Imagining an Honest Thank You Note

Dear child I care about and their really great parent(s),

Thank you so much for the holiday present! It really means a lot to me that you thought to include me in your seasonal thank you's. Sometimes I feel a little pushed around at your school, like people don't see that the work I do running the afterschool program, which is also a large chunk of your student's arts programming, as a vital part of the education and support the school provides. It really feels good for a family to see me as important enough that I get a holiday teacher-present. Your kid is great, and I'm not just saying that. I really love how much of my job is about tending to young people's emotional experience, and I am learning so much about how to respond to sadness, happiness, frustration, anger, entitlement, wronged-ness, confusion, panic, exhaustion, overexcitement, glee as I support your child through their after school hours.

I have to say that I'm disappointed in your choice to buy me a Starbucks gift card. You weren't alone: they comprised all but two of my work-related holiday presents; its a little bit uncanny. I really don't want to seem like a brat here, but I don't like Starbucks. I try not to buy anything there. I feel strongly that corporate franchises are not doing good to culture or the planet. Big chains need to fill a lot of stores, and so it only really makes economic sense for them to do business with other big producers: large-scale factories and factory farms. I understand this scale of production and trade as fundamentally unsustainable. Because any chain store location provides the same feel and products as the first one you ever visit, I believe franchises foster a comfort with sameness. We place a high value on the convenience of this sameness: we know what to expect, we can replace our favorite product, trade in presents, or redeem gift cards any place we go- but as a trade off we are handing over what places make us comfortable, and what stuff we choose to buy (and thus eat, wear, drink, read, play with, listen to, and decorate our spaces with) to a smaller and smaller group of design "experts". Starbucks is particularly problematic to me because of its cultural position as ambiguously alternative and creative. By evoking some platonic ideal of an independent coffee house in its design, Starbucks has helped institutionalize the homespun coffee-house aesthetic, forging a model of how to profit off of the human need for identity expression through a process known as branding. Starbuck's is also thought of as vaguely conscious: and it is true that it is the largest buyer of Fair Trade coffee in the world, and has made some notable efforts to decreasing their carbon footprint.. In making symbolic changes towards greening their business practice that distract from the ways they are really wasting and abusing resources, they are participating in a scary phenomena known as 'greenwashing,' a play on 'whitewashing', that refers to corporation's ability to placate customer's ecological concerns with illusions of sensitivity that amount to almost no actual ecological change. Starbucks very successfully enacts all of the big trends that scare me about corporations, and they do it well. Receiving their gift cards almost exclusively as a holiday present from families, though, has made me newly aware of the uniquely awful role this company plays in society.

Look, I know this letter is kinda obnoxious, especially because I'm ostensibly writing to say thank you. Maybe you know all that stuff already, or maybe you don't agree with my beliefs about Starbucks. But because I love your child so deeply-though only a tiny fraction as intensely as I'm sure you feel about them- I feel a special intimacy towards you, which makes me desire to be honest with you. I don't think it's your fault that you thought buying a Starbucks gift card was a good idea, it's clearly the most socially acceptable, normal thing to do. You don't know much of anything about me, and you don't know where in the city I live, so it makes sense that you'd want to get me something as universally appealing as warm beverages, and that you'd want me to be able to get them whatever place is convenient to me-but I've already explained how insidious I believe this valuing of convenience is. There must be other options.

It is depressing that our common ground is Starbucks, I believe we can do better. How can we move beyond the expectation that we will endorse global chain stores, to function based on a common ground that is sustaining to our community, our city, our planet, our culture, and to each other? One family got me a bottle of wine, which I think is pretty awesome, but you could get me any number of foods or drinks, at whatever level of sustainability you wish to endorse. Or you could make me something! My mom and I used to make little tins of cranberry sauce for all of our teachers. I make it for myself at Thanksgiving, now, and think of it fondly as 'teacher cranberry sauce'. Sometimes we'd make coffee cakes instead. I can see the appeal of a gift certificate, though: they're easy to transport, and guarantee that I'll like what I end up with. If this is the case, you're in luck! The school we share is in an amazing neighborhood filled with small businesses there that I'd be happier to support. For one, there's A Little Bit Wicked, that new little vintage shop on Houston- which I know is a painfully obvious real-estate gain of the gentry, but I have to admit I like to browse through, and would love to get a sweater at. Every so often I cave on the way to work and get an amazing brownie at Clinton Street Bakery, so a gift card there would also be a huge treat. There are a couple of sweet little coffee houses across the street from there, too, if you're intent on this hot liquids theme. There are also a whole bunch of food establishments nearby that I have strong feelings for from having visited them as a child- Russ and Daughters, Yona Shimmel Knishes, The Doughnut Plant, Guss's Pickles, Katz's Deli, Economy Candy. I love Bluestockings Radical Books, but I bet that's kind of, well, radical for your taste. Any one of these places, I would be proud for you to give business to on my behalf. Starbucks, on the other hand, makes me feel kinda trapped: I do want to access all the cash you and other families collectively spent on presents for me, and I know that they have already made the money you spent on the gift cards, whether or not I redeem it for 10 or 15 chai lattes. A lot of people shop at Starbucks, whether or not they have gift cards, so I'm looking for somebody who I can trade all the cards for cash with, someone who would definitely be endorsing Starbucks anyway. My dad offered to trade with me, but I just know that he'd go to Starbucks more often if he had them. I might trade him some, and I might also ask my ex-boyfriend who goes to Starbucks a lot, though I suspect he'd find it kind of tacky. Once I manage to trade them all in, I promise I'll use the money to buy myself a holiday present that I'm really excited about, and I'll think of you.

Happy New Year,

Rachel

looks like they inspired?

There should be a phrase for the opposite of that's just like, of it reminds me of. Language keeps me from easily reversing the subject.

When Kerry was sledding down the hill on his stomach, Aunt Nancy said he looks just like the penguins on the Wii, I thought: no, the penguins look just like Kerry. But, in pointing out the things we see, we are failing to reverse our order. Could we evolve to say Kerry! Look at how he slides on the snow! The Penguins on the wii look just like him! Or, Kerry looks like what the penguins on the Wii are imitating!

What is happening to us, now that the real sensations of the world remind us of our own simulations of it? Who has wrested control of our capacity to be inspired?

new school

On my first day I got a list of forty names.

To pick up from their classrooms.

To do this job right I'd need hours, or days, but I have 10 minutes.

There is no time to make this a safe transition.

Clutching little tentative hands, holding little weeping shoulders.

wanting to make it okay, its okay, little strangers.

I don't know anything about you to know why you're reacting so intensely.

I know I'm another strange adult telling you where to go,

after a long day of strange adults telling you where to go.

How do I tell you I'm different, and am I?

I'm going to trust you, so we're going to like each other. But now there's no time.

firmly grasping their tiny hands, pushing the undersides of their backpacks down the hall

all I have to offer is an empathetic smile, crouched down to their eye level.

Its like herding cats down the hallway

these two swinging their clasped hands

this one dragging his backpack, that one dropping her coat.

one grabs each of my hands, one runs out front, one speeds back in the opposite direction.

There are other lines of children, and teenagers, and parents, and teachers.

They are looking at me and they are moving faster and quieter and in straighter lines.

I am so frustrated! My little masses breed anonymity.

I think or maybe yell at them: what is so difficult about being quiet and staying in line?!

Quickly I learn: there is always a reason

that catatonic little body in room 214 is afraid of the bathroom, so hasn't peed all day.

one's streaming tears are for his father, who some days gets off work in time

to pick him up early from after school to play chess, but not today.

She runs back down the hall because she forgot the leather jacket her mother just bought her

He drags his backpack because he was teased all day, he is weary and ashamed.

This one punches all the little Russian girls and wanders,

That one speaks openly of violence and greed- he's 5.

I don't know the reasons yet, but someone will.

Children aren't ghosts, they're full people.

What if all the teachers knew that its the system that's flawed, and the kids aren't to blame?

As weeks go by I often think: kindergarden is torture

yesterday they were all rain-drenched from a field trip with a backpack full of fresh picked apples and a pumpkins bigger than their head- they lug and skid them in my direction, this self-sufficiency is beyond them. Would it really be so hard for the parents to be allowed back up in to the classroom at the end of each day, so they didn't have to move their things up and down stairs?

When I share stories of tantrums and meanness the parents say

it's just that by the afternoon, they're so tired. she hasn't figured out how to eat lunch in 20 minutes yet, up until he went to kindergarden he always took a nap.

I assure them that their child isn't the only one.

Where is the optimism in this? Why have two months go by and I don't dread my job?

Because I know being an administrator means trouble-shooting: I spend much more time fixing the few problems than witnessing the many small joys.

Because a good education, or a good life, is not one where a person is always happy. That my children cry and scream and punch and crumble does not mean the school is bad, it means they feel comfortable expressing their feelings.

Because I am strongest in the face of some perceived injustice, and increasingly I see schooling this way.

Because children are beautiful, trusting and resilient. They smile and they crawl in my lap and clutch my arm, and let me hold their heads and waists and shoulders when they are serious or sad.

Because I am learning to do hard things that are useful, and which I will do better for the rest of my life for having done this job this year.

Because I believe that I am good at this work, and that there is such a thing as a transcendent educator, and that learning to be this is the same as learning to be the best version of myself.

Preparations for Departure

Last month I went to Philadelphia to see my old friend Dan's show in the Philly Fringe Festival. It was called Preparations for Departure and was created and performed by Colin Aarons, Jessie Bear, Emma Furguson, Daniel Perelstein, Sasha Shahidi and Jackie Vitale. I am writing a review for them, to use my small piece of public space to amplify the huge feat of their production. I'm sorry its taken me so long, Dan, its been a busy month.

Six friends play house in an old factory basement on the fringe of philadelphia. I wander the space with the rest of the audience and smile at how clearly it spells out this process: All the old furniture they could find, and their hand written letters arranged carefully in the nooks of this raw cement room. I melt watching Dan playing the youngest brother. The way these friends relish their scripted, imagined domestic life together makes obvious how intimately they know and love each other.

Collaboration is hard. As I watch the show I am astonished that these friends conceived this play from nothing in two months, and that they lived together while they did this. When they unravel their family, half-way through the show, it goes from slightly saccharine to ballsy: they stop time, rewind, slow it down, speed it up, fragments of the story bounce around the space and you know the chaos is entirely intentional. They are in perfect sync with each other. I make up stories that they did not intend me to see, and I gasp and cry. This is what intimacy is for, their show is an almost too explicit example. It confirms my conviction that big acts of sharing with other people are the most worthwhile kind of difficult.

Dan comments on the size of the audience: small. and lots of cast member's family. He scans the web for reviews that night, nervously. Where is the public? Where is the praise? They have worked so hard. I want for him the validation he craves because his show is beautiful, but feel saddened by the external craning towards success. I want it too. It is painful that the audience never gets out even a fraction of what you put in. How else could we frame our success?

There are Really No Experts Up There

I return to this city, I have never thought much of as an adult.
Only the passing: I live here
or, I will never live here
or, It makes me miserable even to visit.

and here I am, worrying for my feet in their hemp slippers as I walk again on concrete.
Sitting on the subway, for hours, like everyone else.
Reading new books from the book store I stumbled in to, eating the plastic-wrapped sandwich from the nice bakery when I don't make time to pack lunch.
With gentleness, I try to shrug off the compromises of transition.
Settling takes a long time, or maybe all the time I have.

Perhaps I do not know that things will ever feel out of limbo,
but I do know I am definitely still in it until I find an apartment.
the process has been and continues to be messy.
Four of us debating, fighting, frustrating, falling apart at one another.
Where should four young white kids live? And for how much money? And in how much space? And with what sense of urgency? And under what terms?


And in what literal space?

Shut up with the discussion, lets stand in a place and say yes or no.
When shit gets messy, we all talk about it and then I feel really good.
And then it gets bad again.
How much togetherness? How much patience? How much compromise? How much self-interest?
Stretching my infinite gullies of empathy, or artificially narrowing my options?
There are definitely no experts up there to tell me how to do this.

And so, there is no reason to navel-gaze.
Rachel, You have already made this decision.
The willingness- from my gut and not my brain- feels really good, and correct.
Trusting that I only have partial control over this situation.
Entering in to our second month of hunting, I feel much more calm.
There are many more decisions left to make.

An anecdote of hesitancy for our growing esteem for convenience

A few months ago, my parents got iphones. Equal parts pleased and horrified, I watched them integrate this new technology; fumbling with the tiny keyboards, googling things that excite them in the car, downloading music identification programs and dumb gimmicks and laughing riotously at the sound bites included in their new ifart application. seriously.

Since we switched our family cellphone carrier so that they could upgrade to these smart phones, William and were invited along- he said yes, and unsurprisingly, I said no. Insisted that my old phone was fine and refused to switch plans myself....until the universe intervenes and my phone of course broke that week. of course. Practicality won out over what-might-have-been-morality-or-maybe-just-greenwashed-naivete, and I chose not to switch to a mediocre "green" cell phone carrier, but to get a new phone on our new family plan. I painted her with the junky nail polish I hoard exactly for this purpose, and programmed her name, Patience, in to the top screen, an unintentionally centering reminder every time I look nervously at my phone.

This weekend my family of four piled in to the car with our three smart phones and one dumb phone for a weekend on the beach. Honestly, I can't remember the last time we got along so well on vacation- not that everything went perfectly, but none of us got arbitrarily worked up in the unique ways my brother and I have inherited from our parent's dispositions.

Were we really all so much more mature than before? Everything just seemed to go so smoothly. When we got lost, someone would query our location on satellite and look up directions. When we didn't know where to eat, someone would google a good place go to. When we wandered off from each other, we'd just text each other to figure out where to meet up again. When conversation got stale or tense, Will or Dad would call up the Youtube video that I'm embarrassingly obsessed with right now (no seriously, its deeply wonderful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms2klX-puUU), and we'd sing along.

So this is great, right? This little device just smoothed out all the ripples, took care of the mechanics, the logistics, the dumb stuff that gets in the way of appreciating that we are a family of smart and healthy people, who might differ and argue, but who ultimately are blessed for our circumstances and for loving each other and getting along.

But I find this so disturbing, that we are trusting this technology to intervene frequently in our family, and trusting it to assume so many of the little responsibilities that stem from the circumstances of every day life. I worry society is loosing these skills- to navigate, to make plans, to trust other people to take responsibility for their own whereabouts and safety, to think ahead about objects or knowledge we'll need later on, to ask other people for help or recommendations, to be content with not always knowing what the best option is, to let some things be mysteries, to negotiate daily tensions with the people who are most important to us.

This is the change that is happening in the world around me. I have no control over our decision to embrace an expanding variety of mobile technology. I go on this tirade a lot, lately, and I've been forcing myself to find some lightness in the situation. I shrug and smile and say: I don't know, I guess I'm just a late adapter. I didn't get a cell phone until it felt like everyone I knew had one and payphones started disappearing. I'm sure I'll come around. This casualness puts whoever I'm with at ease.

This change in technology makes me feel angry and scared. Indignant, like why the fuck do people want to do this to their lives, and how come I don't get a say, and why does everyone find it so rude when I want to talk about it?

On family vacation, though, what I mostly felt was sad. Every smart phone intervention made me want to make some snarky comment. When I did, my brother and parents laughed and rolled their eyes at me in that loving way they often do. When I kept my mouth shut, I'd spend the time articulating some more forceful anti-technology rant that I sometimes couldn't hold back from espousing a day or an hour later. Either way, I know I'm enhancing my family's view of me as an anachronistic curmudgeon who takes herself and the world too seriously.

And this makes me feel so distant, just like I did when I was 10, but didn't have any beliefs to back it up back then, and so I wonder whether its just my contrarian disposition that makes me feel this way about smart phones- or about anything else, or whether I was a crazy intuitive child who had none of the words to describe why the world made me upset. There is no way of knowing, ever, whether my beliefs determine my disposition or the other way around.

And so here I am writing against technology on my blog, on the internet, not claiming to be a purist but wondering if some day will come when I will want to be and will be brave or sad enough to try.

Talking Towards Clarity: a vocab list for the summer

Here are the important words for the summer: the words I tried out to express what was going on as it happened, the words that allowed me to reach for something newly true.

Struggle
Endlessly useful since I stumbled on to it at Arvo's House this spring, with two basic uses: articulating internal struggle, and respectfully, positively discussing "negative" feelings about other people's choices and creative endeavors. I am trying the experiment of replacing "dislike" with "struggle with" as often as possible, though a good deal of the time I find the resulting statements very scary, and can't say that they're true. This seems to reveal what about myself and the world I'm unwilling to look at, unwilling to change.

Agency
generally used in discussion of adulthood. I started thinking about this at Buck's Rock, trying to describe the look of panic in the teenager's eyes as they left camp, and the immense sense of relief it brought on in me, to no longer be at their moment in life. A useful term for describing the exciting and terrifying possibilities of being an adult (see below). Also seems to be useful in articulating parts of the creative process. Still looking for a good definition of the term, though. I feel like I'm wielding it around experimentally.

Transcendent
Almost by definition, there's no way to pin down how I've been trying to use this word. It emerged first in the phrase transcendent friendship, something I came to while grappling for language to describe the experience of being with Zander and Jonah this summer. Entirely unique but not catagorically different: the intensity of my two months of sharing with them allowed me to articulate the catagory of relationships that become their own internal world, and that yeilds some something that feels huge. The idea of transcendence is not entirely secular, but somehow I'm sensing that the word itself is farmiliar enough that I can get away with using it in a secular context, or at least that it doesn't feel too far out of my realm of experience to use it to authentically describe my own experiences.

Adult
This is a messy one. At 23, I feel bashful about speaking of myself as an adult, but also it feels true. I might be a new adult, a young one, but what I and all my peers are really doing right now is definitely getting a handle on adulthood. Priorities, careers, ambitions, money, bodies, families, relationships: these are the things we stumble in to discussing and then look wide-eyed in fear at each other (not unlike the look of teenagers getting their agency taken away: the "oh shit, this is real" look) I am struggling a lot with the relationship between partnership and adulthood. I feel that the realities and challenges of being partnered with Kerry are helping me grow up: be a better listener, more open minded (okay, just slightly....), more patient, more giving. I know I am tapping in to this ability in how I deal with other people, but Kerry is really the site of this slow learning. I balk at myself, attempting to define the process of maturing through such a conventional standard. And I reassure myself: this is by no means the only way to adulthood, or the only path in my life that is growing me up. But real, committed acts of sharing between people- labels aside- is a positive avenue of growing. As I feel myself becoming both more willing and more able to enact sharing, I find myself thinking that I am becoming more adult.