this is when i should be doing philosophy homework.
but i am uploading pictures.
because.
The girls from the center came over on Monday to make cookies. and my dad brought home pizza:). and we talked about world leprosy week.

Tuesday was India Republic Day, and Wednesday was Chocolate cake day
Anna had a super lovely baby shower. co-ed.




we all made onesies. i put my number on the back. grin.

There are two kinds of people in a fight; the pullers and the pushers. I stretch out my sore muscles and reflect on last night. There are always more pullers than pushers. This thought surprises me with its optimism. But it takes both to make a fight go off well.

The lines are not divided well. Words can transform pullers to pushers in seconds. It is harder to turn a pusher to a puller, because of a combination of emotion, adrenaline, and expectation pulsing through the air.

Everyone has seen the event: two people start raising their voices. The emotion thrown into the air draws like flies and a circle/semi-circle forms. Adrenaline shoots into veins like an old-time heroine addict. Males tend to then begin to remove clothing, while females point and jerk their neck around. Then the pullers begin:

“Don’t do it man, this ain’t worth it.” “Calm down dude!” “Nobody is calling nobody.”

Two camps form around the individuals, mixed with taunts and threats. Good advice is normally heard somewhere, but only softly. The pullers separate and divide, for good intention or not, and 90% of fights end here, before they start.

They let the person breathe easy. Someone makes a joke, and laughter cuts the ribbon of air to open the door to peace. Or at least equalibriam. Girls will giggle and gossip and backstab, boys will swagger, making it known that they heroically let the ****** live another day.

But some do not end. Sometimes there are not enough pullers, or not the right pullers, and the two pushers meet. Either their emotions are so high they cannot think, or they feel the weight of the expectation to fight, or most likely, a mixture of both. A swing, a retaliation, and it is on.

Pullers will jump people like hurtles, aiming for the epicenter. They have the same level of intensity, but for the opposite effect. Many of them just want to make peace, some just want in on the action.

I am a puller. On my tree-lined suburbian street where birds chirp, you would never guess. It surprised me just as much. i shook hands with the ghetto when i was 16, teaching character at an alternative school.

“I feel more at home with them than HERE.”
i whispered to myself during a Sunday church service. Teenage years are supposed to be when you “Find yourself,” but all i found was that i was losing myself. I was losing who i had always been. I didn’t fit in with comfortable white community i grew up in. It was a silent rejection, on both sides. But the outward smiles never changed. In it, i found myself longing for honesty and realness. I came to appriciate the blunt “Dude, i don’t LIKE you today” that came from my other world, and let me know where i stood.

He was a small 12 year old, and i never saw the punch until it landed on my jaw. The force of it stunned me, and the confusion, pain, and hurt spread to my eyes with tears. Would i really be the sissy that cried? Yes, i was. Not from the pain of the punch, but from the situation. I came to help, and left beat-up.

Being a puller isn’t easy. And it isn’t always fair. While i had yelled and jumped in the middle of many fights by the time i turned 19, this was the first time i had gotten hurt. My pride was the damaged the most. i figured since i was the “do-gooder,” i should have immunity. Since i was the one who left my comfortable place to work in the dirty corner of the city, i should be shown some respect.

To give him some credit, the lil’ kid hadn’t seen me. And as soon as the two boys saw my tears they ran home, scared. They came back the next day with apologies and “It will never happen again, Mz.Rachel.” And i was just as happy to put the incident behind me as they were.

Several years later,and i am still a puller. I work at a youth center where it is part of my job description to spot and defuse those circle/semi-circles from forming. I try to be the one who makes someone laugh and cuts the aggression before it starts. I try to cut in with other suggestions. Or i just put on my tough face and get dirty looks as i play the authority. most of the time it works. but not last night.

I am not sure what it is in me that pulls me to rush into the middle of a fight. I get the same adrenaline high as the pushers. i put my hands on people and pull. More often then not, i get pulled around. The intensity cannot hold itself up for long, and they fall apart, panting.

Then begins the long process of sorting out the situation. It will be whispered about on the bus, texted to relatives, and told in different forms all over the city the next day. Braggers and swaggers will gloat. Side liners will ofter their adoration or depreciation, based on who they thought was tough. The ones deemed losers will skip school for a couple days.

Pushers often surprise you. Who knew they had nursed a grudge for so long over something so small? Pullers have their own bag of tricks. Some are just a front, pulling apart to look like the good guy, when really it was just to show-off, or get their hit in under the ribs. Some began with good intentions, until they get hit and it becomes their fight too. Some were the ones who really started the fight, spreading their lies and gossip like venom that kills silently.

Fights draw up new lines. New heroes are born, and new lepers are made. Aliances are formed and deals are made. “You got my back, dude?” is a new form of insurance from the dark fear of being jumped. Someone has been proved and someone has been broken. And everyone waits on the sidelines, predicting who will be next.

my body is shivering, but the heat radiates out from my face. my heart is still pumping fast, even though i have been calm for three hours. Emotions mix as adrenaline continues to curse its way through my veins. i wish i could find one feeling and surrender to it, instead of being tangled up in so many.

The high after a fight will soon turn into a headache. the muscles that feel ready to pick up again will soon feel sore. And i didn’t even get swung on. It wasn’t even my fight. but i worked my way to the middle.

She is due in April, and i like her spunk, even if it causes trouble. She has a good heart, and i hope that will count for something while raising a little girl at age 17. It was something to do with 10th street or 30th, or somewhere in between, and it looked like it might become something serious. i called the light skinned boy into the office.

“You ok? Don’t mumble, i really wanna know–cuz it doesn’t sound like you’re ok.”
He assured me there would be no trouble and he would leave it alone. but i saw the little circle form as soon as he left the office.

Little circle means talk, talk means raising voices, raising voices means calling someone’s cousin, or momma, or sister, or brother…all things included leads to that glorious “F” word that sends everyone running outside to get a look as who is going at it. Phones come out, hoping to record it for show and tell at school tomorrow.

I knew his sister, the one he was threatening to call. She just had a baby. We’d been good friends over the summer. i hoped this would be nothing–talk is often at the youth center. Talk is cheap. I saw the faces harden again, but the circle disbanded after i came over and was given a couple dirty looks and “Mz.Rachel here ‘gain man.”

The youth center seemed to grow fuller. Older kids. Then i saw her baby daddy. oh. She called the baby daddy.

“You doing good?” i made small talk, to keep things light. “You not here to fight, right? she’s pregnant…don’t let nothing go down, k?”

He promises to do so, and tells me his drug rehab is going nicely. then the door opens and i feel the cold air. Cold air that feels like it sucked everyone outside with a whisper of “Fight, fight.” on its breath. I follow the crowd, and yell at the little kids to stay inside. As i pass the table, i see a baby. such a little baby. Oh. That means he called his sister.

Pushing through a semi-circle i see a momma. CORNER THE MOM, my brain shouts above the kids, Corner the mom. I put my hands on her shoulders and ask her to please not do this. I try to get her to look at me. I try not to look around. i hope no one is getting hurt anywhere. I hope the little kids don’t see this.

The mom never makes eye contact, she is yelling about her son. i am still holding her shoulders, as she drags me around the basketball court.

“Please don’t do this, please come in the office, please ma’am.”
Many pleases and don’ts and ma’ams come out of my mouth, unheard by both of us. Behind my back i comes a black coat and my pregnant friend lands two good hits in on the mother before the rush of people come to separate them. I am swung around until i regain contact of the mother and try to urge/push her to the gate or the office, i can’t decide which.

The guys then go at it, and it feels like everyone else is frozen still. Men i have never seen before swinging, shirts off and fists flying into snow and ice. Two kids are in fetal positions on the ground, getting kicked. I have one hand on the mother’s shoulder, one stretched out towards the tangle of bodies, useless.

i see blood. I see men holding others back. i can’t tell which is which. I know the cops are on their way, but they are not here yet. The sister that came to fight now sees me.

“Hey Mz.Rachel! it been so long! i am so sorry to be seeing you like this.”
We hug, and her mom decides to leave before the cops come. The same wind that blew everyone outside now blows them all away, as their car sputters to life, cranky at the disturbance.

My pregnant friend is barefoot with the front of her shirt torn off. She has someone’s blood smeared next to her eye. I grab two hats for her feet and drive her home. She asks me to pray for her before she leaves.

“You think i should go to the hospital for them to check if the baby alright?”
i don’t know what to tell her–i’ve never been pregnant. But i know she needs to calm down and get her feet up.

Fighting, like lust, is a wildfire that doesn’t stop until it burns itself up, and then asks for more. I arrive for only the aftershock of the next one, which turned into an ugly 20 against 1. There is grumbling and mumbling and play-by-plays for the next half hour as we take the kids home on the bus. And when i hear some of the little kids rumble louder, i quickly swoop in and declare it won’t happen on this bus. Not here, not now.

“You better listen to her man, she a thug.”
Another time, i would have laughed at the 9 year old who believed my tough front enough to warn his buddy about me. Me the thug.

Piece by piece the fights are put together and pulled apart again. Who hit who. I glared down the lil’ kid who yelled out “So who won?”

I hear that the mom i so quickly put my hands on had a weapon, and realize it is the grace of God that she didn’t swing on me, or that things didn’t get worse. two bloodly boys will be visiting the doctor, and various brusies and broken nails will be discovered tomorrow. I hope a little unborn baby will be ok, and wonder at this world she will be born into.

 normally i fall asleep a bit (just a bit) in Abnormal Psychology. not day. a wrote a Freud poem. ha!

Unconscious motives slowing sliding

to the surface

scare me

i should have been

a student of my heart

i would have seen it coming

shaking

through the calm

i struggled for so long

to smoothe over

to survive

and i succeeded 

better than i should have

until a shudder

a crack

and truth splinters through

my dream last night

said more than it should

i can’t hide

from  myself anymore

of all the things i have lost

what i miss the most

is the bliss of ignorance

when i beleived

that morality expressed

on passionate lips

was reality

it became security to me

it became a system for me

until scattered words

shattered my peace

all men are liars

wallow in self-pity

a pool of black liquid

holds me in seculsion 

i am a martyer for my cause

the solitary crusader for justice

until shaken once again

by my own hypocrisy

by a sense of insecurity

scattered into pieces

my beliefs were never mine

Michael Franti

Say Hey

This one goes out to you and yours
worldwide
I say hey I’ll be gone today
But I’ll be back all around the way
It seems like everywhere I go
The more I see
the less I know
But I know one thing
That I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you

I’ve been a lot of places all around the way
I’ve seen a lot joy and I’ve seen a lot of pain
but I don’t want to write a love song for the world,
I just want to write a song about a boy and a girl
Junkies on the corner always calling my name
And the kids on the corner playing ghetto games
When I saw you getting down well I hoped it was you
And when I looked into your eyes I knew it was true
I say Hey I’ll be gone today
But I’ll be back all around the way
It seems like everywhere I go
The more I see
the less I know
But I know one thing
That I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you

Now I’m not a highly metaphysical man
But I know when the stars are aligned you can
bump into person in the middle of the road
look into their eyes and you suddenly know
Rocking in the dance hall moving with you
Dancing in the night in the middle of June
My momma told me don’t lose you
‘cause the best luck I had was you
I said Hey I’ll be gone today
But I’ll be back all around the way
It seems like everywhere I go
The more I see the less I know
But I know one thing
That I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you

And I said rocking in the dance hall moving with you
I said Hey momma hey momma close to you
Rocking in the dance hall moving with you
I said hey papa, hey papa close to you
Rocking in the dance hall moving with you
I said Hey Momma close to you
Rocking in the dance hall moving with you I said
hey momma, hey momma, hey momma, hey momma
hey momma, hey momma, hey momma, hey momma
what you gonna do?

My momma told me don’t lose you
Cause the best luck I had was you
And I know one thing that I love you
I said Hey I’ll be gone today
but I’ll be back all around the way
It seems like everywhere I go
The more I see the less I know
I said Hey I’ll be gone today
but I’ll be back all around the way
It seems like everywhere I go
The more I see the less I know
But I know one thing that I love you
I love you (3x)

so much stays the same at the center. This is my friend Noel. who i always call Zion. Who can explain my brain?  Domanique Snow makes life interesting. Everything stops to pose for a picture…

…and other questions that cannot be answered after a long day of academic excellence. welcome to the world of being a senior in college. consisting of not being able to find a parking place, wishing you would have brought your scarf, and weighing out the pros and cons of eating broccoli in class.

yes i did. eat broccoli.

Get up and hit snooze until you can’t hit it anymore (there is a limit, and i have found it. every morning). Jog (INDOORS) with your eyes closed and almost feel like you are back in Brasil. shower and eat and pack your backpack too full and pray for parking spaces. Fiction writing with a teacher who judges boxing matches. Philosophy with a typical golf-sock wearing professor (where i eat broccoli), and a little snoozing while multitasking in Abnormal Psychology.

The other days are Editing and holding my breath that i don’t get called on because my books are not in yet, and professional writing with a teacher that might just be a pushover. and then i go to the youth center. and run the tutorial program. and play air hockey.

did you know that yesterday was National Popcorn day? i did. because we celebrated it. guess how much popcorn the average American consumes in one year.

54 quarts.

so get eating. and today is Penguin awareness day. so go hug a penguin. We are watching something with those Madagascar penguins. i just have to figure out how to label it ”Educational.” grin. i love my job.

“You’ve gotta be mixed, mz.Rachel…you sound so black.”

and other such things that get said to me daily. flashback to 2006 and i wonder if i have grown any older…back at the same center, but it isn’t the same me. and the things that are different…were not in the places i thought they would be.

Sledding and snowballs, mostly in a skirt, sculpting snow, capture the flag, fooseball tournaments, writing contests…

All my old kids are not kids anymore. most of them are mommies and daddies. or just about to be and i am invited to the baby shower. I still love girl’s Bible studies. more than ever. We were talking about who God is, and i read a verse about how God doesn’t abandon us. Diamond, due in April, asked if it was a sin to give your baby up for adoption. or abortion. I wonder what kind of pressure she (at 16) is getting. We changed what we were talking about for the rest of that Bible study…

so i have filled my life up to the brim again. homework claims the rest of my nonexistent social life. oh, and just got a second scholarship to help with IUPUI costs. thank you, Jesus. and a nagging question tugs me: am i overcompensating for feeling empty? or the idea that if i left it empty, there would be nothing to fill it?

“What a wee little part of a person’s life are his acts and words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself. All day long, and every day, the mill of his brain is grinding, and his thoughts, not those other things, are his history.” –Mark Twain

i miss my kids in Brasil.

*

They are not perfect

they are not perverts

they laugh and cry

the love and lie

they are so much

like you and me

i do not love them

because they are better

than someone else

i do not give

because they are more

deserving

i love because

they entered my heart

without my permission

i give because

i was there to fill a need

not all needs

are mine to fill

and not all love

will be satisfied

but we can try