them. I never forgot that I while at that moment I was trapped, on a daily basis I was choosing to be there, and the kids were not so lucky. Poverty would keep many of them in an unsafe neighborhood, the law and a racist system would keep them in unsafe schools that violently opposed their individuality and development. They might someday know a life without the penny taste of adrenaline in their mouths, but the odds were stacked against them.

We sat crisscross-applesauce at the back of the room, as removed from the window glass as possible. They were preternaturally calm and docile, and I had an uncharacteristic command over myself that I can only attain at times of deepest crisis. We played Whisper-Down-the-Lane and The Quiet Game until the lockdown ended and it was time to line up for lunch.

I experienced maybe ten school lockdowns, for all kinds of reasons—a lost kid, a panicking parent, mostly they were unexplained and I never asked because I didn’t want to know. But the helpless bullet-is-coming-for us feeling did not fully go away. Those left me with an unshakeable knowledge of the vulnerability of all life, but especially the lives of African American children. The confluence of guns, poverty, and racism put the lives of my students at risk every day.

I understand, in a cursory Hamilton-infused way why we have the Second Amendment, but the cost of the way it is currently interpreted is much too high. Those kids, those classrooms, along with the children I currently serve at the library, are part of the driving force behind why I feel so urgent about this election, so moved by John Lewis and other who stand up for gun control and against injustice. Enough.

The Day I Met Hillary Clinton

I’m pretty sure it was a thank-you note that did it. After our last round of canvassing the Saturday before the Pennsylvania primary, I had a melancholy end-of-camp feeling knowing that I might never see some of those amazing campaign ladies (and guys) again, so I sent a thank-you note over to my volunteer coordinator thanking her for the experience and letting her know I’d never felt this empowered to participate before. When she texted to thank me back, she asked for my information so that the Secret Service could screen me for Secretary Clinton’s photo line the next night at City Hall.

It was a surreal feeling to be watching Friends and playing weekend Candy Crush while being checked by the Secret Service. That’s April 2016 was, a quick swirl of the everyday and the profound, one minute shaking hands with a former U. S. President or the President of Planned Parenthood and the next being back to my flower pictures. I’d already pushed myself to the edges of my limited extroversion and was longing to be back to my comforting routine, but there was no way that I could pass up this chance.

When I got the text that I’d been approved, I asked if I was still needed for my volunteer duties, but the coordinator said “No need, just get your picture and have fun.” An email came with instructions for the VIP entrance and I switched around my tutoring schedule so I could go. I was NERVOUS the next day, so until it was time to (way too early) leave for the train I took the edge off by applying to summer jobs and cleaning out the downstairs closet.

Since the last time I took the train, Philly graffiti artists seem to have had an explosion, and I was blown away by the work I saw the whole way down. I vowed to stop being car girl all the time and take the train more, there’s just no excuse to miss that much art. As I crossed in front of City Hall, I remembered playing Scrabble on the steps on a day visit to the Occupy camp. I got to the entrance before some of the local police even knew what to expect, and I felt mortified to refer to myself as a VIP, which doesn’t feel very democratic. The entrance was where Market Street runs into City Hall, so the traffic and the tension of the moment were overstimulating. I practiced my deep breathing and ate a foil-wrapped sandwich for early supper, knowing food wouldn’t be allowed in the event.

Soon I was joined by a fellow early-bird, a nice lesbian of about my age or a little older, whom I recognized as one of Amy’s fellow data-entry volunteers. We bonded over our love of earliness and chatted about our pets and lives. She’d retired early from public service, listing disrespect from male supervisors as one of the reasons. “I can’t wait ‘til it’s thirty years from now,” she said, in terms of gender progress.  Next we were joined by a handsome young Iranian man who told us he’d been canvassing around Temple University, to little success. He expressed amazement that he’d seen young people at last week’s Hillary event, since we were by now conditioned not to expect them.

The VIP table was set up and when they found my name, I couldn’t help exclaiming “It’s real!” As the put on my bright green bracelet, I marveled aloud that this was probably the only time I would ever be considered a VIP, and I guess that sounded sad because a tall friendly guy in a “YAAAAAS” shirt said “Aw.”

We were led into a nice quiet room that looked like it might usually be used for jury selection—semi-comfortable chairs, small libraries of paperbacks, a water cooler that would definitely help me with my not-fainting goal.

The handsome college guy settled in to study for his finals and I chithatted with a striking woman in a grey suit who had a gorgeous tree of life tattoo on her leg, echoing the cherry blossoms out on the courtyard. This was not her first time in a VIP section. She’d been a super-volunteer on President Obama’s campaign and she said after she’d met him, meeting Beyoncé and Jay-Z seemed like no big deal. She told me about an all-nighter that she and her fellow volunteers had pulled setting up a rally on Broad Street, a night during which she’d had to decide between an hour of sleep or a shower before the event. It occurs to me now that I should have thanked her for healthcare and marriage equality.

A purple-shirted group of SIEU members for New York City joined us. A shy man with a West Indies accent showed me his Hillary selfies from an event a few nights before on his cracked-screen phone. Everyone was worried about their batteries and I wished I’d brought a charged to lend.

When it came time to line up for the photos, getting there early had no effect at all on our place in line. There were hundreds of people with us by then and I wondered how in the world every person would get a picture, but we were assured curtly by staffers that we all would. I told my early-bird pal it was her job to make sure I didn’t faint, and I assured her I was doing my deep breathing. When Madam Secretary entered the room in her perfect blue jacket, I fully squealed, and was not the only one.

In an odd coincidence, the president of the teachers’ union was a few people ahead of me in line, accompanied by my own former union rep whose inability to see me as a person convinced me that I was the only one who could protect myself from the corrupt and scary schools. It was a harsh but satisfying moment when the union rep looked back as if she couldn’t quite place me and I met her gaze with an unbreakable glare. Who knows if she remembered me, but I’d survived.  This year of healing work and this campaign had given me a new sense of what a woman is, of who I can be, of just how much power I really have as long as I have the courage to take it.

When I was ten people away from Hillary, staffers took my bag. When I was three people away, a man in a suit said “Take three steps forward, please.” And then, I was with Hillary, shaking her hand and saying “Thank you so much for all you’ve done” with all my heart and soul and guts. I looked into her eyes and saw the same exhaustion I’d seen in Bill’s a few weeks earlier. How is she doing this? How is she getting through?” “We’re gonna do this together,” she said for probably the thousandth time that day, but it still meant something. She expertly moved me into the picture, I smiled with my face next to hers and it was taken. I thanked her again, picked up my bag, and walked out into the breezy passageway, stunned.

Someone guided me to the volunteer section on the bleachers, and a fellow volunteer gave me his mini American flag. I stuck it in my hair like I’d done with my rainbow flag on the first Equality Day. This has been both my loneliest and my least-lonely year.

A few weeks before, some of my friends had felt intimidated into not posting pro-Hillary statuses (and not for nothing, as I’ve lost or unfriended about 80 acquaintances in the past month) but here was real life again, being so safe and all-kinds-of-integrated and hopeful. The person who introduced the mayor and Secretary Clinton was head of a local GLBT organization and would not have looked out of place in a Tegan and Sara video. This was a different kind of Equality Day. This was a happy and peaceful crowd cheering for equal pay and reproductive rights and, as the City Hall bells coincidently but solemnly chimed, for gun control. Away from the sarcastic remove of the internet, here was a place where it was free to be hopeful and positive and progressive and sincere.

It’s a long time ‘til November and I know there are so many people who stopped listening to me a long time ago, but if I could convince one more person of one more thing, it’s this: You’re needed. You’re wanted. Though loud, bullying voices may convince you that you don’t have a right to participate, you do. As we move toward the general election, thoughtful people will have the chance to stand on the side of good and protect those who need it most. If you’re reading this, you’re probably coming from some place of privilege, and this is a good time to use that privilege to stand up for the people who would be hurt most by a Trump presidency. Plus, it’s really fun.

The Day I Shook Bill Clinton's Hand

“We can’t hide from any of these hard truths about race and justice in America. We have to name them, and own them, and then change them.”

Hillary Clinton, June 20, 2015

Although as someone who remembers the Nineties well, I know enough to blame the Republican Senate for many of the letdowns of Bill Clinton’s presidency, I did have to cross some picket lines in my mind to get excited about going to see him speak. However, as both he and Hillary have done so much to support the poor, to fight for women’s rights, and to bring GLBT rights into the national conversation, I was jumping-up-and-down happy to show up first thing in the morning as one of the volunteers for the April 7^th event.

I phone-banked for President Obama, but this was my first time volunteering in support of a big event. When I got there and saw the other volunteers, I almost wept for joy. My facebook feed had made me feel like quite the lonely feminist, but here was a beautiful, diverse, welcoming team of mostly African American people from around the city and from the campaign itself. One volunteer was wearing a shirt that said, in rainbow letters, “Women’s Rights Are Human Rights,” and I knew I’d found my people.

My team was given clipboards so we could have people fill out their tickets to get inside. Two hours before they were to open the doors, I was sent around back of the building to help direct anybody who was lost. My directing partner was an African American gentleman who’d just retired. He told me that he and his wife love trading off the remote these days, but today he had to get out and do something. We groused about the rain together. He spoke passionately about how relieved he’ll be when President Obama is out of office, because he isn’t treated with the respect that a President deserves. We agreed that Hillary Clinton would have to go through similar assaults on her dignity, that it would be hard.

He and I were stationed near a friendly Secret Service agent who kept us updated on the weather. As it blustered and rained, we signed happy people in. One lady was wearing her T-shirt from the first Clinton presidency, the first time I voted, when I was eighteen.

After we were done helping people in, I said goodbye to my partner and switched clipboards so I could help sign people up to phone bank and canvass. The crowd inside the event was BEAUTIFUL, smiling, dancing here and there to Bill Withers’s Lovely Day. I signed up people of all ages and demographics, some of whom were inspired by Hillary’s platform to sign up for a campaign for the first time ever. I loved helping them find hours in their days and fill out their forms, letting them know that they could even phone bank from home. Men, women, and children volunteered their time, their talent, their artistic and organizing skills, the few spare moments they have.

A classroom of children were up on the bleachers, looking around the room in wonder and chanting “HRC! HRC!” In the midst of this tense and often-segregated city, it was a pleasure to be united with my fellow citizens for a common cause. Well, almost united. Almost all of us.

We were a festive crowd, but serious. I didn’t see the appealing Phish-show merriment that Sanders rallies seem to have, but I think I’m okay with serious when it comes to electing a president.

I used up all of my extroversion and almost all of my clipboard sheets. My fondness for paperwork comes in handy once again.

When President Clinton took the stage, I was standing with a class of African American kids and their teachers, my heart overflowing with love. The crowd was rapt for the President’s speech, woohooing the loudest about teachers and about Planned Parenthood. I’ve heard Bill Clinton give a commencement address, so this wasn’t the most eloquent I’ve seen him, but he was hitting the points we’d come to hear.

When the protest signs went up, my heart dropped. I watched them there in the middle of the crowd, hoping that they would be safe. When that brave woman started to speak, what you can’t really tell from the news is that she was heard. Though I don’t agree with her choice to blame Hillary for the crime bill, I was absolutely dazzled by this young woman’s courage. To stand up in the middle of a crowd and disagree with one of the most powerful men in the world is an act of bravery that should be honored, whether I agree with her or not. And I do agree with her on her most important point, that Black Lives Matter.

Wanting Hillary to have a chance to continue the Clintons’ decades of social justice work kept me on Bill’s side, but it the going was tough. I had a therapist once tell me that I don’t have enough room in my life for moral ambiguity, and I would like to have emailed her this deeply complicated day.

I want to be careful about how I say this next part, and it may well come out wrong. As the protesters continued to make themselves heard, I knew the exact moment when Twitter would explode. When Bill said the thing that I knew would be the headline, I looked around me in horror, expecting to see the same in the faces around me, but I didn’t. Though I  cannot and would not presume to know what they were thinking, the African American people around me seemed to be nodding in emphatic agreement with the President. One of the young women from the elementary class next to me yelled at the protesters to “Shut up!” but I (my teacher brain making me think all kids are my business) told her to listen to the protesters too and that everything would be okay.

Noting the presence of the Secret Service in the crowd, the teachers soon led their students out. I’m glad they got to see this. I’m glad they got to see how powerful one voice can be, and I hope that they’re inspired to grow up just as passionate and vocal.

I felt overwhelmed with so many different emotions, but when the line formed and the President came to shake hands, I stuck mine out. He took it, and held on while he was talking to the person in front of me, for a long time, and it almost felt like I was holding him up. It was one of the most powerful moments of my life. I was connecting with everything I stood for and against, with power and struggle and humanity. With a new forgiveness in my heart, I almost looked into his eyes. He looked tired, sad, and haunted. I’ve only done a microscopic fraction of what he’s done, but I do know what it’s like to fuck up while working against racism, what it’s like to set out to do good and find oneself pinned down by a poison system. What if, like everyone, he’s doing the best he can?

In the end, though, it’s Hillary Clinton who is running for president, and I believe she’s the candidate with the drive, skill, and wherewithal to help us build a country where Black Lives Matter. Her racial justice platform touches on many issues that are deeply important to me as an educator, particularly her plans to take apart the school to prison pipeline, [1] and end the achievement gap.[2] She also aims to protect transgender women of color [3] and has the clearest plan for supporting LGBT rights overall. [4] For these reasons, I hope that voters will look past the headlines and choose the candidate most equipped to improve African American lives.

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[1] “In too many communities, student discipline is overly harsh, with too large an emphasis on suspension, expulsion, or even police involvement—disproportionately impacting students of color and those with the greatest economic, social, and academic needs. Hillary will work to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline by providing $2 billion in support to schools to reform overly punitive disciplinary policies, calling on states to reform school disturbance laws, and encouraging states to use federal education funding to implement social and emotional support interventions.” (https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/racial-justice/)

[2] Every child—in every ZIP code—deserves the opportunity to live up to his or her potential. That begins with a world class education from birth through college. Hillary will double America’s investment in Early Head Start and ensure that every four year old in America has access to high quality preschool to begin closing the achievement gap. She will modernize and elevate the teaching profession to drive student achievement in our K-12 schools.” (https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/racial-justice/)

[3] “LGBT Americans, particularly transgender women of color, are disproportionately the targets of discrimination, harassment, and violence. As president, Hillary will fight for full LGBT equality. She will work to protect transgender individuals from violence by improving the reporting of hate crimes, investing in law enforcement training that promotes fair and impartial interactions with the LGBT community, and directing the government to collect better data regarding crime victims.” (https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/racial-justice/)

[4] “Today in America, nearly 65 percent of LGBT individuals report experiencing discrimination in their daily lives. LGBT youth are nearly twice as likely as their peers to be physically assaulted at school, and 74 percent of LGBT students say they’ve been verbally harassed for their sexual orientation. And a recent study found that nearly 50 percent of of LGBT elders experienced discrimination when applying for senior housing. Despite this discrimination, 31 states do not have fully inclusive LGBT non-discrimination laws. Hillary will work with Congress to pass the Equality Act, continue President Obama’s LGBT equality executive actions, and support efforts to clarify that sex discrimination includes discrimination on the basis of “gender identity” and “sexual orientation.” (https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/lgbt-equality/)

Trying Some New Dreams: Tutoring and Creative Coaching

I already know I want 2016 to be my year of creative entrepreneurship, but I hope these lil' posters are a good start. If you don't mind, please pass them along to anyone who might be interested.

Spending Some Time With Teacher Grief

Last Year's Class

Lately I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how well my work life seems to be falling into place: I’m working at a steady clip on what I think is a sellable memoir, teaching gratifying poetry playshops for grownups, and I even have two honest-to-goodness creative coaching clients. For friendship, pleasant exercise, and routine, I have my job at Rosemont College Bookstore, and for teaching, I start back soon at the library afterschool program I always loved—which means weekly Apples to Apples Junior and probably starting up the kids’ blog again!

And yet, when my Perfect Life Friend (Do you have one of these? I think Instagram invented them.) posted a picture of her new classroom with exuberant thoughts about fresh pencils and (*shudder*) “Common Core Icebreakers,” the feeling of having failed as a teacher asked me for some attention.

In my relief and joy of coming back to the creative life, I often forget how happy I was this time last year. My classroom was so pretty, all sky-blue fadeless paper and flower border. The flowers were not just to remind me of the creativity and generosity of god, but to reassure me of the beauty, order, and patterns of math as I settled in to be the math, science, and (until test prep time started to eat the enrichment schedule and our souls) poetry teacher.

 I was absolutely in LOVE with my coworkers—with the intern principal who had a cat named after Rory Gilmore and praised my decision to teach “Such Great Heights” as one of our class songs, with my sweet but tough-as-nails 28-years-teaching and SO over it grade partner, with the cute-guy fourth grade teacher down the hall who’d end up hugging me so sweetly when I was crying at the copier by January.

My favorite teacher friend was a red-haired sasspot who would call out the bosses in front of everybody for time-wasting “organization strategies” meant only to impress the constantly visiting superintendant. She rode home with me almost every day, knew the best and worst of both my work and school life, but the trauma of last school year has meant I can’t stand the thought of talking to even the favorites who were part of it. Losing that friendship is one of the saddest, most unfair parts.

But back to last August—our school had extra grants for professional development so we started early and spent two weeks together. The cute intern principal had us write down our thoughts on David Foster Wallace’s “This Is Water” speech and show-called me, so that I was the one who said “Yeah, but David Foster Wallace killed himself, so I don’t think mindfulness is enough. We have to prioritize self-care.” (Really, “This Is Water” is a way to try and push ourselves through a system that doesn’t support our embodiedness or make sense—actually the opposite of water, I’d say.)

We learned lots of Teach Like a Champion strategies, many of which seem totalitarian to me now, especially “100%” (compliance). The intern principal once compared a child reading with her head down instead of sitting straight up and down to Malcolm Gladwell’s Broken Windows—that was the feeling: let one little thing slip, and it will all come crashing down. As optimistic and aesthetically pleasing as the beginning of the school year was, there was a desperation at its center: If I had the right classroom setup, the right folders, the right pencil strategy (If I could spend no more time EVER thinking about pencil strategies or the word “strategy” at all…) the right data-collection binders, the right rituals and routines, I could keep the chaos of the children’s lives at bay and make an island of safety and happiness where kids with even the most horrific circumstances could learn and succeed, where I could learn and succeed.

That was what I was tasked with doing, and I did do it for a lot of each day. I learned, would you believe, to get children who were overflowing with life and passion and creativity to walk silently in a straight line. I filled the classroom with plants and student work and inspirational sayings and more flowers. We had gorgeous room-to-room transitions where the only sound to be heard was my grade partner and I harmonizing to “Lean on Me.”

It was beautiful, and I felt so much love and accomplishment and heavy meaning in every day, so much connection to my fellow humans, connection to my soul. I have so much to say about what prevented order and beauty and love from winning, including (often starring) my own limits, but for now, I just want to acknowledge how much I loved my classroom, and honor the pain of letting it go.

Toughness Lessons? No Thanks. (A Manifesto)

“Why do we spend our lives trying to be something we would never want to be, if we only knew what we wanted? Why do we waste our time doing things which, if we only stopped to think about them, are just the opposite of what we are made for?” Thomas Merton

In The Muppets (the Jason Segel one) there’s a moment at the end of Rainbow Connection where Animal, who hasn’t been able to drum the whole movie because of anger management treatment, just gives in to the muse and bangs the shit out of the drums. At that moment, my dear ex-wife leaned over and said “Aw, he achieved his telos.” In case you’re not a philosophy major like her, telos is the thing you were made for. Yesterday I had an Animal-achieving-his-purpose kind of day.

I had training for summer camp yesterday. I’ve worked at the art camp, mostly part time as a poetry teacher, for four years. This year, I signed up for full time even thought they weren’t planning to do poetry.  But then they decided to do poetry! I know it’ll get squirrelly when it’s time to put on the play, but it’s such a relaxed, happy place to work—diverse, kind, and queer friendly. There was even a part in the training where the management told staff, in no uncertain terms, that they are to respect little boys who wear dresses, and to be sensitive with pronouns.

The team skews young, but the music teacher is close to retirement age and kind of old school. When I told her a little about what had happened at the school, she said “Oh, Miss Jane, I’m gonna have to give you toughness lessons.” Though I shut her down pretty unequivocally, she still proceeded to give me an example wherein she told a child she could “Squash him like a bug.”

“Just stop,” I said, trying to be cool. “You don’t know that school.”

“But I know hood rats.”

Now, she’s African American so I guess that makes it less offensive, but I am unspeakably angry to know in my heart that that often when people have told me I’m “too nice,” they mean “Too nice for poor black kids.” The number of times I’ve heard them disparaged, that I’ve been condescended to about it, the number of times I’ve had empathy mistaken for weakness,  the number of times I’ve been told to get a thicker skin, has caused me an enormous amount of stress and sorrow. I’ll never forget the day last winter that my grade partner, who I looked up to and loved so much, went off on me for giving our students “praise they don’t deserve.” A mostly-praise classroom tone was the official policy of the school (and of my heart) but policy isn’t any match for what’s already expected, what’s been expected for generations. Everyone saw me how they saw me, everyone sees the kids the way they see them, and it will take me the rest of my life to write out the pain of that.

Though my music teacher friend meant to be protective and certainly didn’t mean to open a wound, I’m glad she did. I’ve never realized more deeply what a destructive waste it’s been all this time to fight being sensitive, to fault myself for the thick skin that never seemed to grow. I’m very sad about the times I conformed and  tried on that authoritarian armor, and I’m glad soul-sickness made me take it off for good.

The idea that I need to be tougher is bonkers for two reasons. First, anyone who really knows me understands just how resilient, how stubborn, how passionate, what an immovable force I can be. In addition to the sizable amount of strictness I can actually sneak into my handing-out-stickers ethos, I’ve pulled myself through traumas, crossed boundaries, made connections and lived deeply in ways that most people would have shied away from. Yes, I can be really fragile and crappy at life a lot of the time, and I have plenty of regrets, but I’ve turned nearly every mess into art by having compassion, faith, and creativity. I’ve made change at times when I was expected to have no voice, in situations that seemed (okay sometimes actually were) impossible. I may have failed to keep teaching the population I wanted to serve, but while I was there I brought peace and love every day into places most people would be afraid to go.

The fact that my game face happens to be an adoring smile doesn’t mean that I’m weak, it means that I am ale to reach through the ugly, rotten, violent noise of the world and see goodness, see love.

The second reason “toughness lessons” don’t make sense is that sensitivity is a resource. Being a delicate little seashell may limit the number of hours I can work or the number of insults I can field without taking it personally, but it also allows me to feel more deeply, to see and hear and feel details that others might deem unimportant. The best thing is that I get to empathize with people that others might dismiss, and that above all else is what makes me a teacher. It makes me feel beauty and gratitude and love so deeply that yep, I’m often overwhelmed, but I’m also amazing at the art of being alive.

There were no toughness lessons at camp. After lunch, breathless and nervous but sure I knew what the heck I was talking about, I got to give the training in positive behavior support and de-escalation—I gave a sensitivity lesson. We practiced shouting out each others’ awesomeness, praise-only corrections, rewards instead of punishment. We got to practice taking a breath before we speak, using active listening, giving someone space when they’re upset. I told everyone to remember these two things for the rest of their lives:

1. At least 10 positives for every negative.

2. Use a soft voice.

They were already so nice that I cut the training almost in half. I can’t believe how at home I felt. This is me. I was nervous, but I taught, and everyone learned. I don’t know what my job will be when the summer is over, but I know that I will teach, and I know that I will always be strong enough, because I have the most powerful thing in the universe—fiery, bubbly, witchy, goddess-y, sparkly LOVE. (Also, stickers.)

Panic and Progress/Little School Stories One

Last week was such a fruitful one—my poetry class’s book release party produced such a special and heartening collection of poems, I got to go on the local radio station and read from my own poetry book, I even got to visit a friend at her family’s lake house and float around in a paddle boat looking at water lilies and goslings while catching up.

But underneath all the wonderfulness was an inexplicable (okay, actually very explicable) panic. Twice at the bookstore I was working in benign but enclosed spaces and felt the hot dizziness sneak up on me. The music felt too loud and my vision went swimmy. “Sorry I’m a little bit out of it, I panicked in the T-shirt closet” is not the least embarrassing thing I’ve ever said.

I’ve been having bad dreams about school, of the principal observing me and calling me out for mistakes, of having a double class plus a baby to take care of, of having to translate Urdu on the spot. I dreamed of a flying, broken house coming at me with a beautiful black and white drawing (the kind you see on paste-up street art) of Ganesh on the side. All of this means something and nothing. Though life is doing an amazing job of moving me forward on its own, I felt trapped and stuck, blocked in a way I always think I should be able to solve.

I’ve had this sad mentionitis about school, like the “This one time, at band camp?” girl except with failure and trauma. This makes me feel like the conversational angel of doom. The other day at work I kept oversharing, talking to anyone who made the mistake of standing still near me about angry parents and lockdowns. I know it all has to come out, but I honestly don’t want to give those places any more than I already have.

Still, let’s talk about the lockdowns. They came every month or so at the first school, every few weeks at the second. The announcement would come on and we’d be told to lock all of our doors and stay in place until further notice. I never had a door that locked from the inside. I was never actually trained for lockdown procedures, so I’d turn out the light, sit down, and do my best. Sometimes we sat in a row on the floor in the back and played Whisper Down the Lane; sometimes we stayed at desks and just put our heads down. Though we were supposed to be silent, I think, to wait for further instructions, (“So we can stay alive,” I’d tell them.) sometimes it helped to sing the peace song:

“When I breathe in, I breathe in peace,

when I breathe out, I breathe out love.”

(Unitarian hymns are so easily adapted for  the classroom.)

Sometimes the lockdowns were because of gun violence in the surrounding blocks, sometimes just for a kid who was momentarily unaccounted for. You never found out the reason until rumors circulated later in the day, after the threat was over.

In the moment, it never occurred to me to be scared, just to get that deep, eerie calm that grownups sometimes need to have. I took solace in the fact that these were the only times I felt truly justified in just letting them sit and draw. Only now does in occur to me that lockdowns were scary. Those kids, for as much trouble they gave me, were among the most beautiful human beings I’ve ever known. The light shined out of them so purely, so defiantly, so much more miraculously than I can possibly put into words. Despite their harsh circumstances, or because of them, the force of their aliveness was so dazzling that if they had been the proverbial rose-in-concrete, they would have vined the city and the world to its senses.

The horror of being charged with keeping the kids I loved safe in a situation that never would be was one of the many part of my job that was both futile and vital, both deadly and absolutely banal.

As a mark of progress, this is the first easy time I’ve had writing about school—I’ve written maybe ten drafts of blog posts that collapse under the weight of their own sadness, so maybe little stories, a few paragraphs at a time, could be the key.

I think part of the reason this has been a fearful week is that bookstore time is almost over—in many ways, it feels like it already IS over. I’m doing two days a week until camp starts as a way to focus on a couple of projects and get my act together. The part of me that grasps at routine misses the ritual of it, the lunch breaks in the sunny break room or by the fountain, the weight and comfort of organizing my beloved textbooks, my workplace cliché of a coffee cup—Charlie Brown exclaiming “Good grief!”

Good grief indeed. These past few months, though tricky, have been a charmed time. Things have fallen into place through faith rather than effort, or just the effort of singing through the commute or sweeping the terrace for poetry class. I’m sad to let the spring class go even though the summer one starts tomorrow. A big fear in my soup of fears is that I’ll let down the writers who’ve already given me so much.

Reading aloud from my own book of poems brought up so many emotions, too. I’ve got such deep shame for the unrequited loves that defined my life for so long, making it both agonizing and prolific. There was grief over a lost marriage that once seemed so certain. And there was also this: Huh. This is a good book. How did I come up with all this stuff? Will I ever be that productive again?

Returning to art and poetry as the organizing factors of life definitely pulled me out of depression and back to something like my real self, but it also brings with it an enormous amount of vulnerability, one that I can only tackle a little bit at a time. Whereas I have 100% faith in my ability to bring forth good poems from others, my faith in my own work feels Bambi-footed.

Being on stage, both literally and metaphorically, has gotten tangled up in my mind with the everyday humiliations and failures of teaching. The fear of being scrutinized, jeered at, stupid, even hated when I go out on a limb a little is harder to fight than ever before.

I’m frustrated that panic is still holding me back. I see so much possibility in front of me, so many friends and opportunities and gifts. It’s getting harder to take the alone days I still need, that I’ll probably always need. I love the weeks that go by where I feel back to my old self and absolutely hate that I am still so broken. But it is getting easier.