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After Chance the Rapper's "Sunday Candy"A sermon on love, faith, and queerness
It is 1995. I am standing outside of Mount Nebo Pentecostal Church. White gloves don mycaramel-coated hands. I search through my patent leather white purse for hard candy. I find it at the bottom, underneath a collection of used and unused tissues from today's service. The crumpled dollar my mama gave me for today's offering is gone rendering my purse useless except for holding these snotrags and the hard candy my grandmama gave me a few Sundays back. I had been saving it for a special day. Ain't nothing special about today but it's 1 PM, hot, and I'm hungry. There is no holier time for black folx than Sunday and perhaps for chubby little girls with grandmas, hard candy wrapped in strawberries is the holiest snack.

I put the unwrapped candy in mouth and it takes like old love - like love that has been passed down to you, like love that prays for you, love that knew you before you was even born, like love that gon love you no matter what. It also tastes old because my grandmama probably had it in her purse since before I was even born.

It has been 25 years since that day, 9 since my grandmama died, and 5 since my mama died. These days, my grief teaches me math - adding exponents to its presence in my life on holidays, special occasions, and some days just because it can.

I grew up in a God-fearing family. My mama ain't go to church every Sunday, but she sent me and my sister with my grandma. When the church split, grandma went with the pastor. He started this little church that met in a school cafeteria down Route 1 in the part of Alexandria that ain't actually our city. Grandma taught Sunday school. She hated that I did my Sunday school homework on the way to church and still outshined the other kids. She loved that I outshined the other kids. "You got to let the other kids win sometimes," she told me, chuckling so I knew she was still proud of me for winning the prizes she gave out for memorizing facts about the day's lesson. On Sunday, we spent hours in the cold cafeteria listening to the pastor preach to the small congregation about prosperity, love, faith, and the rapture. To this day, I worry that when I blink, I may miss the second coming.

Before my sister was born, Sunday belonged to me and grandma. Once Ashley was born, it belonged to the three of us. After church, grandma rewarded us with a delicious meal at one of her favorite buffet restaurants. She ate slowly, each deliberate bite teaching us lessons of patience and appreciation for time. On Sundays, we learned about faith, family, and food.

Grandma had nine kids and seventeen grandchildren. My mama was the oldest and her favorite. While Grandma might've lived on Cameron Street, our house on Holmes Run was where traditions happened: Easter egg hunts, Thanksgiving meals, cookouts, game nights, and "just because" gatherings. Those traditions were extensions of Sundays - full of prayers, food, sanging, and laughter. The walls of that house told stories of triumph over illness, passion-filled disagreements, and so much love. The carpet smelled of fried chicken, cocoa butter, and the sweat from a long life's work. In those moments, I learned how to love, how to fight, how to laugh, how to pray, how to eat, how to dance, how to joan on somebody, how to play cards, how to trash-talk, how to talk about sports, how to not talk about certain stuff; how to be black, faithful, and loved in this world.

When she died, I sat in the basement listening to my mama and her siblings argue about how to bury grandma - who would sing at the funeral, how they would pay for stuff, what color flowers she would have, who would speak, how they would love her back one more time.
My truth was too much for them to bear.
Sundays have never been the same.
Four years later, we lost our house and mama before spring came. Mama's brothers and sisters showed up just like they did on the weekends for her chili and rummy games. They sang, they prayed, they laughed, they loved us hard like old candy on a Sunday in 1995.

With mama gone, I searched for mama and grandma in them. When I got married the next year, none of them showed up. They did not text or call. They sent no gifts. They did not RSVP. My wife held me in her arms the week before my wedding - tears streaming down my face grieving the loss of old love - my grandmama, my mama, and Sundays that never became Mondays.
We will be glad in it.
We will be glad in it.
We will be glad in it. This blog post is part of the #31DaysIBPOC Blog Challenge, a month-long movement to feature the voices of indigenous and teachers of color as writers and scholars. Please CLICK HERE to view yesterday's blog post by Cornelius Minor (and be sure to check out the link at the end of each post to catch up on the rest of the blog circle).
I have traded in their love for the truth found in my queerness, for a wife who loves me unconditionally. I have traded buffets for brunch and given up remnants of old love in order to love myself. It don't mean I don't miss them though. It just means I have learned that living truthfully requires us to miss some things in life.

I don't go to church anymore. I supplement King James with James Baldwin, Gloria Anzaldúa, Jericho Brown, and Roxane Gay. I take my communion at Audre Lorde's table in honor of the Black and Brown queer ancestors who fought so that I may live, in honor of the kids who need me to fight now. Sometimes, I eat hard candies to remind me what old love feels like. Instead of Sundays, I have communion over waffles and eggs. I chat with my wife about our future kids. I will hide hard candies wrapped in strawberries in our kids' patent leather purses. I will teach them to pray without ceasing - through loving hard and serving others. I will tell them about their grandmama and great-grandmama. I will love them no matter what. I will love them no matter what. I will tell them that blackness and faith have space for them. I will tell them that they are enough. I will always show up for them. In the car, we will listen to Chance the Rapper's "Blessings" and sing to the top of our lungs.

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After Chance the Rapper's "Sunday Candy" A sermon on love, faith, and queerness It is 1995. I am standing outside of Mount Nebo Pentecostal Church. White gloves don mycaramel-coated hands. I search through my patent leather white purse for hard candy. I find it at the bottom, underneath a collection of used and unused tissues from today's service.

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The situation was going downhill. Because I was running. Downhill.

I found myself jogging in the bike lane as it had been more thoroughly plowed compared to the spotty shoveling of sidewalks. Plus, the heavy, wet snow draping over bushes and branches put me at risk on the sidewalk of frozen dousings worse than an unwanted Gatorade shower.

Ahead of me, I saw a postal van creeping up the hill using the shoulder and bike lane. Soon it would be time for me to jump back temporarily to the sidewalk, I reckoned. The van pulled over, and the driver hopped out. I watched him clamber over a snowbank (to make a delivery, I presumed), but then he crossed the road. Following his path, I noticed a car I hadn't before, lined up at an awkward angle to the next side street. Another person stood by the car's hood, pushing to no avail as the tires spun with futility.

Wordlessly, I adjusted course, as did another jogger coming uphill. In a moment, we four silent partners -- two runners, one USPS employee, and the car's passenger -- were leaned in together, rocking the car back and forth while the driver gave the engine gas. Each shove helped the rocking distances grow with logarithmic power, a term for which I now have greater appreciation, and the car soon slid free.

In that moment, we bridged social distance through the power of an unspoken social contract.

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So long, distance - 3.21 #sol20 Story Challenge

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The situation was going downhill. Because I was running. Downhill. I found myself jogging in the bike lane as it had been more thoroughly plowed compared to the spotty shoveling of sidewalks. Plus, the heavy, wet snow draping over bushes and branches put me at risk on the sidewalk of frozen dousings worse than an unwanted Gatorade shower.

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Dr. R. Joseph Rodriguez: "Somebody Knows Their Names"

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Dr. R. Joseph Rodriguez: "Somebody Knows Their Names"

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Cinco de mayo 2020, Battle of Puebla (1862), Puebla de Zaragoza, México (observed)

They had not had an English language arts teacher of record for most of Fall 2019, so the job position remained unfilled.

I applied for and got the teaching job in December.

A total of 196 students awaited me.

I met my students in early January across two days with our block schedule.

I wanted to know their names. I needed to know my students' stories and what they knew independent of school. As I planned for our first meeting in early January, I needed to learn their names quickly.

Yes, a social contract would be helpful as well as classroom procedures, but I had to become the person and teacher who knew and valued their names.

On the first day of the Spring 2020 semester, I folded over some plain, unruled index cards and in time for first period. Across the six class periods, I invited the eleventh graders to write their names on one side and in their own handwriting. (This was their first writing assignment with me!) The instructional coach had given them a letter writing assignment before Winter Break on what they wished their new teacher knew about them and what they expected from him. I was learning a lot about them.

The students wrote their names willingly on the cards and wanted to know more about me. Several tests of their own design awaited me and to determine my qualifications.

Later that evening at home I wrote their names enlarged on the other side of the cards for our next class meeting.

Soon thereafter their name tent cards stood upright and at attention in class. I had memorized where they had chosen to sit, so I had placed their name tent cards at their tables. I was getting to know their names and preferred pronunciations. ("Hey, you!" seemed dismissive, inhumane, and, well, less than.)

"Mister, mister!" some students would call out to get my attention. I did not want to be anonymous to them either, so I spoke up.

In a clever twist, I'd command like the Destiny's Child band does: "Say my name! Say my name!" They laughed and said I was odd or otherwise.

Indeed, I was aged by the lyrics and video from the 2009 title album song delivered by Beyoncé Giselle Knowles, Kelly Rowland, LeToya Luckett, and LaTavia Roberson. I thought I was speaking their language. To them, I was drawing up ancient history-an ELEVEN-year-old song!

"Real funny, Mr. Road-ree-guess. Really funny," they said, and I heard as a chorus.
Face in Oneself
Over time I got to associate their faces and voices with their names and stories. One by one. Each student gave me a glance, glimpse, or full dive into their adolescence, families, and schooling, which together comprised of their lives and ways of knowing the world and how it works.

Some students shared more about themselves via the journal notebooks than in person. I valued their thoughts and as we practiced close, slow reading. Also, I annotated the margins as I read about aloneness, belonging, betrayal, body image, family, friends, happiness, humor, misunderstandings, pride, romance, and silence.

Our exchanges were essential and necessary as I prepared to invite them to write and practice their rhetorical knowledge and acumen. In each dialogue, we enacted our abilities, empathies, and literacies.

In the volume of essays Nobody Knows My Name (1961), James Baldwin noted, "The questions which one asks oneself begin, at last, to illuminate the world, and become one's key to the experience of others. One can only face in others what one can face in oneself. On this confrontation depends the measure of our wisdom and compassion" (pp. xiii-xiv). I reminded myself that Baldwin understood the world of teaching, teachers, and students and the struggles as a witness.

Even today Baldwin's words are a balm when some teaching days seem tougher than others in the academic calendar. Though fleeting, the days that illuminate our world are many and include our students.
Closeted Books
In the push to engage students, however, sometimes the curriculum and instruction can be at war with one another even as we hear a lot about student-centered curricula. For instance, a bookroom at a school can be an oxymoron. Why keep books locked up in a room or closet from the rest of the reading world? Why not place them in the hands of adolescent readers who seek books to read as their own? Yes, some may flat-out decide not to read a book, and this is understandable if we listened more.

What students seek to read and may also decide NOT to read are done with good reason I have learned. Student experiences with reading and books reveal how they perceive and practice their literacies. Some students have not experienced the invitation to write and much less read from their teachers. Moreover, some have not experienced a teacher writing or reading with them-together and in cooperation-free of comprehension questions, reading levels, and competency scoring.

When I got access to the bookroom in late January, I found a class set of the middle-grade novel Accidental Love (2008) by Gary Soto. The novel became our selected book for the month of February. I was seeking a book that would be engaging and also dramatic with adolescent angst, humor, and romance. The novel opens, "At fourteen Marisa welcomed any excuse to miss school. But today she had a good reason for cutting class. Alicia, her best friend, lay in the hospital with a broken leg and a broken heart, all because her boyfriend had crashed his parents' car when a tire blew" (p. 1).

The students were drawn to the tough-talking Marisa and her geeky boyfriend-by-complete-surprise René. Some grew frustrated with a few of the novel's characters who kept on making mistakes or not seeing their classmates as who they were: not in their best interests or for their well-being. They were hooked.

The struggles of communication, friendships, popularity, relationships, and stereotypes came alive for the adolescent readers in my classroom. They recognized some commonalities with the youth whose lives resembled their own experiences and questions-even if they were from the Central Valley of California where the novel takes place.
Engaged Readers
"These kids don't read! They aren't going to read even if you put a book right in front of them. They're just not going to be readers," a teacher said during a meeting. After hearing this, I realized why sometimes adolescents refuse to listen to adults: they've good reasons and examples in their everyday life.

Reading together and writing about the novel permitted more learning to unfold as we made connections to adolescent life and also completed what was outlined in my lesson plans and our state standards: career and college readiness, creative and expository writing, journal notebooks, multimodal literacies, persuasive appeals, and research.

In addition to these responsibilities, attendance was taken regularly, and we administered the SAT on campus. Overall, so much howled and hummed as we read and wrote together across the six class periods.

I was so moved by their reading interests that I brought most of my books from home to build a classroom library for us: children's books, middle-grade novels, young adult literature, and contemporary classics.

"You won't see those books ever again," a teacher from another subject told me upon stopping by and for a peek from the doorway.

"What do you mean?" I asked in a probing way. I was proud of myself for no longer getting defensive by such remarks over the years.

"They prefer texting or TikTok over learning," the teacher explained.

Next, a science teacher offered, "This looks great! You really believe in reading like I do. I'm gonna borrow what you're doing in here with some nonfiction books I have at home." I made sure to memorize the teacher's name.

No book went missing. In fact, several students dropped by on Fridays to borrow a favorite book over the weekend. I caught several students reading books as if in hiding from me.

Adrian, for example, read in three class periods the book Speak: The Graphic Novel, which is written by Laurie Halse Anderson (1999) and illustrated by Emily Carroll (2019).

Artemis was drawn to the novel Light It Up by Kekla Magoon (2019). Another student named Arianna would reluctantly stop reading I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez (2017) during my direct instruction. She would channel all her energy to complete the assignment, and then return to the engrossing novel that held her homemade bookmark.

Jay became a revived reader through the book Preaching to the Chickens: The Story of Young John Lewis by Jabari Asim (2016) and illustrated by E. B. Lewis. The boyhood of U.S. Congressman Lewis comes alive as well as the civil rights movements of the past and those that persist today. Six short weeks in, and I knew their names, their fears, their stories, and their tastes. Each was as distinct as could be.

14+ Students and Teachers
While writing the article "Somebody Knows Their Names" and the poem "They Know Us by Our Names" for #31DaysIBPOC 2020, I read an article titled "14 Black Students in a Class" by Mark T. Sneed that left me baffled and hurt. It appears in the May 2020 issue of the California English journal and is filled with caricatures about student behaviors.

The article reads like an opinion editorial essay, or even a Swift-styled satire about any student, but it is not listed as such. In a retrospective of his teaching career, Sneed depicts his African American students as possessing behaviors that led him to label them as leaders, followers, manipulators, rule-obsessed students, nerds, jocks, skeptics, jokesters, young adults, advocates, fighters, saboteurs, or rabble rousers. Some of the descriptions create caricatures and forms of segregation with mixed expectations by a teacher.

How could the editor and peer reviewers have overlooked the research and narratives on culturally relevant, subtractive versus additive, responsive, and sustaining pedagogies by Ladson-Billings (1994, 2009), Valenzuela (1999), Gay (2000, 2018), and Paris (2012), respectively? The decision to print the article-as research and not as an editorial or satire-was a mistake.

As a caring educator and critical researcher, I wrote a letter to the editor to explain that views against students in a stereotypical manner are counterproductive, hurtful, and unethical. I wondered how a teacher could harbor such feelings, but then I was reminded of what many adolescents endure daily from some adults. At the same time, what if students were asked to write about the personalities of 14 teachers of one particular race or ethnicity? What would be revealed to us? Bias? Indifference?

Like the situations presented in Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose (1955), I considered the reasonable doubts that I held after reading Sneed's article. So much was missing about the lives of adolescents and their challenges, environments, and future.

There must be conflict, outrage, and action from teachers when we read that students endure hurt in the presence of adults. We are to protect them and their names, and they believe in us to do so.

Dawn came with a splendor of sun that seemed to summon us from our fist of sleep. Hence, there was no reason for me to be superstitious or to consider the fictional character Jason Voorhees of the horror series. Nothing like that seemed to take over our Friday at all.

Instead, Friday was a lighter day for all of us and before our Spring Break. Attendance was lower than usual, but I had a lesson planned that I wanted to present. Friday, like other school days, began with a Quick Write.

The students laughed when they saw the photo of the artist Raúl the Third, holding a homemade flour tortilla as a Halloween mask in the daily slide presentation.

How come he's just the third? What's his last name exactly? They wanted to know more and more about Raúl the Third.

This was just the beginning of the changes to come: gloves, masks, to-go meals, quarantine, learning packets, remote learning, physical and social distancing, and stay-at-home orders.

Through the waiting and online instruction, I gathered my ideas into a narrative poem. I sought to present an adolescent speaker's reflections of learning and living in a new world dominated by epidemics and pandemonia.
They Know Us by Our Names during COVID-19
School was like home, in a way-

yes, far from home, but still home.

But now so much has changed.

We got this new kind of school.

I miss what we had all the time:

a nod, smile, hand, high five.

Cheers, books, sports, coaching,

and friends; these matter to us, too.

We have these, but not next to us

like in a room or hall or gym.

The laughs, riddles, sounds I miss.

Now we chat or a vid appears.

Same with friends who call or text.

Brave we got to be no matter what.

And our teachers reach us, too.

They reach out, and we see them.

They reach in to know us more.

They care after school, too.

We are let in and see them at home,

in their homes, in our own homes,

and it feels like their families

and lives are close to our own.

They know us by our names.

They call us by our names.

They believe in our goals.

They know our dreams.

They know who we can be and be. (Rodríguez, 2020)

With pride and acknowledgement, I know their names. I know my students' names when I reach out to them at home or via Google Suite (Classroom, Hangout, Voice).

Friday the 13 th is a distant memory, and their senior year seems closer than ever. As the Class of 2021, my students yearn for a senior year that lets them come back to a time that held more friendships, protection, sanity, and security.
Our Students' Names
Each year teachers learn students' names-over and over again-as if from the very beginning of the school year and as new students enroll in our classes. In literary works, we read often the stories of students whose names are abbreviated, mispronounced, revised, or altogether altered to extremes by their teachers.

For instance, in the poem "Names" from the novel-in-verse The Poet X (2018) by Elizabeth Acevedo, the protagonist Xiomara Batista explains:

[. . .] I even tried to come into the world

in a fighting stance: feet first.

Had to be cut out of Mami

after she'd given birth

to my twin brother, Xavier, just fine.

And my name labors out of some people's mouths

in that same awkward and painful way.

Until I have to slowly say:

See-oh-MAH-ruh.

I've learned not to flinch the first day of school

as teachers get stuck stupid trying to figure it out. (pp. 7-8)

Similarly, in the poem "On Listening to Your Teacher Take Attendance" (2018) by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, the speaker notes:

[. . .] Your teacher means well,

even if he butchers your name like

he has a bloody sausage casing stuck

between his teeth, handprints

on his white, sloppy apron. And when

everyone turns around to check out

your face, no need to flush red and warm. (p. 11)

Sometimes I say my students' names in my sleep. My spouse says I repeat them like a litany or prayer. I send their names to the sky and wind, hoping they are safe, sound, and sane in our new world. Their faces I recall often.
A New World Together
Even nature seems alive with new tunes as less vehicles pollute the air and a quieter earth appears. A few days ago, I saw a noiseless, unhurried spider at rest in our living room that made me think of Whitman's (1868) poem.

Nature appears outdoors: more birds sing symphonies as if in unison throughout the day and night. Even the bird from Dickinson's (1891) poem comes down the sidewalk with less caution and more grace than ever. We are listening to nature and others who surround us with their sounds and words.

At a faculty meeting earlier this year, a fellow teacher raised her hand and said aloud, "We were our students. Think about that! We were our students once." She reminded us that in our generation, or one before our own, we were working-class and with limited means in various forms while we were coming of age.

We are our students. Her words mean more today as we reach for our students and remember to reach them.

Sometime soon I may get to re-enter my classroom at our school campus. I look forward to entering the building and my classroom. I will gather my students' journal notebooks, re-read their words, and the comments I offered them before our school building closed.

I know students' names. I am getting to know more of their stories as they unfold before our eyes. We face a new world together.
References
Acevedo, E. (2018). The poet X. New York, NY: Harper Teen, HarperCollins Publishers.

Anderson, L. H. (1999). . New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Anderson, L. H., & Carroll, E. (2019). Speak: The graphic novel. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers.

Asim, J., & Lewis, E. B. (2016). Preaching to the chickens: The story of young John Lewis. New York, NY: Nancy Paulsen Books, Penguin Random House.

Baldwin, J. (1993). Nobody knows my name. New York, NY: Vintage International. (Original work published 1961)

Gay, G. (2018). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice (3 rd ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. (Original work published 2000)

Ladson-Billings, G. (2009). The dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American children (2 nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, Wiley. (Original work published 1994)

Magoon, K. (2019). Light it up. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company.

Miller, C. (Ed.). (2016). Emily Dickinson's poems: As she preserved them. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, Harvard University Press.

Nezhukumatathil, A. (2018). Oceanic. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press.

Paris, D. (2012). Culturally sustaining pedagogy: A needed change in stance, terminology, and

practice. Educational Researcher, 41(3), 93-97.

Raúl the Third. (2020, April 30). Raúl the Third: Author and illustrator. https://www.raulthethird.com

Reynolds, D. S. (Ed.). (2005). Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, 150 anniversary edition. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Rodríguez, R. J. (2020). They know us by our names. Unpublished poem.

Rose, R. (2016). Twelve angry men. New York, NY: Penguin Books, Penguin Group, Inc. (Original work published 1955)

Sánchez, E. L. (2017). I am not your perfect Mexican daughter. New York, NY: Ember, Penguin Random House.

Sneed, M. T. (2020, May). 14 Black students in a class. California English, 25(4), 10-13.

Soto, G. (2008). Accidental love. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers.

Valenzuela, A. (1999). Subtractive schooling: U.S.-Mexican youth and the politics of caring. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Long ago, the younger R. Joseph Rodríguez taught imaginary students in the utility room or family garage right after school while a kindergartener and up to third grade. His models were his parents and public school teachers. Today, he is the language arts teacher of 196 students who are eleventh graders, soon-to-be seniors.

In the past two months, Joseph has been greeting his students via Google Classroom and Voice where they remain just as talented and a little extra cantankerous and inventive. They say in jest, "We hope you're enjoying your quarantine, Mr. Rodríguez."

Joseph's articles, chapters, poetry, and research have appeared in several books and periodicals. His most recent book project is titled This Is Our Summons Now, a poetry collection. He is coeditor of English Journal. Joseph lives and teaches in Austin, Texas. Follow him @escribescribe.

This blog post is part of the #31DaysIBPOC Blog Challenge, a month-long movement to feature the voices of indigenous and teachers of color as writers and scholars. Please CLICK HERE to read yesterday's blog post by Dr. Liza Talusan (and be sure to check out the link at the end of each post to catch up on the rest of the blog circle).

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#31DaysIBPOC Day 5 Guest Post: Dr. R. Joseph Rodriguez

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Cinco de mayo 2020, Battle of Puebla (1862), Puebla de Zaragoza, México (observed) They had not had an English language arts teacher of record for most of Fall 2019, so the job position remained unfilled. I applied for and got the teaching job in December. A total of 196 students awaited me.

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Morning breaks over the Capitol. March 2018.
I was eleven the first time I saw it with my own eyes. 6th grade field trip. In those days, parents could ride on the bus with the children; they didn't have to follow behind in a car. That is how my mother got to go. She volunteered to chaperone. She didn't have a driver's license. I think it was the first time she'd ever been to D.C.

All along the mall, teachers strategically organized students for photos with the best view of the Capitol behind them. Everywhere you looked were rows and rows of children, many carrying small flags. Not all were American, but all seemed excited. I walked, listening to the musicality of many languages I couldn't understand.

I cannot remember if it rained, or what we ate, but I recall the beauty of my country's capital enchanting me. In some gift shop I bought a crinkly parchment reproduction of the Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness... I was happy that day. The Declaration came with a feather pen, to my delight. Then I spied a horse ornament on a glass shelf behind the register. Dark, stormy gray mingled with cream, frozen in the act of rearing up, forelegs arcing in the air, powerful muscles so realistically rendered, mane flowing in an imaginary breeze.

I did not know, at age eleven, that a horse symbolizes courage. That it can also represent overcoming adversity and caring for one's emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being.

I only knew this twelve-inch plastic horse was beautiful and mighty. Captivated, I handed my last dollars to the clerk who wrapped my horse in layers of paper. I cradled it close all the long bus ride home.

It remained on the shelf in my bedroom until I married and moved out.

I'd return to D.C. again via Amtrak at nineteen, to meet my cousin who lived there. He would accompany me to an audition for acting school in New York City (that is another story). It was winter, icy-cold. Bundled and laughing, we roamed the windswept streets, past the lofty steps of the Capitol, talking of life, of the future, of being mavericks of the family.

Life takes many an unforeseen turn. He died young. I never went to acting school.

I had a family of my own instead.

Over the course of years, my husband and I made several visits to D.C. He's a history-lover, an original poli sci major turned pastor. We took our children when they were small. Our last visit was early spring, 2018, with friends. What I noticed most on approaching the Capitol in early morning: the deep silence. Few people were out. The brooding sky made a compelling backdrop for the ornate dome, topped by Freedom. I took a picture. I tried to remember my first visit as a child, how enchanted I felt...long before I understood that relationships can disintegrate in unimaginable ways. In families, communities, countries.

The day after the attack last week, as I turned on my computer screen to meet with young elementary students, I felt numb, unfocused, ill-prepared. One by one at the appointed times, the children popped in, their faces aglow because... it might snow! A pandemic, ten months of reinvented school and life, volumes of ongoing, unfolding horrors in the news...yet they greet me with when is the snow is supposed to start?

It set a little part of my hippocampus jingling. Snow, as a literary symbol, means innocence, purity, tranquility. Even blessing.

Suddenly that old storm-gray horse souvenir resurfaced, vivid, nearly tangible, in my memory.

Strange.

I can't say it's symbolic of the American spirit. What does it mean to be American?

Maybe it's symbolic of a child's spirit. What makes it so mighty?

All I am sure of is this: a longing for overcoming and well-being.

For all.

*******
My previous post is a poem on the power of words to wound and heal: When. Here are words inscribed in the U.S. Capitol: On the Rostrum of the House Chamber - "Union, Justice, Tolerance, Liberty, Peace"
Behind the vice president's chair in the Senate Chamber - "E pluribus unum" ("Out of many, one")
On the stained glass window of the Congressional prayer room - "Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust." Psalm 16:1
*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the Slice of Life Challenge, in itself a testimony to the power of stories and community.

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Morning breaks over the Capitol. March 2018. I was eleven the first time I saw it with my own eyes. 6th grade field trip. In those days, parents could ride on the bus with the children; they didn't have to follow behind in a car. That is how my mother got to go.

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Mary Ann Reily: Bear Hunting, Donald Trump, Chinatown, and Becoming (Other)Wise

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Mary Ann Reily: Bear Hunting, Donald Trump, Chinatown, and Becoming (Other)Wise

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When the chesty, fierce-furred bear becomes sick he travels the mountainsides and the fields, searching for certain grasses, flowers, leaves and herbs, that hold within themselves the power of healing. He eats, he grows stronger. Could you, oh clever one, do this? Do you know anything about where you live, what it offers? Have you ever said, "Sir Bear, teach me. I am a customer of death coming, and would give you a pot of honey and my house on the western hills to know what you know." - Mary Oliver, Upstream, p. 7.

In New Jersey yesterday, 206 bears were killed on the first day of bear hunting season. 206 black bears shot dead by arrows. The first bear killed this year was a 104-pound female. 74 of those 206 bears were killed nearby my home, in ZONE 3 of the bear 'harvesting' map. A prodigious day apparently. Beginning on Thursday through Saturday, eager hunters can kill bear with bow and arrows and guns (muzzleloaders).

I share woods with bears; my home situated between multiple state forests in northern New Jersey. We moved here nearly 15 years ago to be close enough to Manhattan and to still live where trees aren't something that simply line streets. I walk in the woods (not this week) a good portion of the time unless hunting is happening. Sometimes, especially in early spring, bears wander from the woods and can be seen lumbering across gravel roads and asphalt; across newly greening lawns. People come to ZONE 3 to kayak, hike and run trails, ride bikes, walk in the woods, and apparently now to use bows and arrows and guns to kill black bears.

II.

Death is so final, so absolute. There is no going back, There is no do over. Losing my husband, seeing Rob die last March taught me that. Once dead, you remain dead. The 104-pound bear is as dead today as she was yesterday afternoon. And we are the worse for that. Perhaps my sensibilities about death are heightened given the last 15 months, but when I read about the bear killing it gutted me. When I read about the 'bear problem' in New Jersey, I thought how very foolish we are. And so it was with this on my mind that I started to read Mary Oliver's new essay collection, Upstream. I stopped two pages in when I came across the paragraph at the top of this post. It offers such a sharp contrast to killing bears--a contrast worth our notice.

Oliver situates a bear as knowing differently than us. Bears know stuff we don't. She asks, " Have you ever said, 'Sir Bear, teach me. I am a customer of death coming, and would give you a pot of honey and my house on the western hills to know what you know.'"

Have you? Have I? What might we learn if we had the courage to do so?

III.

Maxine Greene wrote about the need to become otherwise. Becoming other wise is to consider points of view that feel foreign, not as some exotic exercise, but rather as a way of being in the world. Rather than judge it wrong--there is an interest in understanding, in not naming too quickly, too singularly. I think of this stance--this way of living in light of the presidential election that seems to have gone on for more than a epoch. Has there been in recent memory another election that has so divided a country? That has set us against one another? That we are more nation of us and them, than we the people?

How do we mend what we have torn apart? How do we gather up the courage to become wise about others who are not us? How do we resist harming more?

IV.

You may have read about the recent O'Reilly Factor debacle that found correspondent Jesse Watters loose in Chinatown (NYC). He was sent there by the show's host, Bill O'Reilly because "China" has been so often mentioned during the election. In what has been defined as vile and racist by NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, Watters conducted pseudo-interviews on the street. Interspersed among the interviews were video of Watters "getting a foot massage, playing with nunchucks and asking loaded questions that some residents appeared not to understand or couldn't answer." (from here). Watching the segment left me disheartened, my stomach clenched, and stench of fear and anger. This was a stab at humor? How is this even possible in 2016?

I have been thinking about this a lot. Thinking about the country my 17-year-old Korean son will be claiming for in a few brief months as he sets out from home to go to college. What world will this young man find? How safe will he be? How loved? Misunderstood? Demeaned? How dare Watters and O'Reilly determine my son's worth by their narrow white privilege. How dare them. And how dare anyone who laughs alongside this 'news' show.

We must demand more of ourselves and say loudly NO to such depictions of others/selves.

V.

And perhaps this demanding more our ourselves is at the center of what we must do regardless of the election outcome. We cannot delay such actions. To make a kinder, better, brighter and more humane life in this country, we need to cozy-up to other. Learn to love what we don't like.

That means all of us, although I need not wait for you to start.

I'm taking an inventory of what is other in my life. At the top of the list are Trump and his supporters. I don't understand the motivation to support this candidate, but that doesn't mean that I need to hate him or his supporters--for I don't know even one of them. It's easy to dislike a group--easy as it is foolish. It's far harder to dislike a person with whom you share a story. I know I don't need to be perfect at this embrace of other, I just need to do it.

VI.

Oliver closes the essay by reminding us that "[a]ttention is the beginning of devotion" (p. 8). How observant she is. How wise.

And so tonight I am praying that I might practice noticing and learn how to resist the too easy naming that blinds me. Let me take notice of what is in front of me--be it the bear in nearby woods, the voter I don't understand, the candidate I can't seem to respect. Let me pay attention so I may better love.

Sir/Madam, teach me. I am a customer of death coming.

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#SOL16: Bear Hunting, Donald Trump, Chinatown, and Becoming (Other)Wise

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When the chesty, fierce-furred bear becomes sick he travels the mountainsides and the fields, searching for certain grasses, flowers, leaves and herbs, that hold within themselves the power of healing. He eats, he grows stronger. Could you, oh clever one, do this? Do you know anything about where you live, what it offers?

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Lori van Housen: Why Sharing is the Most Important Part of Workshop

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Lori van Housen: Why Sharing is the Most Important Part of Workshop

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http://rwtlive.blogspot.com/2015/07/why-sharing-is-most-important-part-of.html
What I notice: varying sentence length; use of italics to emphasize change in voice in dialogue; italics to show inner conversation; sentences beginning with "and"; final line has a close echo "...the light will come, and come."

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https://murphyslawblog.wordpress.com/2016/03/27/day-27-tough-questions/
What I notice: Opening with dialogue and dialogue throughout piece; tight focus on one moment; Ending with feeling- powerful sentence that evokes emotion.

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Carrie Gelson: "I Write in Threes and Repeat"

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Carrie Gelson: "I Write in Threes and Repeat"

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https://thereisabookforthat.com/2016/02/29/threes-and-repeats-slice-of-life-march-challenge-1/
What I notice: Repeating line "I write" connects poem & emphasizes theme; surprising word choice "puddle jumping"; repeating phrase "not" three times; alliteration; powerful, short last line.

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https://thereisabookforthat.com/2016/03/06/hey-little-one-slice-of-life-march-challenge-7/
What I notice: Repeating phrase "Little One"; personification of sadness; 3 sentences in a row beginning with prepositions; noun to verb short sentences (paper to rip, walls to push, staircases to race); similes; beginning sentences with "and"; metaphors; repeating line "Sometimes" 3x; specific verbs (shrieking, squawking); piece evokes incredible emotion pairing the "little one" with such a "treacherous" journey.

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Carrie Gelson: When the Day Starts with a Pop Up Heart

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Carrie Gelson: When the Day Starts with a Pop Up Heart

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https://thereisabookforthat.com/2016/03/08/wen-the-day-starts-with-a-pop-up-heart-slice-of-life-march-challenge-9/
What I notice: Circular structure- opening line and closing line begin with the same phrase; varying sentence lengths; "Cake eating peace" interesting sentence; dialgoue woven into the text

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Andi Mitchell: What I Miss From 135 Pounds Ago 

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Andi Mitchell: What I Miss From 135 Pounds Ago 

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http://www.andiemitchell.com/2011/05/11/what-i-miss-from-135lbs-agopart-3/
What I notice: beginning with a question; use of italics to show voice; adverb after verb (asking gently); one sentence paragraphs; repeating a phrase three times ("I don't"); phrases as sentences ("Empathy before ego"); Repeating line "Maybe"; personification of "fat" and "thin"; metaphors; last paragraph one sentence beginning with "and."

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http://assessmentinperspective.com/?p=3588
What I notice: Repeating phrase alternating every other line; repeating line "How is he to know"; beginning each line with "the" and then the object and its' purpose; Structure- "Today" then "Tomorrow"; repeating line "to_"; final line weaves repeating phrases together in an emotional end.

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https://murphyslawblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/yet/
What I notice: Opens with dialogue; italics to emphasize voice; specific verbs (wailed, sobbed, sniffled); one word last line with much meaning

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https://raisealithuman.wordpress.com/2016/04/11/six-pages/
What I notice: Dialogue opens post and is used throughout; dialogue sounds like real people talking; last sentence uses informal language ("Yep") and specific word choice meaningful to the writer ("kvelling")

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https://thereisabookforthat.com/2016/03/27/this-writing-thing-slice-of-life-28/
What I notice: switches from first person to second person; "whisper wings" alliteration and sensory language; metaphor; one sentence paragraphs; personification; contrasting images "lures you" and "nest"

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https://thereisabookforthat.com/2016/04/04/monday-by-numbers-slice-of-life/
What I notice: Circular structure- first and last line are the same: Counting up from 1-21 as structure of post with each number representing a quantity relating to the topic, "Monday