Back to School: a journal entry

At 7:45 on Thursday morning I had to clean out the rotted food in our broken fridge before the repair man came by and noticed how rancid it was. After a rushed job of tossing jars and produce bags into a hefty bag I hopped on my bike ready to whizz away to my volunteer gig that started at 8:25. Too bad my tire was flat, and the ride share service I usually rely on was not working at the time. I finally got there at 8:40 after calling my partner and having him send a car to me from another ride share service. I arrived late just in time for action.

This week I started volunteering as an in-class writing and reading tutor for a local Oakland high school. I chose this program because of it's integrated vision. It gives individualized attention to students during school hours and its methods are built off of a respectful student-centered "meet the writer/reader where they are at" philosophy. So I don't have to worry about 'motivating' my student to get a good grade (unless the student cares about that, which most do).

Right now I am working with three students, who for the sake of anonymity I'll call Marco, Emma, and Brent.

Immediately after I arrived I was assigned to work with Emma. She had trouble looking at me. She fidgeted frequently. I think felt shame/embarrassment about the very small amount of work she had done so far, but also about the kind of work she thought she would do. I think, based on what she was telling me, she is going to write about thoughts of self harm, among other things. Which is some heavy shit indeed.

I wondered very briefly about talking to her teacher about what she told me. But for the moment, for this week, I want to keep her trust. And as a person who regularly contemplates self harm I believed that it was only thoughts. I hope I'm right. I feel some regret about this decision and I made a promise that if she mentions it again I will let her know that those kinds of thoughts can be very serious. Let her know I care about her well being and ask if she want help finding a teacher or a counsellor to talk to about those them.

But that resolution was made long after she and I interacted. Most of the time when I am working with these student writers I ask questions, listen, and write down everything they say (as much if it as my slow hands can catch). Afterwards I hand over the sheet of what I transcribed and say "look how much work you got done!"

A little later than I was supposed to, I switched to working with Marco fro the rest of this period. He let me sit awkwardly in silence for the better half of out time together while he worked through the finishing touches of the assignment he had a very good handle on. He did ask me he read his work to him and we talked a little about it. It was nice to see him get his poem on independently. However I couldn't help but feel I should have offered more assistance or more something at least. I always feel that way when the student knows what they're doing and has now fears/anxious about their work.

During the next class I had the privilege of working with Brent for the entire period. Who, when I plunked down next to him was certain that I was Johnny Law and that I'd arrived to tell him to get to work and do it right. He was determined not to show that he might have a good time writing.

Now I did tell him to get work done, but I also told him that writing poetry is work. And I'm sure there was a danger in writing what he wrote about disliking school. I told him "You can like the writing you do at school and still hate school. A lot of school is pretty much bull shit. But the work you do here can still matter to you."

Mostly we sat in silence together while he wrote a fantastic poem that used to assigned form to draw out the delicious contrast between expressing his respect to family and performing empty gestures of "respect" required by school.

I know I'm no supposed to pick favorites, but jesus, he wrote 12 lines of searing words from just a bubble of brainstormed words. Hell, I write poetry as a calling and usually can't to that in 45 minutes. I was most impressed with him (even though Marco was further along). Before I had to leave we scholgged through how he might include alliteration and more sensory details (the reqs of the assignment). While he clearly resented being required to include these elements, I'm pretty sure he enjoyed learning about and experimenting with them. I found his reluctant enjoyment of writing very exciting.

As I was leaving I saw Emma in the hall surrounded by friends. She smiled at me and said "that's my writing coach".

That smile made me forget all about the horrible details of my moldy flat-tire morning.

Please excuse me from essay duty today,

I woke up this morning with 15 minutes to spare. I stirred to the soft twang of my phone alerting me to the fact "You work in 45 minutes". The first thing I say is "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." I continue this little mantra through the quick brush I swizzle around my mouth. I used t too much toothpaste.

I didn't take any time to listen but I'm pretty sure that my joints and throbbing temples protested to all of this. The mantra of "fucks" get louder as I climb downstairs and realize the worst part:
My bike isn't here.

I facepalm. Harder than I mean to. Check the bus route which will leave me at least 20 minutes late. and chuck that plan. I finally cave and call a car share service.

In the 4 minutes it takes this driver to get to my apartment I scoop some leftover chili and rice into a lunch sized tupperware container and and pat myself on the back for remembering lunch. Breakfast is not happening today.

The other 2 minutes I spend staring with terrific longing at the spot under the stairs where my bike usually sleeps.

You see last night (and truth be told until 8AM this morning) I was totally and absolutely certain I has today off from work. And not just that, a friend and colleague was visiting from out of town and last night was her last night in town. Due to the revelry required by such an instance, I decided to abandon my bike for the night in favor of the kind of reckless drinking. Now this wasn't just drunken neglect it was also kinda strategic. The spot I'd chosen to leave her is also very near one of my favorite brunching spots.

Her name is Queen Bee

I went to bed last night with thoughts of their corned beef hash dancing in my head.
This morning's hitting me like the realization that there is no santa.

The car arrives and I could swear this guy must be the slowest and most insecure driver ever. The entire ride I pined for the controlled speed of my fixed gear beneath me. I used that time to make sure there isn't too much toothpaste caked in the corners of my mouth. When I finally attempt some sort of conversation he asks me about his customer rating.

I book it through the door and clock in no more than 4 minutes late. Just in time to feel the hangover hit me in full.

....


All this is to say, that I am sorry to not have something more meaty and interesting to read. Seriously though, I was gonna spend some quality time after that brunch nudging my ideas into something yummy. But tonight, after the hangover surprise of an 8 hour shift, the only thing I got left is complaints. That and inflammation.

PS: I drafted this excuse note on the bus home from work:

I've been expertly making up excuses and fooling teachers with them my entire academic career. Don't think Ive never written anything more easily than an excuse.

Ghosts (or fighting against internal networks of oppression)

I am a poor and often jobless writer. I have little to no faith that anyone will pay me for the most valuable work I see myself doing. Paying the rent is an uphill battle. Feeling okay about how I manage it is damn near defying gravity. Last fall I lost a job that broke my body and paid me shit. I am still getting over it. I am still forgiving myself for it. I cried every time a letter came from the unemployment office because I knew that one of them was going to tell me that I did not qualify because I was fired from the only real job I held for more than four months. It'd been a tough year.

One of the worst things that I can feel happening to me is that I wake up or stand still for too long, and forget to fight for a little while. In that instant I begin to believe that I (and my work and abilities) don't matter. That is the easiest and perhaps most common feeling that seeps across whatever differences separate oppressed people. 

The most insidious forms of oppression operate as background noise. In America there is a cultural narrative telling some folks that they are unimportant (because we're too fat, or too poor or much of a homo). Now, it is not just these messages that oppressed folks must ignore,  but we also have to fight these notions within ourselves. Those messages have been coming at  us since before we learned to fight. They are part of our thought process and value systems. Thus life becomes a continual battle of reminding yourself that yes, you do matter. The actions you take and the things that you are building do matter. There is value in your humanity.

The moment after writing that statement my brain backlashes. Because I've been told so many times that it isn't true. How can such a thing get infused in us down to the bone? Is it as innately human to tell people they don't matter as it is to be compassionate? The humanist in me wants to say no, but history has proved otherwise. We have all experienced oppression from somebody/somewhere (being bullied, ignored etc.). The feeling of imposed unimportance/insignificance is one that we can all relate to. Its constancy is the thing that frightens me. It is what haunts me.

Its ghost shows up in my life again and again.

1. As a lower income individual I experience this through having to repeatedly and aggressively tout my importance to potential employers. I have to justify my importance to them, justify why I should matter to them, as if I already don't. While looking for work, I must divorce myself from any dream of defining the value of my own actions and skills. 
2. As a female-bodied person my importance as a whole person is denied by people who insist that I only matter if my body is shaped and moves in a certain way; when my father touches my stomach and tells me I should “get rid of” the soft part of my belly that sticks out over my jeans; or when a man assumes that it is okay to relate to me only on the subject of my looks. This behavior denies that my identity is as important as I say it is. These actions let me know that it's definitely my looks that are most important.
3. As an out queer person I endure peoples assumptions about my feelings. They let me know my feelings don't matter because, they aren't like their feelings, and they assume (to their detriment) that they can't relate to them. This is as simple as someone responding to the fact that I am attracted to women or that I'm in multiple relationships with the response of "How can you do that?"

You other me when you define the terms of my difference from you. I work, love, and live just like anybody else. I do it with my identity and my body and my soul. I do it by listening to what I want and then pursuing what I want in a way that I deem most appropriate. That is what I call being alive; what is it to live powerfully. 

Alice Walker says that “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.” There is a weariness that comes from living powerfully in dis-empowering circumstances. This weariness comes from constantly opposing those who would define me without respect for my consent or humanity. 

Sometimes I can't take it. I forget, and for a moment, I believe that ghost are right about how much I matter. Those are what I'd call the bad days.