Phlox & Zinnia: Writing

Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts

Day 688

September 25, 2020

I realized in my latest post calvin post that I was being angsty, which meant I was being a little down and out. It’s a little bit of my writer brand, and I’ve mused on here before that I wonder if I’ve relegated that part of my personality to only come out in my writing. Or I somehow believe that my optimism isn’t interesting enough, isn’t cool enough, isn’t enough.

I’ve always felt a little selfish, openly processing my grief. It’s so often a private journey, one that I haven’t even really seen in my own family. There are always hints, but it’s never out in the open.

Chanel Miller laid it all out in her book Know My Name: all the words, all the feelings, all the darkness. And it was dark, yes, but those weren’t the times when I cried. It was when survivors swelled up around her and supported her. It was when she realized that she needed to speak out for herself, to unpack her own history. That survivors do not need platitudes or toxic positivity. They need the “I was in the dark place too. For a long time. But I’m making my way out of it.”

As I shared in my post calvin piece, I’m still in grief. Most of the time, now, I’ve forgotten it. Lori peaks out at me from my wallpaper, a picture on my fridge, a facebook memory, but I can smile at her for the most part. I don’t think “What if she was here? What would she be thinking?” constantly as I did throughout my first year of teaching. I’m not angry that she’s gone, most of the time. But sometimes it chokes me by the throat, like when people have a full conversation about heaven and maybe that we are in nothingness until Jesus comes, and while that’s a fun thought experiment for some people it means for me that my mom is gone until Jesus comes back. During my CPR and AED training, I couldn’t stop thinking if Mom got CPR in time. Was Lars trained? Was Dad trained? When did the paramedics start? Did she recognize her symptoms after doing school trainings for forever?

Someone reposted on facebook this description of grief like a ball in a box. The box has a big red button on the side labeled “pain,” and at the beginning the ball nearly fills the box, pushing into the button all the time. Every passing day reminds you of how many days it’s been since your person was alive. Every new thing you do you mark as “the first _____ since.” You are keenly aware of the before-after divide in your life.

But as time goes on, the ball shrinks. I find myself not marking the 7th of each month. I forget how much of my life my mom saw: was I living in Nizhoni? Had I started teaching? Was I friends with _________? Did I know _________? There are still triggers, still moments, but they are less often. The ball hits the other sides of the box more often than it hits the button. I’ve grown accustomed to the chain mail of grief; I’ve gotten strong enough to not notice its added weight as often.

When I mention her death, and my students express condolences, I can just smile and say, “Thank you.” The days where her photo arrests rather than comforts me are few, and for that I am grateful.

Thief in the White

July 25, 2020

I haven’t been able to find the one that crystallizes these sentiments exactly, but I’ve run across a few tweets and Instagram posts that go something like this: white people won’t be mobilized into anti-racism until they realize that whiteness is hurting them as well.

James Baldwin talks about this when he talks about how white people have invented Black people to make themselves feel better. I’ve heard echoes of it in an abolitionist teaching webinar that I attended where Bettina Love, Gholdy Muhammad, and Dena Simmons all made it exceedingly clear that abolition is a push for everyone’s humanity, and additionally that it’s insulting when white people say, “What should I do with my privilege?” because it shows they don’t want to give up their privilege. It’s present when people, usually Black people, point out that racism is a problem perpetuated by white people—it’s them that make everything about race.

All of the above makes sense to me logically. But it’s taking more time than I expected to come to grips with the fact that whiteness is oppressive to me too.

Bryan Stevenson has an amazing interview with Ezra Klein on Vox—from the abbreviated transcript I could easily pull ten quotes that glued me to the page. He emphasizes the fact that we have to be honest about our history and we haven’t dealt with the ugliness of it— “the ideology that we [white people] created — that Black people are less deserving, less worthy, less human, less evolved.” He urges people to see how they are implicated in that ideology and that history in the communities they love and to start telling the truth.

I want to say that whiteness is toxic to me because it implicates me in this centuries-old power dynamic where the color of my skin makes me more of a person in the eyes of the law, the government, my fellow citizens, etc. than someone with darker skin. That it’s toxic because I have to reconcile that history. I’m not sure that’s it. What whiteness continues to try to take away from me is the ability to see the face of God in other people. It is so desperate to prove that I am better, that I deserve more, that they are being unreasonable and exaggerating situations. I have been conditioned to turn away from justice for Black people because my whiteness and my power hinges on that injustice.

The other piece of the essay that hit me was Stevenson’s recognition of Black American’s commitment to the ideals of equality, freedom, and justice. His statements harkened back to Nikole Hannah-Jones’s 1619 podcast (a must-listen. Like, right now. Go. Don’t finish this essay. Go now.) which essentially argues that the major strands of American culture are all based in Black American culture.

Ever since I have begun to understand the history and legacy of slavery and to question how men could write and agree that it is self-evident that “all men are created equal” and then literally own other people, I’ve been pretty disillusioned with American ideals of freedom. I’ve sat for the Pledge of Allegiance, I’ve taken little notice of the Fourth of July celebrations, and I’ve shown open disdain for anything remotely patriotic. I believed it was my wokeness. But in a conversation with a friend, he reminded me that we as white people have not earned the right to be cynical about this country. “After all,” he seemed to say, “we haven’t been the ones wronged in this fight.”

Whiteness has distorted the values of America—love, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—from the very beginning. I’m still not completely convinced those are the ultimate values I want to center my life around, but regardless I should be following behind Black and queer leaders who continue to push this country to put its money where its mouth is—to become the land of the free and the home of the brave.

I can see what white supremacy has taken away from the Black community—lives, communities, wealth, opportunities, dignity, justice. But to only acknowledge that theft is to fall into the trap of performative allyship and woke white person brownie points. For me to keep running this marathon to justice, I need to remember what has been stolen from me and that my liberation is wrapped up in this fight too.

// This is what I wrote on the way to the piece above. It’s entirely unrelated but also something I would share on my blog, so congrats! You get a musing piece and a life update. What a treat.

If you could distill the essence of Elizabeth and I’s conversations over the past 5 years, you’d bottle the oak scent of faith wrestling and the spruce fragrance of accountability. We’ve tried many systems throughout the years of keeping each other accountable with our goals, whether they be faith, health, or school-related.

The latest of these is the accountability chart I made on my house’s shared calendar. I’ve written down 4 goals and how often I want to achieve them (I want to read the Book of Common Prayer every day, but there’s no way I’m working out more than 3 times a week). A week in, it’s gone pretty well. I get a little thrill from writing down a “W” when I don’t spend more than 15 minutes scrolling on my phone after I wake up. Somehow I’ve weaponized my need for a perfect self-image as a tool to prod myself to complete simple goals.

I’m in the middle of Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott’s scattershot of writing advice. She says the thing that I’ve heard since I went on the Writer’s Retreat: writers write every day. I immediately frowned and thought of my goal on the calendar— “journal/blog: 1–2x a week.” Should I write more? What time would I want to set apart for it?

In conversation with Joel, I realized that often when I write, I feel like it must have an external purpose other than just writing practice for me. I write whatever I want on my blog (but it has to be something worth remembering), meticulously thought-out and edited pieces on the post calvin, and major life events/ideas that I’m wrestling through in my journal. In my head, I understand that if I write every day, I cannot be using those spaces, yet those are the spaces that have worked the best for my writing. A part of me understands that writing is communicating, and it seems like an exercise in futility to write in a Google Doc only seen by myself.

faith identity justice reflection Writing

Call In

June 11, 2020

There’s a voice whispering in my ear that I’ve talked enough about this and I’m beating a dead horse, but I’m going to post this anyway.

A week (and a lifetime ago, it feels like), Maeva Veillard and I collaborated to write a letter to my middle school and high school, Lexington Christian Academy, that demanded them to reconcile past racial injustices and take steps towards becoming a safer space for Black students. As of now, approximately 235 alumni have signed the letter.

When I drafted this letter, I knew that I was going to be the one to send it to the administration. Having grown up at LCA in more ways than one and being the child of Lori Johnson, I recognized that I hold a lot of cultural capital at LCA. But as I lay awake on Tuesday night, planning to send it the next day, I kept thinking about what I was going to say in that email. How was I going to make clear that I held both the demand for change and the fond memories of my time at LCA in my hands? How would I present this letter in a way that invites the administration, educators, and board members into the work? And since this letter is Maeva’s ideas repackaged, how am I going to explain my stake in this fight?

This is what I wrote at 2 am and what I sent at 8 am (slightly revised) on Wednesday, June 3rd. Even more than the letter, it represents why I fight for racial justice. Perhaps some of you will see your own story reflected in here as well.

///

Dear [administration of LCA],

There's a short version and a long version of this. Before I give you either, please click here and read Maeva Veillard's Facebook post. You may have already, but I encourage you to read it again. It's the reason for everything else I'm about to say.

Last disclaimer: [the headmaster] let me know that a letter was sent out to the LCA community yesterday. I have not had a chance to read this letter yet.

Short version: After reading Maeva's post, I wrote an open letter based on her thoughts and points urging LCA to address past wrongs and commit to better practices that support Black students. I asked alumni who agreed with the contents to sign, and it was circulated privately among LCA alumni yesterday. This letter will be posted publicly by me and whoever else would like to at 1 pm today.

I wrote this letter out of a deep love for the LCA community that supported me so well as a student but who didn't always support my fellow Black students, as I saw reflected in Maeva's post. I urge you to read this letter and the names of people who affirm what it says. I am also asking you to please forward this letter onto the board of trustees.

In response to this letter, I'd like you all to consider: how will LCA be an inclusive space rather than just a diverse space? I put forth some suggestions at the end of the letter, but it is in your hands to create action steps and begin the change.

Long version:

I am deeply connected to LCA, and I truly believe that the education I received at LCA prepared me for the rest of my life. I not only found my passion for English there but I also found community in Chamber Singers, my voice in musicals, mentors and life-long friends in teachers, seeds of a faith that is willing to engage with the world, and a core group of friends who I will love until the day I die. I am who I am today because of LCA.

However, I do not believe that LCA was as effective in teaching me to recognize my racial privilege. It was the election of Donald Trump that opened my eyes and pushed me to learn how deeply racism is embedded in our society. Looking back on my time at LCA, I'm ashamed to say I thought things like, "Why are all the black kids sitting together?" and "I guess they don't want to be my friend," not realizing the constant microaggressions and exhaustion that students of color faced every day in a predominantly white space.

LCA taught me to think critically but not to apply that skill to race: my own and others. Things may have changed in the last five years; I hope they have.

This week's events have been a culturally defining moment for America, another Ferguson. I've watched many people on social media share resources and push others to have tough conversations. I also saw what you all saw: Black alumni discussing their experiences at LCA publicly.

I at first wondered why I saw Black alumni sharing about their LCA experiences—why now? What made them want to share? I believe that the heightened conversation about racism and some American's refusal to acknowledge it has led people, particularly Black people, to another chance to reflect on times that impacted their racial understanding of the world. For me, I've been reflecting on the election of Donald Trump and the books I've read (Stamped, The Warmth of Other Suns, So You Want to Talk About Race, Who Put This Song on) lately. For Black students, one of the things that come to mind is the racism they experienced at LCA.

Prompted by Maeva's post, I reflected on my own racial journey at LCA and realized that there wasn't a lot there that I remembered. What that means is that my whiteness and privilege were not challenged, I missed out on opportunities to decenter myself in the curriculum, and I was protected by my privilege to be blinded to actual racism at LCA. I, however, did not understand these facts or have the ability to articulate them while I was at LCA. Perhaps if I did, I could have started to work for racial justice right within the walls of the senior hallway.

Maeva's post struck a chord with me (and with other alumni, black and white). I asked if I could write a letter echoing her points and then circulate it to other alumni to allow them to raise their voices. And that's what we did: send the letter to our friends and classmates and hoped they would agree and sign.

A few years ago I was introduced to this term "call in." As opposed to calling out, intending to shame and humiliate, calling in is an invitation extended out of love and necessity. It's a way of saying "I see you aren't where I need you to be, and I am going to let you know that." This letter is a call in.

As someone who would like to work at LCA someday, I am calling you in. I am standing before you to ask that you invest in concrete steps to support all your students—students like Maeva who needed a space to be safe and a curriculum in which to see herself and students like me who needed a space to be challenged and a curriculum that helped me see others. Every student at LCA deserves an educator who is trained in culturally relevant pedagogy, is actively anti-racist, and teaches students to be anti-racist.

Please, read this letter and read the names. Then ask yourselves: how can we as a school and institution address grievances? How can we take steps towards the goals stated at the end of the letter? How can we not only be a diverse school but an inclusive school? How do we become a school that values its Black students as much as students who pay full tuition? How will teachers learn to teach equitably? From who? How will you support students when #BlackLivesMatter isn't trending anymore? How will you teach your white students about the privilege they have and how will you challenge them to leverage that privilege? How will you value Black Indigenous and People of Colors' voices at LCA? In the student body? In the faculty and staff? In the highest levels of administration? How will you teach the Bible and Christianity from an equity lens, acknowledging the ways Christianity has been used as a weapon of white supremacy and as a way to begin to heal racial divisions?

I fight for justice because I follow a savior that loves every single person on this earth and calls me to deny myself and support the people who are othered. In Jesus's day, those people were tax collectors, prostitutes, and Samaritans. Today, those are the racially marginalized (Black, Latino, Korean, Chinese, Nigerian, Indonesian, Haitian, etc.) people, LGBT+ people, the disabled people, and more. I also fight for justice because I was taught to by my mother and her dedication to all students. I hope that she would stand by what I've written if she were here today.

I look forward to your answers and watching how you all will fight for justice. I am grateful for the time you have given me and the work you have done and will do.

In solidarity,

Alex Johnson, Class of 2015

covid 19 time off Writing

Oscillate

May 01, 2020

first year life update Teaching Writing

"So Alex, How was Your First Week?"

August 31, 2019

There's been 4 days of school, I've taught 4 classes of creative writing, and only one of them has gone well. I know the learning curve is step but whew, I'm just trying to stay positive.

The Sunday before the first day I was hit with a wave of anxiety before I even got out of bed. I went to church and read more of my book and tried to keep my mind off of things, but this feeling of unprepared-ness lingered. Just who were these kids, and what did I think I could really teach them? Who did I think I was?

I mispronounced name after name on my attendance and only got through one activity that I had planned. The second day I went too far too fast, careening straight over my kids' heads. By talking about mentor texts academically, I lost them, and I lost a part of their trust. Wednesday was the worst—I got completely off track and my students just dissolved. I subbed for another teacher later in the day, and the students got so out of control that the behavior specialist had to stay in the room. When my boss asked if I wanted to debrief, I was feeling defeated.

But we talked through everything, and I got some actionable steps. I rewrote yet another lesson and finally got my students engaged in what I was presenting. I successfully pushed into other classrooms and helped to manage behavior. I was able to put my foot down, and students took me seriously.

Instead of getting down on myself about feeling exhausted after only teaching one class or beating myself up about not knowing where the heck to go after this (because I haven't done that at all...), I'm trying to see my role like a gift. I've already been able to see students in multiple classes throughout the day and get the one-on-one interactions to get to know them. In observing other teachers, I get to see the kind of tactics that work and the kind of tactics that do not and what I want to put in a classroom.

More importantly, I'm learning that I can relate to students who come from vastly different backgrounds from me and how they can teach me. They've already surprised me with their determination, their ability to stand up for themselves, and their genuine heart. They want to believe education can help them, but that has been proven to be a lie for them time and time again since they are African American. I just want to make sure I'm not getting in the way of that education, to let them learn in the ways that connect with them the most powerfully.

If you asked me how my first week of school was, I'd tell you it was exhausting and a bit demoralizing and made me question if I really know anything. But it was also a recognition that I love students and I would to better center my class on building strong overall community and strong one-on-one connections. We'll see how week 2 goes.

grief Writing

Am I too late? (Yes)

May 10, 2019

Teaching Writing

4 C-easons

March 21, 2019

I’m currently living in my nerdiest of fantasies where I’m a Ph.D. wielding professor at a small university who teaches composition, current education theory, and high schoolers on the side and who is unabashedly and unequivocally adored by my students. This small university is grateful enough for me to send me to the greatest of rhetorical composition conferences—the famed Conference on College Composition and Communication, or the 4Cs. I meet up with my professor friends, watching each other give presentations on research and theories that we are backing and oohing and ahhing over the celebrities in the field that we spot in the 15 minute passing periods. In my dream vision, the secondary education pedagogy dovetails with the rhetorical composition research to burst into a beautiful theory bird that threads its music throughout the sessions I attend.

In an attempt to normalize my life, late November last year I wrote up a proposal to present my research at a poster session at some conference I didn't know anything about. Now I’m at the 4 Cs with my blue lanyard, talking to other people who care about writing, introducing myself to scholars who I cited in my thesis, and walking around Pittsburgh like I own the place.

It’s probably the most explicitly social-justice-committed place I’ve ever been to, from signs on the bathrooms saying that everyone is welcome to beginning each session with a land acknowledgment (which means naming the indigenous people who live on the land where the conference is) and a no-punches-pulled keynote about how well-meaning white people perpetuate white supremacy even when they think they are giving students the right to their own language. My liberal heart is bursting, and the more mainstream part is a little taken aback by it all. It feels like a lot of performative gestures (Kristine, that one was for you) but as they say, ya gotta fake it til you make it.

———

After being in a Christian school and going to a Christian college, I was actually surprised when I didn’t hear, “Let’s open in a word of prayer” from the first speaker. I had forgotten that people usually just start going into their speeches and don’t offer that kind of acknowledgment. Obviously I’ve been to other places where not everyone is Christian, and I don’t expect everyone to pray before everything, but it jumped out to me a lot more than it hard before. I realized I missed it—that routine, that nod towards God—and started to see that I actually do find some value in opening prayers.

As my roommate (another undergrad poster presenter) and I walked past the Catholic church next to our hotel, she asked, “Are you super religious?” While I should have expected the question after telling her about giving social media up for Lent and going to a Christian college, I stammered around the question. I had a moment the day before where I walked outside of the convention center and looked over the river that it bordered, and all I could think was “I miss you God.” I couldn't really make sense of that. So am I super religious because I think about God and give things up for Lent? “I mean, maybe? I think I want to be, but I'm just not there yet,” I said, unsure if that hedging answer was enough to edge me out of the “religious fanatic” category in her mind.

I had an amazing time, weird religious interludes aside. I bonded with my thesis advisor Kristine on our drives between Grand Rapids and Pittsburgh, ate a lot of all-American (read: all-greasy) food, visited some classrooms themed after different nations in University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning, took public transit in Pittsburgh (I swear I saw a bus on every street every time I was walking because the buses are so dang frequent), and reevaluated my stance on Andy Warhol so now I just think he’s a (pack rat) little overrated rather than completely overrated.

I loved being at 4 Cs because it prompted me to come up with all these new ideas of how I can leverage writing theory in the classroom (writing fellows! Incoming surveys about genre experiences! Making the purpose of the assignment clear!*), but more importantly, it furthered my growing sense of professionalism. Being surrounded by people who were teaching and relatively situated in their field and the little tendrils of student teaching that followed me to Pittsburgh—mostly in the form of frantic student emails and digital check-ins via Google Classroom—both make me feel like I’m being propelled closer and closer to a new era of life. Maybe that era will continue in more 4 Cs conferences; maybe not.

———

*Understand that not all students will be academics! Create curriculum that is designed for a diverse population of students rather than retrofitting the assignments and texts! Help students see the context of the skills they are learning and how to decontextualize and transfer those skills to other situations! Use writing as a way to negotiate difficult transitions! Think about threshold concepts for reading and education (and for my own classroom? Maybe)

faith Teaching Writing

Prayer of a (Student) Teacher

February 28, 2019

grief Teaching Writing

On Writing

January 14, 2019

I’ve been thinking about writing a good amount lately. I read James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, and other than knocking me upside the head every page, it reminded me of his quote about making each sentence as clean as a bone.

I read the sam sax poem that I recommended two blog posts ago and gosh, it just made me realize that poems don’t need to be as contrived as I make them. Whenever I write poetry, I try to pack all the mystery of Shakespeare into the lines with convoluted phrasing. Take this poem that I wrote a few weeks ago:

Brain wave

Hinges squeak as joyous news wrenches the cerebral
Wood open, flashing the temporal lobe cold.
As the neurons synapse and fire
hopes that ignore the last month, they
assume life as unchanged, the sky as still blue,
Her as reachable, attainable, physical

Parietal reality rockets towards the door
Shuts the frost out, warms the temporal lies.
It murmurs that I can tell someone else—
That their praises will sweeten the
Now curdled joy curved on my lips.

But the door knows the lack
it is barricaded against;
It knows what death took
And who I have to learn to live without.

Like, I had a real good time writing this poem. I liked researching parts of the brain and using the emotion and logical sides to describe this sentence from one of my earlier blog posts: Most of the time [the memory that she’s gone] without fanfare, like someone opened a door and the cold wind overwhelmed you before the door swung shut again, leaving you in the shock between temperatures. But does the poem make a lick of sense without this image stated clearly in a prose sentence? No, it really doesn’t.

I’m thinking that poetry is less about the cool words you use and more about the complexities of emotions that you are trying to bottle. I think some of the lines I’ve written in these blog posts have a lyrical nature to them, and I pulled some of them out to try to write poems about them, but maybe they don’t need to be poems because they can be expressed in this prose. Perhaps I should try to capture emotions that make less sense than those ones did.

In that spirit, here’s a draft of one trying to communicate the thoughts that have been rolling around in my head for the last week or so.
--

The pin

I’ve kept her card tucked in the back of my phone.
It doesn’t quite fit, covering a piece
Of the button to unlock the screen that used to connect me to her.

I’d like to say that it reminds me.
That it keeps me never in extremes
Keeps me heavenly minded.

Instead, it’s a nuisance I live with:
Pricked cheeks to keep me from bleeding out
Onto the white clothes of the mother-fulls out here.

“I wore her pin every day,”
My prof said after I cried in class,
“Just so I couldn’t avoid grief out here.”

--

I’m really nervous about student teaching. But today I was in a 7th-grade classroom with an awful teacher, and one of the students asked me, “Why do you want to teach?” I said something about my skills being suited to the profession and having relationships with my campers in the summers, but I was surprised at how off-guard I was caught. I caught myself from saying something about Mom because she is and isn’t why I’m going to be a teacher. It’s complicated.

I used to say I wanted to teach because the world is a story and every person’s life is a story, so English is how we connect to each other. Then I said I wanted to teach because I want to build relationships with young people. Right now, teaching for me is about seeing stories that haven’t been seen and encouraging students who don’t think they have a story or a future, that all they see themselves completing are video games. Maybe it’s about giving voices to students through reading, through writing, and through relationships. Maybe it’s just the most direct way to give my love and support direction.

reflection Writing

Valediction: Of Affirmation

August 26, 2018

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