Today was the last day of my internship. I feel relief mixed with sadness. My work with BuildBridge isn’t quite over, so there’s no good-byes. But it is another transition. I feel like a spectator to my own life, curious and wondering what’s next. I’m being proactive with job applications, but I can’t shake the feeling. My mom arrived today, and it’s nice but strange to see where and how I live through her eyes. Again, I feel like a distant observer, realizing how very odd of a time of life it is.
Tomorrow we head for the Pittsburgh area to see family; my aunt is having a retirement party. Looks like transitions don’t ever end. That takes me back to last year and graduation and transition talks with torrey peeps. My cousins will be quite a bit older, one of them fresh from his first year at college in Atlanta.
The Institute went really well. I wish the people could have stayed altogether though, instead of returning to their homes in Ohio, Canada, Kansas, New York, and more. It was revitalizing to be with young people my age, full of enthusiasm and ideas, tempered and given wisdom by faculty with experience, know-how, and a strong desire to provide mentorship. It was also encouraging to get to be a part of making it happen. It’s been a while since I’ve been that person, the one that makes things happen. I missed that. It was a huge blessing to also be able to attend classes and do some serious soul-searching about the work.
I believed arts could bring healing before, and I saw it with the kids I worked with. But now I feel the true power arts, to bring transformation, beating in my breast, pushing me onward. I still don’t know quite which road to take, but I don’t want to forget to march to that rhythm.
As I say that, I think of a little girl, D, from the class I helped with at WAA – Women Against Abuse. D has been increasingly close to my heart over the few weeks as I’ve grown as an assistant and learned more about how to help her with her sadness and anger and insecurity. I should have filled this blog the past month or two with stories about her, and about WAA, but I haven’t know how, it’s been too close. D is a little 4-year-old girl. The first day of class, she was the only student, and we were reading a book about Anansi the Spider, but D didn’t like Anansi. So she hit him (the picture on the book). She often threatened physical punishment against kids who she saw as “misbehavin.” She also, almost every class, would at one point hide underneath a table, lie down and begin whimpering, or run away. On one such occasion, I came after her and tried to reason with her that a boy didn’t do anything wrong by holding the book about Anansi (I’ve since learnt that reasoning with a 4-year-old is not always the best course of action). She began saying she wasn’t pretty, that nobody loved her. I was shocked. She also continued threatening to hurt the boy with whom she was angry. That day, Dr. Vivian Nix-Early (one of the BuildaBridge co-founders, the COO, and also a clinical psychologist) stepped in, because I didn’t know what to do or how to help. She took D aside and explained she shouldn’t be mad at the boy, because the only reason she was missing class was herself, and as soon as she calmed down, she could come back. She told D she couldn’t come back until she was done crying, and then she let D cry for a while. Eventually, she asked D if she could clean off her face in the bathroom. Dr. V later told me D began again saying she wasn’t beautiful, and so as she cleaned her face she just told her how beautiful she was, and specific things she found beautiful about D. Another week, I used the same method. The look in her eyes was so vulnerable. That killed me, too.
We had our final celebrations for the two classes I assisted with. At WAA, Women Against Abuse, the little girl that was “my baby,” “D,” wasn’t there. That day her mom had got in a fight. It kinda killed me that she missed her celebration. I miss her. I wish I knew now from working with her and from the Institute back when I first met her. Not that I now know so much, but I know a little more, and maybe I could have helped more.
It’s unsettling. This feeling, of wishing I could’ve helped more, it’s reminding me of something else. One of my friends from Uganda passed last month, two weeks after his birthday. He had suffered with depression due to the malaria meds. The details of his death were not shared, but I think it’s a word I don’t feel like saying. It’s amazing how you strong of an emotion guilt may be, whatever justifications are used to try to reason the emotion away. Which, by the way, is another thing I learned at the Institute, about brain development and emotion versus reason, particularly in kids, and how art can bridge that. Anyways. David was a blessing in my life. He helped me see things more clearly. It makes me angry, that I or somebody didn’t help him more, although I know he had friends and amazing family and therapists that were helping him. It makes me want to make myself someone who could help.
I feel like there’s a lot to miss in life right now: people, opportunities, purpose, peace. It makes me not want to waste any time, but sometimes time is what you need. I think that’s what I need to do for a while, sit and be still and let time do it’s thing and I do mine until the water is still.
