Listening

The promised Mumbai essay:

Amidst the bustle of a weekend evening at a Mumbai beach, S. and I sat together, looking out at the ocean, feeling the grittiness of sand between our toes, smelling the salty air that carried scents of different street foods, punctuating our conversation with long moments of silence. Periodically, a child would come and ask us for money, or a vendor would try selling us chanas. We would decline, then lapse into silence. I would remark how much I loved looking at the ocean because of the sense of freedom and vastness it offered me. He would remark that he enjoyed looking at the ocean just because. One of us would point out a certain person on the beach, perhaps someone who stopped her walk every 20 meters to strike a couple of yogic poses, and we would share a laugh. I thought of the absolute comfort this particular friendship affords me: we can talk for hours, or we can be silent together, and neither situation is uncomfortable.

In one of our silent moments, a middle-aged man approached us. I noticed that his clothes looked a little worn but not tattered. His shirt was buttoned wrong, though, and for some reason, that made me uncomfortable. The man looked directly at S. and started talking about something—his family, someone who died on the beach, things I couldn’t understand. He talked in a mix of English, Hindi, and Marathi, rambled for ten minutes or more, periodically bursting into tears. My initial concern slowly turned to confusion, then to impatience. I couldn’t follow a word of the conversation, so I looked helplessly at my friend, but he was looking straight at the stranger and seemed to be listening intently. I began running sand through my fingers and looking out at the ocean again, with a periodic sideways glance at these two men, so different in every way, engaged in the strangest conversation. Later, while the man was sitting at some distance from us and sobbing, I whispered to S. that I didn’t understand a word. ” “Neither do I,” he responded, “but I just wanted to listen.”

The words stunned me. Between S. and me, I'm usually the people person, the relationship builder. But here he was, quietly teaching me the simplest and most important foundation of every relationship. What a beautiful heart, I thought, a heart that knows that words may not matter but the act of being there for someone does.

I’ve often thought back to that moment. It makes me wonder what the act of listening means, what it means to be listened to even by a complete stranger, and why it means so much. It makes me think of the countless conversations that S. I have had over the years, of all the times when I was sad or joyful and he had no words to offer me; he listened even when he didn't understand. And it makes me smile at the memory of a young man I know so well, a young man who often claims not to have a heart but who taught me one of the heart’s most important lessons.

Back again

Wow, almost two months since my last entry... that's LONG even for me. I cannot begin to fill you all in. But, since I mentioned my upcoming (at the time of the last entry) rural sojourn the last time I wrote, i feel I should write a little about it. And soon, I will post an essay (still being written) from another trip (a holiday this time) that I made to Bombay over a long weekend in Feb.

So, the rural trip. Let me take a shortcut and post (parts of) a diary entry from one of those days. Maybe I'll add in more stories and interesting tidbits another time, this one serves as an overall update!


Thursday, February 5
8:20 PM

Dear Diary,

Sorry I disappeared after that last rushed entry. I have had a very FULL two days, much enjoyment, and much EXHAUSTION! In fact, as we speak, there some music and dance happening outside that i would ordinarily have loved to be a part of. But, right now, I am too tired. In fact, I went to the door, then got overwhelmed by the sound of 70 people singing, and came back to my room!

So, i visited 6-7 villages today. i don't know how to sum up my day, really-- talked to many kids and schoolteachers (super inspiring people, most of them!), explored several BEAUTIFUL natural spots, drank too many cups of tea, didn't eat nearly enough but ate too many sweets (but then, i did have 5 full meals yesterday), travelled in a jeep over land- won't call it a road- that should NEVER have seen a jeep, interacted with villagers in 2-3 places, took lots of photos, tasted absolutely fresh honey, expereinced killer exhaustion and dehydratoion... yes, that's just today. Yesterday, I spent 4-5 hours on a motorcylce (the major chunk of them with 3 of us on the bike), met and talked to girls in two schools where S works, talked to their teachers and hostel wardens, sang and danced (yes, even danced) with the girls at the camp here in Bhavangadh, ate five meals, spent a few minutes at a riverside, also took lots of photos... I probably did lots of other stuff too! So yeah, my days here have been very full-- I feel I have lived a week in the last 2 days. On the whole, I have enjoyed myself thoroughly, but I'll admit I am looking forward to being home and sleeping in day-after tomorrow!

Questions that this trip has raised? Most important, do I belong in the village or the city? Or, rather, where do i WANT to belong? Both, I guess. I feel calmer, happier, more myself here than I have felt in a while. But I also miss the... umm... connectedness of city life. Actualy no, I don't miss it yer- it's been good to take a break from phone calls and the internet and all that. But if you ask if I'd be happy like that for months or years, I don't think so. Haha, once again, I belong somewhere in between! (At least, the advantage of being on the border is that both sides give you the benefit of doubt ;)).

Dinner time now, more later,

Love

Aditi

Twenty-Five Things

So, I got sucked into this random game on facebook, where each person writes 25 random facts about their life, tags 25 people, who then write 25 facts about their life and tag another 25 people, and so on. It's turned out to be more fun than I had imagined (especially the part about discovering that one of your professors used to be in a band called "fretful bourgeoisie" :D)

Since I spent that much time writing this, I thought it deserved a space on my blog as well. Here we go:

1)I just finished my last fellowship essay. It was about the meaning of happiness, and I had 3000 characters, including spaces, to write it in. I managed to use every one of those characters; the essay is exactly 3000 characters! In a geeky way, that makes me happy.

2) I think SMSes have taught me a lot about editing. I almost always type messages longer than 160 characters, then read them several times trying to bring it down. And I get weirdly happy when i manage to bring it down to the exact character limit (paisa vasool). Yes, still geeky.

3) i always find my dog cute, but i find her especially cute at moments like what happened a few minutes ago: she wanted to bark at the courier company guy who was here to deliver something, but she was too lazy to get out of bed. So she continued to remain snuggled up under her rug (she manages to do so in a way that not even an inch of her body shows) and continued barking. You could hear disembodied barking, and if you looked carefully, you could tell that the rug was moving a little, but you could not see the dog. I laughed for a long time afterward.

4) I have had 3-4 hour long conversations on the phone. Better yet, I have had such conversations with Saurabh and Sachin, whom most people don't consider big talkers.

5) For most of my growing up years, I wanted to be a lawyer-- by the time I was in eighth I had even picked the law school I wanted to study at! I dropped that dream suddenly in tenth grade, I don't remember why, but I'm glad I came to my senses.

6) I got my first thesaurus when i was seven, long before i knew what a thesaurus was. I first used my thesaurus in fourth grade, when i decided that the peacock in a certain essay of mine wasn't just happy but rhapsodic. And no, i didn't know what rhapsodic meant. I just liked the way it sounds (I still like the way that particular word sounds).

7) When I was six, I used to say that I wanted to be a teacher because, that way, my kids would get into school easily (I was completely scarred by how difficult it was for my brother and me to get admission to school since we had moved to Delhi in the middle of the school year).

8) I think in at least three languages. I also write my diary in all 3 of them.

9) I have had fifteen surgeries in 16 years.

10) I still remember the dream I had the first time i was under anesthesia. I dreamed i was being chased by a bull because i was wearing red... and I can still picture the entire dream.

11) As I was slipping into anesthesia when I had my third corneal transplant, weeks after finishing Study Abroad in Argentina, the doctor asked me to count to 20. I got to around 12, then murmured, "this is really boring! Can I count in Spanish?". I was already too drugged for him to protest so he agreed, and I remember feeling really happy to be counting trece, catorce, quince...

12) The combination of pink and green nauseates me-- literally makes me feel ill. I believe there was a reason nature made green-pink blindness the most common form of color blindness.

13) I have mixed concrete and loved doing it. And I think my proudest moment was watching a family cook on an ecological stove I had constructed.

14) I have seen an opera at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires because Chris bought me tickets for my birthday. We followed so little of it that, 30 minutes into the opera, he nudged me and exclaimed "Did you realize it's in English?!" We left in the intermission thinking the opera was over, only to discover the next day from another friend that we missed the second (and, she claims, much better) act.

15) I have ice-skated in an open air rink in -40 degree weather in Mongolia (let's not get into the consequences here, shall we?).

16) I spent my early childhood in the Himalayas and, even today, I think I belong there more than anywhere else. I plan to move back sooner or later.

17) Speaking of which, I don't think any river is anywhere near as beautiful as the Beas. I may be a wee bit biased because I lived literally on the bank of the Beas for a year, but I consider this an objective truth as well. Of course, the Beas also a pretty violent river, and it completely swallowed up my childhood home... the land on which i have the fondest memories is now a riverbed.

18) Throughout 11th and 12th grade, I used to get up at 4:30 AM every morning, so that I could have plenty of me-time before my school bus came at 6:45.

19) When I was three or four, my brother and I ran home from school very excited about an unexpected holiday. When our parents asked us why, we happily told them that our teacher had been murdered (she was found in the school's water tank). If that makes me sound like a horrible person, consider that the teachers at this school rubbed bichhu-buti (posion ivy) on our legs as punishment for not doing HW and forced us four year olds to use the forest as a toilet even though there were toilets in the school.

20) When I was five, I studied in a missionary school that I absolutely loved, even though we could be punished if we spoke in Hindi, and even though our morning assembly started at 9:23 AM (or, for some reason, that's the figure stuck in my mind). In 1st grade, we had to pick a "hobby class" in school, and I chose stamp collection.

21) In 11th and 12 grade I managed to get my 2 closest guy friends to MAKE birthday cards for me. I think I embarrassed the hell out of them, but those are still the most beautiful cards I have ever seen.

22) I consider myself the luckiest person in the world in terms of having good friends and good teachers. I know, I know, many people think they are the luckiest in that regard. But I really am.

23) I once convinced my grandmother I am lesbian in order to get her to STOP bothering me about getting married. Unfortunately, it only worked for about 6 months.

24) I have promised 8 people that I will write to them this weekend, and 3 more that I will call them this weekend. I better get started.

25) When i started this, I had nothing to write; now I feel like there's so much else that I could have written but I've already reached 25! In many ways, that's the story of my life.

Comfort book

I know many people who have comfort foods-- I guess I do too-- but yesterday i discovered (again) that that isn't where I really find comfort. And I found a comfort book. It's a book I have read cover-to-cover once and read snippets of many times. I realized that, whenever i am reall tired or stressed, and i reach out to my bookshelf (filled, BTW, with many books I really want to read and have been meaning to for months), I always end up sitting down with "The Treehouse" by Naomi Wolf. I don't get to the new books, or the books that are still unread but have gotten old sitting on my shelf, but i always come away feeling comforted and at peace... which, i guess, is the reason i reach for that bookshelf anyway.

So, why "The Treehouse"? Is it a brilliant book? I'm not sure... i guess that depends on what you bring to it. The writing isn't flashy, but simple. It's basically a collection of essays about the author's father-- a very interesting man, it seems!-- and about the lessons he taught her. Because he was a poet and a teacher, poetry-- in the broadest sense of the term, poetry not just in the context of writing poems but poetry as an attitude towards life-- is the theme of the whole book. In the author's words he was the kind of man "who spent much of his life convincing othersiwe sensible people to quite their comfortable jobs and follow their heart's passions." the other structure in the book is the process of building a treehouse (in case you are wondering where the name came from)... the author and her now 80-something father are building a treehouse for her daughter at their house in the countryside. It is in the process of building this trehouse that he teaches her all these lessons about poetry that she, as a rebellious daughter and a professor herself, had long resisted.

The chapters of the book are organized by the lessons he taught his creative writing students, and the first one, the most important one, is probably a large part of why i reach for this book in times of stress. The lesson is: Be still, and listen. So simple, so profound. When and how and why did we lose that simple ability to be still and listen? Listen not just to noise around us, but listen to silence. So much of my life is a clamor of so many different noises, and I have to consciously find time, early in the morning before anyone wakes up, just to catch those few quiet moments with myself. But because that first lesson is the undertone for much of the book's attitude-- towards the poet, towards life-- this book always manages to calm my frazzled nerves and help me take a deep breath.

What about you? Do you have a comfort book? Leave me a comment telling me which it is and why!

Well, here I am again, and I can't believe it's only been 5 days-- it feels like a month or more since I wrote! What can I say? it's been a long five days!

I've been meaning to write for a while, but i have been and still am too exhausted for the detailed essays i want to put down. Done too much "serious" writing in the process of applying to grad schools and fellowships, and I have a headache because of a bad cold, so there's no way those essays in the offing are getting written just yet. Maybe another time. For today, I want to explore this stress itself.

stopped going to my old pottery class a few months ago... for many reasons, but the main reason was just that they emphasized technique and skill too much, never allowed space for playing with clay. I appreciated their emphasis on skill, but i'm doing pottery to RELAX... wasn't worth it if i was just going to get stressed out over it.

Recently, a friend of my father's mentioned this lady who is a professional potter and has a studio about 2 km away from my house. She doesn't give formal classes but she was happy to meet up. It felt worth investigating, especially since she is so close by, so i called her and walked over to her house a few days ago. I really enjoyed talking to her, and I decided to take up her offer to do informal classes at her studio-- structure it according to whatever time and day works for us both, and pay her for materials and lessons per class rather than have a structured 6 month plan.

In retrospect, i think i know what made me accept her offer so readily. In a pause in our conversation the first day, she suddenly said, "I just love pottery... it's such a great feeling to make these things." She went on to talk about how excited she is when she opens the kiln, how she sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night to check the temperature on the kiln, to see if it can be opened an hour earlier. She talked of the feel of the clay in her hand. I told her how i often used to stay in the ceramics studio at college late at night, right until it closed, especially during my advanced class-- shaping a sculpture, testing a glaze, painting a finished piece. And i realized just how long it had been since i had talked to someone about the sheer joy of creation. I knew I wanted to study under soemone who knew that joy, who hadn't forgotten the pure excitement of opening a kiln even decades after she made her first pot.

I think that's something i need to visit in my writing as well-- just the sheer fun of it. Lately, so much of my writing has been high-pressure, writing to meet deadlines, writing to try and fit as much important information as possible into page limits, word limits, and even character limits! In the process, I haven't had time to savor words, to roll them over my tongue, to write gibberish when I feel like it. I haven't had time to actively participate in writers' groups, to share words with others who love them as much as I do. And somewhere in that process, writing is becoming like my old pottery class- something i know I love, but something i'm lately jsut not being able to enjoy that much.

I found a way out of the dilemma in the case of pottery (I went for my first class yesterday, and I did enjoy it much more than I had in a while; she's probably stricter about technique than even my old instructors, but it's not restricting, perhaps because she starts the class with "so, what do you want to make today?" and lets me follow through with my answer). I need to find a similar way out in writing. And soon, before the blank page overpowers me completely!

So, here I am again, after another couple of weeks. A crazy couple of weeks (but then again, I say that every time, don't I?). Here are some quick thoughts and summaries on my life right now.

1) Mom broke her hand. On the 10th of Jan, she joined me for an office picnic. We were playing frisbee, she slipped on some wet grass, and she fractured her right wrist in 3-4 places. Had surgery a few days later, and her arm's still in a cast (will be for 6 weeks!). Once the dust settled and the initial worries about the surgery were over, once she was back home from hospital, I could start processing those few days. First, of course, there is the sense of the stupidity of that accident... maybe all accidents are stupid, but a little fall in the park seems like a terrible reason for 2 months of pain and dependence! Once I got over the frustration and worry, though, i also realized just how much hospitals put life into perspective. Hospitals have always been part of my life, I practically grew up in the eye clinic, and lately they've been more a part of my life because of Nana's and Mom's illnesses. And there, in hospitals-- in elevators and public spaces in hospitals-- you really get a sense of so may people's stories. It's one of the few public places where people are openly vulnerable, are afraid, cry, shriek with pain or with joy or with grief. So much human drama takes place in hospital lobbies that it can be quite overwhelming. But it's also powerful and humbling. How can you lament a broken wrist when you overhear a family grieving over a young man who has just been diagnosed HIV positive and also has a fatal liver disease? every grief deserves its own place, it is true, but hospitals put them in those places, prevent the broken wrists from taking over the places that need to be reserved for the liver diseases. (Disclaimer: I hate hospitals... the smell of antiseptic makes me gag, at least partially because i have far too many unpleasant memories associated with it. But even in that hatred, i have found that they help me regain perspective).

2) as i write still more grduate fellowship essays (will they ever end?), i had an interesting conversation with a close friend the other day. I was telling him how one of my essays starts witha conversation that he and i have often had... and that he was an important part of that particular essay. He was curious to know mroe and to read the essay, but i hesitate to show him it; i don't think he'll like it. Another close common friend also wants to read it, and again I hesitate. It's also an essay that I would never be able to publish or put up on the blog because to do so would be an invasion ofhis privacy. Another personal statement i wrote left me in a similar situation with someone from college... i would love for him to read my personal statement, but I cannot show it to him because he would probably be highly uncomfortable with it, and I definitely cannot show it to many others because again there are huge privacy issues at stake. Of course, neither mentions names or details that would help a stranger identify them, which is why i am ok with strangers on the admissions committee reading them, but common friends and acquaintances would probably guess right away. All this is making me mighty uncomfortable. I am realizing how much i will have to walk this fine line between public and private if i ever plan to publish my work. I am ok with exposing myself (it took a while but i did finally get there, mroe or less) but, for obvious reasons, not with exposing the lives of others i love. And yet, i find that i exist in relationships, find that it is impossible for me to write about myself without writing abotu the people close to me. Nothing about me makes sense in isolation. I know, I know, it sounds redundant-- obvious-- but there it is, a simple and hughly uncomfortable fact when it comes to personal writing. not sure where to take that, but wanted to put it out there.

OK, i could write at least as much mroe as i already wrote about. But this was supposed to be a warm-up exercise before i start writing those essays. It won't do to spent any more time on a warm up. So, more when i sit down at the computer next time round.

Two New Poems

Now that i am done with graduate application essays and portfolios, i can finally find time to play with words again (yes, yes, i see the irony there). Here, then, are drafts of two new poems... the first is about a necklace given to me by Mauro, my program coordinator and dear friend from Mexico. For the second one, you might want to look up "Delhi iron pillar" on wikipedia for context, especially if you aren't from this part of the world. Both are drafts, both need more work, but the exhilaration of finally writing poetry again is too great to allow me to leave these in a desk drawer for a few more weeks!

A Necklace of Seeds

I wear a necklace of seeds

from an earth that is still sacred.

Watermelon seeds and the tears

of saints that have traveled

exactly halfway across the world

to be with me.

I rub the necklace like a rosary,

then place it against my cheek.

Through the pricking of some seeds

and the smoothness of others,

that earth speaks to me. Be well,

it says, for I am here.

Here. Hear.

THE DELHI IRON PILLAR

Long ago, before the fences were built,

we hugged the iron pillar. Eight or nine,

we must have been, out on our first

school excursions, arms clearly too tiny

to go around. We stood there, backs

pressed against cold iron, hands reaching out,

groping for each other, across six tons

of sixteen hundred years old iron,

yet unrusted. Something good

was to happen if the hands met.

2009

It's 2009, and I'm writing because i want to start the year by writing. Really, that's about the only reason. I've spent SO much time lately writing graduate school essays that I am otherwise fed up of staring at the computer screen.

Today was good, though. I got into the flow. I wrote 1 3/4 essays for SLC today. They want 3 long essays, and i still love their application. Am I just nuts? Nope, I'm a writer, I'm supposed to love writing, so of course I would enjoy the 3 essays. Yeah, right, that's why ;)

Did I make New Years' Resolutions this year? My grandma wanted to know, and I am not sure what the answer is. Yes, I decided to do certain things I haven't done before, even committed to doing them. But then again, that i do every few weeks or months-- find things that i think are important and commit to doing them. Part of my Buddhist practice, I guess, this process of making determinations and working to fulfill them. Ok, so I did that again. Does that mean I made New Year's Resolutions or not?

I had something a little more interesting to say, actually, about my friends and the notion of arranged marriages. Also some more sappy stuff to say about gratitude. And some interesting reflections that emerged in the process of writing those 3 essays. But I am too tired today, spent too many hours writing already. So it will have to wait.

In the meantime, here's wishing you a beautiful 2009!

Renaming and other ramblings

By the way, in case you are wondering at the new blog heading, I grew tired of "life beyond the hill"... i mean, this still is life beyond the hill, but one year onwards, i felt like it should be more than jsut that! This afternoon, i started reading Neruda's memoir, and this line on the first page jumped out at me. Yes, I thought, this is why I blog even amongst the maddest of times at work and oherwise. It's also why i daydream, which i do A LOT (sometimes, i think i do it too much). But he's right, these intervals of dreaming help me stand up and keep goign when the work is hard (and by work here i don't jsut mean office, i mean a lot of things that are just hard work). This blog is those "intervals of dreaming" so that seemed like the right name.

The rest of what I would write about today is a dilemma i face every time i write for a public space: what is appropriate to share? Usually, I would limit a blog space to external stuff... in my mind, the blog and the diary have very different spaces. But, as I mentioned some posts ago, i increasingly find this blog going personal because there are lot of external things i cannot comment on without going inwards. And I am ok with that, generally speaking.

But today i have spent a lot of time online reading people's writing on different fora, discussion groups, and blogs. Basically, I have been trying to research patients' perspectives on some new treatment my doctor wants to put me through, because i am not yet convinced she knows what she is doing (if you don't know me and my medical history that well, you'll wonder at this attitude of mine. But i have seen way too many doctors mess up and mess me up as a result... so now i double and triple check every treatment and medication through support groups for the two major diseases i have. And say what you like, patients know WAY more than doctors do!). Anyhow, as i read all this stuff out there, i was incredibly grateful to the people who put that information out there, a lot of it very personal. I was looking at the blog of one particular woman who seems to have started that blog solely to document the effects of a particular treatment she was undergoing for that disease... it's updated regularly after every session of her treatment, and it even has photos. On one hand, i was so grateful because she had the exact information (and lots of very valuable advice) that i had been looking for. On the other hand, I felt a little squeamish... I don't think i would ever put such a detailed and personal report of my illness up on a blog. I don't know why, it just seems inappropriate. Maybe it depends on the particular blog and who your audience is... i know that most of that info is meaningless to all of you who read this blog, but maybe i would be more comfortable putting it up on a support group where i know my readers are interested in knowing how things are and what will help (come to think of it, i think i did post something like that on the support group once-- Chris, you might remember. But later I was so embarrassed and really, really wished i hadn't. Especially not if nayone i knew was going to read it). Why? Don't know. Maybe there's still some shame associated with the disease, maybe i, just I, struggle with the private-public line, maybe i should stop wondering and go do something more productive with my time.

OK, me likes that last idea. Good night!

Happy Birthday Blog

How time flies! I first posted here on December 16 2007, and i can't believe it's been one year and one week since then. Then again, when i read those entries, it feels like it was written in another lifetime...

I found one post there, which i wrote on the airplane home from California, listing things I thought i would miss about SUA life. Now, i feel like revisiting that a year later. Here's the original list with comments:

The neighborhood cup-- YES! I miss that place!
Walking to town center- Well, not the walk but the company (Masako, call me!)
dark chocolate- nah, you get decent dark chocolate in India now!
being mistaken for mexican- YES
running hot water 24/ 7- Surprisingly, no. I guess I re-accustomed pretty fast to life here.
brewed coffee- Nope, manage that at home now
being able to eat sushi and pancakes in the same meal-- YES! And Sushi in general. And pancakes in general.
California sunrises and sunsets- YES!
Midnight conversations- Oh, so much!
Signboards in Spanish- Not really. Maybe when i think about it, but not every day.
feeling safe walking alone at night- YES. It;s a good thing I have nowhere to go in the evenings these days, because i have no idea how i would get there. This is a big one.
Being able to laugh at my professors- Oh, I still manage that long distance! yay facebook!
Peace Lake- I miss Peace Lake!
moments of cultural-outsiderness- No, because after all that globetrotting i am still as much of a cultural outsider here in Delhi as I was there in other countries.
hugs- yeah, sometimes... because hugging isn't nearly common enough in india and because most of my friends are no longer within huggable distance.
all the people who come to the writing center for a "candy fix"- Hehe, only when i think about it!
watching people get high on too much work- yeah. At office, overworked people seem to get stressed and cranky. But I do miss the noise and madness of the cafeteria right around exam time...
clean public restrooms- ALWAYS!

Huh, interesting... I wasn't so far off the mark, was I? :)

Writer's Block

This blog entry is simply an attempt to break through Writer's Block, as i sit staring at an empty word document an hour before bedtime, longing to have at least one draft of this essay done tonight. Once the ball gets rolling, i know i can get a draft down in half an hour... but right now, the ball isn't rolling.

I'm trying to write an autobiography. One of my grad school aps and one fellowship application want me to write an autobiography. Of up to a 1000 words. Sum up my life in a 1000 words. And I don't even know where to begin.

In some ways, all personal statements have stumped me in this way... even jsut the idea of summing up all your academic interests, your interest in this program or that school, your dreams for the future, your work expereince... and then trying to make that essay seem interesting (applying to writing programs, the essay better be interesting!) is a lot of work. But at least, there you have your broad area of focus delimited for you. In this case, this "autobiography" is in addition to that kind of personal statement AND another statement about why I want to go to that particular school (yes, 3 essays for one school). At first, I really liked that because, after playing mindgames trying to sum everything up in 300 words for another school, I felt liberated by the amount of space. More than that, I felt that here, finally, was a graduate program that actually wanted to get to know me, not jsut my work but me. I still feel that, which is a large part of why i want to take this autobiography thing seriously. And yet, and yet, where does one begin?

In some ways, writing is always this process of overcoming self-doubt, isn't it? For a couple of weeks I was struggling with an essay for the internal newsleter at work, sure I was making no progress whatsoever, sure I could never get it done. And then one evening i forced myself to sit down at the computer because it was due the next day (had been due the previous day actually!)... and I got it down in an hour. I'm still amazed at the way that happens, even though I have expereinced it hundreds of times. Just sitting down, trusting the process that even when it seems like i have nothing meaningful to say i just need to keep saying it and suddenly it will all fall together (ok, the first couple paras will probably get thrown out at that point). And yet, every time, i wonder where to begin.

I jsut answered my own question, didn't I? Stop wondering what to write, just write. And trust the process. Oh, when will I learn to take my own advice?

Autobiography time now!

Kids and Disability

Today was a whole day's work and involved lots of screaming over the voices of noisy students, which might be why i feel really tired just now. But there's something from today that has set me thinking... and feeling. This was going to be a diary entry, but then it felt like the kind of diary entry i might want others to read, so here it is. (as time passes, i'm letting this blog get more and more personal!).

This evening, I had a meeting with someone who works in an inclusive school (disabled and non-disabled kids). The point of the meeting was to discuss possible ways of working together, doing workshops with kids there, having them work with our teachers on inclusive classrooms, etc. It was a great meeting in many ways- the people we met were lovely, and so many possibilities emerged that i really felt it could open a new chapter of my journey as a would-be educator. And yet, I returned feeling slightly disconcerted, not feeling quite at ease, feeling like something in the evening was bothering me. this blog post is an attempt to examine that feeling.

At one point, while talking about teacher sensitization to disability issues, i shared my concern that we sometimes focus exclusively on students with visible and obvious disabilities, forgetting that the word covers a whole range that we cannot ignore... yes, there is the blind student but there is also the severely visually impaired student... in the first case, the teacher certainly knows about it and probably won't be too insensitive (provided he/ she is a decent human being), but in the latter he/she is more likely to be hurtful. I shared an example of a teacher who once scolded me bitterly for walking up to the board to read what she had written and how I internalized guilt for not being able to read from my seat-- like there was something bad about me if I couldn't do that. I know, it may sound like a small thing to you-- i know it did to them-- but think about it. I was 10 then; I'm 23 now, but I still remember the scolding and the bitter shame I felt afterwards. It obviously left a strong impression and, in retrospect, I believe it really affected my perception of my own illness. Even today, I am embarrassed to ask for help reading something at a distance or requesting a "favor" like larger print copies.

Another example: In 5th grade, I used to hide the pink chalk. I am partially green-pink blind, and pink chalk against green boards used to make classrooms impossible for me. So, once I was thought of as "responsible" and given duties like making sure there was enough chalk near the board, I used to hide pink chalk at the back of the box and keep putting out other colors. Then, when I knew we were running out and only pink chalk remained, I used dread the coming weeks. Looking back, I can't believe I didn't simply tell my teacher that pink against green didn't work for me and request her to use different colors; I highly doubt she would have told me to deal with it and continued using pink. But somehow, the fear, the sense of shame, took over, and I pulled myself through those dreaded "all pink" weeks.

Once, in 7th grade, I couldn't copy down all the Math HW questions from the board, and I was sick of always losing marks over "copied wrong" questions (even if they were solved right, the teacher would give you no marks if you had copied a question wrong from the board). So I called the girl I then thought of as my "best friend" and asked her to give me the questions over the phone. Her mother took the phone from her and screamed at me, telling me not to take away her daughter's precious study time, and telling me that if I didn't copy the questions down on my own, it was my problem and no one else's responsibility. The woman had known me through 4 years and 3-4 surgeries, so it's not like she could pleade ignorance of my eye condition. But there she was, telling me, just as my 5th grade teacher had, that this was all my fault. And, once again, I believed her. I remember crying after I hung up, and I never called this friend for help again.

Over the years, many "larger" issues emerged. I had to study through audio tapes. I needed to take frequent long breaks from school for one surgery after another. On many days, my teachers had to accept that i was still listening to them even though I would keep my head down for the entire period because my eyes hurt. I had to give board exams with a scribe, which was complicated because i was giving exams in the "blind student" category although I wasn't blind (the exams have been broken up into "seeing" and "blind" categories-- the first are the normal exams; the second are the ones that someone else writes for you. No one seems ever to have thought of a "large print" category). In college, I had to make my own large print copies of texts, had to convince professors to give me extensions on papers when i suddenly took unwell, had to even write exams with my left hand when my glandular problem got really bad. Lots of big and small things like that came along in the way to my education.

Strangely, though, none of the supposedly larger issues left as strong an impression as those 5th grade scoldings. They hurt, they were struggles, but the emotion with which i now look back is triumph, is pride, is the sense that I proved stronger than the obstacles. Those long ago scoldings, though, still inspire an inexplicable sense of shame and, yes, even fear.

Of course, that's partly because as i grew older, I learned to deal with all these emotions, learned to talk to my teachers about my struggles. I was lucky to have some incredible teacher sin high school; not only did these women understand and support me completely, they also voiced their admiration for my efforts and went out of their way to help me succeed, recording books on audio cassettes for me, giving me photocopied notes when I couldn't take notes in class, exempting me from mapwork...thanks to them I completed school with good grades and with a strong sense of self. I owe them a lot.

But yeah, coming back to today's conversation, all these reflections really forced me to go back to the important role a teacher can play- incredible damage and incredible healing. They reaffirm to me why it is so important for teachers to be aware of, and sensitive to, the needs of their individual students. Also the need to involve the parents in the process-- i don't know if I ever told my Mom about those scoldings; I'm sure she would have taken it up in school if I had, but maybe the 9 or 10 year old me was too scared/ ashamed to do so. Not every disability is immediatley obvious, but over months of working with a child, reading their letters of absence, observing them in class, one should be able to tell if something is amiss. At the very least, we need to equip kids with the skills and the courage to articulate such fears, worries, and insecurities.

"How" is question number two. This blog post is still at "Why," written from a very personal space.