"It's been a while since the Police shut us down..."

I have never been the kind of woman who is good at hosting parties. I've never been crafty, or clever, or cute with decor or food. Unlike my awesome sister-in-law who has a business teaching people how to be cuter homemakers, or basically every other Mormon woman in the world, I can barely make my bed enough to have guests over. 

But when I moved to Pinneburg, Germany, into my own apartment, I had the random impulse to throw a house-warming party.  I bought candles, and a bunch of food, and was staring to feel a little too cocky about my party-throwing abilities until I looked at the food table spread: 

• Three frozen pizzas; one overcooked, two under-cooked. 
• A chunk of brie surrounded by the store-brand version of Ritz crackers. 
• A half-loaf of microwave garlic bread.
• A cheap party tray of salty, crispy, snacky things.
• A dry German bunt cake, cut up into uneven slices.
• and a handful of chocolate sticks, leftover from another grocery-store run.

It was a glorious sight to behold. 

My grandmother would have been so ashamed. 

 Luckily, the invitees were awesome, and no one cared, and everyone brought enough goodies to share, and it turned into a really lovely house-warming event. 

Then it took a bizarre, completely unforeseen turn. 

Among the housewarming party-goers were some friends, mostly co-workers, and my landlords, who live right above me. Due to an unfortunate series of mishaps where I accidentally broke the front gate multiple times, I felt obligated to invite them. And they seemed delighted at the invitation. 

They're a really funny couple. A very small, talkative, 50-year-old Philippine woman (who I can thank for the eclectic decor), and a grumpy, chatty, 60-year-old German man. I expected them to come for 20 minutes, and then go back upstairs. But they stayed the whole time. They brought 2 platters of food, extra candles, a giant bottle of vodka, and two juice cartons. 

Just as the party was dying down; maybe 6 people left, my landlord makes an announcement to a nearly-empty living room.

My transformed living room

"It's been a while since the Police shut us down. Let's let them know we're still alive" and turns on the sound system, blasting club music. He turns off the living room lamps and turns on two light boxes that set off a multi-colored light show. And of course, no party is complete without a smoke machine. 
I kid you not.

Everyone was pretty much very confused. 

Two of my coworkers. Confused. 

Though he would've danced with himself, I made everyone at the party dance with him. Awkwardly. Some of my coworkers are less uncomfortable with the whole scene than I, so they kept him decent company. Until about midnight, when I finally had to kick my landlord out. (!)

I think he was severely disappointed to find out his new young, American tenant is the least party-goer in all the US.


Sometimes I'll hear club music thumping and pounding through my ceiling in the middle of the day.

I guess I don't even need to know how to throw a good party. My 60-year-old German landlord's got it covered. 

It's not Imaginary--It's Invisible. There's a difference.

In my theater classes, I play with a magic box. I sit down with a series of printed directions, and wait until they are quiet, so everyone can read the instructions. I don't say a word as they ask questions, so they get the cue that this is a game we're all playing in silence.

I hold up a paper that says: 

"Sit in a Circle. 

In einem Kreis sitzen."

I wait for silent acknowledgement that they understand the system. The students who don't speak English or German I know will catch on shortly. Then flip to the next printed page:

"In front of me is a box.
Vor mir ist eine Box."

"It is a Magic box..."

"It is magic because it can hold anything in it.."

There are a few more pages of instructions: "Everyone will get a turn pulling something out of the box and showing it to the rest of the class if they'd like," "Do not talk or make noises," "I'll go first."

Then I hold the "box" in my hands. Pantomime the weight of a medium-sized wooden crate. Which I "open" and Mary Poppins style, pull out a tall floor lamp, or a very heavy piano, or an apple, depending on the class. Then after I turn on the 'lamp,' play the 'piano', or bite the 'apple', I put it back in the box and close the 'lid'.

One student is brave enough to go first. Raising a hand in confidence, and following my head-nod cue, they get up, walk across the circle to pick up the box from my hands. They cautiously open it, looking up at me for a signal they're playing the game correctly, and with an encouraging nod, they pull something out: A bike, a book, a bongo drum. Whatever it is, they're excited to show the class. Then at the end of their display, I remind them, by holding out expectant fingers, I would like the box returned to me. They dutifully pick up the box, walk it over, and place it back with me.

As the game goes on, they get clever getting it back to me. They'll "slide" it, or carefully "throw" it across the circle, but they don't ever forget to return the box.

About once every-other-class, I have a student who says in whiny protest, "This isn't real."  But the moment I offer the box with a silent question in my eyes, "Would you like a turn?" they always eagerly grab the box, happily "pull" something out of it, and gingerly return the box, in-tact, to me.

One class period, I overheard a whispered exchange that I'll never forget.
"I don't understand. It's Imaginary, right?"
Another child said back in reproach, "It's not imaginary. It's invisible. there's a difference."


What a profound statement: just because we cannot see it, does not mean it doesn't exist.
Right there in that classroom circle, we all acknowledged there was a box. It was there because we all agree it was. We agreed to play by the rules of the box. We interacted with it. We displayed its weight. We knew where it was at all times. We returned it to the teacher. We experienced the box. It was real to us. No one could tell us otherwise.

But how many things in life are so real, and also difficult to see? Sometimes invisible.

Love. Excitement.  A sense of Justice. Longing. Heartache. Grief. Hope. Worry. Fear. Charity. Freedom.

They can manifest themselves in ways that we can see: we show the box's dimensions by holding it's sides. We can see charity through actions, or heartache through tears. But the actual substance is impossible to see.

When we have faith in anything, it is an acknowledgement that something is real, albeit invisible.

The things I have learned from teaching these little people in Germany are far from imaginary: the patience I have gained, the perspective on what it means to have psychological safety at work, the affection for humans with whom I can't even communicate.

Invisible, yes. But Very Real to me.

What is invisible and also real to you?

7 Flights of Stairs

My apartment is really charming. It has white crown molding, large windows, lots of natural light, a newly redone bathroom, complete with an adorable red button that you pull to flush the toilet.

There's a charming balcony, overlooking a charming street, with a charming lack of parking spaces.

Everything about it is ... European.
 Including the fact that it's on the 5th floor, no elevator. Moving in, (ie moving up) was a bit of an ordeal.

Even going grocery shopping is an ordeal. Which is what happened today.

German grocery stores are awesome. High quality food at low costs. But because everything's so fresh, Germans don't go to the store once every two weeks, and stock up like Americans (or like this American)... They go frequently, and only check out a few items at a time. Which then leads them to unabashedly cast very annoyed glances when you have more than a few items at a time.

I didn't have a choice! No bread, cereal, milk, toilet paper--nothing. I needed a big grocery store trip. So after I ignored the scathing looks, and pulled the "clearly-I'm-not-from-here-and-I'm-sorry" card, I trekked home with my enormous bag of groceries.

Then I made the trek Up.  There are four floors of doors between the entrance and my flat, but I wanted to know how many flights of stairs. Carrying heavy or awkward objects up tend to make me try and quantify the pain.

Eins
Zwei
Drei
Vier
Funf
Sechs... 

Then I couldn't remember the German word for seven.

SEVEN flights of stairs. When I finally arrived, the toilet paper resting on top of the overflowing bag, got caught on the banister and went tumbling down, through the middle of those seven flights of stairs, then past, into the basement.

I cried out, like Luke when he discovered Vader was his father, "NooooooOOOoooOOooooOOOO!"

Back down the 7 flights, down into the basement. Picked up this little guy:

Then I made the journey back up. Didn't count the stairs this time. 

My Rear Window

Germany is north. Once we hit mid-September, the days here get rapidly shorter. I wake up very early to get to work, and I had 2 blissful weeks upon arrival where the sun was coming up on my way. Now I make the entire 70-minute-long commute in pre-dawn hours--completely in the dark. 

I look out my bedroom window. It has a full-glass pane door leading out to the balcony, facing the street. The whole street is like that. When it's dark outside, you can see into the other flats through their door windows--like watching a film through a glass screen.

5:55 am, pitch black sky, and I see one other window lit, straight across the road. Clear as a moving picture, I watch as a man, pushes a kitchen chair into the table, puts his keys in his pocket, and adjusts his belt. 

Without feeling a glint of shame for my voyeurism,  I wonder, what is he doing up at such a cruel, cold, dark hour. 

With me. 

Fumbling around his apartment, same as I, eyes trying to adjust to the dark of the morning. Just the two of us awake in our whole neighborhood. 

And I share this rather intimate, rather sweet moment with a total stranger.

Then I think, "Maybe I should close the curtains when I get changed."

Lies Your Teachers Told You

Growing up is a constant series of discovering all the things that you thought you knew but you really didn't. Like learning the actual lyrics to that one song, (R-E-S-P-E-C-T… take care of BLT!); or suddenly understanding the dirty jokes in a beloved childhood film (Grease, anyone?).

Being a first-year teacher, I’ve learned a great many misconceptions I had about the things teachers tell you. Flat-out lies they tell you: 

1.  Teachers always have a lesson they’re trying to get through, and you not being quiet is hindering the whole class’ experience.

This is not always the case. Sometimes the kids blow through what I’ve prepared in much less time than expected, and I’m secretly grateful for the opportunity to improvise a lesson about respect and classroom conduct.

        2.  Teachers don’t care about your opinion. Of their subject or themselves. 

This is also sometimes a lie.  Experienced math teachers have hardened their hearts, and understand that not every child is passionate about the beauty of Euler's Law, but most teachers really love what they teach, and want their students to love it too. Maybe this is a newbie teacher thing, and I’ll grow out of it. But when that cool girl in the 9^th grade says to me, her tone dripping with vitriol and boredom, “This is dumb. Do we have to do this?” A little piece of my soul dies. I moved across the world to share my passion for performing arts with a bunch of disinterested small humans. And apparently, I’m still a middle school girl inside, who secretly cares about the cool kid’s opinion of me.

        3. Teachers don’t have favorites.

This is most definitely, 100%, always a lie. There are students we like, students we really like, and students we really, really don’t. I can say sincerely, I care about every one of my students, but some of them have opened my eyes to the appeal of corporal punishment.

I want to tell you a story about one of my not-so-favorite students:  I have a crew of 7^th grade boys. That sentence alone should make your soul shutter with fear—but it gets worse. They’re waaay too cool for school, and they’re smart. This crew of besties hacked into all the 7^th grade lockers and changed everyone’s combinations. They sit together like a pack of wolves, and they speak very little English.

I know they understand me. Well, they understand some things: like when I tell them to stop grabbing each other, or stop talking, or stop touching the drums, but other than that, they’re totally checked out of the lessons.

The other day, they were causing their usual ruckus, disrupting the class, and finally, I sharply told one, we’ll call him Calvin, (the one that hates me the most) to move to the other side of the circle. He made his protestations, but I gave an insistent finger point (universal language of pointing--very effective), and he moved. I didn’t know what the rustle was, and I didn’t care, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw this tough guy with quiet tears streaming down his face. I was surprised, I thought he was totally apathetic.

A moment later, the one originally sitting next to Calvin, we’ll call him Peter, interrupted me, “Um… Miss…?” (he’s the one most shy about his English. Also the one that cares least about my class, as evidenced by the fact that he doesn’t know my name)...

 “Miss Corkin?” I threw him a bone. But then, admittedly annoyed at being interrupted by his antics again, I was a bit harsh with my tone, “What, Peter?”

“It…not… was Calvin.”

“What?” I didn't understand.

“I had…  took his pen. Fault not Calvin. My.” Painfully stumbling through finding the words, he was trying to tell me that his friend, who I’d banished to the other side of the circle, was not responsible for the trouble, that Calvin had been provoked, and shouldn’t be the one punished. This boy, who was totally uninterested in me or my class, was offering up himself in an honest attempt at taking responsibility. That’s why Calvin was crying, because he’d been wrongly blamed (even on a small scale, we can all relate to this utterly powerless, deeply disturbing feeling). 

But here, his friend Peter was trying to fix it. No matter the personal cost, including struggling through limited English in front of the whole class.  

How much I underestimated this young man because he annoyed me sometimes. How easily dismissive I was because of a language barrier. What character in that moment he proved to have. 

Impressed and humbled, I melted. Oh, my heart. 

“Thank you for telling me that, Peter. I really appreciate your honesty, and taking responsibility.”

I didn’t know how to convey how moved I was at his gesture, in a language we could both understand. So I just smiled warmly. The best I could do.

“I still don’t want you to sit next to each other though. So just stay there right now. Next time, you can move.”

Speaking the Same Language

One time, I sneaked into a  Music and the Brain conference at Harvard Medical School. Thinking, “I am smart, I like brains, I like music--I took a neuroscience class at Harvard, and I can play the piano, this will be fun!" 

While I recognized they were speaking English, they were not speaking a language I understood. So I sat in the dark, straining to focus harder, blinking up at their presentations, trying desperately to understand what exactly any of these words meant, and what I got out of it was a very stinging feeling that I was not that smart.

Trying to get to work using the bus on my own for the first time in Germany. Or the second. Or the 8^th. I ask in my embarrassing German, “Eine Tagskarte, Bitte” (One day ticket, please), and place a few euros on the shelf. And the exchange that comes after is painful: 

The bus driver gives me very specific instructions, then stares blankly while I clearly don’t follow them, and in those moments, I want to say, “I’m so sorry. I'm trying. I’m not stupid, I promise! We just don’t speak the same language.”

I am now teaching little humans. And while I am no Harvard neuroscientist, there is a language barrier between the English I’m speaking, and the English these small people are able to speak as they grow. Including the ones for whom English is their first language.

But I want to remember that feeling I had in that neuro-music conference. Or the feeling I have every time I try to speak German. How small it can feel.  And as I’m going along in my classroom, trying to align the tongue we speak, I want to make them feel like they’re not small, but growing.

I’m learning how important a virtue patience really is. And how wonderful the end product worth investing—a world in which we can understand one another. 

A Picture's Worth a Thousand Feelings

The weekend before I left Boston, I wandered around my favorite stationary store, and was utterly captivated by one postcard. It was not flashy or funny or any of the attributes that usually make me linger on an image. But as I tried to pull myself away, to look around the store, the postcard kept drawing me back, like a sad, grey magnet. On the back of the card it revealed to be a German company. I took it as a sign from the universe, and finally shelled out the 70 cents to purchase it. 

Now it hangs on my wall, amidst places I've lived or visited, cards from relatives or friends, and a few inspirational quotes. And it sticks out a bit--where the other images are charming/happy/funny/inspirational and/or hold dear memories, this one stands as an odd homage to uneasiness.  

I don't know exactly what it is about this little old woman that so stunned me. Obviously some macabre imagery--impending death, mortality and the unknown that is the end of a life-- yada yada yada. But I don't think that's what was drawing me in.

Something about the grey unknown in this woman's view--it's terrifying, but also beautiful. This sort of sublime awe in the inevitability of being completely wrapped in, drenched in, overtaken by future ambiguity.

The future. And the unknown.
Two very scary prospects for humans all around. They're sort of one in the same. I think we'll always be afraid of the unknown and of the future, and I think maybe we can embrace the fear. Dive in, as this brave old woman is on the brink of doing.

What do you think? Is this image as beautiful to you as it was to me? 

...is this a date?

Back in September, I meet a cute boy.
I mention in passing my lack of food, living in a dorm.
He says he has plenty, and invites me over for dinner.

On my way to his place,  I call a friend, "I'm not sure whether this is a date or not... do I... ask..?"
She says, "Oh no, you'll know when you get there, I'm sure."

When I arrive, he's been cooking.

So he's making dinner... I think this is a date. 

Then I walk into the next room, (living/dining room) where there is a small, fold-out table, and his roommate is sprawled out on the couches, playing a basketball video game.

Roommate's here. ok. not a date. 

I go back into the kitchen and grab the salt, contribute some small-talk,etc. then we carry the pasta into the living room, where the aforementioned roommate had draped over a table cloth and dimmed the lights.

He must have asked his roommate to set a mood. Ok, this feels like a date. 

We sit down to eat, he looks around for a moment,  a little confused, then says, "why is it so dark in here? Someone must've dimmed the lights. Odd."

Not a date! Not a date!

 "Hold on, one sec" Then he gets up to turn the sliding lever to florescent full-blast.

The rest of the evening was a series of conversations where I was trying to decipher whether or not he was flirting with me. Couldn't tell. the entire time.

We ended up quite good friends out of the deal. But it wasn't until most of seven months later when I asked him about that particular evening that I discovered that he really didn't have any idea either.




I felt very much like Fraiser Crane in this valentine's day episode

Dante's 10th Circle of Hell: Moving

I often wake up in a small panic. Suddenly air will fill my lungs, like I've just gasped freedom from underwater. And my heart will start, like it just got shocked back into life by a defibrillator. Sometimes it's because I'm worried about something: an upcoming test. missing a train or flight. Sometimes I'm in the middle of a stressful dream: a new favorite reoccurring charmer, where I bite into an apple, and then my teeth stay in the apple (either I'd be a very interesting patient to psychoanalyze, with deep psychosis--or these dreams are the result of my mother's loving reminders to go to the dentist...)

Today, I woke up, all pulses racing at the moment of consciousness: Today is moving day. 

On top of the logistical nightmare that is moving--no matter how much you prepare, organize, stack, purge, label, it's always harder than you expect it to be. Right?  It's hard to explain how much more emotional moving is than you think it will be.

The littlest things become so sentimental. So hard to throw away. Ticket stubs, syllabi, brochures. 

That pile of handouts and readings you kept with the intentions or hopes of actually reading them. Or referencing them. That name tag you got at that conference where they printed your name with cool letters. You don't remember anything else about the conference, but you kept the name tag. Do you keep it now? Does this mean you keep this stupid little plastic name tag forever, cause you can't bring yourself to get rid of it now?  

Sentiments wrapped up very nicely in this beautiful number from the musical "Ordinary Days":

"Home is where the heart is" yes. 100% agree. But also, home is a little bit where your stuff is. And while your stuff is all in transition, you feel a little..well... home-less. belong-ing-less. It took a while to make that place feel more than just the space that housed your things. It took time to build memories, to enjoy returning there at the end of the day, to host people in your bubble. It wasn't easy to make that home, home. And now you're leaving it, you're moving.

Onto something else. Probably wonderful. But whatever is next is not quite home yet.

Ugh. moving is the worst.

To Perm or Not to Perm

I have straight hair. But not just straight hair. After I wash my hair, if I don’t touch it, it dries looking like a soggy flop of al-dente spaghetti. Yellow and straight and boring as a pile of dead strands of protein (which is literally what hair is, but who wants it to look like that?)

If I do nothing, it dries like fur of a wet Australian shepherd.

When I take the time to care, I have to mousse, flip, blow, diffuse, dry, fluff, spray…it’s a whole ordeal, just to make it look like human hair, and not a flat, stringy mop. I’ve always been jealous of the curly-haired girls. (Ya ya, the grass is always greener… we all want what we don’t have, yada yada. I know. But really, they have it better.)

Lately, the liberal, hippie, Harvard feminist in me has cared less about doing my hair. Claiming to value the pursuit of authenticity, but really just valuing the extra sleep more, there were a lot of ponytails and buns in graduate school. 

But I’ve always clung onto the dream to step out of the shower, and have hair that dries looking like this…

I wanted that effortless, authentically gorgeous hair. Now was the time. I became desperately obsessed with the idea of pumping in a pound of harmful chemicals to rip apart my hair’s natural bonds. All in the noble pursuit of authentic beauty.

My mother and I have gone back and forth about this for years. She’d previously talked me out of it at least three times, but this time I was determined. She warned, “Don’t get a perm. It never looks the way you want it, then it falls out in 3 weeks, and it just ruins your hair. From my experience, it’s never worth it.”

Pssshhh. Silly mommy. I’m a grown up. She simply doesn’t understand. I don’t want one of those poodle perms from the 80s. And America now has self-driving cars. Surely the technologies of perm solutions have developed since she last got a perm decades ago, into no-damage perfection.  

So I called around to prove my mother wrong—I talked to 4 different salons. All of whom said, “You’ve had bleach in your hair? If you came into my studio, I wouldn’t touch it. I’ve been doing hair for __years [usually 20+] and you don’t want a perm.”

Stubbornly undeterred, I wandered in-person into a Hair Cuttery, and asked a young, spunky, seemingly competent woman if she thought it was possible. She ran her fingers through my hair, chuckled out loud, with the confidence of a revolutionary, “Of COURSE we can perm your hair! No problem.”

So smugly, I sat in the chair to be “rolled.” I’d obviously found the only competent hairdresser in the greater Cambridge area. My new best friend.

She talked to me about adjusting my expectations--it wouldn’t be movie star, perfectly quaffed and voluminous… it was probably going to be something a little more subtle, and natural-looking. So I figured something like this:

I was ok with that. Who wouldn’t be? Expectations sufficiently adjusted.

So I started chatting with my new best friend:

            “How long have you been doing this?”            

            “Funny story… I wanted to be a hairdresser when I was 17, but then I got pregnant, I couldn’t go back to school officially till last year…I’ve been official for 6 months. But don’t worry, and I did hair for my neighbors and stuff for 10 years.”

            “Oh. Well good.”

            “But don’t worry. At school, we had an older group of patrons, I did like 10-20 perms a week.”

            “Oh. Cool.”

She was clearly a novice, and her only experience had been with old ladies…Why did I trust her over the four experts I’d consulted? Stupid confidence bias.

…so came the slow dawning that this might be a terrible mistake.

But it was too late. She’d already defied her boss in front of the whole salon.  Everyone saw my girlish excitement. I was committed.

And every step along the way she kept saying, “Stop worrying, it looks great.”

…

She moussed, squished, blowed, and squished and sprayed, so it looked kind of wavy… and I left the shop with a sinking feeling in my stomach. As it dried, the waves relaxed, and ultimately disappeared, and the frizz slowly started to emerge.  This wasn’t the kind of gorgeous volume I pictured.

In the end, my hair was a slightly fluffy, mostly stringy, helmet of frizzy, damaged fuzz.

Crossing my fingers that my source of perm knowledge—Elle Woods—wouldn’t fail me, I washed my hair that night in the hopes of deactivating the immonium thygocolate. 

Then I called my source of all other knowledge, my mother.

As goes the moral of so many stories:

“Mom…You were right…”

To be Afraid of a Fly

Dorm showers are an experience. Especially when you live at the end of one hallway, and the bathroom is located at the other end. So you have to plan for the trek. 47 steps one way--there's little room for error. If you forget the toothbrush--teeth just are not getting brushed. If you forget the towel--you're dripping wet when putting back on the robe. You gain an appreciation for running water. 

After having successfully made the trip to the shower, all accouterments at my fingertips.  I entered into the shiny white cylinder, excited to take a super-human speedy shower.  

From across the faucet, a giant beast started flying my direction. A mosquito, as large as my head, viciously aiming to take me out--I expertly avoided him, instead swatting him into the water stream, where he'd meet his watery grave. I felt empowered to send this evil creature to his death. 

The bug shot to the ground, immediately pinned down, squirming for his life. But it's legs were still moving, desperately trying to escape the constant slam of water. His status as a behemouth monster had evaporated as I watched it shrink smaller and smaller under the pounding pressure. Most of it's size had been made up of long, spindly legs, which were now soaking, twisted, and strapped next to his helpless body. 

I turned off the water. But it was too late, it clearly could never fly again. Painfully, I put it out of its misery. It was so fragile--so easy to crush. My heart sank when I turned the water on again and washed the remains down the shower drain. 

I found out later, what I thought was a hawk mosquito, was actually a crane fly. Totally harmless winged creature, who flew into the water stream, not to attack me, but to escape--what would be his chamber of death.  

For days I couldn't get this poem out of my head: 

Allowables, by Nikki Giovanni

I killed a spider

Not a murderous brown recluse

Nor even a black widow
And if the truth were told this
Was only a small
Sort of papery spider
Who should have run
When I picked up the book
But she didn’t
And she scared me
And I smashed her

I don’t think
I’m allowed

To kill something
Because I am

Frightened

The scene of him struggling to stay alive when I thought he was such a threat, simply because I didn't know what he was; that image has stayed with me. 

Humans do that to lots of creatures. Including other humans. In part, it's in our nature. But we're also remarkable beings in that we can overcome our instincts, we can change our nature.

What can we do--how can we be advocates for those smaller or different than us, rather than be afraid or fight them? 

Super Powers

Years ago, I went out on a date with a fine young fellow. It was a first date; the getting-to-know-you date. Dinner was at an underwhelming Mexican restaurant, six blocks from my house (because first dates shouldn't be afforded more of a commitment than a ten-minute walk, one-way).

On our way back, strolling down around the food complex, leftover bags in hand, we had one of the most interesting first-date conversations to date:

We talked about our super-powers:


"I have the ability to crank out a pretty decent essay, the day it's due. That superpower has come in handy way more often than I'm proud of."

"I can fit into ridiculously small spaces. My hide-and-seek prowess is off the charts. I'm still the reigning champ. Of every game I've ever played..."

"I have Super-Shower Powers. Like lightening-speed shower skills.2-4 minutes. 5-6 tops. I always get the first slot if girls are ever fighting over the bathroom. Because by the time they finish arguing, I'm already out, squeaky clean." (-Me)

Suddenly, two people bolted by. Dressed in black, they ran right in front of us, pounding the ground at full speed. They were each carrying a plastic bag, and at the cross road, they split apart, turning different directions.

Before we could register what was happening we heard a shout from the back door of the restaurant, "HEY! HEEEY! Somebody! Stop them!"

But it was too late. Stunned observers, He and I were totally useless on the sidelines of this crime.

The person shouting went back inside, presumably to call the police, and after a minute of silence, we kept walking.


..."Man," I said, "I wish I had better superpowers."


...


I think I went to graduate school hoping to gain some super powers. I mean, I'd be a Master. (from Harvard).

However, staring down the barrel of my graduation, I feel significantly less powerful and mostly just more aware about the extent of the evil-nemeses we're up against.

I wish I had the powers:

to fix the school-to-prison pipeline,
change our systemic racial and cultural biases,
support disenfranchised and oppressed voices,

among so many other things--to find solutions to these massive problems.

But I do not.

However, I find hope in the people trying to solve them. I found great inspiration from my classes on leadership; reading about people like Ernest Shackleton, Nelson Mandela, Oprah Winfrey, Rachel Carson, even Ann Hopkins, who faced enormous challenges, and led others to overcome them. Hearing about my own classmates' work with innovative programs helping to break the cycle of poverty, and bigotry, and oppression.

I think some of my friends here are no less than super-human-heroes for fighting to help change our worlds' issues with education.

So I suppose that's what we do. We become inspired by the heroes we see and hear about;  we motivate ourselves to question more, learn more, innovate more, serve more, become more Super, one little act and one little change at a time.

And maybe collectively, we have more power than we think.

Me and Breakfast at Tiffany's

Trapped in a flying metal tube, 10,000 of feet above the ground, there's a wonderful phenomenon: one cannot feel guilty about NOT being as productive as one could be, because you're trapped in a flying metal tube 10,000 feet above the ground. So sometimes one has the luxury of 6 uninterrupted hours in the middle of the day, where one can read a book in one, albeit forced, sitting.  Last week, I had the enormous pleasure of one-sitting, in-flight reading: "Fifth Avenue, 5:00 AM: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman." 

I highly recommend the book--interesting historical factoids about Truman Capote, the movie's production, the fashion and social trends at the time, and why the movie was so revolutionary. (Did you know that Audrey Hepburn hated danishes, and wanted to shoot that opening scene with an ice cream cone instead? But was convinced that ice cream isn't a very good Breakfast). 

While reading it, I thought the author's flowery and romanticizing language might have aggrandized the film a bit. But then I watched it for the first time in ten years. 

It was magic. t's stuck with me. No, more accurately, it's sticking on me. Like the residue of a peeled-off band aid, or glue. It's still on me. Like I just walked through a Breakfast-at-Tiffany's perfume cloud, and the scent is all around. I can't stop thinking about it. Something about it lingered, followed my memory, something about it... 
bothered me.. 

"Holly: You know the days when you get the mean reds?

Paul : The mean reds. You mean like the blues?
Holly: No. The blues are because you’re getting fat, and maybe it’s been raining too long. You’re just sad, that’s all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you’re afraid, and you don’t know what you’re afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?"

absolutely.  

Holly Golightly is fabulous. She's feverishly independent. She's impulsive and careless. She's elegant and a complete mess. She feels so deeply, but can't really let anyone into those depths. Maybe one time she allowed that, but then one day realized a surface-level interaction is much more easily manipulated, and so she stayed there. 

Then it hit me. why I'm so bothered:

I am Holly Golightly. 

“Never love a wild thing...If you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky...

It's better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear.” 

I am Holly Golightly. 
Oh dear. 

Paul shouts to her in frustration: 
"You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself... It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.” 

But the people who have had the guts to call me out,  have not stayed around in my life to see if anything changes. That's because I usually didn't want them to (for other reasons). But still. Starting over again on a frequent basis can lead to a lack of identity. Which Holly has. So afraid to be tied down to anything, even her own identity. 

That heartbreaking moment at the end, when she shoves Cat into the rain, you could replace her name: 

"I'm not Holly. I'm not [Averill], either. I don't know who I am! I'm like cat here, a couple of no-name slobs. We belong to nobody and nobody belongs to us. We don't even belong to each other." 

I am Holly Golightly.

But I think we're all a little bit Holly Golightly. 

Trying to charm our way to any sort of stability because there's no rules or maps as to how to get there any other way. 
Internally, we're afraid, 
and reckless
and sexy
and confident 
and terrified
and chaotic
and passionate 
and careless
and all of those things together.



We're sorting all of the fractured elements of one of iconic literary figures within ourselves. 

I guess maybe I'm waiting for my dramatic scene in the rain where true belonging feels possible. 

                 Or maybe I should get a cat.