I'm not sorry

There are two things that I committed to doing this year:

1. Stop saying "sorry" for things that don't require my apology.

2. Allow disappointment. 

Following through on commitment No. 1 was like learning how to talk all over again. What I mean to say is that I say "sorry" a lot, and I didn't realize just how much and how unnecessarily I said it until I deliberately tried to stop. For instance, I found that I often preface my voice with "I'm sorry to bother..." or "I'm sorry if this is a dumb question..." or my favorite: "I'm sorry, but..." But what? What am I so sorry about? 

I know that this is a disproportionally common experience among women as compared to men and even more so among women of color, and perhaps even more so among Asian and Asian-American women. Is it a reflection of cultures that systematically make women feel undeserving of our voice and space? Is it out of bad habit? Probably both.

The point is, I do have a voice. I do take up space. And I am not sorry.

Commitment No. 2 has manifested in a number of ways. Most days, it has taken the form of me crouched down on the floor of my shower, sobbing. People keep telling me that it's normal to cry a lot as a first-year teacher, and I've actually taken a liking to crying in the shower. It's therapeutic. It lends itself well to washing away snot and tears. And it has been absolutely key in keeping me sane. 

What I've learned is this: Disappointment is a part of accepting imperfection. And it's been the most freeing experience I've had since I started teaching. I come home from a 17-hour day that consisted of traffic, public transit, twenty busy-bodied students, unhappy co-workers, lackluster attempts at maintaining long-distance friendships, and to cap it all off, nighttime graduate class. I crawl into bed. I say, "Wow, today really sucked and I really sucked at handling it." No contemplation. No excuses. No self-loathing. I simply acknowledge my disappointment. I let myself be imperfect. And then I do the most important thing of all: I go to sleep. 

It allows me the freedom and grace to wake up the next morning and want to try again. And that's the best thing I can do for my students. In fact, it's the best thing that I can do for myself. 

Wake up every morning and try again. 

Magic Train

Today, on the train going home, I took out a notebook and pen and wrote down this line: I take a magic train home.

It’s true. I take a magic train home. It is magic in the way that it lulls me to sleep and fills and empties of various bodies without my knowing. Everyday, I board at Cicero, just a few blocks away from where I work. I sit among black bodies belonging to moms and dads and babies in strollers and high schoolers on their way home from school. I close my eyes. I let exhaustion take over…

Some forty or fifty minutes later, I wake to the sound of my phone alarming me of my approaching stop. I open my eyes and, like magic, the car has transformed. Suddenly, I am sitting among white bodies clad in business attire, straddling travel cases and bags, bound for O’Hare.

Today, I manage to stay awake for the hour-long ride and I watch the transformation slowly unfold. Black bodies board and leave. College-aged bodies trickle in at the Medical District and UIC-Halstad. The car is now segregated. Black bodies mostly on one side, non-black bodies mostly on the other. The train chugs toward the Loop. A sudden slew of white bodies push through. Packed like sardines. Black bodies are few. Female bodies congregate. Male bodies do, too. Young white bodies leave at Division. More leave at Damen. At last, those bodies still left on the train stretch legs and exhale.

In the corner is a man.

I recognize him from when we both boarded at the Cicero Blue Line station. I realize that he is the only other person to have witnessed the magic. Only it isn’t magic.

Chicago, there is nothing magic about segregation.

Consent

"Inappropriate touching" has become a reoccurring issue in my classroom over the past week or two. Today, one of my students stood in line with his hands inside the back of a female-bodied student's skirt.

Instead of scolding him for the umpteenth time for what is quite honestly a developmentally normal process of body/gender awareness, and yet again shaming him for his sexuality during a time that is critical for establishing early sexual attitudes on such things as the opposite gender and nudity, I decided to provide him a lesson on consent.

The lesson was a simple one. If you want to touch or hug a friend, you have to ask, first. If he or she says "yes," you can go ahead and touch or hug them. If he or she says, "no," you must keep your hands to yourself. By the end of the day, the word had somehow spread without my knowing, and I was amazed at the conversations I was overhearing.

"Can I touch your shoulder?"
"No."
"Okay, can I touch your head?"
"Yes, you can touch my head."
"Okay, I'm going to touch your head!"

"Can I give you a hug?"
"No, I don't want a hug."
"Okay."

Okay.

"When life is sweet, say thank you and celebrate.
And when life is bitter, say thank you and grow."

Shauna Niequist

The Real Thing

"Oh, so you just watch babies all day."

"No, I teach all day."

"Yeah, babies. So you're like a babysitter."

I am a teacher. In just three weeks, I will have a classroom of twenty incredible, young human beings. In my classroom, they will make friends, explore, learn, and gain the tools to navigate their expanding world. 

It is for them that I wake up every morning at 5:30am and embark on a daily 4-hour-long commute. It is for them that I overcome my fear of public singing and learn to recite children's tunes by heart. It is for them that I bite my tongue and politely explain to my family that I am in fact a "real teacher" and that this is in fact my "real job". 

It's hard work to be doing something that your family openly disapproves of and, on a good day, considers a "break" before medical school. 

But this is not a break. This is not a gap year. This is not service work that I'm doing in the inner city. This is my job. This is my daily commitment. And thanks to my students, this is my joy.

I'm writing this as a reminder for myself to return to on days when I feel defeated and completely spent; days that feel like shit and quite possibly involve child-sized shit. And the reminder is this: Whether they feel like it or not, regardless of what went on at home, every child who steps into my classroom has come to learn. So whether I feel like it or not and regardless of what goes on in my own home, I will be there for my students.

There will always be the temptation to treat whatever I'm doing as a "break." Just something I'm doing until the next thing―the real thing. Just something I have to push through until Friday... until summer... until it's over. 

So I think we have to fight to find the joy in every day. We have to fight against the exhaustion that makes us look forward to the weekend and the dissatisfaction that makes us dread Mondays. Of course, shit days will be shit days―always. But I believe that even those days have joy that can be fought for and won. And it is a joy that is beyond our circumstances and satisfaction. It is one that gives us the advocacy to say, "I take ownership of my life. I am alive." 

I am living my life. Life is not merely happening to me. Time is not simply passing me by. I am here. I am present. I am alive. 

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company...a church....a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude...I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you...we are in charge of our attitudes.” - Charles R. Swindoll

We need to change.

There is a quote by Mary Oliver that has been sitting on my desktop for many months now.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

I used to think that I loved that quote. 

Lately, I read it and the words leave a faint, bitter trail on my tongue. They linger there and make me wonder if it isn't a privilege that I am able to ask myself that question.

Last week, a young boy in my class said that he would amount to nothing because he was "too dark." Earlier the same week, he turned four years old.

I don't know if he truly understood the implications of what he said or its severity. A part of me doesn't want to know. A selfish part of me wants to believe that he didn't. 

But it doesn't matter what I want. 

The reality is that our society does not see black children as precious. We do not value their bodies and their minds the same way we do others'. Meanwhile, police brutality rages. Schools close. Prisons expand. The death toll rises.

Meanwhile, I pray that I will learn to be a good teacher to my students. I pray that we will not tire of learning our history and acknowledging its brutal injustice. I pray that our society does not tire of change.

God knows we need to change.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over again announcing your place
in the family of things.

By Mary Oliver

Spring

Spring dropped by this morning and teased us with visions of green grass and breezes warm enough to thaw the glacial mounds heaped in the corner of basically every parking lot ever. I edged my potted succulents toward the window where, at last, I didn't have to worry about it catching frost.

Good Morning. Are you hungry?
A light sprinkling of water, just enough to dampen the soil.
Lots of sunshine today. Things are looking up.

I once asked my mother why she talked to her plants and she told me that all things need to know they are loved in order to grow well.

It's been a long winter. Between applications, senioritis, and the never-ending wait to hear back, growing well has... well, it's been hard.

Which is precisely why I wanted to remember today. Sitting by the window, soaking in the warmth of a long-awaited sun, I was reminded of the sureness of certain things:

More opportunities.
The love of my Father.
The return of spring.

Dust

Someone spoke to me last night,

told me the truth. Just a few words,

but I recognized it.

I knew I should make myself get up,

write it down, but it was late,

and I was exhausted from working

all day in the garden, moving rocks.

Now, I remember only the flavor—

not like food, sweet or sharp.

More like a fine powder, like dust.

And I wasn’t elated or frightened,

but simply rapt, aware.

That’s how it is sometimes—

God comes to your window,

all bright light and black wings,

and you’re just too tired to open it.

By Dorianne Laux

Speech to the Young

Say to them,

say to the down-keepers,

the sun-slappers,

the self-spoilers,

the harmony-hushers,

"Even if you are not ready for day

it cannot always be night."

You will be right.

For that is the hard home-run.

Live not for battles won.

Live not for the-end-of-the-song.

Live in the along.

By Gwendolyn Brooks