Becoming

This is my commencement post.  Which isn’t entirely just for those who have recently graduated, but a “commencement post” because commencement has just passed and left me feeling particularly reflective.  And emotional.  And frankly a little unstable.  So this is a post about life.  And about the future.  And about how really no one knows what’s coming next.  And how to keep moving forward even when everything in your body tells you to sit down.

I’ve had a lot of “those” conversations over the last few weeks.  With anxious students just beginning to think about what happens when you leave the nest of college.  Those hard conversations about “what-ifs” and “where-do-I-gos”.  Riddled with insecurity that it will be too hard, too complicated, or too big to manage.   Fretting over the big leap.  The journey.  It.  Life.  The not knowing of where you’ll land or what it’ll take to get to where you’re going (if you’ve already determined you have a final destination). 

These conversations always loop me back to my own journey, thinking about my own choices and adventures, and the many hard and beautiful paths I’ve found myself on in my 29 years of life.  Like a Grateful Dead song.  What a long strange trip it’s been.  Indeed.

I don’t know much about life.  But I watch it happen all the time.  All around me.  Life in abundance.  And I know that we all have in us the capacity to survive it.  

I read The Sun, an independent journal packed to the brims with good writing, stunning poetry, beautiful black and white photography, and interesting interviews with people I’ve never heard of (which is a great change of pace from my other “journal”, UsWeekly).  This month they interview a painter, Ran Ortner, who paints incredibly large and emotional seascape pieces.  In answering why he paints the ocean, he shares: “It wasn’t until I read Thomas Merton that I came upon something that helped me.  He wrote that there’s nothing as old and as tiresome as human novelty; there’s nothing as immediate and as new as that which is most ancient, which is always in the process of becoming.”

There is nothing as immediate and as new as that which is most ancient, which is always in the process of becoming.  Wow.  How profound, Mr. Merton.  Even though Ortner relates the quote to the ocean, and the ocean’s infinitival presence, this line jumped out of the magazine and practically hit me in the head.

Like the ocean, we humans are in a constant state of becoming.  Of finding things about our soul and our minds that are brand new, all the time, while our bodies physically remain the same.  Our bones and cells unchanged by the choices we make, while our values and our belief systems grow stout and heavy with ideas.   Only as we age do we begin to show the scars from our battles.  The lines from our laughter.  The stretch marks from our gracious giving.  And even these changes are slight.  We remain, at our core, the same DNA.  The same cellular structures.  Our hearts still pump blood through our veins.  Our skin softens, our hair thins, but we remain the same person.

So when people get all panicky right before a big change, there is validity to it.   Change requires growing.  And allowing new patterns to develop.  And requires the emotional capacity and space to rebuild something for yourself, no matter how many times you’ve built it before, or perhaps never at all.  There is a truth to our fear of the unknown.  A bittersweet knowledge that growing up is hard work.  Growing into your skin and your voice and your body can be a beautiful, painful growth.  Learning your limitations.  Identifying your weaknesses.  Discovering your strengths.  Allowing yourself to see your own beauty.  All a process of growing up that doesn’t magically end at 18 or 22, 25 or even 45.

There is no mysterious point where the universe says, “to whom it may concern, just as a reminder, you haven’t accomplished x, y, or z, so here is a list of things you need to accomplish to get there. love, the universe.”  Nope.  Frankly, you’re lucky if you ever hear the universe talk at all.  Life is too noisy.  People are too loud.  The silent nuances of the earth get lost.  The cue that the rain is coming or the weather pattern is changing.  All signs that should help us make choices, hidden between concrete beltways and planned communities.

But our world is what it is.  With all its failing systems and warts and flaws, we still live in a beautiful world and in an incredible space in time where anything can happen.  Where there is so much possibility.  And we have all the tools we need to figure it out.  And yet there are aspects of our humanity—of our simple breathing and aging—that will always make things harder.  Because despite being so simple, we humans are capable of great complications.  We don’t always speak our truths.  Sometimes we don’t try hard enough.  We make bad choices.  We get greedy.  And we ladle in grief and illness and it can all feel huge.  Impenetrable.  

But the mediocrity of it all is part of being human.  It’s falling for the gimmick.  Getting your heart broken (as many times as it takes).  Being disappointed.  Falling in love with the wrong person.  Accepting a job that isn’t work you love, but just helps you pay the bills.  Working really hard and still not seeing any change.  Meeting people you hate.  Fighting with your siblings.  Or your parents.  Or your friends.  Misunderstanding each other’s words.   Misunderstanding each other’s body language.  Falling apart.  Getting in trouble.  Making those painful choices where there really is no good side.  No silver lining.

And part of growing up is also about recovery.  Finding the strength and grace inside that unchangeable body to move beyond what hurts in the immediate.  Remembering that our bodies cannot be purged by our emotions.  Discovering the things you shouldn’t ever do again.  Learning what you love to do.  Creating a home for yourself, when it feels like you have no where else to go.  Finding people to be with who become your family.  Thoughtful, kind people who love you no matter what.  People who create a web of love and support and honesty for you and who allow you to grow with them, even in the darkest spaces.  Apologizing.  Accepting responsibility. 

And when you find yourself in a place where everything has fallen apart, taking the time to locate the pieces of your life you want to bring back again and slowly putting them back together.  Even if it takes a slightly different shape than before.  Learning to make do with what you have.  Appreciating the simple things.  Learning the things you can do and have a great time without spending any money at all.

It’s about understanding the patterns we live.  Understanding that every action has a reaction and learning how to manage that.  How to be responsible with that pattern.  How to not take too much from others.  The process of learning how to filter our words and our actions so that we don’t unintentionally push people away from us.  Even strangers.  Even people on the other side of the world. 

Discovering our happy places.  The places that renew us.  The people who restore us.  The spaces that allow us to just be without needing to explain ourselves.  Our safe houses.  Where nothing can touch us, even if only for one day.  Or one hour.

It’s about learning that big ideas like justice and sustainability are more than just helping someone through a rough spot or recycling your cans—they’re about people and relationships and building community.  About connecting to people from different places and learning from each other about what could be.  About what should be.  About doing the dirty work of working through decades of ignorance and misunderstanding.  About rebuilding new paths towards justice.  Acknowledging our sources of privilege and power and learning how to use those to make the world a better place for everyone, not just ourselves.

It’s about listening more than you talk.  Learning to watch for those beautiful silent signs we send to each other with our bodies and our voices and our eyes.  And being aware of the way we communicate back with the world.  Learning to adapt.  Learning to accommodate.  Learning how to say I’m sorry in a sincere way.

And when we’re in those tight spots.  Those dark afternoons that seem like they’ll go on forever.  Those moments where it feels like you’ll never feel better.  You’ll never wake up (or you don’t want to).  You’ll never stop aching.  We have to remember that it always changes.  It always gets better.  If we let it.  If we allow it.  If we’re willing to work on it.  If we’re willing to admit our dark secrets to someone.

Learning to be honest can be the hardest part of it all.  Learning how to say the things no one wants to hear.  Or the things you yourself don’t even want to hear out loud.  Being open to the idea that we all make bad choices sometimes.  We all do it: we ignore all the signals and the people telling us “no”, “stop”, “don’t do it”, and do what we want, when we want, and sometimes that doesn’t end well.  But that it’s just like everything else.  There is always a way out of it.  There is a gradual process of rebuilding.  Reconnecting.  Repairing.

It’s about perspective.  Realizing that we’re constantly in a state of becoming.  Even when we think we’re finished.

Gratitude

This is one of those weeks that is always difficult for me, as it is for many Americans. One of those moments in American history that none of us will forget, assuming we were old enough to understand what was happening.  9/11 happened just three weeks into my freshman year of college.

I was asked to share a remembrance of 9/11 at my alma mater and place of employment this afternoon.  One of the great things about working in higher education is that we place great value in processing experiences. In sharing our stories. And though these events are often targeted for our students, those of us who participate find ourselves thinking and weeping and learning right alongside our students. Which is a great blessing.

I spent the latter part of this week trying to figure out what I was going to talk about. How I could even begin to stand in front of others and talk about this moment that has changed my entire adult life. My 18 to 28 years. Because 9/11 infuriates me. It makes me incredibly sad. It confuses me. It makes me feel uneasy and sick to my stomach. Still. 10 years later. And not just because it happened. But because of the decade that was born out of these attacks. A decade of fear and polarized politics and racism. A day that forever changed our definitions of words like “security” and “terrorism”. A day that would change virtually every practice we had in traveling and entering and departing public spaces. In our assumptions that we were safe here. Always. And a day that would forever impact the average American’s perceptions of “other”.

And yet this was a day that our whole country stood united. That everyone stopped. And watched. And grabbed the hands of those around them for support. For some security that we were indeed safe. And we built communities inside communities inside communities, like tight concentric circles, made of human hands and warm embraces and candlelit vigils.

Here’s what I remember: I woke up on a Tuesday to a beautiful clear morning. Unaware that I should watch the news, I didn’t. I dressed and walked to class. Finding the academic buildings mostly empty, I walked back towards my dorm, confused about what holiday I had missed or what time change I had failed to make, and found a small group of people standing near a television. I stopped to watch an unbelievable scene on the television. The eery silence of the academic quad began to make sense. Though I couldn’t quite make out what was happening yet, or just how significant it would become, there were billows of black smoke and people running in fear. Alarms and noise and chaos. Buildings were crumbling in flames and chunks of concrete and bodies jumping from windows. I watched, with my heart in my throat, never expecting to see New York City in the background. And later, the Pentagon.

What I remember most clearly, however, was that there was an immediate community in that group of people. And an immediate and overwhelming sense of patriotism, fear and anger. A loss of words. A numbness that overcame us all: Was this really happening? Could it be true?

Within the next hour, the whole campus was awake. We had found ourselves in small huddled groups all over our wooded campus. It felt like everyone was crying. All day. Our shoulders heaving in unison, hands holding each other tight. Two of the girls on my floor had parents in the towers. Almost a whole day later we’d learn that they had actually not gone to work that day. Others weren’t so lucky. My dear friend Devita lost her brother, Romeo, in the Pentagon. Others lost family and friends. It seemed everyone knew someone in New York or Washington. And all of us knew someone who had been affected. Someone who had survived. And sadly, someone who hadn’t.

Keep in mind, this was my freshman year. I was nearly twelve hours away from my home in the deep western mountains of North Carolina. Just three weeks in to my first year of adulthood, I suddenly questioned if I should have ever left my beautiful blue-green valley. Or its deep purple hills that would have protected me from these planes and these loud noises. But that morning confirmed that I was in a place that would quickly become more than just my school; this place became my home. The rest of the day quickly turned into weeks and it was all a blur from there. What events I attended, how we found the strength to go back to class or to take anything else seriously; I can’t remember.

In reflection, I now can say that 9/11 was the first time I was able to place the word “gratitude” in my adult vocabulary. It was the first time I acknowledged my Americanism. My privilege. While it seemed like the whole world was falling apart, I had landed in this small community of thoughtful people. Of people from different places and backgrounds and cultures. I felt safe here that Tuesday. And so lucky. Like so many communities across America, we became one campus that day. One body of grieving souls. One community. For which I remain grateful.

Here’s where it gets hard for me. At this point, I can’t always dissect my life experiences from one another. 9/11 was an integral part of my first year of college, but moreover an integral part of the emergence of my adulthood. That same year, I lost a grandfather and a dear friend, David. I met hundreds of people and made thousands of mistakes. Over the next four years I'd travel abroad and meet thousands more. I'd watch a friend succomb to suicide and another battle with serious mental illness.  I'd begin and end (and begin again) relationships that would teach me the capacity with which I was capable of loving.  Over the last ten years, I’ve lived a lot of life in a short number of years. This community has been the backdrop for most of that life and in this space I’ve learned how to process the things that don’t make sense. To grieve. To grow. To laugh at myself. And those first weeks, and those first relationships, have remained so significant.  Perhaps because this was how we started.  This was my very first big thing.

In my ten years in this community, we’ve watched towers fall and gasped as two wars have been declared. We’ve protested and rallied together. We’ve learned how to define big grown- up words like “community” and “justice” and “inequality”. We’ve watched presidential elections and debates. We’ve heard the voices of famous politicians and policy makers. We’ve debated controversies and we’ve shared great stories. We’ve laughed until we’ve cried. We’ve listened to world-renowned musicians and held small, intimate conversations in our rooms and classrooms and offices. We’ve struggled through moments of ignorance and misunderstandings together. We’ve grieved losses and shared humility with each other. We’ve been outraged by each other and ourselves. And we’ve helped each other process it. And though we don’t always agree, we celebrate the freedoms of academia.

And for me, this day of remembrance is a remembrance of all the things I’m thankful for. For this community where we have the freedom to think critically about issues like social justice and kindness and humanity. For the grace and courage to ask hard questions. For the multitude of opportunities we have to learn about ourselves and the world. And how to make it a better place.

I’ve always loved that our College seal references First Thessalonians, chapter five, verse two: “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” I find this fitting because this is what our students have always done so very well: ask questions, dig deeper, challenge the status quo, seek solutions.

On this day of remembrance, I’ve challenged myself to have deeper gratitude. For my work. For my students. For my family. For my experiences. For the ability to dig deep on the issues that I care about. For the freedoms I have to learn as much as I can and to share that knowledge back out with my community. An endless ebb and flow of knowledge seeking and information sharing.

For our greater community, I challenge us to transform a decade worth of confusion into action. To allow our anger to motivate intellectualism and compassion. To allow our discriminations to motivate democracy and justice. Our apathy to motivate empathy and civic engagement. That we move into the next decade not discouraged by our lack of progress, but encouraged that there is still great work to be done. Motivated that we are the dreamers and the thinkers and the activists and the policy-makers for the next generation. And that we all have the ability to do something. To be a part of it.

Two-headed monster

Sometimes after I’ve been on vacation for a while or, say, I've spent two weeks in another country (or on another continent), I have this sobering re-entry into the real world.  Into my real life.  For the short amount of time I’m away from my daily life, I disconnect just long enough to remember what life can be like when it isn’t a total bat-shit crazy race.  I’m reminded of another kind of life that exists—“Island Life”, I call it.  And I lust for ways to integrate island life into my Baltimore life.  My noisy, has-and-wants-too-much wandering life.

When I was in college I’d sneak away to my quiet, picturesque mountain town during holidays and breaks and I’d so quickly fall back into my old patterns.  I’d hang out with the people I’d known since toddlerhood, cracking the same old jokes since 1985, and falling into a kind of lazy comfort that only comes from years and years of life shared with friends and family.  I’d drive the long way home just to see the sunset over the mountain ridge.  I’d leave my house and take my ancient Honda station wagon, covered in liberal, peace-mongering bumper stickers, “up in the forest” (which is what we’d say when we’d take the windy road up into the mountains and into the national park that covers a large portion of the county) and park my car along the side of the road.  There are hundreds of spots where you can just wedge yourself between the trees and the river and listen to the noise it all makes when you’re quiet.  And I would sit, often stunned, next to that river, comparing my two worlds.  The noise of the water just loud enough that I was comfortable thinking whatever I wanted—no one else could possibly hear it.  Here was this life that was really quite charmed—safe and secure, nestled between the river and the valley.  I knew everyone I needed to know—and they knew me.  I didn’t have to prove much to anyone anymore because they’d known me since I was in diapers.  They knew what I was capable of (and they knew my faults, too).  Life, in general, was pretty quiet and slow.  Things happened gradually.  People lived pretty simply.

Then there was this new life I’d discovered in this bizarrely large city called Baltimore and this small, wooded, suburban college campus.  I could never find my way anywhere (accept around the one loop road that outlined my college), the city roads made no sense to me, the drivers honked and drove too fast, and these “beltways” that wrapped themselves around Baltimore and Washington, D.C. felt more like boa constrictors than highways, slowly choking the life out of the communities they “belted”.  But there was this group of people I’d met who were so much like me it scared me (because that didn’t happen often in that small town of mine).  They were liberal and progressive and snarky and thought the same weird things I thought were funny to be funny, too.  There were things in this city that were wholly new to me—things that scared and excited me, equally.   I encountered people and situations I thought only existed in movies (uhh…lesbians are real!?).  I made all kinds of messes.  And mistakes.  It was exciting and shiny and new and I had to work, for the first time in a long time, to have an identity—to find that same “comfort” I’d had in my cozy little hammock of Western North Carolina.  Oh and did you see The Wire? Yeah.  It was like that, too.

I’d take the flight, or ten hour drive, back to Baltimore, fretting over the transition that would inevitably happen in the coming days.  The giving up of what I knew for the gnawing discomfort of the unknown.  The speeding up of life.  The loss of my sweet, subtle southern accent.  The lack of understanding people had about where I was from and what real life could look like without giant shopping malls, access to designer anything (because we had Sky City and Wal-Mart…take your pick), or anything too complicated, really.  Not to mention there was this charming naïveté I’d come to love about the people I grew up with.  It couldn’t be more different from the cynicism and biting commentary I was growing to love from my new Northeastern friends (although I wasn't entirely sure I really liked it just yet).  I almost felt like the two worlds couldn’t possibly share space in my identity.  It was too exhausting to go back and forth.  It was basically culture shock, every single holiday and vacation.

And I’ve discovered, for better or for worse, that gradually, I’ve shifted my identity.  I’m still from that small mountain town and my childhood is an inescapable part of who I’ve become—but I’ve modified my home base.  I’ve allowed a lot of complication into my life.  It’s messier and noisier than I ever expected it to become.  I care too much about the brands on my feet and the realness of the pearls in my ears.  I still fall in love with all the wrong people (and some of the right ones, too).  Baltimore has become my home, without asking (rude), and while I’ve come to love the noise and rats and quirky appeal of Charm City, there is still something wonderful about getting away.  About sneaking out at the crack of dawn and watching the harbor fade in the distance as I head south (or just out).

It never fails, though, that the getting away triggers all these questions and leads me into this deep, dark journey into the “person I’ve become”.  And it awakens the Piscean gypsy in me that feels uncomfortable with being so settled—so embedded in a lifestyle that I can’t quickly pack up and leave from without a moving truck and at least a month to do laundry and buy boxes.  It makes me think questions like, “Have I become the asshole I never wanted to become?” or “Would I like me if my high school me met me now?”

There is no doubt that Baltimore has changed me.  Working in a low-income urban community in an inadequately resourced public school system will change your life.  It changed the way I think and the way I talk and the way I see the rest of the World.  It changed how I think about systems and education and accessibility.  In fact, it changed my whole path.  I never intended to stay this long.  I had a one year plan.  This turned into a five year plan.  And it looks like it’s quickly become a ten year plan.  I think I suck at plans.

And the timing of this internal babbling is pretty spot on.  For those of you who work in higher education, you know what the months of August and September are all about.  It’s like our January.  Our spring.  Our Easter.  Also, our living hell.  We are reborn into a new academic year with a new freshman class of students, so wide-eyed and brimming with excitement and fear and all those feelings of being torn between their old life and the new life they’ve yet to realize.

These last few weeks have also been trying, to say the least.  These are the weeks where we all cuss under our breath, all day long, wondering why the hell we pissed away June and July with retreats and half-days and week-long vacations (although if I recall correctly, my summer wasn't particularly quiet, either).  These are the weeks we work 10 hour days and weekends without even realizing it (what day is it, anyway?).  These are the days we deal with hovering parents and toxic levels of anxiety and lots of tears and lots (and lots) of whining.

But these are also the days where I find myself questioning, just like the first-year students, "Where have I come from?" And "where am I going?"  Sometimes the motivational talks and speakers and events continue to reach me, and to move me (perhaps more than the students?).  The messages of "explore with wonder and awe" and "challenge yourself to grow" are messages I have to remind myself every morning.  Because it's easy to become okay with the mundane routine.  It's easy to get caught in the cycle of blah and to forget that a part of living life is actually enjoying it.

As I've been readjusting to a new semester, a new year, and frankly still trying to process all the things I'm thinking and feeling about this last trip to West Africa, I'm feeling contemplative and like I'm just on the verge of some new breakthrough--some new insight into my world. 

When I'm traveling or headed home, I often don't look at a watch.  I try my damndest not to have a schedule or a plan.  I try my best to go with the flow (although the "work" me has been so well trained that it often takes days to really slow down and disconnect).  But coming back is like a slap in the face.  My inbox has piled up, I've forgotten just how mean people really are, and the soft, quiet, subtlety of not really caring what happens is replaced by the loud, blinking, anxiety of my working life. 

This week I've been having lots of long talks with friends and colleagues about the nature of life and the nature of our work in higher education and in the community.  These have been deep, philosophical conversations that ebb and flow somewhere between, "why are privileged white people so stupid!?" and "does the work we're doing even really accomplish anything?"  And somewhere in those discussions, too, is this private battle of mine between these two people inside me, like a two-headed monster; the "Baltimore" me who has become hardened and bold; the small town girl who still remembers what the frogs on the pond sound like at night and how the dew smells first thing in the morning.  The girl who empathizes with the urban poor and all the issues wherein (and has become pretty vocal about it, too) and the girl who understands small-town values and who wasn't shocked when George W. Bush was elected again.  The girl who has spent months of her life in places like Ghana and Benin, experiencing new cultures and religions and tastes and sounds and people and the girl who remembers being afraid to drive to the other side of the county because it was too far away.  The girl who still smiles anytime she smells honeysuckle and the girl who doesn't even notice anymore when a rat darts across her path in the alley.   

The girl who is still trying to figure out how to have the best of both worlds.  And how to be happy about it.    

Africa is Hell

Since I was a little girl I’ve had this bubbling desire to do something—to help people and to make things right.  I remember the first time I recognized class:  I was a little girl and went home with one of my classmates after school.  Being a kid, I didn’t really know the difference yet between new furniture and old; I didn’t know what to look for in a kitchen or a bathroom for signs of new-improvements.  I didn’t even know the difference between a house and an apartment.  I was focused on the Barbie dolls and the glue sticks and the make believe.  I guess I didn’t really comprehend it, but it was something I felt—this place was different than my house.  When I got home and started asking questions about the difference I quickly was told to be thankful and polite—furthering my suspicions that something other existed.  I suddenly felt overwhelmed with this new knowledge and uncomfortable about how to deal with it.

Throughout my childhood, my father was the director of Social Services in my small, southern, mountain town.  I would go to his office and see people I knew in the lobby.  Years later I would understand what this meant—friends of mine that were in the lobby because their parents were applying for food stamps or welfare.  I didn’t understand how lucky I was.  As I become more conscious of this lucky place I had landed in life, I also learned how to feel guilty about it.

When I got to college, this only exacerbated itself.  I discovered not only my guilt about class—but my guilt about race, as well.  I suddenly become aware of what it meant to be white and privileged.  I read book after book about how evil I was—an honorary white, female member of this budding bourgeoisie class coming from the small, private, liberal arts colleges of the world.

And in my sophomore year, I decided to go on a three-week study abroad program to Ghana.  That first trip rocked my world.  I experienced these things every day, all day for a month.  I felt my white skin, for the first time, as a minority.  I was questioned, out right, about my class and my guilt—didn’t I feel horrible for what had happened to the African man?

On this first trip, walking through the slave castles, a young Ghanaian stops me and asks: Don’t you feel terrible for what your people did to us?  His question is so blunt and so forthright that I stumble on my words and can’t answer him.  Here I am, walking around feeling heavy about this whole experience, and this total stranger pins the whole thing on me.  I'd never thought to ask myself if I felt responsible for slavery.  He walks away with a smirk on his face.  He had won.

I searched my soul for a response to the young man's question.  I sought some kind of a reaction that would illicit some large scale change in myself.  I arrived home with a false sense of simplicity.  I threw away clothing, I scaled down my possessions—seeking solace in a temporary reduction of the stuff I felt cluttered my life and my vision.  I felt almost pious about these acts.  As if these reductions had somehow made me a better person.  In truth, the possessions crept back in to my life, over time.  After all, it was never really the possessions that bothered me in the first place.  It just seemed like the simplest place to start.  The least messy place to begin.  If I didn’t start with my stuff first, I’d have to actually look into myself for answers.

But the question, and the thousands of new questions that stem from that first one, have sat on me for eight years.  Don’t I feel like I need to do something?  Is there something I can do to help?  To make amends?  To change things?

On each of my trips, I watch children with distended bellies reaching out for my hand.  Grown men and women beg for money.  Young men run scams for the tourists, desperate for American dollars or something from our luggage.  Women in markets offer you their children (mostly as a joke, but some not so much), begging you to take them to America.  Posters in shack-like store fronts proudly display images of America—red sports cars in front of McMansions—referencing the American Dream.

And each time I struggle with myself.  How can I have so much and be here with people who have so little?  And most of all, how do I even begin to understand—to empathize—what this space is about?  How do I cope with who I am?  How could I sit comfortably with myself, knowing what I now know about how wrong the white man did Africa?  And even worse, I'm always met with questions when I come home that I don't know how to answer.  Why do you like it there so much?  Why doesn't it scare you?  Questions that make me angry and I don't always know why.

My work with urban youth in Baltimore has helped; these kids have taught me an awful lot about the realities of race and class in America.  And I’ve learned a lot about my own skin.  I’ve become sensitive to the way people talk about others, as if somehow ethnicity, class, and race affect a person’s humanity.  I haven’t just read about poverty in textbooks—I’ve seen these things.  I’ve felt it.  It’s a different beast all together to feel these things.

So today while I'm packing a bag with my designer white jeans and my malaria pills and my expensive arch-supportive sandals, I’m struck by how far I’ve come since that first trip.  How much more comfortable I’ve become with my status.  I guess I’ve become more comfortable with myself, in general, and most importantly I think I’ve gotten over the self-righteousness that comes with being a “do-gooder”.  I spent too many years of my early twenties feeling really, really proud.  It wasn't doing me any good.

I feel a distinct difference in my heart from the first empty hand I turned away.  I feel that my guilt has shifted to a new space.  I still feel like shit, at times, but I have a different understanding of things like community and wealth and race.  I’ve come to love these communities—these places I travel.  I’ve learned a lot of hard lessons about history and a human’s capacity for forgiveness.

I also have a new understanding, and perhaps appreciation, for what my role is while I’m traveling through these communities.  I’ve become more okay with who I am. I am a white woman of privilege.  I am American.  I remember on my first trip wanting so desperately to be somewhere where I didn’t stick out.  Where I wasn’t the subject of everyone’s conversation.   Where I wasn’t the white girl.  It was another first encounter with other.  I didn’t know what to do with the feelings I was having.  I couldn’t find words to explain myself.  I didn’t know how to get over myself.

When I was working in the Baltimore City Schools, I had hundreds of moments where I felt like this.  Where I wanted to be liked.  Where I wanted to blend in.  To not be the white lady.  To not carry the baggage of all the horrible things the “white people” seem to do around here.  And I learned, as most of my friends who teach in schools where they are the minority, that this was, fundamentally, my issue.  The kids didn’t really understand what it really meant—they barely recognized me as a white woman.  It was me who recognized myself as a white woman.  As a contrast.  And I had to sit on it.  I had to feel uncomfortable for a few months.  And it eventually changed--but I think it was me who changed.  Not the situation.

And the kids helped me cope with myself.  One afternoon, a small child, we’ll call her Jada, was sitting next to me in the cafeteria.  For some reason she’d been calling me “Godmama” all week.

She asks, “Godmama, can I have another cookie?

“No, Jada,” I reply, “only one for every one.

Another child walks by, sucking his teeth, “Man, she can’t be your godmama! SHE WHITE!"

Jada, without skipping a beat, replies to him without the slightest bit of hesitation, “SHE NOT WHITE! SHE LIGHT-SKINNED!"

She then quickly and innocently turns to me, places her hands on my face and says, “When people call you white, it hurts your feelings.” 

Breakthrough.  Not white, light-skinned.  All about perspective.

And I’ve had to dig deep on what these things mean.  And I’ve learned that I’m not afraid to feel hurt or scared or to get my hands dirty.  I crave to understand.  Yeah, those things suck when they’re happening but what comes out on the other end is something that I often can’t name (although I’ll probably try).

And yes, I still have moments when I feel terrible, but I am who I am.  I must start from this point.  I can’t be anyone but who I am and I cannot continue to make excuses for where I come from.  We all have a role to play in this world—the question becomes: what do we do with the power we have?

I know now that I'll never really save the world, despite all the liberal idealism I once had for myself.  I've learned too much.  I've had to get over myself.  These last few years of traveling back and forth, I know I’ve been taught a lot more than what I’ve brought with me.  I’ve seen more in these small self-sufficient villages that will educate me about community, about living, about humanity, than I would ever get from a lesson in a classroom.  But it doesn’t make turning away those hands any easier.

I recently flipped through a travel book preparing for my site visit.  Stuck between a paragraph on volunteering in Africa and safety tips was a sub-chapter entitled “Africa is Hell”.  At first I read the short paragraphs waiting for the punch line—for the intended joke.  There wasn’t one.  The author was being genuine.  He wanted to remind his readers not to get caught up in the fantasy of Africa.  He wanted to include a reality check—a remember the-AIDS-rate-and-the-fact-that-civil-wars-erupt-overnight message.  As if anyone whose ever really gone and known what it feels like could forget that.  I'm not sure the editor really read this book before it went to print.  Or maybe he did because he fundamentally believes this. 

I've spent weeks laughing about this "Africa is Hell" chapter.  And just today, as I'm packing and thinking and anxiously blogging, have I really processed what it means.  I guess I can't blame the guy for including the chapter.  I've seen the hellish parts.  I've walked past people in such unfortunate situations that will permanently sit on my heart; I've seen images that I'll never shake.  The place has changed me.  The Africa is Hell message ringing true.  And there are so many Americans who buy into the fantasy.  Who go to "Africa" (a place to many think is a country) to find their roots and to go on Safari and to dance with other just long enough to feel excited but not really digging deep or asking questions.  Africa is Hell, he wants to tell these people.  Don't go.  Don't ruin it.  Don't exploit it.

I can't ignore the facts.  No amount of sugar coating can take away the simple truths of what poverty really looks like.  Hunger does horrible things to someone’s eyes.  But I can’t shake this feeling that there is something more important happening under the surface of this pain and devastation.  If Africa is Hell, why do I feel changed?  Different?

And I struggle with myself.  Am I one of those Americans?  I don't feel like I am, but can I possibly be anything but that American?  I feel like I've got an exemption pass.  That I've earned my place here.  I've asked all the questions and I've cried and I've kept myself awake at night riddled with guilt.  I feel like I've had breakthrough.  Perhaps in this space, I'm light-skinned.  Because I've also seen the opposite.

Crashing parties is West Africa has become one of my favorite activities.  Between shots of local gin, and the hundreds of libations made to the gods (and to the elders), my liquor-soaked eyes observe smiling faces and joyful dances.  Women proudly prepare mounds and mounds of food, asking you to help and teaching you generations-old lessons on pounding yams, and everyone happily shares.  Small children hold onto your thumb and giggle when you repeat words in your terrible Twi and Yoruba.  This couldn't possibly be Hell.   

And of course all of this rationalization serves one purpose: to make me feel better about what I’m doing.  To make me feel more comfortable in my expensive jeans and pearl earrings.

As I'm packing, I'm remaining positive.  I'm looking forward to another few weeks in this place I've come to consider a second home.  I'm packing the gifts I'll bring to the people I've come to consider family.  The children I've watched grow-up.  The women I've become sisters with.  But the guilt never subsides for long.  It creeps back in with a mighty fist, demanding answers.  Questions that I’m not sure I know just yet how to answer.

Commencement

Sitting in the scorching hot sun on Friday, watching one graduate after another cross the stage, it struck me that I’m starting to feel old.  Now for all you sensitive 40 and ups out there, don’t get your panties in a wad.  I’m not implying that I am old, thus making you older.  I’m not that stupid.  I’m merely making a suggestion that with each passing year, I’m reminded that I am beginning to make my entry into the serious-we’re-not-joking-it’s-really-real world of adulthood.  I have friends with wrinkles.  And back problems.  And babies.  And divorce lawyers.  It’s weird.

I remember what it felt like that day and how amazing it felt to walk across that stage.   The excitement, the drama, the sadness.  Here I was in the cozy womb of my wooded college campus, among the people I considered my best of the best, and I was being asked to leave.  Graduate.  Pack up.  Move on.  I had spent four years laughing and discovering and growing and falling over stupid and accomplishing and throwing up from too much vodka from plastic containers and hiding in nooks of shadows of trees and gazing at stars and writing papers all night and pretending to tap dance down brick pathways and grieving and stumbling into new selves and former selves all while thinking “what is the self?”

For some people, college is this obligatory stamp on their path.  Four years (or maybe five) of requirements and probably too many parties and maybe the place where you met the person you married.  Or maybe you busted your ass to get through, working full-time just to get the degree.  This piece of paper that is supposed to somehow transform us.  Make us more hire-able.  Better employees. 

But for others, college is this space of discovery.  A chance to pause the rest of the world and completely absorb yourself in your own years of 18-22.  It’s like four years of padded walls and access to all the fingerpaint you could ever want.  Oh and Cookie Crisp.  And chicken fingers.  And the goal is to still come our hire-able and a better employee.  But maybe with some deeper, more philosophical thoughts on hand.

That’s how I remember college.  A journey.  A road.  A space of discovery.  A chance to figure out me.  Who I was and why I cared.  And why anyone else might ever want to, too.

I remember asking myself questions I’d never thought to ask before.  I remember trying to catch it all—all the things that were happening in my brain and in my ears and in my knees and in my eyes.  Trying to cram it all into my heart and my brain and my memory banks; horrified someone might steal this slice of life I’d stumbled across.  That I’d lose access. 

I remember all the tragically sad things that happened and how I thought there was no way my heart could ever find its pieces again.  And then finding those pieces, and emerging a bit more hardened and perhaps more wise. 

I remember laughing so hard I thought I’d die.  And reciting movies from heart.  And meeting women who changed my life—strong, courageous, hilarious women who taught me how to be a woman.  How to fight for myself.  How to love myself.   My girls.

I look up at the windows that face the lawn of commencement.  I think how many mornings I’ve woken up facing this lawn.  How many mornings I’ve been here.  With the sun on my face.  And all the things that have happened between all those sunrises.

This is home.  For nine years I’ve called this place home.  After being out in the real world for a few years, I came back to work here.  As a grown-up.  As an adult.  But I feel like one of the lucky ones, because I know what happens here.  I know how it feels.  I’ve felt it in my heart and in my hands and I’ve danced with it at night and I’ve rolled around with it in the rain.  I’ve tasted it on my tongue and I’ve taken it out on walks.  It’s not something anyone can ever put a thumb on and almost everyone tries to name it.  Each year a new student commencement speaker has the enormous task of trying to find words that describe this thing that happens here.  And I watch her catch her breath.  And it is there in her voice.  This thing we all know about.  This thing we cannot name.

There are days when I question why I ever came back to work here—this charming alma mater of mine.  Like anywhere, we have our own fair share of the dramas.  And I hear the others whine and moan and talk quietly behind closed doors.  Perhaps they don’t know.  But I do.  I know what happens here.  And I remember.  And those moments remind me why I’m here.

As I listen to the names, one after another, I look up to the window where I spent my freshman year.  And my eyes wander over to the window where I spent my junior year.  And I smirk because I know things about these walls.  And I look out at the lawn.  And I’m feeling old, but happy.  Missing my girls.  Knowing they'd be sitting right here next to me, in something terribly chic, clapping for people they don't know.  Because we know how it feels.  We know what happens here.