A Day in the Life

Today had several interesting scenes, so I thought I'd just share snippets! My life isn't usually this interesting. Or maybe it is, and I don't notice.

Well, first, let me fast forward through my morning, which I spent at home, mostly in bed, but also on the computer and playing guitar.

I took the bus and walked to the new house I'll be moving into next month to sign the lease. The first thing I noticed walking in was that Charla - the 32-year-old who owns the house and paints on the patio, makes lamps in the basement, who had applied to BuildaBridge and who goes to the FitLife Gym with her and soon to be my roommates - was wearing those interesting Barefoot running shoes, that are like toe socks and just entirely very unique. Very fitting since later that day I'd be watching the music video that goes to Brett Dennen's Make You Crazy song:



While I was waiting for Charla to get the lease, I sat and looked out the window. There was a beautiful, large monarch butterfly perched on the aptly-named butterfly bush in the front yard. It made me be still for a moment with it. Every once in a while I see a butterfly or a speck of dandelion fluff, and whenever I do, it reminds me of things good and true and beautiful.

Then, as I walked to work along Washington Lane, I passed a house that had a small kiddie pool on its front lawn, complete with 7 adorable kids stuffed inside like sardines. As I walked away, one little girl kept yelling to her older brothers, "Somebody dunk me." They complied. :)

At work I started making the first few phone calls to connect with past alumni and donors. I got to talk with a friend from the Institute, Stevie Neale, and learned about her work doing choreography for a k-2 theatre group. Imagine that age group learning about the Circle of Life through Lion King, and then playing a dance game where one little girl yells out, "Let me see your omnivore!" to get all the kids to pretend to eat grass. Yeah, it was adorable when I imagined it, too.



After work, I was walking along Germantown Avenue, and decided to check out the BuildaBridge Artology summer camp art installation on the front lawn of Cliveden House. As I looked, a boy walked by and asked if I liked it. I said I did, and began talking with him. Josh attended his third year of Artology this summer. He's in 5th or 6th grade. His favorite part of the camp was the water fight. His second favorite part was going to a glass-blowing studio. We walked on together half a block before he was stopped by an older woman who greeted him by name.

I continued walking to the Wired Bean Cafe, for the open mic night. The sign-up list was empty for the first 15 minutes, and so the host, a middle-aged white guy, continued playing renditions of the likes of Adele and the Eagles - using the same chords! As I was waiting for my drink, a woman in line turns to me and says, "I'm Katie." I give a double-take, and I realize it's a lady from the Circle of Hope church, for whom I've babysat. Their cell group had decided to meet at the cafe that night. I smile, because I was a bad little Sarah and ditched my cell group that night for the open mic night, reasoning that a discussion about if we need an inner life might be one-upped by a night of music as inner life.

I was right. Great music. Eda James "At Last," Ingrid Michaelson's "Keep Breathing," and Sam Cooke's version of "Summertime," to name a few. There was also an old man with some fun rhyming jokes, as well as a man who had found bongo drums in the trash and taught himself how to play. The first hour was mostly older men and women. Later, a group of 3-4 girls, all black, came with this white guy who played guitar, and they just brought the house down. But EVERYBODY got cheered for, everyone felt appreciated. I sure did!

It was fun to look out the wall-length windows across the street, where a black man with a Muslim white robe and hat stood outside of a Hong Kong Chinese restaurant, next to a Mermaid Bar, with a younger black guy in a tank top stood. A couple ran by with the guy pushing the girl's back to get her to go faster. The mostly white Circle of Hope cell group met on the patio.

Today was nice.

Heart Beats

I wrote a story about Atlanta for the BuildaBridge website, below, but also here.





BuildaBridge and Refugee Family Services (RFS) were waiting for the last act of their BuildaBridge Arts Week Celebration, and all eyes were on a smaller boy at the front of Class 4. Kay Do So projected a sense of serenity and calm as he stood with his back to the audience, facing his class, arms high and ready to begin conducting. No one had coached him to stand with such poise; it just came naturally over the course of the week as he became more knowledgeable about what sounds he wanted produced and how to bring them about. With a flick of the wrist, he signaled his classmates to begin.

On the first day of arts camp, their music class had begun with introducing the heartbeat rhythm, but it quickly became a near free-for-all, as each student plucked, banged, and blew on instruments to their hearts’ content, with little regard for any guidance or instruction. While I knew how far the class had come since then, I was curious to see how well they listened to one another and controlled their voices and instruments. Some of the boys from Class 4 were so excited, that when Class 3 went up before them for their music performance, they began chanting along quietly, elbowing each other and smiling. I didn’t need to worry. By the end of the week, Ms. Josie had successfully harnessed that energy, and taught them how to control their music and enjoy themselves. In fact, the class had been planning and plotting their performance earlier that day.

Kay Do So kept his wand and his entire body low to the ground, signaling his friends to begin quietly, as they had discussed. Many of the kids imitated him, ducking their heads down near the drums as they lightly hit it, or bending conspiratorially towards one another as they began saying his name in rhythm to the beat, the same heartbeat introduced at the beginning of the week. Everyone’s eyes were riveted on the wand, and when it pointed to another classmate, they began chanting that child’s name as a single voice, much to her delight.

As Kay Do So raised the wand higher and higher, the whole class strummed, drummed, sang and smiled harder and harder. They had been waiting for this moment, and their eyes shone with excitement, as the whole room reverberated with their rhythm. They ended by singing their version of “We Will Rock You.” Each child had the chance to sing one of the lines of the verses they had written, and they all sang the chorus together, ending with a cheer, “Class 4!”One of the class 4 students, Amanuel, doing visual arts about the heart

The class had begun with the metaphor of the heartbeat, that each person and each group has a unique heartbeat, and that music is the heartbeat of the world. That first day, each child played only what they wanted to, how they wanted to, or if they wanted to. By the last day, they came together as a class, listened to one another, and responded musically to one another. They found their class heartbeat.

The next day, I found their community heartbeat. Rosa Dunkley, RFS’s Youth Development Coordinator and one of our lovely hosts, drove Julia and I around some of the apartments where the kids live. Turning into some complexes felt like entering another world, with refugees living together from Somalia, Thailand, Bosnia, Burma, Iraq, Sudan, and Burundi, to name a few. I saw people sharing life together: hanging laundry on a line, walking on errands, talking to neighbors, or watching kids play soccer and bicycle. Some of the complexes looked clean and safe, and even had a pool. Some still had the debris from when one of the buildings had burned down, taking the lives of several of the youth with it. Some, Rosa shared, had landlords that had stolen from the refugees. One no longer had many refugees because of tensions with the Americans also living there. Several times we spotted “our” kids, playing and talking and living. When they saw us, we smiled and waved like crazy people. Whether or not they saw us, I saw them, and I heard them. I had spent a week with them talking about heartbeats, but I had not yet discovered theirs, until that trip. It is strong, communal, resilient, and hopeful, vibrating with vitality.

You will...not...be missed

Yesterday I had my first official day as a paid employee of BuildaBridge. Fun :) Rather obviously, I am staying in Philly. The probationary period is three months, at which point we'll review my work, and I'll review my finances. If all is well enough, the position is a year-long one.

Still more than a little weird to think about.

In the meantime, I'm probably signing a 3-month lease this week at a cheaper house. Dr. Corbitt was kind enough to volunteer to drive me around the area at night, so that I can get a feel for how safe it will be, particularly for coming back after work at the restaurant or back on public transportation after an evening in center city. We will see, but the girls seem nice (three of them). The room is pretty much a very big closet, it's so small, but I think it'll work fine.

As for Atlanta: I came. I saw. I sang.

I'll write a separate blog, or a few separate ones, to tell about those stories. It was good. Great, really. I led opening music with all 56 of the kids aged 4-14 every morning for half an hour. That's a lot of kids. And a lot of singing. I liked it. I learned a lot, and made a few friends along the way. And a lot of memories.

you will be missed

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.

state of the sarah

I’ve been here 3 months. I had my half-way discussion with my supervisor Danielle a week or two ago. I haven’t reached my goal of being able to coordinate a similar program, but I have a far more realistic understanding of the work necessary to do so. I’m learning about being myself while being professional and contextual. I’m taking initiative in setting small goals and creating action items to reach them, and fulfilling promises.

I understand more of the power behind BuildaBridge classes’ three foci: hope-infused, child-center and trauma-informed. Last week I had to physically remove and restrain an 8-year-old girl. Her brother had hurt her, and it triggered something raw. I want to be trauma-informed. I am becoming so, and will become more, as I get to take classes at the same Institute that I am planning at half-price. It’s still expensive, but I’d be a fool to pass it up. This experience is giving me more of a drive, to be relevant, to be ready, to be willing, to be engaged, to be in community.

I’m past college. It’s been a year (Greg Laswell song!). Not that I’m an adult. But I realized we’re strange at this age. It’s cool, as long as we know it. People are better together, as family, however that family looks. Brotherly love is hard. College students are both really bad and really good at being family to each other. I want to be family to people, but it's hard. Anyways.

I went to an open mic at World Café Live. I had to have a table for one, which sucked, but then it was a spot right next to the stage, which rocked. I listened and drew and performed. No new friends, but I pushed myself out of my comfort zone, and at 11:30 I walked to the train station. I waited on my platform on the far end and played guitar and it echoed. It was by far the best part of the evening. That sense of peace and of healing and belonging is what I love in music.

When I went to another open mic, someone said I had an accessory with my guitar. It feels that way, like Malibu Stacy, only not. It opens up avenues for talking, carrying it around, even if it is heavy. When I first reached the train station on the way into the city, there was a guy playing his own guitar, and we talked. He’s a music ed major, and he has to learn several different instruments right now, which he’s never done before. It makes me think maybe it’s not so far-fetched for me.

I’m considering other far-fetched things, too. Like Georgia, for a 10 day arts camp through BaB with refugee youth. Like an internship in Atlanta, Georgia with refugees, through Fugees Family. Like staying in Philly. Or coming back to Cali but bringing the brotherly love with me. It depends on how the numbers add up. I miss Cali, and I miss family, and I miss free rent and belonging. But…idk.

I drive home from church cell with Barb and Liz most of the time. Last week Barb asked if I was getting what I wanted out of Philly, and what my plans were, where I was going. No, I don’t know, and Ill be somewhere. We laughed about it, because Liz had a similar answer when she was young about being somewhere, and that’s really still her answer and a lot of people’s answer. Because life’s full of questions. I don’t know where I’ll be. I’m trying not to care, though I do.

Sunday Monday Rising

Did you know traditionally, Christ didn’t actually rise until Monday? There’s a blog entry by Daniel Majors (a Christian religious studies grad student in CA) that talks about this. I can’t find the link, but check him out at danielmajors.com. The point was simply about that tension of where we live today, in the already but not yet, the Sunday of Christ in the grave but not yet risen. Of course, Christ has risen, but I know Easter came and went for me and I still didn’t feel that hope that goes with that truth. And, for our world, it still has not yet experienced the full power of that.

Still, my Easter was definitely good. I worked. I ate an incredible staff lunch. I played guitar. I hung out with a friend who had a bad family experience over Easter.

Honestly, though, it seems a long time ago now. I’ve been busy at my internship, busy with my first time as an assistant teacher in the transitional shelters. It is powerful to see how vulnerable and sensitive children are to one another’s criticisms. It’s so easy to see in children, who don’t yet know how to hide their feelings, but I think adults are often nearly just as vulnerable. We just better at pretending we’re not. We play make believe. But don’t hate the player, hate the game, right? Yeah. Have you ever been in a shelter? I have been in one before this, but not for a very long time. Just to see the kids coming “home” from school and the moms (no dads in either) reading in the lobby with their kids…trying to make a life. Having a 4-year-old at a Women Against Abuse shelter punch a drawing of a character she didn’t like, and hear the mother tell her to be different from her mother. It’s different when you’re there. To see people working to get from Sunday to Monday, who have to hope that the grave isn’t the end of our story.

It certainly gives you perspective on your own financial worries. I’m less worried about money right now, though honestly more because of a small windfall than any mature, reflective considerations on my one day of work in the shelters. Last weekend I played guitar for a 17-year-old girl’s youtube vids, and her mom very generously compensated me. The girl is Taylor Bright, but the whole family and their friends were just very nice to meet, made me feel very appreciated and excited to be there. Anyways, I’ll be sure to let you know about the vid when it comes up.

Of course, my news is quite small compared to the big news of the week. Osama. I didn’t like the big news of the week. Not because I’m naive, though I probably am that, too. Not because verses about loving your enemy and not rejoicing in their deaths, either, though those are good things. It seemed pointless, and our response made me feel tired and hollow. I read about people celebrating in the streets, and my mind immediately went to 9/11 when people celebrated the deaths of American civilians. These are two very, very different situations, I would never want to minimize Osama’s sway to persuade through his hate-filled rhetoric, nor accuse the victims of 9/11 of harboring the same intent to cause harm to others that Osama did. I have read several of Osama’s speeches and letters. It made my heart sick.

But I do see in the two celebrations similar emotions of gloating and pride. Behind the rhetoric of justice and democracy and the war on terror and peace and making the world a safer place, really we just wanted to get ours, and save some face that it took us so long. So we did. Round of applause. Did it do any good? Maybe. Maybe not. But it didn’t make me want to celebrate. It reminded me it’s still Sunday. We’re still half in the grave. And sometimes we’re still just as sensitive and angry as the little kids I worked with. And I don’t mean that in a patronizing way. It is what it is.

Anyways. Luckily, later on Monday I talked on the phone with my brother after his first day of work and I called him a closet-hippy, and I watched Elf with friends, and Tuesday I danced in my room. Nothing like a little sweat to feel alive. :)

hakuna matata

It’s really hard not to worry.

Really hard.

I’m going to a training tonight to be an assistant teacher with BuildaBridge, so I’m looking at the class schedule. I’m worrying about how I’ll be able to help, and how I’ll get to the class. And I’m opening up my bank account and worrying about if I can afford to have one more night a week I can’t work, where instead I spend money on public transportation to get to the class.

Worrying is lame. It’s for squares.

Luckily, I go to the circle of hope church, so…yeah…not square. Well…anyways. But we had a worship/prayer event last night focused around Christ’s high priestly prayer. It was good, mostly because people were honest (self included). It made me think about humility, and love and glory and peace.

On the ride home with the women in my cell group and Jonathan, we talked about television and ice cream. And then I played guitar with Jonathan a little bit and thought more about peace. And then I called Avina and talked about many, many things. And then today I got a card from Candice and Avi and Elyse and Alicia, and it’s like a little prayer/encouragement card and I want to hug them. Aw.

I’m still worried, because money is worrisome, but now I’m also happy. Maybe if I got out some crayons and made money more colorful-looking, it would be more fun. Hmm. :)

But I’m doing well. I play a lot of guitar. I’m teaching a guitar student Iron Man, and I’m looking for more students. I even have a music myspace, sarahroarmusic. Which has helped me to try to write more songs. Which is really therapeutic. And fun. I might join a soccer team this Saturday.

I went to my co-worker Ebonee’s African-American studies classes last Thursday at Temple University. And both the classes and talking around the classes were good. Good conversation.

Friday night after work everyone stayed late and hung out and had free drinks, and talked about Michael Jackson and Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan. I mostly just listened. My boss kept complaining, trying to get me to talk, saying it was because of the beer, but honestly I felt sad talking about people’s lives falling apart. Well, then a decorative hanging fell off a wall and broke apart. Everybody freaked out. They believe there’s a ghost there. They said they had been too loud and made Emily mad, and Edgar said to leave the broken hanging on the ground so she feels guilty about it. Interesting night. I told Avi, it was cultural spectacles time.

Anyways, in general there's a lot of different people around, and it reminds me that I'm pretty different myself. And we're all pretty weird. Jonathan has a quote on his wall from Johnny Depp about how it wasn't the strange people that made him curious, it was the normal ones. Cuz normal ones are pretty strange. Which makes me think of this music video that you must go watch...

http://youtu.be/jJOzdLwvTHA

*************

CRAZY UPDATE. I think it was like half an hour after I wrote this, I checked my email. Like three hours before, my supervisor had emailed me saying she thought she had a way I could volunteer without using septa (public transportation). So I called her up. Apparently, she couldn't sleep last night, so she was thinking about work, of course. And one of the girls uses Philly Car Share (I remember when a friend and I thought we had come up with the idea of having a car people can share by online scheduling...nope, it's been around a while). And she lives above my internship (the business offices are on the first floor, while the co-founders and others rent out floors above). It's a spoken word class, too, one with 6-7 year olds, and one with older kids. And last night I wasn't even worrying, but even then God was like, yeah, I know you're gonna freak out, but check this out, I'm already pulling some strings, so don't forget I'm great.

Pretty much.