The door is still open...

Being in the near occasion of children is a precarious business.  They are notoriously trusting and forgiving, yet they often see through even the cleverest of adult ruses...even if they say nothing about it.  In the past three weeks, I've been privileged (and taxed) with responsibility for the writing improvement of students from a wide range of economic and cultural backgrounds.  I am not a patient person; I sound harsh sometimes when I say "I don't take shit off them," even when referring to my own boys, whom I love with all my heart.  But I think that is a good thing; children don't really want us to "take their shit," but it isn't our job to give it back, either.  Our job is to see through it - in fact, they want us to - and help them make sense of a better way of doing things without embarrassment about their need to learn.  I am just now fully grasping this concept, so please forgive my firm grip on the obvious.  That grip keeps my feet on the ground.

Some kids never find a voice that can be heard and respected.  It is instead lumped into a cacophony of other voices that are labeled a certain way ("athlete," "airhead," "Jesus freak,") and dismissed.  The kids behind the labels stop talking.  They stop writing stories about how they are afraid of the guy on the other side of the door or the weird shadow they see outside their window at night.  They write suicide notes instead, or they beat the hell out of someone who just looked at them wrong, or they tackle someone on the football field and put them in the hospital, or they become "funny" and verbally assassinate any idea (and the attached thinker) that contrasts with their own, or they just fold up and seal themselves away from scrutiny...and each of these misfit voices finds something arbitrary they can hold onto that they trot out when asked for a real, original opinion (something they've been taught isn't worth the risk), a substitute for the thinking they were convinced was irrelevant...and ridiculously money-motivated consumers are the mutations that result.  A user doesn't need to think - she just needs sources and resources.

I see the bright eyes of the girl who wrote "Cold Steel," about a girl getting got by a bad guy when she was simply enjoying cheese crackers.  I see the dumbfounded look on the athlete's face when he knew I'd actually read his argument and wanted to know how he was going to work out its defense and the answer to the "why I wrote this" question.  I see the flaming redhead, hiding behind her glasses, wielder of medieval wars in secret, longing to solve the problem of the War of Lies (which exists presently in reality and in her ancient realm)...and I'm in awe.  I want them to tell me how they hate the fact that whole communities exist by scavenging at landfills, suggesting ways in which to help the situation.  I want them to tell me how they love the turn of a phrase that makes all the difference, forged by their own hands.  I want them to see through their words that there is a reason why we must tell our stories - all of them, the fiction and the truth - because they lead us to understanding ourselves and others.  To know me is to love me?  Isn't that one of Steinbeck's profound, existential explorations in The Grapes of Wrath?   Stories lead us to common ground, words that are nondescript in thought alone, but poetic and life-affirming in the doing.  

It begins, as usual, with respect.

Graduation 2008

It's over.  The screeching halt I know is coming, came today.  So many beloveds I saw in passing; so many I did not see.  People I didn't get to meet, like Beth H's friend, Michael T.  Congratulations to you all.  You have cleared an important hurdle in life.  Parties and conversations and surreality.  How wonderful to be caught up in it and how strange it is, the suddenness with which it ends and life continues, seemingly uninterrupted.

I looked out over the green sheen of gowns and mortarboards, the blackness that always hovers in the walls of the Erwin Center, the faux and real tropical plants, Paige A. wanting to join the choir but not seeing a segue to do so without interrupting, the administrators who have sat through their third graduation in as many days, the impersonal slide show that I wanted to ask them to stop because it was so canned...and I realize, graduation isn't for the students.  I suppose it is for your families, but it certainly isn't for you.  You've already checked out, looked beyond, been struck by the reality of the ending time as you know it.  You've already outgrown this whole scene, and it is simply a formality to "graduate."  But sometimes we need formality.  Sometimes you need to be disallowed chewing gum, flip flops, and your opinion.  Some times you just need to do something because it would help someone else process what is happening to you.  And that seems to be my translation of this experience.  

Thank you, one and all, for the abundant beauty and hope you've graciously given me.  I love each of you and hope for you all the love and peace in the world.  Go and do some good.

Godspeed you on your way.