Community Engagements Through the Arts: This I Believe essay #4

Thursday, January 31, 2019

This I Believe essay #4

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39 comments:

AnonymousFebruary 3, 2019 at 9:15 AM
We’ve seen this in movies before and sadly in real life so we were afraid of how it would end. 5:30 AM. The other two had ran, one was left alone to handle the consequences. He was in handcuffs and they were intoxicated so me and another friend went out to check on him. Three officers, one black male, two DPS cars, lights on, two black females approaching. I told my friend she’s going to be doing the talking. I don’t want to sound dumb and I don’t do well under pressure. We walk up and are at a fair distance and my friend politely says, “Excuse me sir?”. He sharply turns around, puts his hand on his gun, walks towards us and aggressively goes, “Excuse me?”. She asks if they have his mothers information, or if we can ask him for it but I don’t think he understood or even wanted to listen. He just angrily tells us, “Well, he has a gun and dope on him!” which isn’t what we asked. She asks again, and he asked who are we so she flashes her Crimson card. His tone changes, he removed his hand from his hip and calmly asks if we attend the school. We say yes and he asks if either of us are this other black girl on the card the guy had and obviously not. She’s one of our friends though. After we tell him that isn’t either of us, he asks for ours. He tells us to tell our friend if she doesn’t come down to get her card, he’s coming up. They want us to leave and try to assure us that’s it’s okay for us to walk away. But we stay, we can’t help but to make sure we watch everything. They let him go, he tells us the question they kept asking him was why did he have that much cash on him. They wanted it to be drug money. They assumed it was drug money. They searched our friends room for drugs and said someone most definitely had to smoke in there even though they didn’t. They say no one carries that much cash around and it couldn’t be from anything other than dealing. At 6:40 AM, they told us to pick better friends and to have a good morning. I believe in reasons for assumption.
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AnonymousFebruary 3, 2019 at 8:18 PM
I often think about the stories you told me about yourself. I think about when you told me that when you were three, you’d sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, stand at the top of the stairs, and wail until your parents came to rescue you. They would ask you “What’s wrong?” and a mini version of you would cry in anguish, “I don’t know!”

I think about the time you told me that when you were growing up, you loved to assemble Lego Bionicles. Your family used to think you’d grow up to be a mathematician or an engineer. You told me that one time, not long after your brother was born, you stayed up late putting together your newest set. Your mother never came to tuck you into bed, so you left your room to tell her about your accomplishment. You found her sleeping on the floor beside your brother’s crib. You woke her up to show off your accomplishment; she sighed and said, “You were supposed to put yourself to bed.” You didn’t tell me how that felt, but you didn’t need to.

I think about the time you told me the story behind your truss rod cover. It’s a commissioned piece, a gift from your ex-girlfriend. It’s beautiful, and even if that relationship is long over, I know you still associate it with fond memories. We went to an art festival later that year. When you mentioned customizing the truss rod cover of a different guitar, I suggested that you commission an artist whose work you just admired. I remember briefly thinking about commissioning her myself and surprising you with it - but it seemed irreverent toward the one you already cherished.

I remember when you told me, after the commission was complete and you finally were able to put it on your guitar, that you hadn’t forgotten that I suggested it. I don’t remember whether or not I told you why I did it. I wonder if you think of me every time you pick up that guitar.

I constantly wonder what it’s like to be you, to hold these memories in your gut. I wonder if you love your new girlfriend. I can’t help but obsess over why you chose her over me, even though I know we can’t help who we love and who we don’t love. I don’t believe I’ve ever loved anyone more than I loved you.
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AnonymousFebruary 4, 2019 at 3:06 PM
February 14th is approaching us. Hues of pink and red are everywhere. Hearts, stuffed animals, and cupid surround us. Cheesy romantic notions and little cards. Everyone knows what day it is. Valentine’s day.
Just an excuse for couples to go out to an overpriced dinner, waste money on flowers that will die, and heart-shaped jewelry that won’t be worn.
Most of the time it is only single people that complain about Valentine’s day because they are alone and want someone to take them out like the couples, but I can’t stand Valentine’s day and I am not single.
Don’t get me wrong in elementary school I loved it. The exchange of cards with everyone in your class. Getting and giving special ones to the people you liked or that liked you. It evoked a sense of excitement and happiness. But that all changed in 2009.
That’s when I found out it was my cousins favorite holiday. She would go to school and see how many boys she could get to buy her flowers. She was beautiful, smart, nice, and funny so naturally, she came home with a multitude of flowers every year.
Years later she met the man she wanted to marry. He knew this was her favorite holiday and decided to propose to her in 09’ with a bunch of flowers just how she liked it, but in late January of that year, she was unexpectedly diagnosed with brain tumors. And a little over two weeks later she died on February 17th. He never got his chance to propose. She never got to experience that. At just 21 she died. She spent her last Valentine’s day in a coma, not even getting to celebrate, much less say yes to him. She never knew he was going to propose, she never knew the whole family made individual cards and got flowers for her. Her hospital room was covered. She would have loved every part of it but unfortunately, she never saw any of it.
I have never felt the same way about Valentine’s day. The joy and love of Valentine’s day were ripped from me when it was ripped from Megan.
I should love it the way she did, but I can’t. It doesn’t seem real to me anymore.
It not longer evokes excitement and happiness as it once did.
To me, it is just another day of the year and not a holiday at all, merely a commercialized day. I believe Valentine’s day is a social construct.
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EmilyFebruary 4, 2019 at 7:03 PM
“They’re just mean to you because they like you.”   I don’t buy it now, and I didn’t buy it in 5th grade when my principal excused the words and actions of my male classmates when they harassed me. The one time a boy at school hit me—that’s where the line was drawn. He had to…wait for it…apologize. That really showed him.

I loved my childhood, though. I loved my primary education and my classmates and my teachers. I learned French in 2nd grade and cursive in 3rd. I learned about United States history and about animals going extinct.

I never realized how comfortable those squeaky blue classroom chairs were until harder lessons have been learned through bruises under my shirt and manifest themselves most evidently through distrust in every relationship since.

Men can be so charming. They scratch my back and kiss my forehead and don’t even complain in the inevitable event that my hair gets in their face when they’re big spoon. They compliment my intellect and my music taste and my eyes.

But men can be really destructive. They’ve built me up just so they can break me down—true collusion between the construction company and the wrecking ball. They assert their strength and power by holding me down with their hands, sure, but also with their words. There was the one who threatened suicide, saying it would be my fault. Or the one who claimed he “made” me and that he didn’t like my “standoffish arrogance” when I politely turned down an invitation to hang out. Or the one who would send one text calling me a cunt, with the next confessing his love for me.

So I don’t really know why I share this. It’s not for sympathy or attention or comfort—if I wanted that I would’ve gotten it a long time ago. Maybe it’s for myself, for articulating these things for the first time, for moving on. But I believe in hindsight, because it’s a hell of a lot easier to see 20/20 years later than when he was on top of me.
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Kremena TodorovaFebruary 4, 2019 at 10:14 PM
Kremena
February 1, 2019

When my son was 6, his body spoke his feelings. Exhaustion overloaded his rubber-like limbs at the end of a day of playing hide-and-seek in the neighbors’ yard. Happiness pulled up the corners of his mouth and made his freckles glow. At times, he pulled my head close to confide: “I am feeling sad, mama.” I would bring him close and ask about his sadness. I encouraged him to find me every time he felt down. I knew the macho roles society teaches boys to take on. I wanted to grow him into a man comfortable admitting sadness.

Around that time, I taught both my kids if someone says “No,” they’ve got to stop what they are doing. Though this was primarily a lesson for my son, I knew my daughter could stand hearing it as well. As the bigger and stronger of the two, it was she who often forced her brother to scream “STOP IT!” in her tight grip. Still, I was more concerned about stopping my son from becoming a man who could interpret “No” as a flirtatious “Yes.”

When my son turned 7, I signed him up for art lessons. I wanted to nourish his love for drawing, an activity my daughter, too, had loved until she was taught she was no good at art. Pausing to focus on making art was what I wanted for my sports-obsessed boy.

When he was 8, my son called a girl in his class “ugly and fat.” I found out from the girl’s mother. After the initial shock, I told myself this couldn’t have been my sweet, shy, art-making son. It was the week of the Cavanaugh Congressional hearings. I had watched with dread as the evidence that Cavanaugh drank in high school was dismissed by a chorus of voices claiming Cavanaugh was a good man. I realized my son, too, may have parts unknown to me.

At 9, my son wears a bracelet his friend Sawyer gave him on Valentine’s Day. It is white with red hearts. I tell him to wear it often, before the battery that powers twinkling lights within it dies.

At 9, my son still tells me when he is sad. He asks, “Can we socialize?” His words echo our adult talk and convey his wish to confide. As he snuggles with me, I whisper, “Are you feeling sad?” He nods yes.

I believe in letting boys feel sadness and letting them know there are people they can tell. I believe in growing boys into gentle men.

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KurtFebruary 4, 2019 at 11:35 PM
For 16 years, I drove you in the morning: first to day care, then to grade, middle, and high school.

Your mouth once moved like it may never stop talking: your babbled thoughts brought meaning through intonation, hand gestures, head nodding, eye contact, and volume.

You formed your first complete sentence in the fold-down, rear seat of our small, red pickup truck. My desire to rejoice your grammatical growth was replaced quickly with questions and wonder: Who were the “big-head” girls you spoke of as a monolithic menace on the playground? Were their heads really bigger than yours? Did they really want to scare you and your apparently regular-size-head friends?

You told your first joke and laughed endlessly about how your finger was not a cheese stick while wearing the wrapper of a store-bought cheese stick, left a day earlier in the car, as a sleeve for your thumb.

You learned the lyrics of songs I loved and sang about the Devil’s Workday from your fourth birthday to your sixteenth when we soaked ourselves in the same words at a live concert.

Looking out the window into a spring-morning sky as we drove to school, you asked me why we couldn’t see the string that held the sun. You lived in a world where the sun followed you like a balloon tied to your wrist with a string.

On the first day you drove yourself and your sister to school in the car purchased with money from a summer job, I realized I was wrong when I told you there was no string tethering the sun. I know now there is. The sun does follow you. I watched it happening and my day darkened as you drove off.

I believe the simplest of lessons take years to learn.
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AnonymousFebruary 5, 2019 at 12:49 AM
Growing up I wasn’t aware that my family struggled financially. Money and Bills were always talked about at the dinner table after I left. My mammaw struggled more than my parents did and it was at her house I spent most of my time.

After school I would get off the bus and run to her door. I loved coming in and telling her about my day. I would grab a can of coke out of the fridge and turn on the tv. Sometimes the tv wouldn’t find a channel. The cable man would have to come and fix it, mammaw would say. At the time I didn’t realize that the cable bill didn’t get paid.

What I didn’t know couldn’t hurt me.

Memories of my mammaws house have long past. She moved in with my family when I was about 10. Mammaw lost her house to the bank and I didn’t truly understand what that meant. I missed going to her house, but I was glad she would be living with us.

Years have passed and I am now aware of the different struggles my family has went through. Little pieces of my childhood that were never explained finally came together.

I believe that struggle can make us stronger.

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Heath StiltnerFebruary 5, 2019 at 1:14 AM
I believe in being single. I believe it’s ok to be ok, and to be ok alone.

I believe in my younger years I needed so badly to believe that I could find love and prove that ‘Gay is O.K.,’ that I long-term dated the first gay best friend that I made. I believe that’s a uniquely gay occurrence. Dating the first best friend you make. Someone who makes you feel like you’re not the only person who feels that way.

I believe that it’s important to learn to believe in others, and to learn when your gut is telling you not to believe them. Relationships teach you that, often, but friendships can, as well.

I believe that when you fall in love with someone, you do two things.

I believe you trust them not to cut your heart out of your chest, but that you voluntarily hand them the knife to do so.

I believe all gay men develop secret crushes on the straight men in their lives who treat them kindly because we only expect negative actions from straight men, and kind actions are often erroneously misconstrued.

I believe that if someone has problems with all their exes, they’re probably the problem.

Most days, I believe that love is a lie. Yet, every Tuesday and Thursday I hear a first name that makes my heart soar then crash so quickly that I wonder if it has fallen out of my ass.

I believe being single is ok, yet—for people who live on the rainbow spectrum of sexuality—it seems the community doesn’t always understand.

I believe that I hate talking about relationships. I hate talking about love, and I hate reading about it. I hate reading about breakups, because they’re inevitable and a chance seldom taken to grow and learn more about what is important to you.

I believe in being single, but sometimes I wonder if it’s a survival tactic I employ because I don’t believe in people anymore. Sometimes, I wonder if they believe in me.
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Marissa PriceFebruary 5, 2019 at 1:19 AM
On days rain soaked the ground during the first few months of my first semester of college, I hurried to class with as little regard as I could have for the falling droplets, but thinking of how I should really get an umbrella soon. Thankfully, it didn’t rain very much during those months.

On Thanksgiving that year, my aunt Catryna and my grandmother, Cathy, convinced me to go Black Friday shopping with them at Walmart. While a typical tradition for them, I think I said yes because I had a few things I needed to pick up before the sales drew the whole city to the store.

I remember it rained that day, and once we pulled into the Walmart parking lot, I remembered I didn’t own an umbrella. I mentioned it briefly.

My grandmother told me she had an extra umbrella in the trunk that she never used. She offered it to me and I accepted. We went on about our adventure in Walmart, taking advantage of the sales and chatting with strangers in long lines.

It would be less than a year before doctors found that my grandmother’s cancer had returned.
It would be a matter of months from that diagnosis before she passed away-- last February. A year ago on the 6th.

My grandmother used to let me help her sponge mop her kitchen floor when I was a child, years before her kitchen was renovated, even though I probably wasn’t very good at it.
She was crafty and loved making quilts, and I remember her taking me and my siblings to craft stores when we were younger, to make DIY Christmas ornaments or blankets or other things.

It only occurred to me fairly recently that perhaps my craftiness comes from her.

I believe in the love shown by my grandmother through the patience she had to let me help sponge mop, the crafting she encouraged, and the umbrella she gave me.

A thing which to me symbolizes protection-- albeit from the rain.

It resides in my backpack, and when it rains, I always think of her.
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AnonymousFebruary 5, 2019 at 1:04 PM
To some people family is a group of individuals connected by a genetic bond, I would just consider them a relative. Others believe family is a paycheck; they buy them food, give them a house to live in, clothes, etc. Family is something bigger than genetics or money. Family is an unbreakable bond. To me, the definition of family is someone who earned the right to be given the title of family. For example, sure my mother and I are connected by blood(which makes us relatives), but it’s the acceptance, love, support, the ideas she instilled in me, and the ones she allowed me to form on my own that make her family. I also have friends (that are not genetically related to me) who I consider to be family. Family is meant to support you and love you of course, but there is so much more to it. Family is there to pick you up once you’ve fallen, be truthful with you when no one else is, and would not allow the small things to come between them. My family is flawed, we fight sometimes, we don’t always agree with each other’s values and beliefs, and we experience hard times, but in the end we are unbreakable- our bond is everlasting. Coming from two extremely large families, I have had the honor of learning so much- how to be strong, to learn from my mistakes, to own who I am, to stay strong in my beliefs, unconditional love, all problems are temporary, and the list goes on… I strongly believe that I wouldn’t be the person I am today without every person in my family. In the end anyone can say whatever they want about their family and who their family is, but I believe you get the honor of choosing who your family is.
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AnonymousFebruary 5, 2019 at 1:51 PM
My sister and I are 10 years apart. She is my best friend, my biggest supporter, and the one person who truly gets me. However, our bond comes from a past filled with deep pain.
When my sister, Holly, was three she was in a horrific car accident. Her mother, Robin, was driving and she was high and drunk. This was nothing new as Robin was an addict, however, on this day it would change my sisters course. On the drive Robin t-boned another car. Holly, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was thrown into the windshield and broke both of her legs. She told me how she sat there in pain screaming for her mom who did not answer her. Her mother slowly died while she sat in the car waiting for someone to help her.
Years later my dad remarried my mom and they had me. Holly loved me but she didn't like me. It was hard to miss the resentment she had for me. She was angry at the shitty hand life had dealt her. She acted out all the time. She skipped school, she drank, she smoked cigarettes, and took drugs. She was grounded indefinitely the last two years of her high school experience and was required to babysit me while my parents worked. She always took it out on me with her fists and her words. I was ecstatic the day she moved out when she turned 18.
However, when she moved out we began to talk more. I was older and able to understand where her pain was coming from. We began to talk almost everyday and worked hard to mend our relationship. We both apologized for the negative roles we had played in each others lives. She has worked to forgive her mother, our parents, and me. I have worked to forgive her. I believe in forgiveness.
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AnonymousFebruary 6, 2019 at 11:17 AM
(This is Rebecca posting Rebecca's essay.)

A therapist told me once that nobody dies and wishes they had spent less time with their friends and family. But I don't know if I love anything more than work.

My mother taught me when I was little that a day spent doing nothing is a day wasted. Every day of summer, my brother and I had long lists of chores we had to do before my mother got home. If I didn't get them done I got hell. Verbal and physical.

I read about Max Weber's "Protestant Ethic" sometime in high school, wondered if that was the explanation for my compulsions. For my insistence on taking more and harder classes than I could handle, for my demands over even my parents' will for long nights working on physics problems and writing assignments. For my first suicide attempt, seven years ago this month, because I was unable to cope with the idea of failing out of college.

After I dropped out, when I worked at a call center, I would work tickets at double or triple the required rate. I became a supervisor in less than a year, then found myself exhausted and unable to do anything.

Once I broke up with a girl because she called in to work.

I wonder if the 'why' matters, even. Maybe it's my mom's fault and the church's. Maybe it's from something deep inside me, a grand narcissism that needs honor and assurance every minute. Maybe the problem isn't that I'm a workaholic but that I'm too weak, too easily burned out.

Actually, no. I believe in being human. I believe in sometimes saying fuck it.
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Community Engagements Through the Arts

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Thursday, January 31, 2019

This I Believe essay #4

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