annual Marade
frosted with ice (years without)
but now winter’s here–
in Trump’s dark shadow
we march for all we have lost,
all there is to lose.
we resist snowflakes
that try and fail to stop us
from the truth we seek
we fight the good fight
in songs, in signs, in speeches
(and one day we’ll win)
Star Wars costume show
followed by our nation’s truth:
the stench of failure
it seeps through the stacks
into our souls’ library:
let’s check ourselves out
depression so rank
we can’t even choose a book
from our city’s shelves
soon we will rise up
upon realization
of Trumpocracy
but it will take faith
beyond what fits in a poem
to fight the Dark Side
It’s a Friday in January and my mouth is running rampant. She came, she asked, and I don’t lie.
I know that people hate the truth, and the truth hurts (me the most–sometimes I think this), but she wanted the truth, and had twenty different ways for us to share it with her, most of them anonymous.
But I said what I thought. What we all think. What needs changing. What already works. I had evidence and examples, just like I always tell my students to write in their ACEITCEIT paragraphs. And I splayed my soul in front of God and everyone–I got a 3 (7 is the best), and Nick was as honest as could be when he spoke to me, and said, ‘I sat in my garage for three hours last night in turmoil over this’–and that humanization of the score meant more to me than anything else. That humanization–that’s what teachers want.
And do you know what they said (of course)? You let him give you a 3?
As if they hadn’t heard the whole conversation. As if it weren’t enough, the admittance, the heart on sleeve, the truth.
The, Why can’t you be a little more honest?
On with my day. Two more classes in the afternoon. Coming in a bit tired and a bit disgruntled about the first standardized test of the semester they took yesterday, but still willing to work for me. To discuss and argue about the validity of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and try to decide which one they thought was most important, and write a paragraph about it (ACEIT today, just ACEIT).
If I’d known sophomore year was going to be all about paragraphs… one begins, unable to finish as she shakes her hands between sentences. But look at the progress you have made! I begin, but am interrupted by knock at the door number four for period five, with a para and a stack of papers three feet thick. Oh my God, what have I done? I start to ask, but cut myself off when I realize it’s the first four chapters of I Am Malala, copied times 160, because we still don’t have the books on our tablets.
You just saved my life, I whisper, and pile the pile on the desks.
Then, just after I thought my day was done after my sixth period valiantly pointed out a grammatical error on my sentence stem (Have you ever had an HONORS ELD course?? You should try it some time. Come by any day at 1:11), I remembered my ultimate task: covering the severe needs special education class. Seventh period. On Friday.
There is no amount of money in the world that could be a fair salary for what these women do every day. With needs that range from nonverbal to highly functioning, students who are obsessed with either Play-Doh or making sure my watch is exposed from under my long-sleeved shirt, to vacuuming relentlessly and walking around only on knees, to the computer dying mid-class and the wheelchair-bound girls moaning in distress, to the speech-language-pathologist teaching the alphabet to one girl for fifty minute straight, there. Is. No. Fair. Salary.
Before I left, I saw a man who I visited last summer during one of our home visits. He was chain smoking and playing violent video games in the projects, his tiny apartment nothing but white windowless walls. He was kind and adept, and described his rather difficult job of trying to keep severely autistic teenage boys from harming others. I suggested he apply at our school since his daughter would be attending there. You have a severe needs program there? I didn’t even know! Today I saw him for the first time, and we fist-bumped. You’re the reason I even have this job, he told me.
Best moment of my day.
Or, the walk. Yes, I got in a walk after all that honesty and writing and chaos. Around the park with the little dog we’re watching. And the winter light sparkled just so on those geese, perfect silhouettes against the season.
These moments allowed to me before Izzy entered the car and spilled the entire sex ed story, provided by none other than Planned Parenthood and a literal wooden penis named Woody. Yes, they demonstrated how to put the condom on Woody. Yes, “Becca” taught them how to insert a female condom using only her fingers. Yes, they passed around an IUD and pressed it against their skin so everyone in the class could see what it felt like. Yes, the main way to prevent pregnancy is abstinence.
Yes, we live in Denver now, where it’s as liberal as it gets, apparently.
No, this is not the sex ed you remember.
I wonder why my almost-fourteen-year-old thinks nothing about telling me the whole sex ed story? Could it be that she’s my too-honest daughter?
No matter. We made it home and I made dinner. Or rather, I stuck some chicken and potatoes in the oven and called it dinner while I searched for ski condos in Crested Butte. (More than an hour later…) Dinner’s ready!!! Condo is booked!! Friday is done!!!
It’s a Friday in January, and my mouth is running rampant. But at least I’m being honest about it.
since the election,
somehow my days have become
a cataclysmic mix of mundane chores
and tearing my hair out over
what we’ve done to our democracy
it’s the gut wrenching choice
Travis must make as Riona and I
grapple with Old Yeller-–
do I shoot my best friend
or suffer the same fate?
only—
our fate is sealed, well after
the roan bull has staggered onto our property… and Yeller?
his last howl hovers over
a hydrophobic nation
God save us all.
ready to make change
with posters, books, and writing
with hope in our schools
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.
postcard messages
and snowflakes cut into hope:
proof that love trumps hate
i want art to win
to remind us of our past
not steal our future
our hope gets swallowed
behind headlines; dictators
costumed by deceit
i want art to win
for every imagined star
hooked by my daughters
for these costumed shells
to bring beauty back to us
before it’s too late
a mountain escape
from the netherworld life
since the election
Thirteen days have passed since Doomsday arrived in our world. And if I thought I was addicted to social media before, it has now become as necessary to me as my daily three cups of tea. I am addicted to seeing what has happened from moment to moment, which underqualified or downright frightening lunatic he has chosen for his cabinet, which tweet has garnered international attention, which lawsuit he has just settled, which of hundreds of hate crimes will be reported between now and tomorrow…
I find myself standing in the kitchen, next to the teapot. Reading. Checking my phone in subtle silences at happy hour. Reading. Looking at my computer while the students are working. Reading. Sitting at the dentist’s office while waiting for my three girls to get their teeth cleaned. Reading.
I’m not on my bike. I’m not doing yoga. I’m not taking long walks.
I’m immobile. Still numb. Still reeling in the incomprehensible truth of what our world has become.
Even Humans of New York can’t save me from this with his latest stint in Michigan. Yes, we are all human. Yes, we all have problems. Yes, job growth has dragged, Obamacare costs too much, and maybe we needed a change. But the cost of that change has numbed me. It has left me in a swill of late-night insomnia, fretful mornings, catatonic looks at my three girls as I find myself so deep in thought, deep in worry, that I cannot answer their questions about schoolwork, chores, or who got the last marshmallow.
Everything, everyone, every part of my life now rests under this shadow of doubt and fear.
And I am still one of the lucky ones. One of the white, non-immigrant ones. And perhaps that is why I feel so trapped. What people do I have to connect with, to understand why this bothers me so much? Those whites in Macomb County, Michigan who turned their backs on the human race? The ones in the Rust Belt who naively think Trump is going to revive coal mining jobs? The veterans whose benefits will be slashed when we end up spending $25 billion to build a wall against Mexico?
The ones on my Facebook feed (most of whom who have probably already unfollowed me) who will never be swayed by my opinion? Who’d rather take this demagogue for a president than have any hope for the future of humanity?
I am trapped in my White World. It is privileged and ignorant and shameful.
It hasn’t been two weeks. Our world is changing right before our eyes, and simple errands now bring me to tears. Taking my girls to the dentist on Thanksgiving Monday. I picked this dentist when we bought our house a year ago, finally a permanent home after three years of being vagabonds. I was so happy to find a dentist within walking distance of our house. When I first visited in January, I was greeted by two Russian receptionists; all of the other customers were also Russian and spoke in their rapid-fire vocalized native tongue with the employees, presumably about their latest X-rays. My dentist is a Vietnamese immigrant who did a more thorough cleaning and analysis of my teeth than any dentist I’ve ever had.
Why am I writing this? Why does it even matter? I keep thinking about the Hamilton line that bleeps across my mind, “Immigrants get the job done.” As I sat in the dentist’s office this morning while my girls’ teeth were X-rayed and cleaned, I wondered if everything would change. Would he kick them out? Would he shut this down? Would he find some hidden bylaw that would allow him to deport every last one of them?
Their Russian-American dentist sat with me in her office and explained in detail the crooked situation with each of their teeth. And just like the other times I visited, no one else who came in today spoke English as their first language. I wondered if I was the only one willing to step out of my white bubble for a decent cleaning, or if this is really what the world has become.
Cavity-free, we started walking home in early afternoon, deciding to stop along the way for lunch with no particular place in mind. Then, halfway between the dentist and home, we saw a sign that pointed across the barren parking lot of the abandoned K-Mart: “Fresh Mediterranean food!” We didn’t have to think about it. Fresh olives and lamb were calling us. We meandered across the massive vacancy of vehicles to a small shopping center and an even smaller restaurant that, much to my surprise, had several customers sitting and enjoying their falafels.
The Israeli woman who greeted us and took our order was also the head chef. Her name was everywhere–on the signs, below the photographs of she and her family that lined the walls, on the menus, on the lips of customer after customer who came in and gave her a hug. We ordered our gyros, olives, and paninis and settled ourselves into a table between walls of colorful artwork and kitchen cutlery from the countries that line the Mediterranean Sea–scenes from Italy, Israel, France. Soft tunes of guitar, mandolin, and oud filled the earth-toned room as Yaffa’s conversations flowed with the arrival of more hug-bearing customers: “Yes, if your family will be out of town for Chanukah, of course you can come here and light the candles, have some latkes…”
And I looked across the table at my green-eyed girls gobbling up gyros and pita and pit-filled Mediterranean olives, and I wondered what would happen. I wondered what would happen to the beauty of this place, this quilted humanity that encompasses our nation of immigrants, this cute hole-in-the-wall-of-the-world restaurant.
After lunch, Mythili and I headed to the library. (The dentist had asked me, “Where does the name come from? It’s one of the prettiest I have ever seen. And what does it mean?” “It comes from Sanskrit. It means goddess of mythology.” “However did you find such a name?” “From my Indian friend…” and my multiculturalism was swallowed by anxiety).
Once we arrived at book heaven, tears found themselves poised at the corners of my eyes. A simple trip to the library on Thanksgiving Monday. Books were propped up on every shelf, ready to sell themselves to anxious readers of every age. We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball. Women Daredevils. But What If We’re Wrong? Another Day in the Death of America. Rachel: The Story of Rachel Carson. Hatshepsut: The Princess Who Became King. George Washington: The First U.S. President. A Most Improbable Journey: A Big History of Our Planet and Ourselves. Grandfather’s Turn: A Journey to the Ballot.
I found myself snapping pics. The titles spoke for themselves. I saw the librarian quietly setting out more, and a sign that read, “Free and Equal Access for All… You Are Welcome Here.”
And for the first time in thirteen days, I felt that I could move. I could go on a bike ride. I could do yoga. I could take a long walk.
I can continue to go to my immigrant-led dentist. And eat falafel at the local Mediterranean restaurant. And bring my daughters to the place where the world can change: the public library, where all walks of life are welcome, will enter, will read… Will open their minds and begin to change the world back.
I can pop my white bubble and hope for a better tomorrow. I can clearly pronounce my daughter’s hard-to-say name (MY-thuh-lee) so the world will learn that multiculturalism is about opening our eyes, our minds, our ears to beautiful new sounds and words and images.
I can be hopeful and thankful on Thanksgiving Monday, on each and every day, that we can win this world back.
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