Choice Blog Week 7A huge influence on me has been my friendship with Kelly. I met her at the beginning of 11th grade. She was a skinny girl with huge hair, an overachiever in every sense of the word. I was new to the school and quiet and about to go through some of the worst years of my life. Our friendship started off normally, with a shared English class and working on a class project together. However, near the end of that year, after a lot of personal turmoil, I was kicked out of my house. I was 17 and my mom and many of the people I had grown up with completely disowned me. I spent the whole next year living in the basement of my dad, who had a new, young family and really didn’t have time for a problematic teenager. I spent my Senior year skipping my classes and feeling like nothing mattered and that everything in life was basically either corrupt or irrelevant. During this time, Kelly, perfect grades, President of the National Honor Society, Kelly stayed my friend. She was my friend when I failed Pre-Calc, she was my friend as I spent my art class smoking in the darkroom, and she was friend even when I got suspended. Her family offered me their spare bedroom and let me come over and spend hours with their daughter, although it was clear that I was not a good influence. Most of all, Kelly was my friend after high school. I was in Colorado, and I remember calling Kelly from the pay phone in a small town in a big, dusty, empty plain that I had been driving through for what felt like days. I told her I wasn’t going to college, that I was going to travel and “be free”. She told me that was ridiculous and asked me what my Social Security number was. Kelly, of course, had a full scholarship to Wayne State, and she decided I was going to go there too. She filled out my application, and I got in. That fall, after I had run out of money from being free, I moved in with her at her grandparent’s house and took my first three college classes, which ultimately changed my life. I was a poor student those last two years of high school, but college was a completely different experience. I found that I loved my college classes. Instead of being forced to take something I hated, I found that I got to study poetry, and art history and politics. Over time, I gradually learned how to love any class that I took by putting my mind and heart in it. I graduated from Wayne State Summa Cum Laude and went on to get my Master's degree from a prestigious, selective program at the University of Michigan. I don't know if I would have done any of this if Kelly had not helped me get onto this academic path. The year after I got kicked out, I felt like I would never trust anyone again. Kelly’s friendship showed me that, even when we are betrayed or abandoned by our own families, we can, if we are lucky, still have people that love us unconditionally, even when we are being stupid, or destructive or selfish. She not only got me to go to college, but she showed me that family is more than just being related. That I could and should trust people again. That I could choose my own family. 22 years later, we are still friends. I think I made a good choice.
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Week 6 Choice Blog"Yesterday, I was talking with a colleague, and I told her that she made my list of the "10 Things that Make Me Laugh." She said, "I'm glad, but I do it for myself. That is how I get through things." Laughter is one of the most precious tools in the fight against bitterness. When I was little, my family went to Canada with another family. Over the 10-hour car ride, almost eveything that could go wrong did, including getting lost, getting a flat tire, getting stuck in the mud and, when we tried to get out of the mud, getting leaches on us. Mud-splattered, leach-covered, every member of that family laughed their heads off. I think about that a lot when I accidently book a rental car 25 miles from the airport, or when a student tells me my favorite author looks like a "tool" in his author's photo, or when I realize I have 10 hours of grading to do in 2 hours of "free" time. Laughing at myself, or at a situation that could make me yell or cry in frustration, makes me remember that I'm not so important, and neither I, nor my students, will remember that it took a few extra days to get their essays back. Laughter is also the glue of all of my strongest relationships. I have been friends with Sara for over 15 years, and I have laughed with her at everything from her temper tantrum trudging up a hill in France in 100 degree heat to that fact that my college beauty regime consisted of combing a little bit of my long hair with a free comb that I got at a funeral. There are so many times when something happens, and I can't wait to tell it to Sara to make her laugh. Mark Twain said, "the human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter." In my life, I have experienced times where joys seem few and anxiety or sadness threatens to overwhelm me. In those times, and really everytime, I'm glad I have laughter by my side. Choice Blog Week 5
When I read Keturah's blog her last line really stood out to me, "So many other men, women, boys, and girls have gone through the same thing I have. After all things are said and done we all have one thing in common. We are strong. We have made it through the impossible and come out victorious. We are survivors." This made me think of an art piece I saw come through my Facebook feed that I have been thinking about for days. I love the idea that our trauma can make us stronger and even make us storytellers. We can turn pain into art.
Choice Blog Week 4On the radio this morning, I heard that activist Grace Lee Boggs died yesterday. Boggs was an advocate for social justice and a prominat activist in Detroit. I met her when I was in grad school when I did work with the organization that she started, Detroit Summer.
As I was listening to the article about her life, the first thing the reporter said about her was how, over the years, her ideas and ideals changed. She even said, "...changing was more honorable than not changing." The report goes on to say that a critic of hers said that, "we cannot change ourselves to change the world; rather, we must change the world to change ourselves.” That line has been bouncing around in my head all morning. How do we change the world if we can't change ourselves? This idea--that we have to wait for the whole world to change before we can change, is just silly. But, more importantly, how do we change ourselves? Ghandi said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world." but how do we do that in a world that seems so messed up? How can we be peaceful when the world is violent? How can we be caring when the world is unkind and may try to take advange of us? How do we impact problems that seem so big and impossible like global warming or institutalized racism or the increase of mass murders? One way I think we start is with ourselves. Hailey, one of my students, wrote about a project she and her mom are in charge of called "Tide Me Over," which works to provide lunches for children to take home over the weekend for familes that have food insecurity. To me, this is a good example of how individual changes change the world. By providing food for people in this community, they make the world a more caring, and maybe even safer place. It seems to me that a lot of the violence in our society happens because people don't feel cared for or connected to their communities. Choice Blog Week 3The past few weeks the project Humans of New York has been in Europe interviewing refugees who are seeking asylum there. Sometimes, I must admit, I skim over these stories in my Facebook feed because who wants to read about all this heartbreak in between cute kitty videos and random comments about my friends' lunches. However, this week I have made it a point to read all the refugee posts. I have even read some to my son. One in particular, describing a woman who lost her husband in the sea crossing, has been on my mind all week. I keep thinking about having to make the choice to get into a leaky, crowded boat in the dark to leave behind everything you know. I think about the families who pack their children on these boats. I imagine myself in the dark water, losing sight of my husband, knowing I will never see him again. Sometimes, I just feel helpless when confronted with stories that show that the world can be such a cruel and unfair place. Nevertheless, I am also impressed by the importance of listening to other people's stories and the empathy that a story can provoke. I think whenever countries make policy decisions, we have to keep in mind that we are making decisions about people. |
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March 2018
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