One more week before we head into summer training and programming. I seriously can't believe it.
AND I'll be 31 in 9 days. Also shocking. Where has 2014 gone?
8-year-old boy: I had the worst nightmare I could ever imagine. The most terrifying dream ever...my aunt was coming to visit.
16-year-old boy: I am a thug. Who needs a hug.
Me, to Colleague A, serving leftover dinner: Do you like beets?
Colleague A: Like, the headphones?
Me, to 12-year-old girl, wearing tangerine pants: I wish I could wear tangerine pants.
Girl: You totally could. They would match your face.
Colleague B, after I urged her to throw out her hummus in light of the Trader Joe's hummus recall: I'm so emotionally charged right now because of this hummus.
12-year-old girl: There are so many songs about lollipops!
Me: Well. That's because they're not really about lollipops.
Girl: I know, I told my mom I wanted a lollipop after hearing a song. "I wanna sing about lollipops!" (changing into Mom voice) "You're grounded."
Me, entering the office: It smells like meat in here.
Colleague C, the only man in the room: Sorry, that's me!
This has been a serious roller coaster of a couple weeks, for more reasons than I can possibly list or explain here.
But, even when I'm sad or confused or preoccupied, I get to interact with interesting and hilarious people every day. And end a very long week by eating cake and singing NSYNC. And that makes the time pass swiftly and I can laugh and feel better, if just for a moment.
12-year-old girl: Yoga is so refreshing. I feel so connected with Jesus.
Me: How did you decide who to go to prom with, from all your ladies?
18-year-old boy: They had to Rock Paper Scissors for it.
Colleague A, speaking generally about the scent of humans: You smell like person and I don't like it.
Me: I wanna put you in my pocket and take you home with me.
7-year-old boy: I want to do the same thing to you.
Me, upon seeing a copy of Judy Blume's Tiger Eyes: They can't read this book! There's sex and masturbation in it!
Colleague B: What do you think being a kid's all about?
12-year-old girl, to my colleague: I think I've grown sick of you...which is a good thing.
I don’t remember how,
but at some point in the recent past, I acquired a Lululemon bag. One of those red
and white ones with text all over it. I pack my lunch and dinner in it every
day before work.
One of the sentences on
it is that pervasive quote by Eleanor Roosevelt:
"Do one thing a day that
scares you."
I’m bad at this.
I like to stay squarely
in my comfort zone and have a hard time doing new things.
And yet.
My job is kinda scary.
I work with the kind of
kids that people avoid on the street. Because they’re loud or aggressive and
seemingly have nowhere to go. They gather in groups and take up a lot of space
and have the hard exteriors of kids who are growing up in a city.
But they come to where
I work, to be in a band or a play or to get a job or play basketball. To feel
safe and part of a community and to be seen and heard and included.
At work, I walk into large
groups of tall young men every day and tell them all to take their hats off and find a
program area to go to.
That used to scare me.
But only a little.
I am sometimes in
charge of the whole three-story building, staff members looking to me for
directions on what to do next. I shuffle everyone out, make sure they’re all
getting home safe, and arm the door at the end of the night.
When I think about that
too much, it scares me.
So I don’t.
Yesterday, one of my
mentees, a 15 year old whom I’ve known since she was 12, got into a terrible
confrontation with a teacher at her school.
So this morning, I
showed up at her suspension hearing.
I have never been to
one of those before. And I didn’t know what to expect.
And I sat with the
school facilitator and with my mentee’s mom and with my mentee while I heard
the whole story and she cried and shook and swore. I put my hand on her knee
and trusted my instincts and my skills to calm her down, and I made her promise
to follow through with a short-term plan, and I urged her to thank the
administrator and I asserted to her that she had an army of people who
supported her, and when she calmed down and even laughed as we ended the
meeting, and when she showed up at work to practice piano and we chatted and
laughed about when we first met, I hoped and wished that my words and support
had poked through her steely, defensive façade.
Two of our biggest special arts events are now completed: last week, it was the Exhibit Opening of the Special Artist Project that the kids participate in at the MFA, tonight, 12 members in our band performed at the Strand Theatre as part of the annual Music Clubhouse Showcase.
I am relieved and proud that they are both successfully over! Now, we coast til the end of the school year!
Me, to an 11 year old boy, during Homework Hour: Come sit with me!
11 year old: I demand respect because it's Cinco de Mayo!
Kid on the bus, to a 10 year old boy: Did you fart?
10 year old: I almost did, but it was a false alarm.
8 year old, to his friends: You know the Muppets? You know Kirby*? The actor that did the voice died.
Friend: He got shot?
*He meant Kermit.
Me, to an 8 year old girl: I need a snack.
8 year old: I have a hamburger.
8 year old girl, to Colleague A (male): You are such a girly girl.
Colleague A: I'm a manly girl.
8 year old: With furry pits.
Me, to an 8 year old boy, helping in the art room: Was this your idea?
8 year old: No.
Me: Whose was it?
8 year old: Mine.
This was my first normal week back at the grind, after my week off and April vacation last week.
I have a couple weeks of special events ahead and then we'll zoom through til the end of the year.
Shocking.
Me, to 7-year-old girl: You're so cute. What if I ate your face?
Girl: What if I chopped off your head?
Teen girl, to her boyfriend: What are you gonna do to piss me off?
Me, to her boyfriend: You're already planning on pissing her off?
Boyfriend: That's because she is! It's called EQUALITY!
Me: I'm obsessed with these new keyboards.
Colleague: I know. They're so soft. It's like they have mad lotion on.
Me, to 7-year-old girl: Where is your family from?
Girl: Dominican Republic.
Me: But you were born here?
Girl: Yep.
Me, to 10-year-old boy: Where is your family from?
Boy: Is that any of your business?!
April was my month for craziness and travel. I've just returned from a weekend in Providence with my old college friend. Old meaning, I've known her for 12 years. Old meaning, we're so much older than when we met at 18 and 19 years old. It was amazing and easy and fun and deep and heartening to reconnect with her in person--we haven't been together in about three years and we haven't lived on the same coast in almost nine.
Now it's almost May and May will surely kick my ass, but I am staying put for the next month or so, so hopefully it will all go just as planned.
13-year-old, upon my arrival back at work: You look lazy.
Colleague A to a 7-year-old boy: Your hair is so soft. I want to cut it off and put it in a bear.
Me, to 13-year-old boy: What are you doing in here anyway?
Boy: Being a black boy.
Me: What does that mean?
Boy: Being lazy.
Me, to a group of teens arguing about age: I'm older than all of you.
Teen boy: I'm older than you.
Me: How old are you?
Boy: 65.
Colleague B, referring to a burrito: The things I'm about to do to this. You might not want to watch.
I will type quickly to save the battery of my swiftly dying computer, whose charger expired the day before I went away for a week on a family vacation, on which I vowed to stay unplugged. I did a pretty good job of it and only jotted down a few choice quotes because I mostly left my phone in my room. Brother, when I mentioned that I was hot, at the memorial celebration for our grandmother: I spend a lot of my time overdressed. Me, having an identity crisis and feeling old, surrounded by my cousins' kids, ranging in age from 3-7: We're not littles anymore. We're middles. 7-year-old, during a game of Hide and Seek: Annie's big, so she is probably hiding somewhere hard and big. 3-year-old, crying: I want to go to sexy school! But we can't do our moves! Me, to 3-year-old: What was your favorite part of the week? 3-year-old: Playing with C. Me: Doing what? Him: Doing bad things. *** Here are the remarks I shared at the celebration for my grandmother, followed by the slideshow that started off the event. (Please forgive the bad formatting. I don't have time to fix them today, but you get the gist.)
I want to start by reading a couple paragraphs from my
grandfather, Charles Hockett’s “non-obituary,” which he wrote in 1996.
“In the fall of 1941 I sat in on a course in the Foundations
of Mathematics, given by a professor Wilder. In it were a southerner (male),
one fairly pretty and one very pretty girl, and others. I phoned the very
pretty one and asked her for a coke date. She said, "Are you the
southerner?" I saidNo in
a disgusted tone of voice (ask her!). But she came on the coke date. I remember
hearing the nickelodeon play "I don't want to set the world on fire, I
just want to light a flame in your heart," a lovely song that I would
enjoy hearing again. We went dancing, and took rides in the countryside. I
asked her to marry me, and she said she would.”
…
And, six pages later, after a detailed account of the years
1942-1958, he closes with, “Much more has happened since [then] than ever
before—my bookwriting (selling about six thousand copies in all), my songs and
opera and many other compositions; Shirley’s teaching at Cornell, at Ithaca
High School, and at Ithaca College, and her bookwriting (selling over a million
copies); children through school and college and off on their own; five
delightful grandchildren; trips to Maine, Utah, Wyoming and Montana and Idaho,
England, France, Spain, Italy, China; cruises to Alaska, around the Pacific,
and around South America; the Ithaca Concert Band and Shirley’s learning the
clarinet to play in it and my switching from flute to piccolo to bass clarinet—and
on and on and on. But to tell all that in as much detail as has been given
above would stretch this essay out beyond all reason.
Besides, I’m tired of recalling and writing.
So I have given this account an appropriate title, and thanks
for listening, and farewell.”
So you see, Shirley Hockett had it all. A large, boisterous,
loving family; a 59 year long marriage to a brilliant man who was insanely
devoted to and proud of her, travels that led her around the world, and a
barrier-breaking career in a field she was passionate about.
When we got the news that Mom-Mom had passed away, my cousin posted a brief tribute to her on Facebook, honoring the matriarch of our
family in a way I had never thought to but that struck me then like a bolt of lightning.
She wrote it “to the woman who taught me that I could be a leader.”
I grew up with this picture of Mom-Mom in my head, ruling
over us from a throne. (She didn’t actually have a throne, but that was how
powerful she was.) She could be at once corrective and cutting, then burst out
laughing, swinging back her beer and getting up to dance. I didn’t see myself
in her or her in me at all.
In the days and weeks that passed after her death, we
collected stories I had never heard and my image of what a truly remarkable,
strong, brilliant woman she was became clearer.
And, interestingly, my understanding of myself became clearer
as well.
I wanted to be an actress on Broadway until I was about 20
and was discouraged to discover that I was just OK. Then I got into directing,
which I realized I was pretty good at. When I graduated from college and moved
back to New York City, foolhardy and sure that I’d take the NYC theatre world
by storm, I spent about two years feeling like an utter failure until, in great
despair and ready to just give up, I started volunteering at a shelter and
discovered that working with kids was like breathing for me. I had never taken
to something so easily or felt so fulfilled by work.
I had searched for a calling my whole life, failing to
remember or refusing to make the connection that I’m from a long line of gifted
teachers.
From what I hear, Mom-Mom was a force in front of a class.
She prided herself on learning every kid’s name on the first day. There’s a
famous story of her continuing to write OFF the chalkboard and straight onto
the wall, to keep her students’ attention. One day, late in her last days, my
mom wrote to the family, recalling a visit she made to Bridges. As she was
getting ready to leave, one of the men who was there to visit another resident
said, "Hi, Shirley." Mom-Mom reportedly did a little wave. The man
said to my mom, "She was my teacher. She taught me calculus."
I saw Mom-Mom around Thanksgiving 2011, after I’d started my
job, a job I have now been doing for almost 3 ½ years. At that point, she
already didn’t know who I was, but we talked about my work and she told me she
could just tell that I was doing the right thing. It was important for me that
she seemed to know I was doing good work in the world.
My career is important to me; it’s a part of my identity, as
I know it was part of Mom-Mom’s. She was so proud of the work she did and
continued to work for years after “retiring.” I am dedicated to the kids I
serve, to teaching them that they are strong, intelligent, hilarious
individuals, that they matter, that who they are and whom they are becoming is just
right. And that they deserve and will certainly reach full, happy lives.
It has only been in
the months since Mom-Mom’s passing that I have come to fully realize that the
example I have in my mind of a full, happy life and my own certainty that I too
will have it all one day is thanks to her.
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