best friend reunion
there is never enough time
to really catch up
but to see them play
just like when we were children
(reliving our dreams)
friendship
What Will Save Us
let’s not forget art
whether painted by god’s hands
or written by us
whether found in words
from teens’ broken-hearted hugs
on our Challenge Day
or in the small space
when the night meets the morning —
let’s not forget art
Dedicated to 1/27/17, A Day that Will Live in Infamy
For today, I met with 27 students from Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, and Iran to tell them that they probably shouldn’t leave the country or they might not be readmitted.
“Thank you, Ms., thank you for telling me.” Relief as transparent as grief in their eyes.
For today, first Trump said this about the Holocaust: “In the name of the perished, I pledge to do everything in my power throughout my Presidency, and my life, to ensure that the forces of evil never again defeat the powers of good. Together, we will make love and tolerance prevalent throughout the world.”
THEN he said this as he signed the executive order banning refugees from Muslim countries: “We don’t want them here.”
For today, I told my colleagues in our district-mandated common planning, after twenty-seven minutes of discussing Socratic seminars, student placements, and teaching methodology, “Please let your students know about the recommendation from many aids groups and human rights lawyers: students and their families should not leave the country.”
For today, the ONE DAY that a district minion came to “observe,” his title Data Culture Specialist, not a day older than twenty-five and only experience in a Teach for America charter school network, writes: “Strength: The team was considering how current events impact student lives in a meaningful way (Executive Actions). They are team most impacted by these events as they have the most ELA/Refugee students.
Next Step: Continue to push the conversation to be about instruction or student learning/outcomes.” (n.a. Source unknown)
For today, I want to push the conversation: “Do you think my INSTRUCTION is more IMPORTANT than my STUDENTS’ LIVES?
For today: Student learning outcomes? Do you think they will LEARN ANYTHING if they are deported?
For today: I share all of this at dinner in the too-crowded local pub. My husband, my daughters, ages twelve and ten.
For today: My ten-year-old replies, “Mama… he must have been a Republican.”
For today: One. Small. Win.
Locationally Challenged
Where is my place in this America? It is the question asked by millions, and so frequently no answer is ever offered. Our collective experiences often lead us to both hate and love this country. It’s a balance, a scale, ready to tip as easily towards hate as towards love.
I am a white woman. It is a blessing and a curse. It comes with white privilege and preferential treatment. It comes with the burden of white privilege and preferential treatment. Because yes, these are burdens. I participate in the historical women’s march and am demonized for the privilege the protesters are allowed by law enforcement since the organizers and protesters are primarily white. I am reminded that “white women voted for Trump” even though I am not one of those white women.
I am trapped between feeling like I want to do everything to stop the hatred that has taken over the world and feeling like no matter what I do, nothing will change. Trump will continue to sign executive order after executive order (ten so far in three business days) stripping every last one of us from our human rights. I have signed at least 100 petitions since election day. I have posted on social media. I have spoken to friends and family about my beliefs. I have supported my students as best as I can while “remaining neutral” (a requirement of the school district). I have called the Department of Justice, my senators, my congress men and women (only to be blocked, to receive a busy signal, or be directed to a full voicemail box).
Where is my place in this America? As a mother of three daughters, a wife of a white man, a teacher of refugee and immigrant students, a Democrat, an atheist, an idealist?
Because white women have betrayed me. Defriended me. Voted for Trump (58% of them??).
Because mothers don’t seem to care that we have a president who brags about grabbing women by their pussies.
Because white men (nothing like my husband)–63%–voted for a man who publicly mocked a disabled reporter.
Because Democrats voted for third party candidates instead of Clinton.
Because I spend my day surrounded by non-whites from every culture and religious belief you can imagine, and I don’t belong with any of them, other than as a figurehead to the white world that is Our America.
Where is my place in this America? I can’t seem to find it. I search in my students’ eyes, my daughters’ artwork, my husband’s anti-government views… And no matter where I look, I feel homeless. Hopeless.
I am searching for what we have lost and will continue to lose. Seeking the solace of activists and friends. Pouring myself into research and writing. Studying law and politics and fact-checking every last piece of media. Taking the time to understand how horribly impactful the violation of human rights can be, how that violation trickles from person to person until the entire society buckles under itself.
And all I can ask, all I keep asking as I am surrounded by doubt and alternative facts and fact-checkers and protests and postcards and last-ditch efforts, is where is my place in this America?
Where is yours?
Little Liftoff
errands and shopping
made happier with a friend
sharing her smoothie
January Delight
the snow followed us
past the children’s snowflake art
(well played fantasy)
a day of chores, work;
making plans and meeting friends
(light as white sparkles)
here rests our winter:
cat in lap, tea in the pot,
(inside outside peace)
Closing Thoughts on 2016
The year closes with a slew of celebrity deaths, a frightful president-elect, and the hovering window of how hopeless humanity can be as we watch the genocidal and refugee crises erupt around us without comment, without help.
The year closes in my personal life: a new principal at my school, the second daughter in middle school, the first daughter preparing for high school, the third daughter closing out our family’s elementary education. Tumultuous tumbles with family and friends that make me question everything: what I write, what I think, how I speak, how I feel about the issues surrounding me… and whether or not I should publish it “for all the world to see.”
The year closes on my habits: in many failed attempts at fulfilling resolutions, such as writing every day and ditching dairy, I have at least wholly committed to one–not a drink, not a drop, of alcohol for 2016.
And here I am, posting this. Am I an alcoholic? Are any of us? Would anyone be willing to admit it if they were?
Here are my haikus from 13 January 2016, in a moment of reflection and redemption:
reasons why i stopped:
one–brutal voice in writing,
uncensored anger
two–not much laughter,
too much crying to count
(my tear-stained regrets)
three–exhausted sleep
from too many restless nights
swimming in nightmares
four–so much good lost
on the desire to numb,
to not fully live
five–waste of money
in times when we had little,
in times when we’re rich
six–lust and lack of
mediocre love-making
blurred by consumption
seven–fat belly
of someone too far along
to give up this quick
eight–every bad choice
i have made as an adult
came from that bottle
nine–joy i once felt
disappeared on icy rocks
of my lost chances
ten–my daughters’ eyes
watching every move i make
(and i’m making… them)
The year closes with sadness, with darkness, with fear. I lost friends, I came to realize how few I have, and yet… hold them in such a greater light because of their proximity, their understanding of me. I reconciled with my sister and mother. I worked through difficulties in my marriage. I, as always, struggled through the intricacies of teaching teenagers and raising them. I got a new new kitten… and lost her a month later.
I watched the world witness the election of an evil demagogue.
I cried and I cried and I cried.
I wrote less and worried more.
But I didn’t drink. (I didn’t go to AA either. I didn’t need to.) I just wanted to see what the world was like again without the rose-colored glasses.
And the world is a hard, cold place. Filled with people who only think for themselves. Who send text messages to end friendships three years in the making. Who disregard human rights to save themselves a buck. Who turn their backs on those in need for political safety nets.
And the world is a bright and beautiful place. With young eyes that light up and demand that the future sees them for the beauty that they are: conservative Muslim, flamboyant LGBT, bleeding heart liberal, hopeful to no end. With city lights and mountain views, blue skies and snow. With full moons over lapping waves and pink sunrises over quiet urban neighborhoods. With ancient ruins and family freedoms. With girl power and urban schools. With everything that surrounds my bubble of humanity, my hope for human rights, my need to know that it. Gets. Better.
The year closes, and my eyes have opened. I have come to realize how infiltrated in our culture drinking is (this never quite occurred to me before) as I enter restaurants and am immediately offered cocktails or beer; as I go to book club and happy hour and parties and barbecues and hanging out at anyone’s house; as I navigate the simple sentence, “Water for me, thanks.”
The year closes, and I haven’t been numb. I have been fully awake, fully aware, of the pain that sneaks up when your youngest hasn’t done her math homework in three weeks, when your oldest can’t answer a question without a smirk, when your middle child talks back as easily as she grins, when students refuse to relinquish phones and family members whisper and rejection seems to lie behind every unopened door.
The year closes, and it may have many mistakes. It may have many moments of hollowness. But it does not have a single moment of regret.
Because it has been me, uncensored, unaltered me, in every last word, every last post, every last turn around the long journey through life.
The year closes, so let me hold up a glass: Cheers to a new year, a new tomorrow, a new hope… cheers to a new way of looking at the world. Drink… or no drink.
Cheers.
Hope for the Holidays
caroling for hope
finding it behind closed doors
that our songs open
Bleed Purple
hope comes in colors
pinned up for future voices
who will fix this mess
Flushing
self-preservation
often looks introverted;
whatever it takes
i need my mountains
to save me from self pity
that swallows me up
and yet, there is hope:
a Girl Scout troop, a book club…
new horizons wait
Step Write Up 