Spring.
Kind of a funny word when it's out there on it's own. Spring forward, lose an hour, spring flowers, spring showers. Spring makes me think of Tigger, t-i-double guh-er. Spring makes me think of Easter bunnies and chocolate ears and tie-dye. To spring, to bounce, to pounce, to ascend. It's a transitional season with an identity crisis. It'll rain and it'll shine and it'll freeze and it'll sweat, sometimes all in the same day. You wake up excepting to wear a jacket and wind up in shorts and flip-flops. The weathermen make their best guesses but spring doesn't like to be predictable.
So that's where I'm at now.
Transitioning, like the seasons, trying to play weatherman for my destiny and often getting the forecast wrong. I can't really assume I know anything about the future. I've decided not to bother with predictions. It's winter that makes you antsy, makes you want to plan the perfect summer. Nothing wrong with planning, but remember that every reaction has an equal and opposite, so each plan you make has equal chance of falling apart completely. That's a prediction you can trust.
So spring is a time to live. Just that. Simply live.
Quit hibernating.
I have a theory that you never really know someone until you've known them through all four seasons. Spring is a time when people are going to blossom. Spring is the time to really pay attention to those around you and witness change. Witness progress. The way someone breaks out of winter's cocoon like a butterfly using its wings for the first time. And while you witness, experience the change yourself. Start new hobbies. Get new interests. Wish and dream and reach and try, try, try. People will notice. The world will notice. Prove to yourself and those around you that winter might've had you pinned, but you're stronger now because of it, you're more capable now because you've learned from it.
Spring forward.
On Monday I drove out towards Oak Park down MLK and found myself at PS7, the elementary school on Strawberry Lane. Walked into the office and waited for Marguerite to help a young girl call her mother because her heart was hurting. I explained that I was there to start a volunteer tutoring position and we figured out that I'd gone to the wrong school, and Marguerite kindly wrote me out directions and sent me on my way. It was a good thing that I'd left early.
Earlier that day I worked with Jessica at Old Soul and heard the story about how when she was young she upset her local church simply by being wary of germs, refusing to kiss a bishop's ring after some snotty-nosed kid kissed it before her. They haven't forgotten and she hasn't gone back. I'm supportive of people and their religions, but when religion prohibits logic, it reminds me why I have trouble following along.
Same thing goes for politics, I guess.
So I get to the right school, a middle-school attached to a high-school, and find the room where I was told me to be at 3:00, and it's 2:45 when I let myself into a full room of mixed-race students currently being taught the definition of stereotype and bias by a young Mrs. Coates. I slide along the back of the class and sit by the teacher's desk. It's been a long time since I've been in a 7th grade classroom. The kids are black and asian and hispanic. I'm in the less-affluent part of Sacramento now and suddenly my whole little self-contained life in Midtown feels like something foreign, almost unreal. I see in these kids all the potential in the world. I see in these kids all the pressure and expectations and challenges they're going to face because society is still messed up and everyone knows that. Even they know that. It's weird to think that even though I'm living on minimum wage and often scraping the bottom of my bank-account, I'm still in a position to teach, and as a survivor of the public education system, I owe it to our youth to remind them that it's possible for them, too.
And a lot of them need to hear that.
I sat down with one soft-spoken kid and had to figure out a way to kindly and helpfully explain why half of the answers on his homework were wrong. I had to figure out a way to define "stereotype" and "adequate" and "assess" and "inaccurate." I had to explain why a personal journal would contain "bias." I had to tip-toe around the true or false statement: All bias is wrong.
Is it? Always?
What I come to find out about this tutoring gig is that there are four official tutors: Starbright, Kayla, Tyler and myself. We're at the school from 3 to 6pm and we've got 8 students under our wing. Apparently I've come into the program at a time when the Principal demanded more hands-on time with each student, so on Monday we spent a while trying to figure out which kids needed the help the most, which kids were showing the most improvement, and had to cut about five kids off the list. Not sure what's going to happen to those kids. I honestly still have no idea how the program works, exactly, but Tyler convinced me that it would all make sense soon enough.
I helped one girl with a chemistry problem and talked another kid through 6 + (-22).
And I felt like I was changing lives. The look in those kids' eyes when they were starting to figure shit out was like watching the entire season of Planet Earth in five minutes. It just amazed me to witness the learning process from a teacher's point of view. This is what it feels like. This is why it's important to teach. This is what it means to be a part of the human species.
For a moment there the world was whittled down to one little brain, one little spark that needed to be fanned into a flame, into an idea, an understanding, and this one little brain who could very well grow up to change the world entirely.
It's official. I'm hooked.
Jenny and I are falling in love and we're cool with that. It's incredible to watch her figure out her life. We're young and limitless together. We're dreamers, writers and starving artists. We love beaches and sunlight through the blinds and soft blankets and windowsills and bonfires and dancing in the bedroom. It's casual and serious and playful and powerful all at the same time. We're taking flight on the wind of new experiences, together and separately. A hundred million things had to happen in order for us to meet here in Sacramento, where we crossed paths in a coffee-shop and found companionship on a pursuit of happiness, and where those hundreds of millions of things will lead us next, we can't predict any better than the weather.
And that's the best part about it.
Spring forward and don't look back.
I set up the projector outside for Monday's bonfire and played Wizard of Oz in the background while Shaun, Jen, Nick, Jenny, David and Meg came by to appreciate the flames. Shaun had his guitar and the live music was a nice touch. Pabst and tortilla chips and mild salsa. Consistent conversation and clear skies. I love the company and I can't wait for Bonfire Monday to become an event bigger than me, when summer rolls around and people just start showing up throughout the warm night with a six-pack and a lawn-chair.
Breakfast at Fox & Goose today with Jenny and Jen and Nick. It's been good getting to know Nick better. He's full of information and good for a political discussion any time of day. I like Jen a lot, too, and I commented that she seems happier now that she's getting back into music. People need to embrace their passions. Fuck what anyone else says. If you want to be a happy and whole person, then you need to find that outlet and you need to let your soul breathe.
Then work. Then kiwis. Then Jenny, French lessons and chocolate pudding.
And so begins the new season.
- Left to Fry
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