Forgiveness

   I told someone recently "you should learn to cope, and to love and to care about everyone despite their cruelties and issues." This comment was in response to behavior born out of a grudge against someone who had treated him poorly. Standing on the outside of a situation, it's easy to call someone out on being petty or unfair or immature. In the situation yourself, the distinctions aren't always as clear. In the last couple days I have found myself put to the same test; how do I respond to someone who has hurt me? Do I hurt them? Or do I forgive?

Anger and sadness weigh heavily on a body, residing in the bones, making them feel dense, leaden, and fatigued. Like the silence of cemeteries, not broken but accentuated by an occasional punctuated sob, they permeate your skin, and hair, and lay thick on your tongue. They stop you from running, or walking too fast. They stop you from laughing or speaking too loud.

    People are not homogeneous, whole things. We are made up of lots of little pieces. Not like puzzles, because those are rigidly defined, and people are not. We are each of us an individual atom with a cloud of electrons; personality traits, sometimes here, sometimes there. Each of us has a different group of traits, which is what makes us all individuals. Grudges can make us lose the things that make us who we are. They invade our personal lives, take away from us those things that were once meaningful. We learn to hate things because certain other people love them. We lose our tempers and snap at our loved ones. We lose ourselves. When that happens, when even a single electron is lost, we turn into a completely different element.

   Change is natural. But I don't want the change in my life to come out of anger, and spite, and enmity. I don't want to find out someday that I am no longer who I was, and I don't like the person I have become. So I have learned to forgive. When I told my friend that he should learn to love and care about everyone, no matter how cruel and unkind they may be, I was talking about forgiveness. Looking through your pain and finding the human in the face of the monster who has hurt you. It is hard, but it gets easier the more you do it. A few days ago I had to make a decision that I realized really wasn't hard to make; I must forgive. If I cannot forgive a friend, I must live the rest of my life saddled with the anger and enmity and the unhappiness borne of losing a friend and of holding a grudge. If I do not forgive, I hold a poison inside my own stomach and wait as it slowly moves through my body. What good do we gain from holding on to hatred, and anger, and negative feelings? We shackle ourselves with them. Forgiveness sets us free.

   I don't claim that forgiveness cures everything. It can still leave you aching, and sad, and tired. But the anger washes out. That's the first step towards healing. I haven't forgiven everyone in my life just yet, but I am working towards it. And I hope that someday my lungs will no longer be clenched with heavy cemetery air. I will find my lungs full of the fresh air of forgiveness, and I will be able to breathe, completely freely.

In Learning You Will Teach, and in Teaching You Will Learn

 Today I graduated from Jumpstart.

A couple months ago, when my site manager first sent out the e-mail, I read the words "mandatory event" with dread. There was nothing I wanted to do less than sit in an auditorium with a bunch of people I didn't know, "graduating" from Jumpstart. What's worse, graduation was to take place at the same time as one of the last two days of rugby for the season, and there is nothing in the world that means more to me than a Saturday of rugby.

But today, as I sat in that auditorium, rugby did not cross my mind. I found that the people around me didn't feel like strangers at all. In a row reserved for American University, I sat among the team members who I have worked with all semester, and with my site manager whose office I have visited more times than I can count from the beginning of the spring semester until today. It was not dread, or boredom, or disinterest that I felt as I sat there. It was pride, and love, and gratitude.

I have come to realize that I am extraordinarily fortunate to have found my way into this program. The other six people on my team are absolutely amazing people who I never would have met otherwise, but who have made my experiences this semester so much more than they would have been. I find that I do not have the words to communicate the affection I hold for each person in what I will always think of as my team,  although we have now graduated and I may be the only member returning to Jumpstart next year. My life is better for having met, and worked with, and laughed with them, and I will miss them all when they are no longer part of my weekly routine.

People always say that sometimes things just don't work out, but they forget to mention that sometimes they work just perfectly, as they did when I was offered my job at Jumpstart. This program has changed me as a person for the better, has broadened my experiences, and has taught me so much. I have been blessed with the presence of not only my team members and an exceptional site manager, but with the children in our classroom as well. Walking into that classroom the first day, we were greeted by children who were hesitant to participate, some who would not even speak, and none who trusted us fully; we were a novelty, a group of semi-adults in red shirts. One girl in my session would not speak, no matter how much you tried to engage her in conversation. On the last day of session, she excitedly pointed to picture in "Max's Dragon Shirt," shared her thoughts on the story, and told me all about her favorite TV shows and what things she likes best. A boy who had struggled with focus and aggression problems sat quietly entranced in the story, laughing when we pretended we were bunny rabbits and excitedly flipping through the book to show me his favorite part, over and over again.

On Thursday, I felt a piece of my heart leave with every child as they walked out of the classroom with their parents. When it was time for the team to walk away from the remaining children, there was a flurry of hugging and goodbyes as all of us struggled to find a way to leave our classroom for the last time. The boy I mentioned above came up to the team and, understanding somehow that Jumpstart graduation meant the end of our time together, asked us not to leave. I hugged him, and he told me to give him a big hug, which turned out to be a ploy so that he could wrap his arms and legs around my torso and refuse to let go. All the while I hugged him, and then tried to escape from his embrace, he kept repeating "Don't leave, keep holding on! Keep holding on!" It was all I could do to not break into tears as my team leader had to help me gently remove him from my body.

Today, I graduated from Jumpstart.

 I was proud, and happy, and sad to sit in that audience with the team that I have come to love and the site manager who has given me constant encouragement and pulled me through moments when I felt overwhelmed. Every person in that room shared in the dedication that I have felt to this program, and made it possible for us all to go out every week and teach children. Not to read at them, or speak at them, but to learn and grow with them, and to truly teach.

This semester, I have faced a lot of trials. I am still working to complete my 300 hours of service for Jumpstart. AUTO vans have basically become a second home to me. I have tried fruitlessly to keep children from fighting with each other and have raced through this semester, trying to keep my head above the sea of things that have always needed to get done. Through all of it, there has been constant joy.  Afternoons of children smiling; travelling in the back of a Jeep with my team, laughing until I cry; seeing my own improvement and feeling the development of my own skills in the classroom.  It is with many emotions that I promise a little boy who may forget me, but who I will never forget, that I will keep holding on. I will keep holding on to the values and lessons I have learned, the experiences I have felt, the memories I have forged, and the Jumpstart mission, which I have adopted as my own. I will keep holding on to those things, and I will never let them go.

Learning from myself

Two years ago, I found myself looking at a fresh world, reborn through the experience of temporary loss. I felt the stirring of what would become a strongly naturalistic sense of spirituality, and my blood blazed gloriously in my veins with the youth and rejuvenation of a love I had never previously understood. Today I found an essay that I had written expressing my newfound experiences with the earth. 


I have been struggling for the past few weeks to find a way to express myself through my writing. I have felt insufficient, and redundant, and plain. The awakening of the plants and birds and animals of spring has filled me to bursting with the passion of life and I have felt the ache of inexpressibility writhing in my marrow. Finding this essay was a break-through; it reminded me that I have the voice and the words to tell the whole world of my love of this earth. I'd like to share these thoughts for now, written two years ago but never grown old. I will use them in the coming week to inspire myself to tell again the story of my springtime soul. 

~

I knew, when this summer began, that I had changed over the course of the past year. That everyone had changed, and that coming together again we would all be different. What I did not expect, however, was to continue to actively change throughout the summer. In my mind I pictured a pause on life, a three month lull in the changes that had consumed me in the midst of the school year, in which I would spend time with old people and old places (despite my friends’ changes) and get a few self-assured breaths in before diving into a new year of constant alteration. 

Neither the people nor the places here are old. Even the people I know best have changed, for the better as far as I can tell. The places are different too; or maybe it’s just the eyes through which I’m seeing them now. As a result, I have found myself changing more drastically in this last month than any of the months I was away. 

I have found a sharp, almost painfully beautiful sense of life in the world around me. Every blade of grass, flower petal, speck of powder on the wing of resting moth  is a bundle of energy, part of the eternally existent and perpetually shifting amalgamation of energy that we all are a part of. One day, I will find myself the translucent material in the wing of a dragonfly. Or if I’m lucky, I will be a piece of bark on a tree on a mountain, overlooking the beautiful landscape of New England. 

I have realized I cannot be separated from this land. To pull me away from the mountains and valleys and fields and flowers of New England would be to cut off my breathing, to reach into my lungs and systematically puncture every small bubble within them. Everything, every rock and flower and insect has a place and a name. Even the things I fear, the blood-suckers, the man-eaters, the carnivores and the hunters are part of the natural destruction that strikes a balance in the world. 
I have regained my sense of self here. I have found my independence again, something I fear I began to lose at school. I have longed to separate myself, find myself a mountaintop to sit upon and look out over the hills and mountains, lakes and fields of my homeland, alone. I have wanted to venture through the woods, solitary, finding myself and my long-gone loved ones in the roughness of the hickories under my palms, in the coolness of mud against my fingertips, the wetness of brooks against my calves and feet, the joy of richness against my eyes. I have recovered strength in these longings. I am in the midst of locating my home. 

I don’t know who I am. I never have. But I’ve never been as close as I am now. When I sit in the dark and look up at the stars I can feel my own presence as though I was another girl, sitting beside myself. I always get to understand who I have been immediately after I change; I know my 5 and 10 and 15 year old self so much better than I know my almost-20 year old self. 

Almost 20 years old. I have lived on this earth for a fifth of a century. My life is more than a fifth of its way through. I used to feel as though I had not accomplished anything, but now I cling to memories of wet grass in graveyards and the feeling of gravestones under my fingertips. I still feel the prick of thorns in the raspberry patches of my youth and still feel the bright red life of the berries dying my skin and lips. I remember the feel of my Daisy’s fur beneath my fingers and the joy of her tongue-lolling smile as she chased me down hills through the snow. I remember the edges of the small pond that seemed the size of eternity to a little girl, and I remember the view from the top of the mountain I climbed last month. 

My life is like stained glass, so many different fragments bound together to build a life; bound together not with lead, but with love. Every day creates another memory, another fragment bound together, until, from the many windows I construct, four walls will spring forth. There will be my house of worship, my spirituality, and my love. I will pray only to the power that I can find within myself, and no one else. I will not seek protection via any means other than my own, I will not seek answers beyond what I pursue through my own mind and hands. I will not wish for miracles that I cannot create within my own life. 
I may not know myself, yet. I may be building a life of colored glass, such a fragile, easily-fracturing material. But love will be my guide, and the trees and stars, and those I had lost who I have found, hiding in the rocks and rivers. I do not yet know quite where I am, but I am anything but lost. 

Who can be lost , who has befriended the earth? 

Why March 1, 2012 Matters To Me (And To You).

As you may or may not know, this Thursday, March 1^st, is the National Day of Education. It sounds like one of those bullshit fake touchy-feely holidays that the government creates to appease workers in a specific sector and make them feel special and recognized. It’s just one of those days that passes by and no one even looks up to see what it’s about; National Day of Education? What does that even mean? I have been guilty of a lack of awareness of this date in the past, but education is not a joke, and it deserves more than the false recognition that a passed-over "National Day of" can grant it. This year particularly it holds special significance for me and for many other students in the DC/MD area.

Education has always been an important part of my life. I grew up in a family whose socioeconomic status was always decidedly lower-middle class, at best. It at times hovered just above the poverty line. At other times, it dipped below it. Despite our financial situation, which has been dire at times, my parents never shirked on my education, or that of my siblings. When I was six we moved from Maine to New Hampshire and my parents specifically chose the town that they live in today because of the public schools it feeds into. Up until I was in 8^th grade, my father read to me every night before I went to sleep. Every class project I brought home was inspected for neatness and thoroughness. The importance of my education was emphasized to me at every moment possible.

I was lucky. My parents pushed me to do well, and I did. I got a scholarship, which is why I’m at AU today. My dad, a small business owner whose credit status is important to his ability to grow and maintain his company, put his credit on the line to cosign my private loans. My parents work hard every day, and they still don’t have enough money to pay for my college tuition, but they send me whatever they can, and sometimes, I feel, more than they should. I work an average of 55 hours a week over the summer to save enough money so that I can take out less than $10,000 in private loans every year. I take a work-study job during the school year, not for extra spending money, but for living money. Between my federal and private loans, I currently owe about $55,000.  Every year I submit the FAFSA and cross my fingers that this year, I will get enough money to truly afford school. And every year after I see the ridiculous amount of money that the federal government thinks I can give for school, I spend several weeks on the phone with AU's Financial Aid office, begging them for more financial aid money. I have felt overwhelmed at times, panicking and determining that I will drop out of college and work for a goddamn living. Then my dad looks me in the face and says "there is no way you are not going back to school. We will figure this out." And we always do. I manage to keep my head above water, but sometimes I feel like I am going to sink. Right now I owe American University $300 that I just don’t have, and my class registration for next semester will be blocked until I can pay it.

Why is this important? Why should you care? Because like I said, I’m a lucky one. Not everyone I know has managed to afford school. I had the sheer luck to be born into a family that pushed me and supported me in my educational endeavors. I have a secure job working for my parents every summer. They need me there and demand long hours of me, but without that job I would be about $12,000 further in debt than I am right now. Some kids can’t get jobs- most don’t get scholarships. Many didn’t have someone willing and able to cosign a loan for them.

So they don't go to school. And they never will.

This March 1, there is a student action in Washington. The students at our universities have chosen to band together and take a stand against the limitations that greed and inequality have placed on the ability of many Americans to get a good education. We are promised the Constitutional right of equal protection, and of equal rights. But we are not granted an equal access to education. We are discriminated against based on the socioeconomic status that we are born into.

This must end.

Students in DC have worked hard to identify and isolate specific grievances against our current educational system. We take fault with the commercialization of student loans and of the educational process in general. Banks and lending agencies have preyed on vulnerable young students for long enough. Corporations have had a greater say in students’ education than the students themselves for long enough.

I have had to struggle to pay for the education that my parents and I have worked for my entire life, for long enough.

On Thursday, March 1^st, the students of DC will march to the Department of Education and let this government know exactly how they feel about the financial burdens placed upon students in this country. I have made the difficult decision not to be there that day. For three years I have worked in education programs for underprivileged youth and have seen their aspirations destroyed by the inequalities inherent in DC’s public education system. I currently work in a preschool program for underprivileged children, and I have a duty to be with them on Thursday afternoon, helping them overcome the hurdle of poverty to begin their own educational journey on the same footing as economically better-off students. But you can be there. Everyone can be there. We can all unite to tell the Department of Education that our access to education will no longer be limited by bureaucrats and bankers.  Students, teachers, parents, and friends- we can all stand together, in solidarity, to protect the education of America.

For more information about the March 1^st action, please refer to the many flyers posted on the bulletin boards in the educational buildings on American University’s campus, or consider attending the Occupy AU general assembly meeting tomorrow (Wednesday) night at 8 pm in the main lobby of AU’s SIS building. You can also see event details on the facebook page for the event: https://www.facebook.com/events/238565269564240/ , or leave questions for me in the comment area of this blog. 

Facing Down Fear

These are the images of fear; the images of crisis. This is what it looks like to fight for your home, your country, and yourself. This is what Saturday, February 4, 2012 looked like in McPherson Square.

 

We the people, unarmed and undaunted, were confronted by Metro police, US Park police, Special Ops, and SWAT team members. 

We were pushed, shoved, and forced away from the park that we have come to call home, and beaten with batons when we did not comply. 

We were forced backwards by officers using innocent animals to accomplish a brutal task.

We screamed out in fear, rage, hopelessness, desperation, and defiance.

Our cries were ignored, and the police continued their mission. 

We pleaded for an explanation, unable to comprehend what was unfolding around us.

We were forced to the ground by riot shields.

We were struck down and carried away in the arms of the police.

In the face of all this, we still stood in solidarity;

despite this wall of oppression.

And despite the mess that was left behind.

 

McPherson is still our home. While they may remove our bodies, they may never remove our hearts. They can silence the ground of a once vibrant community, but they cannot silence our thoughts. We are Occupy DC. And we are going nowhere.

Special note: All of the images contained in this post are the beautiful work of Sophia Yoshimi. 

In the face of brutality

     Three days ago, I had a conversation with a man named Pete who lives at McPherson square. He is an Occupier from a small town in Maine and started up a conversation with me when he noticed I was wearing a sweatshirt that read "Maine" across the front. He is friendly, welcoming, and a genuinely nice guy.  

     Today, I sat in the rain linking arms with other protesters I didn't know, soaked and freezing and trying to control my sobbing as I watched two police officers drag Pete into a closed off area and throw him, unconscious, onto the ground. They unceremoniously flipped him onto his face and left him lying there as those of us sitting in the open area screamed for a medic. They finally responded to our calls by finding a medic, who quickly checked to see if Pete was breathing, pronounced him alive and walked away. He was then handcuffed, shoved to his feet and carried away.  

   Today I went to McPherson square to show my support of the movement and to stand in solidarity with the people living there as police tore down their tents. In return, I was greeted by violence. Officers forced people back off the sidewalks and out of the park with their riot shields. When one officer lost his temper, he opened up the police barrier and dove forward towards one protester who was yelling too loudly and asking too many questions. As a result, I was part of a crowd of people who were pushed back by their shields and jabbed with batons. When I was pushed backwards and hit in the hand with a baton, an officer knocked the phone from my hand that I was videotaping with. He continued pushing forwards and shoving people, including myself, who had already dispersed from the area of conflict until a fellow officer came forward and stopped him.

   Police repeatedly told Occupiers that if their tents met with the compliance guidelines, they would be left up. They then violated their own word, tearing down tents indiscriminately. They promised my friends a police escort out of the park when violence broke out, and then left them on their own as they were forced out by other officers' riot shields. They told us we could relocate to the east side of the park, and then blockaded us with police horses when we tried to hold a meeting in the area that was supposedly "open." The entire park remained closed. 

  Today, I saw things that I never thought I would see. An unconscious officer was carried out of the park by his fellow officers. Special operations, park police, and the metro police all joined together in taking control of the park. As I sat with 14 other individuals on the ground, linking arms in solidarity, the protesters standing around us were beaten backwards with riot shields and batons. One man tripped and fell onto us as he was forced backwards, and then was held down on top of us by an officer with a riot shield, even as that officer shouted for him to back up. As the crowd was forced backwards, my friends (because they are all my friends, even those who I did not know) and I listened to the angry shouting and terrified screaming of people being pushed and beaten. My friend and I had to hold down another friend as she tried to jump up and join in the crowd, desperate to find one of her friends who had been forced into the crowd. We were threatened with arrest for sitting peacefully on the ground in a public park as violence broke out around us. 

The things I saw today will stay with me forever. My friend described it best when she said that the events we saw today could not be described. I do not trust my ability to communicate the desolation, hopelessness and helplessness that I felt as I watched people I have come to know and love, armed with nothing but their bandannas and their beliefs, face down police officers armed with batons, shields, mace, rubber bullets and terrifying violence. I cannot describe the fear I felt as I sat on the wet sidewalk, hearing a woman scream, as police officers on horses pushed into the crowd. Today I saw the trust that I have always placed in police officers get violated over and over again. I watched as the people who I trust to protect me violated the rights of us all. I saw images of violence that will never leave my mind. 

  Today is why I Occupy. Today, I sat in a crowd of people who have loved and accepted me from the first second I stepped into McPherson square a couple months ago. I Occupy for them. I Occupy for me. I Occupy for the police officers who violated us all. I Occupy for all the police officers who remained non-violent and did their job in a controlled, respectful manner. I Occupy for every citizen of the United States who wishes that things could be different. I Occupy for every person who exercises their right to peacefully assemble and protest, who recognizes that corporations are not people, who hates police brutality, who loves this country and is willing to fight to make it better. I Occupy for everyone.  I Occupy because I love this country with all of my heart and I want to see it live up to the potential that I know it holds to be more equal, and more compassionate, and less concerned with personal gain.

    Tonight I sleep in a warm bed in a safe, dry apartment on the campus of one of the most expensive universities in the nation. But my heart is in the streets, with my friends and fellows who have no warm bed to go to, because they have given it up in order to try and change this country. My heart is with my friends who never had a home to begin with. 

      In the face of brutality, I stand with the Occupation of this nation's capitol, and swear to continue fighting for a freer tomorrow for us all.