It's been such an odd few weeks for me, and there is so much that I can't post here for you, world. Suffice to say I'm embroiled in something bigger than I can rightly comprehend, some wild thing waking in the forests of my heart. It's all very strange and entirely new. I feel like I'm on the edge of some great discovery about myself, and about the world.
It's all because I'm on the cusp of decision.
I've been thinking about going back to school. I was thinking of becoming an education major, and eventually a teacher. Or I could go back for something else entirely - say, environmental science or marine biology? Something to do with water? Or I could do none of this in the next year; I could join another AmeriCorps program somewhere new, then spend the year after in graduate school.
What do you think?
I had a terrible nightmare last night that I can't bring myself to talk about, but it doesn't help that it's still clinging to me now. I've been dreaming quite vividly lately, about all kinds of things.
The weather here is getting fairly chilly. My roomies and I finally decided it was time to start turning on the heat at night. (When I knocked on my next-door roomie's door to ask him, he was snuggled in his bed under his sleeping bag and blanket, wearing a hoodie.) It's been much nicer sleeping ever since. I'm not sure if being warmer has been adding to my wild dreams or not - perhaps when I'm cold and sleeping, my brain doesn't waste energy on dreaming.
I was excited to learn that my sister Bridget and my Grandpa got together to buy me a ticket home for winter break! I leave on the 16th and arrive at O'Hare. I've got a show in Two Rivers, WI on the 17th - wish me luck! - and I can't wait to see all of my friends and family.
I'll be coming back this way on the 29th, which gives me a good ten days to do whatever I want in the area. I hope to get lots of hiking in. Long walks are always nice, alone or with good company.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
The kids
Hello, world.
Had a fair Thanksgiving, and now I'm here in my empty apartment, enjoying a bit of Sun Kil Moon and getting ready for sleep.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpM-n6t-HHc&feature=player_embedded#!
But something's been tugging at my heart these past few days. There was a wonderful potluck for AmeriCorps folks a few nights ago, and I had a lovely time.
And I listen to members talk, and enjoy their company, and love to hear their stories.
And I realize something as I'm listening. They talk about their kids and their schools and all, and with so much varied love and affection and frustration - the usual stuff, nothing unexpected or wrong or terrible. And as I listen I realize I can't talk about my kids. I can't talk about them.
It's not because I don't know them. I do. I know their stories, I know the names of their siblings, I know which ones get dinner, which ones get affection, which ones do not. I know how they act in class and I know which ones struggle the most. I know which ones might inevitably be taken advantage of, which ones are more prone to showing their emotions than others. I know their laughs and their smiles and I know when they're not having a good day. I know when it's okay to practice reading and I know when it's time to go to the garden instead. And I know that they will invariably suffer for all kinds of reasons.
And I realize that when I think about them individually, my eyes start to burn and my throat locks up and I want to climb into bed and just lay there if I can't be working with them. Because I can't handle it. I can't handle how much we have to go through to get older, to get wiser. I can't bear to think that some of them won't make it. I hate that I know which ones don't get breakfast. I hate that I know which students have clean clothes and which never do. I hate that they have to be raised in this town and that some of them are not wanted and have parents in jail and on the streets and are being cared for by their grandparents. I hate that they have to know these things at eight and nine years old. I hate that I have to read an essay by a nine-year-old girl which says "I want to be a cop because then I can keep people from raping people."
But there are so many assumptions there. Assumptions that I have no right to make. It's not fair to assume that they're not being taken care of. Because the world is complicated and their parents are trying, doing the best they can under the circumstances, I think. I believe that people in general desire to do good, and I don't think the people giving these kids care are any different. But it's such a convoluted mess of violence and anger and hurt and poverty that these kids often have to go home to. They have no choice, and neither do their parents.
And I guess we all cope with this differently. I cope by holding my tongue. Because I don't want to cry. I think I came into this believing AmeriCorps was supposed to be some kind of life experience for me that would turn me into a better person or all that jazz we idealists believe about everything.
I didn't expect it to be a full emotional immersion, I didn't expect to need so much of my heart to cope with it. I didn't expect to feel so vastly overwhelmed by the simple fact that I will never be able to do enough. I feel terribly inadequate, so ill-prepared. I should have brought an army. I should have armed myself for the effect they would have on me. I didn't know. Please, forgive me for not knowing how much I would love them.
Had a fair Thanksgiving, and now I'm here in my empty apartment, enjoying a bit of Sun Kil Moon and getting ready for sleep.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpM-n6t-HHc&feature=player_embedded#!
But something's been tugging at my heart these past few days. There was a wonderful potluck for AmeriCorps folks a few nights ago, and I had a lovely time.
And I listen to members talk, and enjoy their company, and love to hear their stories.
And I realize something as I'm listening. They talk about their kids and their schools and all, and with so much varied love and affection and frustration - the usual stuff, nothing unexpected or wrong or terrible. And as I listen I realize I can't talk about my kids. I can't talk about them.
It's not because I don't know them. I do. I know their stories, I know the names of their siblings, I know which ones get dinner, which ones get affection, which ones do not. I know how they act in class and I know which ones struggle the most. I know which ones might inevitably be taken advantage of, which ones are more prone to showing their emotions than others. I know their laughs and their smiles and I know when they're not having a good day. I know when it's okay to practice reading and I know when it's time to go to the garden instead. And I know that they will invariably suffer for all kinds of reasons.
And I realize that when I think about them individually, my eyes start to burn and my throat locks up and I want to climb into bed and just lay there if I can't be working with them. Because I can't handle it. I can't handle how much we have to go through to get older, to get wiser. I can't bear to think that some of them won't make it. I hate that I know which ones don't get breakfast. I hate that I know which students have clean clothes and which never do. I hate that they have to be raised in this town and that some of them are not wanted and have parents in jail and on the streets and are being cared for by their grandparents. I hate that they have to know these things at eight and nine years old. I hate that I have to read an essay by a nine-year-old girl which says "I want to be a cop because then I can keep people from raping people."
But there are so many assumptions there. Assumptions that I have no right to make. It's not fair to assume that they're not being taken care of. Because the world is complicated and their parents are trying, doing the best they can under the circumstances, I think. I believe that people in general desire to do good, and I don't think the people giving these kids care are any different. But it's such a convoluted mess of violence and anger and hurt and poverty that these kids often have to go home to. They have no choice, and neither do their parents.
And I guess we all cope with this differently. I cope by holding my tongue. Because I don't want to cry. I think I came into this believing AmeriCorps was supposed to be some kind of life experience for me that would turn me into a better person or all that jazz we idealists believe about everything.
I didn't expect it to be a full emotional immersion, I didn't expect to need so much of my heart to cope with it. I didn't expect to feel so vastly overwhelmed by the simple fact that I will never be able to do enough. I feel terribly inadequate, so ill-prepared. I should have brought an army. I should have armed myself for the effect they would have on me. I didn't know. Please, forgive me for not knowing how much I would love them.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Terrible at keeping up
Hi there, world.
We haven't spoken in a while, and for that I'm sorry. You see, I do keep a journal - one that's hand-written - and some of the things I put in there can't go on here, for whatever reason, so I simply forget to nudge the entries down and type them up for you. But I'm going to try and do that from now on.
It's been an interesting run so far in AmeriCorps, and I'm close to finishing with my first group of eight kids. They have all improved greatly in the past few weeks, some more than others, and it gives me a lot of pride to say that I work with so-and-so, isn't he/she just wonderful? It's amazing to watch them learning - there's so much to teach them! - and every session is like a run-in with the paparazzi, light bulbs flashing all over the place as you watch things begin to make sense for them. It's a wonderfully gratifying experience.
I've spent a lot of time wandering the area that I live in. Marina is a strange town that's full of abandoned buildings that was once Fort Ord, a training facility and an army town. Behind our apartments is what we simply call the Ord, a wide expanse of land that was once the winding roads of a military training ground but has evolved over time with the absence of people into a kind of natural preserve. There are a few paved roads that cut through the place, but the rest are mostly dirt and gravel and sand; all, including the paved ones, are abandoned and used now for bikers and horses and runners. Oh, and Coyotes.
The Ord is a strange place, very different from the kind of wild you find in the Midwest. It's all dry (although the recent drizzling rain has brought some bright yellow-green grass to some places) and sandy and full of California live oak and yellowed saw grass. There are trails that snake through the brush and low trees, and the earth is dotted with the holes of ground squirrels. Sometimes I see hawks fly overhead. As evening falls, there's always a good chance of spotting an owl or two.
It's strange enough by itself, but I think it must be more strange to me because I wander it alone, sometimes with my headphones on but mostly in the not-silence of the place. I hear any number of small animals rustling in the brush around me; sometimes, I see quail running off the path ahead; every once and a while, I'll hear the coyotes barking and sometimes a hawk will cry.
It's a good place to be, I think, alone. None of the paths are treacherous and my smart phone maintains its signal out there (I have needed to use GPS on longer hikes; getting lost once would be once too many). So when the day has been too long or I have no money to spend on going out for the weekend, which is pretty typical, I can bring a lunch and go for a long hike back there, listen to my music (or the music of that place), and be alone for a while. It's a kind of recovering that I think only solitude can bring.
I used to spend plenty of time wandering alone in college, too, but it was always sort of the opposite kind of wandering. I would wander the campus at night, but it never felt empty; it was as if you could hear the place sleeping. And everywhere I went was familiar, if not made different by the mild gold lights shining on the buildings in the dark.
At the Ord I wouldn't dream of wandering through there at night - the very thought scares me, even now - because it would be so easy to get lost, or trip and break an ankle. At Lakeland, wandering the campus at night gave me time to fantasize about my senior writing project and dream about the future; on the Ord, I can think of nothing but the wandering, and my mind becomes empty rather than full. I am not sure if this is a characteristic of the place, or if it's a change in myself that's the cause. Maybe it's because the place looks so desolate and unintelligent in the way it is alive, while Lakeland was sleeping but with purpose. Does that make sense?
It makes me homesick to think of this. The Ord is the same, every day - we don't really have seasons here, and the trees do not lose their leaves; they simply go on and on and on, all year, a sombre green with the yellowed grass bent by the wind, laying over white powdered dust and sand. At Lakeland there is anticipation of change, and each season recreates the campus entirely. Lakeland of summer is not the same as Lakeland of fall, an entirely new animal in the winter and spring. The Ord is simply the Ord, a never-changing beast, more a carcass than a living thing, bones bleached by the ever-present sun.
Even still, I like to wander that place, and listen, and become blank for a while. I like to sit in the pock-marked earth and eat my lunch and fall back in the dry grass and doze in the sun. And knowing I can do that for as many days as I like, that my time there will not run out because of snow or ice or mosquitoes, is, in its own way, as reassuring as Lakeland's four seasons.
We haven't spoken in a while, and for that I'm sorry. You see, I do keep a journal - one that's hand-written - and some of the things I put in there can't go on here, for whatever reason, so I simply forget to nudge the entries down and type them up for you. But I'm going to try and do that from now on.
It's been an interesting run so far in AmeriCorps, and I'm close to finishing with my first group of eight kids. They have all improved greatly in the past few weeks, some more than others, and it gives me a lot of pride to say that I work with so-and-so, isn't he/she just wonderful? It's amazing to watch them learning - there's so much to teach them! - and every session is like a run-in with the paparazzi, light bulbs flashing all over the place as you watch things begin to make sense for them. It's a wonderfully gratifying experience.
I've spent a lot of time wandering the area that I live in. Marina is a strange town that's full of abandoned buildings that was once Fort Ord, a training facility and an army town. Behind our apartments is what we simply call the Ord, a wide expanse of land that was once the winding roads of a military training ground but has evolved over time with the absence of people into a kind of natural preserve. There are a few paved roads that cut through the place, but the rest are mostly dirt and gravel and sand; all, including the paved ones, are abandoned and used now for bikers and horses and runners. Oh, and Coyotes.
The Ord is a strange place, very different from the kind of wild you find in the Midwest. It's all dry (although the recent drizzling rain has brought some bright yellow-green grass to some places) and sandy and full of California live oak and yellowed saw grass. There are trails that snake through the brush and low trees, and the earth is dotted with the holes of ground squirrels. Sometimes I see hawks fly overhead. As evening falls, there's always a good chance of spotting an owl or two.
It's strange enough by itself, but I think it must be more strange to me because I wander it alone, sometimes with my headphones on but mostly in the not-silence of the place. I hear any number of small animals rustling in the brush around me; sometimes, I see quail running off the path ahead; every once and a while, I'll hear the coyotes barking and sometimes a hawk will cry.
It's a good place to be, I think, alone. None of the paths are treacherous and my smart phone maintains its signal out there (I have needed to use GPS on longer hikes; getting lost once would be once too many). So when the day has been too long or I have no money to spend on going out for the weekend, which is pretty typical, I can bring a lunch and go for a long hike back there, listen to my music (or the music of that place), and be alone for a while. It's a kind of recovering that I think only solitude can bring.
I used to spend plenty of time wandering alone in college, too, but it was always sort of the opposite kind of wandering. I would wander the campus at night, but it never felt empty; it was as if you could hear the place sleeping. And everywhere I went was familiar, if not made different by the mild gold lights shining on the buildings in the dark.
At the Ord I wouldn't dream of wandering through there at night - the very thought scares me, even now - because it would be so easy to get lost, or trip and break an ankle. At Lakeland, wandering the campus at night gave me time to fantasize about my senior writing project and dream about the future; on the Ord, I can think of nothing but the wandering, and my mind becomes empty rather than full. I am not sure if this is a characteristic of the place, or if it's a change in myself that's the cause. Maybe it's because the place looks so desolate and unintelligent in the way it is alive, while Lakeland was sleeping but with purpose. Does that make sense?
It makes me homesick to think of this. The Ord is the same, every day - we don't really have seasons here, and the trees do not lose their leaves; they simply go on and on and on, all year, a sombre green with the yellowed grass bent by the wind, laying over white powdered dust and sand. At Lakeland there is anticipation of change, and each season recreates the campus entirely. Lakeland of summer is not the same as Lakeland of fall, an entirely new animal in the winter and spring. The Ord is simply the Ord, a never-changing beast, more a carcass than a living thing, bones bleached by the ever-present sun.
Even still, I like to wander that place, and listen, and become blank for a while. I like to sit in the pock-marked earth and eat my lunch and fall back in the dry grass and doze in the sun. And knowing I can do that for as many days as I like, that my time there will not run out because of snow or ice or mosquitoes, is, in its own way, as reassuring as Lakeland's four seasons.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Speed Trials
Well, here I am, Ms. Lillie, back to writing blogs. I just graduated from the great Lakeland College in rural Sheboygan, Wisconsin. I learned a lot there, and made plenty of friends... and I miss them dearly. In my final year I was the Editor-In-Chief of the college newspaper, the Lakeland Mirror, as well as a Resident Assistant, Assistant Editor of Seems Magazine, and a Writing Tutor. Oh, and I was finishing my senior Writing Project at the same time.
But now I'm on a new adventure for at least a year or two. I joined the AmeriCorps in Monterey County, a program where members will tutor K-4 kids to improve their reading skills. That makes me... a literacy tutor, hooray!
The first week of real work has ended. I spent the entirety of Friday sitting in the Social Services office, trying my best to get food stamps. You see, our small stipend allows for a tiny living allowance - so small, in fact, that we qualify for $300 worth of food stamps every month.
I'm working at a school in Salinas called the MLK Academy, which houses kids from 4th to 6th grade. I think we might be in the most equipped school in the program - we get our own classroom to work in, and the teachers are wonderfully open to having us. They've been welcoming and kind so far, and the kids seem excited for the attention. You see, recently the school had to collapse a class, and so many teachers have more than 30 students, which means the students aren't getting the attention they need.
And that's where we come in! We work with students who need our help in many ways - academically, but also sometimes socially and personally. I'm excited to get the chance to make a difference in their lives.
Wish me luck.
Lillie
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