writing about vista: part 3

(These installments were written during my second year as an Americorps VISTA volunteer & family involvement coordinator at an elementary school. Results may vary.)

6/16/11

shining skin

cheeks damp with tears that trace years down young faces

sun glints on windows under sad smiles and hands waving fiercely

furrowed brows, squinting lashes hold floods back tenuously

some proud, for the first time, to look on each other with unadulterated joy

a physical barrier grows up between those on the bus moving away

from books and bar graphs and behavior slips, beyond the fence,

out in the open now. Vulnerable

to the sun, to each other’s eyes, to the pulling

the pain of a three-month separation visible on each face

the taste of electric current, the connecting cord so taught and tangible that it buzzes

broken suddenly when the last bus disappears around the corner.

A catharsis of applause breaks the spell, and finally they can turn back

to the building, left in ruins, to heal, to steel their hearts for the boomerang.

i’m terrible at analysis.

i forget to differentiate means and ends.

i don’t set smart goals.

i don’t deal in measurable results.

i don’t feel in a way that shows yearly progress

but my feelings progress; my heart is full to bursting

and the task at hand feels insurmountable: release responsibility.

i cannot drop the weight, i cannot let go from a hug that has the power to suffocate.

what will they do next year? where will i go?

i cannot leave them.

it’s not about me, luckily. things aren’t fine, but they have the possibility to be better.

if my time here left them one thing, i hope it was to help paint one day new, with a sky where the sun is coming up.

writing about vista: part 2

(These installments were written during my second year as an Americorps VISTA volunteer & family involvement coordinator at an elementary school. Results may vary.)

 4/11/11

The gaggle congregates in the school library each Saturday morning. They trickle in, some as early as 7am (long before the doors open), some running up the walkway at 10:30 (with traces of sleep still crusted to their faces). They sign the sign-in sheet under “Student,” write their names on pilfered mail merge labels. A flurry of jackets tossed toward the couches becomes a rainbowed patchwork mountain.

They’ve almost always had breakfast already, but they always want to eat again: soggy, salty hashbrown triangles, four or five packets of jelly squeezed onto flat biscuits, still warm from the close quarters of their bursting paper bag. Ronald smiles out from the labels on the little bottles of milk. In our common language, smiles mean strength; breakfast means caring; focus means resiliency; laughter means comfort; mutual respect means adoration.

Sitting quietly or not at the substantial tables and chairs, they know the drill: folder, pencil, papers, tutor. It’s Math Time. Simple answers hide just behind flashcards, but more difficult facts are embedded deep in paragraphs to be extracted. They mine the minds of their elders, in search of bigger armaments for their tool belts. There’s no ruler to measure the gifts of the givers, no equation to quantify their effect. Except, perhaps, the intangible luminosity of a light bulb radiating above a head newly filled with incendiary combinations: knowledge, tenacity, self-esteem, endurance, passion, hope.

They say and do everything they can to be noticed, chosen, remembered. They say and do everything they can to get it right, to be good. They fall into the routine of agreement on their academic philosophies, their small promises not to surrender. Knights in shining armor aside, those in the room cooperate in fortifying the ramparts, making them strong enough to hold when tested. Together, they fashion shields that cannot be pierced by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. In their quest for what is nobler, may they need no sleep to dream.

They gobble it all up. They put their heads together and dare to try. They grab our hands and pull us to the gym when it’s time to play. Each weekday, they pull on my clothes and knock on my door and call my name, 

Miss Julia! 

Will you be there on Saturday?

 

writing about vista: part 1

(These installments were written during my second year as an Americorps VISTA volunteer & family involvement coordinator at an elementary school. Results may vary.)

 1/27/11

i. on telling a story

my good intent: like best-laid plans

it tends to go awry

it follows no predetermined path

it follows instinct

a water strider making ripples on the surface of portent

scared into the middle by what’s brewing on the shore

its shadow warning living things below of the menace’s arrival

my steps issuing concentric circular signals

a beacon forming, illuminating fire doors

but i didn’t do it on purpose. i followed my instinct.

my subconscious a thick web of societal trust

my heart singing the story they taught me was worth telling

i was given feet that float long ago and expect thus

my courage dependent on silk woven to hold

ii. on service

you are not special. you are not one of them.

they are not yours to fix to help to make better to change

you are not the one who has the answers they need

you are not the one who has the money or the influence it takes

someone told you to be the change, it changed you

but you will not save the world today.

iii. on greatness

our great people say americans are special because we dare to dream

but i think we’re just fortunate enough to see dreams realized all around us

and brave(crazed) enough despite it all to say, “why not me?”

i didn’t learn that from a book, or a leader, or from history

i learned it at the north end elementary science fair.

a child who doesn’t know where she’ll sleep tonight

tells me she’s going to save the world

and i believe her, so

i begin again to dream of a world worth saving

it’s my job to help make it before she puts her cape on