Day of the Dead

Tonight was Halloween, and it was just beautiful out. I mean it was around 70 degrees, the sun was setting red and the smell dying leaves was in the air as the little kids ran from store to store wearing wigs and funny glasses. While I took candy to school this morning and chatted with my students about their plans for the evening I couldn't help but feel fearful for them. Not because of the holiday and the impending threats of Nair being thrown and eggs being tossed, but because of the stabbing that happened last evening. You see the majority of our kids are Haitian or at the very least Caribbean in origin, and yesterday there was a stabbing in front of our school of one student by another over racial tensions between Haitians and Jamaicans. The kid was one of ours, in as much as any of the kids in the suspension room that I see belong to out program. I'd met him a few times, knew him well enough to say hello to him in the halls and had the opportunity to talk with him some about his reasons for being in the holding room, anger and fighting. Anyway I'd seen him that morning inside the school with a friend of his who I also know from the suspension room, they'd both said hello and checked in briefly with me.

He wasn't more than 17 years old, and they said that before he was stabbed in the back he was chased, beaten and kicked down. When he tried to escape to the safety of an empty cargo truck the driver kicked him out of the truck and forced him out into the crowd waiting for him. The boy is in critical condition now at the hospital. There were several other stabbings but those individual's names I did not receive.

Now the thing of it is that I've seen violence before. I've been lucky enough never to be involved in it, but there were fights and stabbings at the high school I went to, so the violence wasn't too new. No, the thing that got to me was that since I knew a little about this kid I started to wonder what was going through his mind when it happened-had he ever seen so much blood before? Had he ever seen so much of his own blood before? Was he scared? Did he laugh out of nerves as he was sometimes wont to do? Had he been given time to realize the severity of the situation? And perhaps more frightening for me- was this not new to him?
I wondered about him and about his parents. I wondered if they were around, how they would take the news, how they would reac- if at all. As it turned out, when the school contacted his mother prior to the stabbing to request that she come to escort him home because he felt unsafe, she told the principal that her son was not something she was concerned with, in exactly those words.
As I looked out on the police tape outside our office window I started to think about gangs, death, violence, and the disconnect that kids seem to have between being violent, having violence done to you, and imminent death. I thought about the child who stabbed him, for it was a child, and I wondered what was going through his mind as well. Why he felt that this was the acceptable solution to the problem. If he had felt pressured to prove himself in some twisted way and who was at the root of that pressure in the long run.
It made me scared. Not for my personal safety, but for every one of those kids. And it made me terribly sad. The kind of quiet sad that happens when the damage has been done and there can be no anger, no rage because the blame is spread so thin amongst so many possible sources that to try and sort it out to establish who to be most angry at would do nothing for the child in the end. No, the only rage I could feel was at the adult driving the truck who kicked the child out, and even then who knows what kind of concerns were running through his mind about his own personal safety. I couldn't say I would have behaved differently and I couldn't condemn him for his actions, though I absolutely wanted to.
To look at it honestly and in the broadest sense, there was a large and long running system of beliefs and oppression at fault combined with misconceptions of masculinity, honor, and duty, but what good does that do us now? We have no immediate solutions but to continue to fight with everything we have against that oppression and misinformation, to continue to educate and inform and assist people to rise up and take on true strength and power to question the status quo, to give the opportunity for real hope and success to everyone whose been placed low by any system, belief or otherwise. But that's the long run, and in the short run this child is lying unconscious in a hospital, so what then?
Today I had the opportunity to speak to the stabbing victim's friend, the one I had seen him in the hall with the day before and as I talked with him about violence all he could conjure up was thoughts of revenge. He said he wanted to corner the boy that did it alone and do some real damage with his friends. When I asked him what the point of jumping a person was he said that once a person sees who you roll with they don't mess with you alone. When I suggested to him that this was precisely what he was planning to do to the kid that had jumped his friend he didn't have an answer.
This 14 year old and I talked about life, death, self worth, goals and personal safety for somewhere around an hour and while I'm sure most of what he was saying was simple bravado, I couldn't help but want to shake him and scream at him to look around him and open his eyes, to convince him to stop talking all that trash and run in the opposite direction while he still could. The thing of this kid that got to me was that he had sought me out to ask if he should talk to the dean of security about what he knew, and while we chatted about it all I could think about was his baby face, his small stature, his youthful inability to grow facial hair as of yet, and his age. All I could think about was that he was a child. A fucking kid, and whether everything he was saying was false or true, the fact was that he was beginning to speak in these ways and plan things out, and believe that getting revenge in that way was an alternative to be explored, made me almost wanted to hurt him. I was extremely close to grabbing him and, like I said, shaking him long and hard.
It was so obvious to me that he was scared and that he didn't have any designs to do himself what he was suggesting, but when I posed to him the possibility of his friends pressuring him into it, or the possibility of being there and panicking with the awareness of the task at hand, he again had no answers. He couldn't tell me he would back down, he couldn't tell me he would have an out, and that was the most despairing thing I've ever heard come out of a child's mouth next to total resignation, which was close on this boys heels anyway.
It hurt me deeply to see kids in these predicaments and to think that even if it was all talk, at some point they were forced to decide between talk and action and many of them, without support and guidance, without somebody to still have faith in them, would likely chose the negative action. So my question to any or all of you reading this is how I fix this, because I desperately want to. I very much have the urge to take all of these children, sit them down, and have some miracle conversation that will change their focus, but I don't know what words to begin with. All I can think to do is rationalize with them about their own lives and goals, talk with them about what death means and what involvement in shit like this means, and plead with them to be careful and to think before they act. All I can think to do it become supportive, but even that doesn't seem like enough, hell I know its not enough because as I sit there trying to build up a supportive place for these kids, they are busy getting stabbed and plotting revenges that involve guns and fear. And while for the long term I'm setting up structures of support and working towards larger change, for the short term there is a boy lying unconscious in the hospital who once told me the only alternative was to stand up and defend yourself with your fists, only in his unlucky case someone chose a knife.

Kidz in the Hall

Today I got to spend more time with my kids. Since the summer program ended and we hadn't spent much time doing more than paper work until now I was really excited to meet up with the kids and talk with them. This is the part of my job that I live for. I sat in the cafeteria with one girl who was cutting class and had been turned down by our program, but that clearly wanted and needed for someone to talk to. She talked to me about a fight she was going to get into, but the thing of it was that you knew she was more scared than anything. As we were talking I was sculpting with some clay we had brought down with us for art therapy purposes and in the midst of our conversation I ended up sculpting a face of sorts. When I had completed it she picked it up, picked up a piece of white clay and shaped a tear on the side of the face. And as corny as it may sound, to me it was terribly sad. It was sad because I knew that she was hurting about the impending fight, it was sad because it was apparent that she was hurting over what her boyfriend did to make her feel the need to fight, it was sad because even though she had been turned away from our program she still sought us out to talk, it was sad because she was just a goddamn kid and she was talking about getting a gun for this fight and when she talked about it the fear in her eyes was just enoromous, and while she may never go get that gun, and while it may have been all talk and probably was, the fact that she felt that was something she might have to do, the fact that she felt she had to be that tough just affected me so deeply. I kept the face we sculpted together-its beside my desk on the window sill. It makes me sad that she could not join our program, but I think that she will ultimately seek us out whenever she can, which is at least some small comfort.
Anyway I guess my point in all of that is just to say that I was glad I got to talk to her, I was glad she felt she could still come to us, and I felt good about the fact that we were giving kids like her a place to come and feel supported and cared for. She may still go through with her fight, but at least she got a space to express her fears about it, and at least she got a chance to hear someone express concern in a healthy and moderately unitrusive way. I know that lately I've been really burnt out with all the BS in my job, but moments like those are why I stick with it. Not because I can pat myself on the back after every one of them, I certainly cannot and could tell you horror stories from our summer program, but because they happen at all and even if they don't have any impact on the kids right now or any visible impact on the kids at all, at least for that brief moment they were reminded or shown that people do care and are willing to listen.

City Mouse and Country Mouse

Strange, or not so strange, as it may seem I've always been very attracted to both the city and the countryside. I walked home today by Grand Army Plaza, and it being later in the year the sun has begun setting closer and closer to the time I leave work. Anyway, today it was well on its way west by the time I was out of the building and onto the main thorough fair. As I was walking the air was cool and the sun was still reflecting a sort of orange light off the brick and glass, lighting up the fire escapes on the fronts of the buildings. The trees of the plaza were in the distance and cars and people were all around keeping the street busy. And I guess it was there that this realization of my love for the two types of places sort of struck me again. I've always been very politically and socially interested in the two places for various reasons, but I started thinking about how my reaction was more than that. I started thinking there must be some inherent aesthetic quality similar in both that draws me to these two extremes. Yet, as I sit here now, aside from the obvious-to-me pulls of each place, I think it might be more than that. Perhaps it's not the places at all, but perhaps it's the way light hits all things at sunset. Whatever it paints seems to take on this very organic quality, as if it's perfectly obvious that this thing exists and exists where it does, as if there would never be another place that this thing could exist. And if it's even possible in a place where so little is naturally occurring, the sunset has this astounding effect on brick, mortar, and steel. It makes it all feel perfect and right. It kind of reminds me of the first sunrise I saw (not a sunset I know, but bare with me). I was on a late night train running through city after city. We paused briefly in an open air station god only knows where and I remember waking up and realizing that I was witnessing the sunrise. Now while the station was open air it was still all city around it and there was broken down concrete, graffiti, trash, you name it. But the sun and whatever quality it possesses made it all seem just breathtaking and perfect. Maybe I'm overdoing it, but then again maybe I'm not. Maybe this is just one of those small things about life I learned to love and appreciate. And I'm not saying that the sunrise or sunset is going to do it for everyone; of course there are issues in the world in need of more immediate attention. I guess all I'm saying is that no matter where I go: countryside, desert, inner city, suburbs, or vacant lot, I know that I can take some comfort in the fact that at some point in the day, the external world will seem utterly natural and right, even if just for a moment, and that small moment is worth a lot to me.

Summer Heat

Its somewhere after 10pm and the temperature is still hovering in the eighties. The concrete absorbs most of it and makes it stick a while longer than normal in the city. People are out on their stoops, walking down the street in cotton skirts, tank tops and flip flops, the kind of weather that makes you want for a fabric that breathes.

Anyway, all the lights are off in my apartment because of my belief that light bulbs on hot nights make that room just that much warmer. Its probably not very true, but I feel in the warmth, darkness is the appropriate atmosphere anyway. So the lights are off but the fans are on- one in each room. And Im sitting in my window sill in as little clothing as possible drinking ice water and trying to catch as much of the slight breeze passing through as I can.

Something about warm summery evenings makes me both happy and sad simultaneously. Its a longing sadness and a strange contentment as if this is how hot nights are supposed to go. I sigh a lot on nights like this.

I think what it reminds me of is the lack of crickets and heat bugs in the city. Remembering them is what makes me content; noticing their absence is what makes me melancholy. Its funny the things you dont anticipate missing. Heat bugs, grass between your toes, people.

Thats not to say Im missing a whole slew of things or people in my life, or even to say that Im currently feeling the absence, but I think Im feeling the impending absence. I realize, as the summer goes on, that in the fall I will not be continuing school, that I will stay in this job and just exist within it. I may move on from where I live, in fact I will inevitably do so, but things are going to be different for me from here on out. For one Im losing my roommate, and secondly I feel like Im losing a friend, and I think that that change is spurring me to really look at where my life is currently at and who I currently am. In some ways Im intentionally making changes in my life so I can feel like Im going somewhere, in other ways I feel like Im dragging my feet. As if my future is pulling me, kicking and screaming towards it, and more importantly away from the past.

I think thats the thing of it though, right? You cant ever have something without its opposite: longing without contentment, heat without cold, the future without the past. I guess I just have to learn to adjust and keep moving.

Hard Looks

So I'm sitting in Union Square the other day reading a book by bell hooks and this young black girl with the Parks Dept. comes up beside me with her trash bucket and broom, she says excuse me and proceeds to make disgusted noises as she picks up the trash and because I've put down my book to blow my nose I make a face to commiserate with her. As I am blowing my nose this young black guy comes up behind her and starts telling me to throw my tissue on the ground so she'll have to pick it up and to make sure I make it nice and nasty. I sort of laughed and said that wouldn't be very nice of me as she stood there offering to let me put the tissue in her basket. I declined since I wasn't finished blowing my nose and without missing a beat the kid with her was like "what, I was only going to open it up and look at it" as he was walking away. And for a brief second I was thrown off and embarassed and felt uncomfortable because I believed I hadn't done anything to provoke that and didn't feel like I deserved being called out like that. For a split second my mind went to the book I had been reading and I told myself that if I was reading a book like that I didn't deserve that anger because I was trying to understand how to change things. But before I let my head get too filled I thought about it for a second and put the book down. I realized that regardless of what I read or who I am inside my own mind that I had no right to use the book like a shield or to even believe that I deserved a free pass from recieving anger like that, no matter what form the anger took and even if the kid was just ragging on me to impress the girl he was following around. That book should not have been something to hold up like that as some sort of absurd badge or protection. It should have been something I was learning from and so I put it away for the rest of my sit. Beyond the book though, it bothered me that I was so thrown by this kid. It bothered me that I had gotten upset at him when all he was doing was bursting the little bubble that I was sitting in that let me believe I already understood about race. Intentionally or otherwise he was putting the difference between this girl and I right in my face for me to look at and it wasn't something I should've been upset with him for. The thing is I should be made uncomfortable seeing that inequality between her and I. It isn't right that kids like her get jobs like that and that those jobs are amongst the few options that some young kids in urban areas have. It isn't right that black kids are cleaning up after white adults as nearly a standard- I mean there were no white kids on that park crew. I should see the injustice in the fact that all the kids on that crew were black and that there were just as many if not more white kids and adults sitting in that park making trash. Its ok for me to see that and be angry or upset with that. Its important for me to see and try to change. In that way it's right that that kid burst my little bubble and made me see just how unequal things can still be. Afterall no matter how equal I may believe I am in my dealings that girl is still black and I am still white and unless people do more bubble bursting and take constant action towards changing inequality I will always have some sort of advantage. I will always be anticipated to be the one sitting there making trash while some young black girl stands by to pick it up.Thats not to say I feel badly for her, because who knows what the circumstance is that brought her specifically to that job and feeling badly sets up some sort of victim ideology that deprives an individual of empowerment, its just to say that its there and until we can truly say we are at a place where race has absolutely nothing to do with position or job prospects, or whose on the other end of our broom, we cannot stop looking at it critically and realizing the implications of such a setup

Trading our hearts for handlebars

I need something to focus on other than the fact that its gloomy and cold out, yet again, and my weekend days have become relatively uneventful. My program is winding down and they're kind of taking it easy on us and as a result I find myself with my weekends actually free which is strange to me, though not bad, and the thing is if it were nice I'd go outside and if I had money I'd be in a coffee shop reading. Since I don't really have money and the money I do have I've been saving for my nighttime stuff my days are pretty tame. It's nice but scary.

I guess the thing is I've always been the type of person who needs to keep moving around in one way or another. Sometimes I do it to avoid thinking about things I don't want to think about and more often than not it's habit thanks to a lifetime of the former reason. I've done it for so long I don't really know how to stop and when I do its like my body just becomes overwhelmed. I napped for two hours today because my sleep recently has been in fits and starts. Just getting more of it than I usually do is my personal belief, but either way I took a nap. And I'm sure all of you out there have hints and tips for what to do with my free time: read a book, write in my journal, watch television/ a movie, make art, take a walk, take pictures, do yoga. And that's all well and good and often I do those things, but when you have no energy to do anything, all the suggestions in the world wont work and don't work. I barely have energy enough to focus on this, which is maybe why I'm trying so hard.

I don't know what it is, well, ok I do that's a lie: I'm burnt out on life, on NYC, on dating, on school, on work, on being in my apartment. Sounds depressing no? Yeah, try being on my end of it. Usually it bothers me to express this much negativity, although in my dealings with others I can be somewhat of a pessimist, I don't generally consider myself negative to the point of apathy. Most of the time, while I look at things with a critical eye, I have a passion about what I'm doing or believing in. See I guess its more like I'm feeling apathetic about everything and that scares me. Apathy scares me.

When people don't give a shit about what's happening around them, when they say "yeah but I can't do anything about it so I won't" that scares me because I wonder what the limit is that they will put up with. At what point of injustice will they get angry if ever? Or not even necessarily injustice alone, but even when people just ignore the fact that a beautiful day can make everything in the world seem right and sort of have the response like " so what, its nice out…I'm still staying in and playing video games", it's kind of like I want to scream at them to get out and feel the sunshine, and crowds, and community in general because for Christ's sake the world is a pretty damn amazing place, society is fascinating and our communities are brimming with life. So when I start to feel this way myself I begin to wonder where it's coming from. I usually want to do anything I can to run away from it. I mean, seriously is this just something that happens every now and then because of mood and being busy or is it the result of some overarching and sudden awareness that one voice really doesn't matter, that even if its beautiful out that doesn't change the fact that people across the globe are dying senselessly? I don't know. I guess it could be a mix of both, but it doesn't feel that way.

And so, ok, for me I know this is just an occasional mood and still for others playing video games is enjoying life and is something they completely dive into with passion but what about those who feel apathetic all the time, don't really get passionate about anything they do in life and don't enjoy life on a simplistic level either? Are they just depressed? Do they think about these things or just go around buying into whatever, never loving or fighting for anything, and insisting that they would rather not think about the tough questions because "really, who cares?". Could it also be that some of us have the luxury of feeling passionate about things? I mean seriously, for some people it could be that they are too busy trying to make rent, pay for food and their child's needs and so its less a question of apathy and more a question of not having time to deal with all the other stuff?

Anway, I think parts of the answer to this are obvious and others are not, and maybe its really not productive to think so much about apathy when really I could be out curing my own, but I guess I was just trying to go with the feeling of the moment.