me and trayvon.

i've been waiting awhile to write something about trayvon. it's been about a week since i first saw his story on my twitter feed. (maybe it was there sooner, but i was distracted with work in az.)

i have so much sadness for this situation, and it took me awhile to put into words why. because i tend to be pollyanna-ish about racism. i like to think that i'm not racist (or rather, that if racism is a spectrum, i come in on the low end), and i try to see the people around me as human beings that might have different experiences and culture, making them sometimes different from me ... but never with a different worth or validity. and i guess i tend to assume that those around me (for the most part), are striving to do the same.

the first time i was slapped in the face with the reality that there is more racism around me than i may realize was when steve and i were dating and he told me that there were racists in new york too. i challenged him on it, and he told me a few stories of people who had approached him, knowing that he grew up in the south, and thinking that they could say racist things to him that they knew they couldn't say to others (aka someone like me). i couldn't believe it. in my white, suburban, middle-class world, racism was something we learned about in american history class in 11th grade, denoted by plessy v ferguson and MLK. it was something that old men in the south perpetuated, not young people in new york state.

there were a few black kids in my school and in my grade. i was friends with them, and so was everyone else. they were popular, even. but i didn't understand the idea of assimilation (or think twice about why it was "easy" for us to be friends with them, and whether or not it was "easy" for them to be friends with us) until i saw on facebook that one of my closest black friends from high school had gotten two big tattoos on his biceps in college--one of the puerto rican flag and the other of the jamaican flag, to symbolize the heritage of each of his parents. i had known that his parents were each of jamaican and puerto rican descent, but i had no idea that this heritage meant so much to a kid who had worn abercrombie and fitch and ran cross-country ... which was basically the status quo at my high school. and it wasn't all white wonderbread all the time at my school, either ... i read zora neal hurston and ralph ellison in high school ... i guess that was supposed to give me a window into racism and the black american experience. but i'm not sure that it really did.

i think one of the best things i ever did was work in an urban school. it was only for a year, but it allowed me an up-close, get-to-know-you relationship with the kind of kids trayvon is now symbolizing. you're not supposed to have favorites, but one of my favorites was a kid named elijha. he was sensitive and sweet, and wrote poetry. he was also in a small gang of freshmen. one of my proudest moments (not just as a teacher, but as a human being) was talking to him about the gang, and trying to ask him questions to help him think about it ... like why was he in the gang (for protection, to belong, identity, manhood, etc) ... and were these guys really his friends .... and was it worth it to be in a gang if part of that membership meant fighting with someone you liked (in the context of that week, his gang was scheduled to spar with another group of boys, and as part of his initiation/loyalty, he had to fight a kid from the other group ... a kid he actually liked and got along with). on the day of the fight, he stayed after school with me "for extra help with algebra," though we did more hanging out than we did math. a few days after that, he showed me his notebook of poems, and while they were riddled with 15 yr old sex (yikes!! why is this kid showing me this??), i felt like he and i were not teacher and student, but two human beings relating to one another, sharing the best of what we had to offer, and hopefully making eachother's lives the better for it.

(side note: there was one student i was seriously afraid of, especially one day when he stood up to me and towered over my 5 ft, female frame. this kid was also in a gang, and was actually arrested for jumping a 40 yr old with his friends. their weapons included a two by four and bricks. he was a drug dealer and was in my class because he'd failed. he was white. and scary. there were definitely kids to be afraid of in that school, but it wasn't because of the color of their skin ... it was more because of the choices they made and the lack of positive adults around them to make better choices. or at least that's my inexperienced take on it.)

in that year, i learned that a lot of the things that are stereotypically "black" are actually more true of poverty. things like crime, gangs, drugs, desperation. i read random family and sat in on lectures by a life-long teacher in that district. she told about how her teaching strategy had changed to not expect kids to have things like light-bulbs and free time at home. she shared stories of learning the culture of the students in her classes, and adapting her teaching strategies to help them so that their success wasn't dependent on an unfair assignment (ie watch the debate on tv at home and write a summary due tomorrow), but on their ability to think and perform (which could be done by showing the debate in class and assigning the writing in class, etc).

the following year, we moved to arizona. i don't know if you've been there before, but there aren't really any black people. there are lots of minorities and disadvantaged groups (hispanics, american indians, middle eastern populations), but it doesn't look the same as it does on the east coast or in the south. i moved there thinking i would brush up on my spanish. do you know that the only person i ever spoke spanish with was a dishwasher when i worked in the restaurant? he spoke little english and so he would work on his english with me, and i would work on my spanish with him. it was awesome, because he was the nicest, most positive person i worked with. we were also both very good at miming or pointing to what we needed. his name was marcos, and he was always smiling, and thinking of him makes me smile now.

in tucson, there are invisible lines. there are areas where all the hispanics live, and the grocery stores are the food city, and the churches are in spanish. then there are areas where english is spoken and the grocery stores are safeway and albertsons, and the churches are full of white people. there are white people who will say things like "i never go south of speedway--it's not safe there." it always bugged me because i'd been south of speedway plenty of times ... and while there were more poor people there, and more drugs in certain neighborhoods, the shooting of a congresswoman that got national attention occurred in the more posh white part of town. there are a few areas where there is more intermingling, but it's mostly in the middle class neighborhoods. and i have to admit, the last 6 months that we lived in our apartment complex, a hispanic family moved in across the little alley, and it was refreshing to live in arizona and hear people speaking spanish to each other, after having lived there for 18 months.

and now we live in baltimore. a city that is 2/3 black. steve and i made a conscious choice to not go to the church near johns-hopkins ... mainly because it was full of other hopkins people, and we prefer to not live in a bubble. instead, our church looks like baltimore ... mostly black with some white people and a few asians. i'm really proud of the fact that we have two pastors--one black and one white--and that on a sunday morning, you might hear a rap from the worship team. i'm not always comfortable in our church, because the reality is that i'm not the main demographic of the culture they're ministering to ... i'm white, i'm not bmore-born-n-raised, i've got a grad degree, and i'm white collar. but that's ok for me, because i know our church is a church that i could bring my neighbors to, and not have them feel awkward, be they black or white.

i don't know how to fix racism. and i'm sure i've said things in this post that can be misconstrued or sound racist to the right ear. but instead of being afraid of sounding like a racist to someone, i want you all to know (whoever you are, wherever you live, and whatever your race or situation in life) that race is something i think about ... on the regular. the reality is that i just try to do what i can to treat humans like humans. and today in target, i smiled at every small black boy i saw, because i want each one of them to know that i'm going to do my best to see them the same way i see other boys--as cute kids, not as potential predators. and i made eye contact with every person i encountered, and smiled, and said things like "i'm sorry, let me get my cart out of your way" when we were maneuvering in the aisles. because that's what decent human beings do for other human beings.

and i guess this idea of our humanity is what gets me most about trayvon ... is the fact that one human took another human's life, without an eye-witness, without that other person having any weapons on them ... and somehow, the person who did the killing (even if it was self-defense) is still free. i'm sorry, but whiskey tango foxtrot?? where is the law?? where is the justice?? if it was a mistake, we'd call it manslaughter. even if i can assume that the details were ambiguous, and race wasn't an issue, there still should have been an arrest by now. we're clear on who killed who, and the person who took another person's life has gone nearly a month without any kind of retribution other than the outcry on twitter.

i just can't make sense of it. this is why i couldn't write. i was dumb-founded ... do i not understand how the law works?? am i just being pollyanna again??

and then i thought more about it, and i talked it out with steve on the car ride back from new york, and i realized, that in some ways, to a white woman from the suburbs, trayvon encapsulates all the small bits of racism that add up to one great big mass.

i admit it, i've seen a black dude on the street and though twice about where my wallet was ... it doesn't happen every time i see a black guy, but i do admit that it happens. so maybe thinking that trayvon was "suspicious" is something that many of us can admit to, when we're really being honest with ourselves. but then there was the fact that zimmerman ignored the instructions to not pursue the boy. isn't that where he stopped having the law on his side?? where he went rogue?? how the hell did he end up shooting an un-armed kid, and not just shooting him, but killing him??

and how do the police just take his word for it, that the killing was in self-defense?? how do they bag the child as a john doe, even when he had a cell phone on him?? how do they not identify him to him dad until his dad reports him as a missing person?? how do they go to the dad and use a photo of him, dead, with blood coming out of his mouth, to ID trayvon??

aside from the actual shooting of an unarmed child, most of these infractions can seem ... well ... to be misguided if taken one at at time. the marking the kid as a john doe ... ok, so they didn't look at the phone or records to figure out who he was. not cool, but maybe they overlooked it. or the poor choice for a photo to ID the kid ... insensitive and unkind are words we could use, but again, if that were the only thing done wrong, i guess i could chalk it up to a cop having a bad day at work and not thinking twice about it.

my problem is that i see these seemingly "small" infractions all the time. and i'm afraid to cry racist on the offending party. i'm afraid to wrongly accuse someone of something that has become signified by lynching mobs and the kkk. but with trayvon, it's all there. you can't ignore all the details that all add up to some serious racism that cost a human his life, and yet somehow still to this day, doesn't add up to an arrest. this one poor kid, in a nutshell, embodies all the little bits of racism that i turn a blind eye to ... whether it's willingly, or whether it's out of hopeful optimism that we live in a "post-racist" culture.

and because i see too much of myself ... or people like me who may too often turn a blind eye ... in zimmerman and the sanford police ... this is why i couldn't put this all into words. because i don't want to think about how the little things i let go can add up to a child losing his life. i don't want to think about how my complaisance can play a role. i want my kindness in target to be enough. i want it to be enough that my experiences working with urban kids opened my eyes and changed the way i thought. i want a tweet or a linked post to show that we who try to be on the lower end of that racism spectrum are not the minority of white people.

but what catches in my throat is the idea that it's not enough. that clearly, with a child dead, this problem is bigger than i want it to be.

my bed, my friends, my hair, my brand of crazy.

welcome to another edition of "my life as bullet points," the post where i don't even attempt to form lovely prose and just shoot half-formed ideas at you, so as not to forget the things i want to tell you all ... because you're my friends :)

on to the show!!

• since the morning of february 29th, i've slept in my bed a grand total of 4 times. i've slept on one friend's futons, in another friend's actual bed (she is crazy and wouldn't let me sleep on a couch because apparently being pregnant turns you into the princess from the princess and the pea), in a hotel room, and finally in a guest bedroom. i'm changing my residency status to gypsy. do you think i need to pay state taxes on that??
  
   
• related to the above (but certainly not restricted to it), i have been humbled ... and i do mean, speechlessly choked up ... by the kindness i've been shown by people who love me the past few weeks. i really don't deserve the love that i'm shown, and i'm regularly shocked that people who i haven't lived near in almost 3 years (or, in some cases, 5 years), still take the time to think about me, and like me, and show me kindness and generosity. in a life that sometimes makes me feel like a woman with no country (really city/town, but you know what i mean), finding that you haven't been forgotten, and that people still like you and care about you ... it's more breath-taking than all the mountain vistas i've seen.
  
   
• my hair is gone. i'm only on the second full day since the chop, but i've already decided who i'm going to be for halloween this coming october ... jason sudeikis from the what up with that sketch ... track suit, sweat band, gold chain, and running man.
  
  

  

  ooooh weee!

  
   
• related to the first two bullet points, i have realized that while i'm still somewhat living in denial/disbelief of the fact that being pregnant means you actually have a baby, i've recently found that i'm not alone in thinking this and somehow divorcing the pregnancy from the fact that we're having a kid in a few months,  is actually relatively normal. and by normal i mean that i'm not the only crazy person to do it.
  
   
• marcus aurelies is the original honey badger.
  

the war on family?

when steve and i were dating / engaged / newly married, people who had been married for a long time loved to throw a wet blanket on our excitement. it would drive me up a freaking wall when someone would say to me something along the lines of "yeah, that'll go away." as in "yeah, you won't want to sleep in the same bed for long." or, "yeah, he won't be so carefully thought-through with his valentine's day gift now that you're married." or, "yeah, you won't be saying 'i love you' multiple times a day once you've been married for more than a year."

this crazy cynicism came from lots of different arenas and communities and it always felt like someone raining on our parade. like they just couldn't handle the fact that someone actually liked their spouse and  wanted to be with them and share life with them.

and because i've been told (by quite a few sources that i won't name here) that apparently the world around us is anti-children and anti-family, i've been bracing myself for more wet blankets thrown my way ... for more dousing of my excitement or happiness with water and flame retardant. i've been waiting to hear the "oh, you're excited now, wait 'til he comes home with a girlfriend with a short skirt and a nipple piercing you can see through her shirt." or, "well, i hope you enjoyed your youth, because this kid is going to drain you of all the energy you have."

but it hasn't happened. not. a. single. time. not by people i know, and not by strangers. in fact, it's been the opposite. i have strangers come up to me at work or out in public, and congratulate me. then they ask if it's my first pregnancy, and then they smile, and tell me that my life is about to change (and it's here that i internally clench, waiting for the cynicism and fore-warnings of woe) ... and then their smile gets even wider, and they nod their heads knowingly, with sparkling eyes and say something like, "and it all changes for the better."

maybe things change after the kid comes? i don't know. and while i do recognize that the structures in our culture (the lack of affordable childcare, more reasonable maternity leave benefits, etc) and not exactly "pro-family," at least not the way they are in other cultures, i have to ask ... where the heck is this "you're in a war to raise your kid" rhetoric coming from? and is it necessary?

again, maybe i'm just experiencing the cheer of pregnancy and things will change when the kid is visible and can make noise, but i have to be honest ... this lack of consistency between rhetoric and experience makes me feel less trusting of those who propagate the rhetoric and demonize the culture around us, making it so binary and "us vs. them."

the irony of work travel.

there's so much irony in work travel. it's really not at all what i thought it would be. i thought i would be this sleep businesswoman, in black pumps and a pencil skirt, powerfully striding through airport terminals with her roller bag, all while on a conference call on her smart phone, commanding the attention of boardrooms far far away.

yeah, so i'm currently wearing yoga pants (complete with a few small paint stains), minimal makeup (aka eyeliner), and two day old hair. no. make that three day old hair. my shoes are off, and i look more like a soccer mom who is trying to run away than a powerful exec.

i also thought i'd get to see the country. and i kinda have ... sometimes from the window of an airport shuttle van, or in the dark, as i try to follow my gps to my hotel. and i've seen what the hilton looks like in new hampshire, and silicon valley, and albuquerque ... and truthfully, they're each a little different, but mostly the same. i think what's most surprising about this part is how the similarities are comforting instead of disappointing.

i think the greatest irony is demonstrated by the very first work trip i ever took. i went to san diego for a conference, and the conference was held at a loew's resort (read: super duper nice and expensive, except it was a gov't conference, so they'd negotiated a lower rate). i opened the door to my hotel room, looked around, and realized that the total square footage was about the same as my apartment with steve back in tucson. this is not to say that i had a suite, or anything super duper special. it was maybe just a tinge more spacious than a regular hotel room in a decent hotel. but the irony was striking ... i was traveling for work, and got to stay in a space that was the same size as my living space at home.

when i travel to phoenix, i pretty much always stay in the same hilton. it's close to our usual meeting/training site, and it's a hilton suites. not only is the living space larger than my actual living room in our little row-house in baltimore, the bathroom is larger than my kitchen. and the view's a lot better too.

all this kinda makes me feel like an imposter. like the people who are supposed to travel for work should also be going home to homes that are worth at least a half million dollars, if not more. they shouldn't be coming home to a 100+ yr old row-house in a sometimes questionable 'hood, where there's a serious mouse problem. they should drive lexuses and infinities, not hyundais. especially not hyundais that have a problem with the shift lock, so they've jabbed a car air-freshener into it, so that they can shift into and out of park and reverse. (what? that's never happened to you on your 3 yr old cheapo car?)

maybe i'm an imposter. or maybe i just would rather be comfortable in my yoga pants and flip-flops than wear conference-wear to impress an airport full of strangers. i will admit this, however, i sometimes hope that i don't run into colleagues in the airport when flying into and out of conference cities :)

little indulgences.

a little over two years ago, i'd just landed the job i currently work, and was serving out the remainder of my final two weeks waiting tables at the restaurant. a woman about my age came in alone, and sat at a table for one in my section.

we ended up chatting and as i suspected, she was in tucson on a work trip. i told her that i had just gotten a new job and that travel would likely be required and relatively frequent. her advice to me was to stick with one airline to actually accumulate some frequent flyer miles. she also suggested that when possible, to try and take the time to do little things to indulge yourself while traveling. she suggested getting a manicure, or ordering a glass of wine when i'm out to eat alone again.

and i wish i could even remember her first name, to give her credit, because she was totally right. i pretty much only fly southwest, because a) they're efficient, b) they're usually the cheapest anyway, and c) when i signed up, their program allowed you to rack up a free flight the most often. (within a year of traveling, i had a free flight for my summer vacay. having my work travel pay for my vacay travel?? yeah buddy.)

and the little indulgences were a great tip too. while i've never been much for manicures, i do like the occasional glass of wine, though not lately. and on this trip, my indulgences were more like a bottle of lavender chamomile bubble bath for the second night i had to stay in hotel on day 10. or later, when working a 9 day stretch, my little indulgences looked like an iced venti chai latte from starbucks, especially on days 12, 13, and 14 of this two week trip.

and it looks like this ... right now ... me spending $5 for wifi on my flight back, so that i can indulge in blogging what's on my mind, (and in facebook and twitter to keep me company) while i wile away the four and a half hours it takes to get from tucson to baltimore. i'm usually too cheap to pay five bucks for wifi (or for a tea drink, for that matter) ... but to be honest, traveling for work can really suck sometimes. and in the grand scheme of my travel costs, i can usually eat a little more cheaply, and end up breaking even. and after all, if it takes my mind off of the fact that i'd rather be in my own bed than sleeping alone again, and it helps me to feel good about this part of my job, so that i don't cringe every time there's a conference or a meeting that requires me to not just be there electronically ... then it's totally worth the $25 per trip.

my life as bullet points.

this blog is called "my life as prose." because it's my view on the world, written out in sentences and paragraphs. if you've read my "about me" page, you know that i'm one of those weird people who likes both math and english. and so while i toil away during my work day on things related to math and math ed, english (and more specifically, literature) has always been for me.

and as life continues to move, and i do crazy things like plan a two week work trip in arizona, and manage this new hormone-infused brain i have, i'm realizing that the flow of prose in my mind hasn't stopped ... it's just more bulleted. does that still count as prose? i should probably know this ... i do have a degree in english studies ... but whatev. we'll count it. ok? ok.

so without further ado, here is my life ... as bullet points.

• being a pregnant feminist is weird. people RUSH to do things for you, and get very concerned if you have to do something strenuous, like bend over. true story, i spilled soda today at lunch, and got napkins to soak it out of the carpet. a female colleague saw me kneeling down and said, "do you want me to get that for you??" maybe i'm crazy, but it's my mess, i really don't mind cleaning it up, and i would feel really bad if this woman, who is older than me, out ranks me in credentials, and is just all-around nice, felt the need to clean up after me like i was a child. it strikes me as strange that this is a daily occurrence. but there it is.
  

• i've been in arizona for ten days now. it's surreal because i don't live here any more, and at the same time comforting because i still know my way around and can do things like run out to target or swing by a nearby bank branch without it being difficult. i kinda love it.
  

• it used to be that when i traveled for work, i would send a postcard to my little brother (he's 13) from the places i traveled to, just to give him a better sense of geography, and because who doesn't like to get mail?? i realized two days ago that i will soon be doing this for my son. i will be that mom who goes away for work and brings home a t-shirt or toy from a far away place. i suddenly felt posh and solemn at the same time, realizing that traveling for work is not as cool as it looks (i wasn't wearing stillettos and a pencil skirt while i wheeled my bag into the hotel), and that the reality is that buying a t-shirt or toy is really about me wanting to connect with my kid who i won't have access to when i'm away at work. i also realized why i hate that song, i'm already there ... it's because while the dad in the scenario sees himself at home, with his kid, and longs to be there, that doesn't actually make him there for the kid. crap. i'm already that dad.
  

• i honestly can't believe i've been in arizona for 10 days, and am doing as well as i am emotionally. i think it really must just be the prayers steve is praying for me, because there are times when being away for 2 days is excruciating, and somehow i've made it ten, and am totally going to make it for the full 14.

the things you forget.

it's so funny to me. it's only been about 7 months since we left tucson for baltimore, and coming back, i'm surprised at how much i've already forgotten.

the first thing i forgot was to not schedule my flights into/out of tucson for the heat of the day. because it's the desert and the west, the sun heats the air and creates big wind currents because of the valley tucson sits in. so getting into and out of the city is least bumpy in the morning and at night. guess what brilliant person booked both flights for afternoon?

traffic cameras. they're everywhere. and the yellow lights are short, so here they really mean "stop, i'm about to turn red," rather than "eh, you've got a good 5 seconds--speed up and make it" the way they do on the east coast. i might have already earned a ticket or two. whoops.

the sun is so much hotter here. and everything is more open air because there isn't crazy in-climate weather like there is other places.

there isn't any grass.

and while i can get around town and remember how to get to friends' houses, etc, i can't remember street names as well, or think through all the restaurants in a particular neighborhood.

i had also forgotten what it feels like to sweat without knowing you're sweating, until you get up from the chair and realize that your back is damp because the air didn't wick you dry.

finding consistency.

so it's saturday morning, and i'm in the beginning of a two week work trip back in arizona. i've got about 3 or 4 weeks worth of work jammed into 12 days, and here on day #4, i'm already exhausted. thank God it's saturday, and i was able to sleep in a little.

i'm thinking about what to do with the alone time i've got this morning. i've already made plans to see friends later in the day and on sunday. and i'm thinking that since my flip flop broke yesterday, i may just go to target and spend the morning wandering the store.

that may sound crazy to some of you, but wandering target is something i do when i need to get out, but i kinda want to be alone. i think i started doing it in college, or when steve and i were first married, and he was out working in the evenings as a pastor. and i don't know why, exactly, but it soothes my soul to do this.

when we moved to arizona, i was really thankful that the closest target was only 1.7 miles away. i would go and walk the aisles,  looking to see what new clothes were out, or what the throw pillows looked like in the home section. and i do it again in baltimore. and this morning, i'm thinking about doing it again.

i don't know why i find it so comforting to walk around and browse. i don't usually buy anything. i just look and take my time, and i don't have to talk to anyone, and i don't have to do anything. i can just look, and enjoy. and maybe it's very suburban of me to seek out the target wherever i go, and make it my quiet alone place. but there really is something about consistency that is comforting, whether you're in new york, arizona, maryland, or on a work trip and need to breathe a little.

yesterday, steve was planning to hang out with the guys while i'm away. he bought some poker chips, etc, for the evening, and they ended up not using them. on the phone he tells me, "well, i'll just return them, because we probably won't use them. actually, i'll just leave them in the car, and let you return them when you get back."

"oh, thanks, babe, for letting me return them for you." i said in response, teasing him and alluding to the fact that his comment may have sounded like something out of madmen's 60s dialogue.

"well, it'll give you an excuse to go to target." and we both laughed. checkmate. the man knows me too well.