ex tempore

I hate that trust game, the one where you stand in front of someone, close your eyes, and fall back as stiff as the dead. I think it’s stupid. It’s not even that I was dropped a time or two, so I can’t blame a bad experience. It’s the having-to-prove that I trust them that bugged me. What do we hope to achieve by falling intentionally, demonstrating and testing our trust in such a way? When we’re older and have bigger problems, we’re not going to trip on purpose to see if our friends will catch us, at least not on a daily basis, everyday at recess. Who’s really being tested? Do you actually trust all those friends, or are you showing the bravado that comes with not caring what happens to yourself, your body, or your well-being time and time again? Then maybe it’s just the thrill of falling. I can get behind that. I get that. These are, of course, not the things I actually articulated as I performed the premature death drop with my eyes squeezed shut, the look of terror on my face one of the more hilarious things to be seen.

No, I do trust you!, I’d assure my fourth grade friends, none of whom believed me. I just don’t want to give you all my weight. I just don’t want to lean on you entirely. I just… don’t… trust you… with it. OOPS WHAT’S TRUST.  But no one took either side of the argument seriously, so it’s fine. We did laugh, but playfully at other people’s expense, those who were shrieking and squirming in a discomfort that proved counterproductive, their flailing leading to a downfall that was their own fault rather than the friends’ behind them.

I love my job, but I don’t entirely agree with the organization’s philosophy. Does that make me a sell-out? I don’t know, but I’d like to think no. I think learning is extremely personal. Or should be. Maybe it’s because I wish I’d had that one tutor that changed the way I thought. Maybe it’s because I wish I’d had Robin Williams from Dead Poets Society. Maybe it’s even mostly because I want to be that teacher, that tutor.

I find myself wanting to see these kids more, everyday if I could. Not just in a classroom environment, but swimming at the point, getting lunch, or riding the red line. I want to know them. I want to help. And who am I, thinking that I am equipped to help them? That they even need help to begin with? Thinking that, outside academics, I could possibly know them and cultivate the talents that they themselves are just discovering? Thinking that I can help probably makes me a thoroughly middle class asshole. Simply wanting to help because I think them special? Maybe not.

I’m just sitting back and enjoying it for now, trying to remind myself that I, in all likeliness, will not hear ‘O captain, my captain’ today or even tomorrow. The four hours I spend with them is exhausting and entertaining, so I will share a few moments with you now.

“I’m going on strike. I hate mixed fractions.” -Skylar. She’s ten years old and one of the most precocious little shits I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.

“Sandcastle!” -Tate, upon “reading” the flashcard for the word “dig”. To be fair, the picture totally looked like the guy was digging a moat around what was to be a sandcastle.

“You are so relaxed. Are you a hippie?” -Myles, to me. He’s Skylar’s little sister, and together they’re a riot.

“But I have to do it here. There’s nothing to laugh about at home.” -Skylar, countering my feeble attempts to bring her attention back to her classwork.

“You talk too much.” -Little boy whose name I forget, to Skylar.

“Girl, I’ma smack you if you don’t give me my pencil back.” -Abraham to Myasia.

“It’s too much itchy!” -Morgan, who is crying because her foot is too much itchy.

“Amaaazing Taylor. That’s what I’ll be. Amaaazing Taylor.” -Taylor, who drew me an admittedly promising piece of art on a yellow sticky before leaving that day.

“Can I sharpen my pencil?” -Skylar, who just broke her pencil on purpose in order to use the sharpener for the last five minutes of session.

I like watching them work. I like watching them laugh and play just as much, but there are things you can see when they’re actually doing their classwork. This one little girl will spend fifteen minutes on one problem of her relatively advanced math, stubbornly butting her head against it until she gets an answer. The older boy next to her is doing simpler math, but finishes more quickly and more accurately. He skips problems he can’t immediately answer, and comes back to them. Another little girl, gifted, will not do the next problem until she knows, until she’s confirmed with me that the last problem she answered is indeed correct. A very young boy colors outside the lines; he’s still tracing letters, and he comes up with the most elaborate stories about the path of graphite he leaves in his wake. I have to discourage that for the sake of his learning the alphabet, but for all I know he already knows it and deserves a creative break every once in a while. I taught one very small, pipsqueak of a boy how to do long division with pieces of paper I cut up. When he left he asked if he could take them with. I couldn’t hide my happiness as I said yes, and was only sorry that I hadn’t cut the pieces straighter, or out of better paper.

There’s nothing to be said about the things I see there. No conclusions to be drawn from little ticks and habits that I have the privelege of seeing several times a week. They may never remember me. Even though that is something that still makes me sad, makes me stop, and makes me scared, I’m glad that it doesn’t stop me from wanting to give. They may never remember you, I have to remind myself. And that’s fine, is my sharp reply.

A friend who’s very far away has pointed out that I look for profundity. I want things to be profound. And, more often than not, they’re not. And when it’s not, it’s like looking for a pattern in the tiled floor of your elementary school cafeteria; you’re looking for something that simply isn’t there. You’ll spend a long time trying to make it so. I’m real into aesthetics. I love beauty, and it seems I can convince myself that everything, anything is beautiful. Like the bruised kiwi sitting in a bowl across from me, or the way so many empty bottles create this weird, sad sort of still art on my counter. The way I will clean all this up, as well as the radiator to my left that used to feel like the sound of your voice. Many of these things must make me sound like a masturbating beatnik, someone who wants to feel special because she can assign significance to things people wouldn’t normally devote a second thought to. When I’m lucky, it gives people the feeling that I love life, as a friend who’s very close has mentioned in passing, in a Zooey Deschanel kind of way.

But I do love life. I’m not trying to prove anything. Right? Right?

This is what we keep telling ourselves.

One day I will love myself. One day I won’t be afraid of others, or of myself. I will quietly walk that way, towards that place, for a long, long time. I will stay there for a long, long time. Forever, and never, is a long, long time.

Seems unreal now, doesn’t it? Glad it wasn’t. Goodnight.

In the age of the iPod, we all want an epic soundtrack to accompany our lives. Depending on your age, you’ve been told that the world is in your hands now, or will be someday soon. What are you doing?
 
What are you doing?
What are you?
What are?
Water.
 
Clean water. It’s important. But you can’t shake the feeling that it’s like world hunger, global warming, or other crises of that ilk. These problems seem so vast, and so very far away. They seem like old, sort of outdated things (like hippies), or new, weird sort of things (like snuggies). Or, they simply seem impossible. Untouchable. Intangible. Not real. It’s hard to imagine that families must walk miles each day in heartbreaking conditions just to get their hands on water that is far worse than the stuff that gushes in abundance from the sparkling faucets in our own air-conditioned homes. We comfort ourselves by assuming that someone, somewhere, is doing something about it. We comfort ourselves by treating it like a dormant volcano that may very well be bound to erupt — but not in our lifetime, so, no worries.
 
Think back to the day when everyone in your second grade class freely revealed what they wanted to be when they grew up, the day we all shamelessly admitted to wanting to make a difference. Imagine speaking with your second grade self now. Would the younger, more naiive you deem that dream, that desire to change the world impossible? Would the younger, braver you wait until tomorrow? I’m not asking you to revert entirely back to your grade school self (I remember second grade vividly and it involved an unbelievable number of spitballs lodged into my hair, so, no thanks), but I do ask you to revisit that time. That time we skinned our knees because we were playing. Because we were climbing something bigger than ourselves. Because we were doing something great. Our days were governed by only this: If not now, when? If not us, who?
 
Many, many charities and various organizations have already made providing clean water their sole purpose. All these people are trying to do the same thing. The cause is good and the efforts, great. Why, then, do most projects fall apart within three years? Why, as with all aid, does it often feel like we make little progress and waste much time and energy? Clean water is a big problem. And big problems require big solutions.
 
Aqua Vida has a big solution. We seek to bring water to people in greatest need, but in a whole new way. We seek to bring people, entrepreneurship, and technology together. Aqua Vida has created a unique social-business model, a model that not only works, but keeps working. “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he can feed himself for a lifetime.” You’ve heard it before. Sustainability. Lasting impact. Long-term solutions. Effectiveness. These are the desired results that has once eluded us, the magic words we try to turn into realities everyday. But the secret to sustainable solutions is empowerment. Those most in need of water are those who suffer true poverty. How can they know they are worth it? They do not have luxuries, they often do not have necessities, and so rarely does that leave room for diginity. How better to prove their worth, to have them believe in that worth, than to show them that they can do it themselves? We train local entrepreneurs to maintain the projects we begin together. They, too, must own the process. It is a business problem, and we must allow it to be, must make it be their business as well.
 
Aqua Vida’s mission is to bring water to people in greatest need. Aqua Vida’s vision is the collaboration of business, government, higher education, faith communities, and grassroots individuals. These are the driving forces, the sectors that shape and change our world, our cultures, and ourselves. It is in this way we are different. In is in this way we will make a difference.
 
You cannot drop the my-dog-ate-my-homework excuse this time. We all must take responsibility for this world we have. We must keep listening, and learning. If you will, please continue following Aqua Vida. We know that clean water is a big problem, but we have a big solution. And you are part of it.

I remember when I first listened to that song. You were doing that stupid dance you do. The one, when in good humor, I remember you for. I stopped painting and watched you. I was laughing and loving you. Paint dripped down my hands, and I was happy. Today I can only imagine it felt as thick as blood.

There are few things that bewilder me more than playgrounds with woodchips instead of sand. Yet there we were, my comarade sitting cross-legged on top of the monkey bars, me hanging upside-down from one of them. The air hangs heavy with darkness and heat, reflecting our moods. We converse lightly, clearly trying to avoid touching on topics that will push either of us over the edge and plunge us further into night. Someone says something funny and an uncontrollable laughter wells up somewhere under my throat. I pull myself upright for fear of falling and look to my companion, whose shyly appreciative chuckles cease abruptly. My giggles subside uneasily as I follow my friend’s gaze.

There you were.

I drop to the ground and wished I was barefoot. Then I might’ve gotten splinters from the sinister woodchips, which would’ve been some distraction, some way to remind myself that I don’t want you even as I feel an ebb and flow of painful infatuation as you stand before me. Some reason to blame you for my not being able to dance quite the same as before. Some reason to look away. You are drunk, and staggering slightly as some shadow in my periphery, your own friend I assume, tries to help. You impatiently dismiss the attempt and walk more slowly, but deliberately. The tears in your reddened eyes betray the conviction you want to convey in your gait. I only watch, and wait. You get closer. Closer. Closer still. I master my body, I try. Mechanically, I turn away from you, collect my affects, look to my friend, and  cut a path that passes so close to you that I can smell the booze as you breathe. I choke back everything I want to say to you, everything you won’t listen to. We continue walking, aided by other people, in opposite directions.

Pulling the covers up to my chin, I roll over and open my eyes. Sunlight bleeds through the blinds and spills into my room as the details of this vivid dream start to slip away, sand between my fingers. I try to forget you.

So I’m reading The Three Musketeers. It makes me want to be a seventeenth century gentleman. A seventeenth century gentleman who duels often, and gaily. A seventeenth century gentleman who thinks not much of the far future and dwells far too long on his present love. A seventeenth century gentleman who is a handsome and devilishly clever Gascon.

I don’t want a musketeer. Nay. I want to be a musketeer.

PIPE DREAMS.

Just some things I like:

Is not love the most selfish of all passions?

Damn it, all that you say is really very sad.

But amid all this D’Artagnan noticed that no lady responded to the gallantries Porthos was lavishing. These were but chimeras and delusions. And yet in true love and authentic jealousy, are not chimeras and delusions the great realities?

It is the longest way around but undoubtedly the most amusing.

(More to come.)

These kids.

This lady looked lost. On the scale of I’m-lost-but-no-one-has-to-know to O-GAWD-WHERE-AM-I-ARE-YOU-MY-MOMMY, she was far closer to the latter half of the spectrum. She stands outside the 57th St entrance to the Reynolds as I make to walk in. I declined the door and asked if she needed help finding something. Crerar Library. I try half-heartedly to give directions for about five seconds, only to remember and appreciate that I am The Most Ineffective Directions Giver Ever, and instead go with, “It’s close, I’ll show you.” We begin to walk at a leisurely pace, and she immediately grasps my elbow and I, ever the gentleman, lead the way.

The usual suspects are covered. Yes, I attend the university. No, it’ll be my fourth year. Yes, I love Chicago. Oh, how long have you been teaching? No, sorry to say not English. Political Science. That’s a new library over there, I haven’t had a chance to go yet. Yes, it’s a beautiful day. You came from Jordan? How long have you been here? You started teaching when you were my age?

She started a story with a laugh. “I left Jordan on August 16, 1977.” She pauses and very deliberately delivers the date. “At the airport, they were all saying, ‘The King is dead! The King is dead!’ I thought they were talking about the king at home!” If there was any doubt before, I decide then that I really like her.

We approach Crerar, and she thanks me warmly. I assure her that I wasn’t doing anything anyway, and that it was really nice to meet her. She was beautifully cheery, but she also gave off the impression that she could kick your ass if it got right down to it. Like my great-grandma. This is what I was just thinking when she bid her farewell. “Have a day,” she said as she waved me away. “This coming from your grandma. Have a day!”

So I just wrote a song.

About Kaskaskia.

It’s a love song.

It works, I swear.

t(-.-t)

I prefer my slurpees to render my mouth an unnatural color.