the work
When I broke the pencil in half, I set off a chain reaction of tears.
It wasn’t easy to break it, it was a tough one, that LOL Doll pencil, but after a second hard bend, it snapped right in half, and then they both started crying. They looked at me like I’d done something truly terrible. To them. I did. It was mean, what I did. I regretted it immediately.
I only wanted their attention.
I looked down at the pencil, one side of it splintered apart like the tiny piece of wood that it is. The other, a fairly clean break. Maybe I can sharpen the eraser side and make it a smaller pencil, thought my brain, scrambling to fix something that was very clearly irreparable. You can just find some tape and wrap it up maybe?!, Pia said through her tears. No, there’s no way to fix this, I responded, dully. Maewyn just cried and cried. It was her pencil after all.
I was the mean mommy, the one who blah blah blah-ed to a therapist for an hour this morning about the hard work of bringing a more focused anti-racist lens into my parenting. Blah blah blah, I went on, talking about what I had been doing, the way I’d been doing it, the realization that my kids’ childhood would be so vastly different than mine or my partners’ and wasn’t that exciting?!
I have been wrong.
I had the privilege of choosing what school my kids went to. I chose the school that everyone, including me, views as diverse, with a strong social justice foundation. I chose this great school over the other great school because I wanted my children to share in learning with kids and families of all kinds. I chose this school over the school that people move to this neighborhood for, buy three-million dollar brownstones for, make huge PTA donations to. I chose this school because a Black woman is the principal, many teachers wear hijabs, there is a Gender Wonder club. If you’ve been following along at home, you’ll know that the closing of NYC public schools was my own personal realization that nothing would ever be the same. I love our school.
I chose it. I had the free time to walk into a school administrative office midday, ask an assistant to check on our waitlist status, and be offered a spot right there. I had the time to consider, to weigh options, to talk with other families who chose this school. All that aside, I had already made my choice. I knew this is where my kids belonged and where I fit in too. But the truth is, that all the “diversity” is a gift to us, as a white-bodied parents to white-bodied kids. It is something we directly benefit from, without having to give anything of ourselves or give up anything. All we have to do is show up. It’s not fair.
Tonight, I was washing my dishes, the latest On Being episode in my headphones. Resmaa Menakem was sharing about his experience working with DEI workers (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and asking the participants of a workshop to reflect on the meaning of the word diversity.
…I asked one question. I said, “How many people in here believe in diversity?” Everybody shot their hands up. Boom. Everybody. I said, “Answer this one next question.” And I said, “Don’t bring your hands down; answer this question. Diverse from what?” Because when you say “diversity,” that means you start someplace first, and then you diversify from it.
Boom. That’s the sound of my heart learning.
What this is, what you see outside your door, on your news feed, on social media, all of it is a much needed and necessary recalibration of the place we start from. It is a rupture, a birth, an earthquake, a heart attack I can’t believe I almost died I even saw the light and everything — I have a totally new appreciation for the world!, maybe even a mourning of the loss that you cannot go back to the place you came from. It is gone. Dust.
There is only this, of course. Now. That black cat on my chair. That love of my life fixing a keychain. My jar of beer. The sounds on the street tonight, the bullshit curfew lifted. Bikers gliding across bridges, side by side by side. People inside their homes wanting to do less harm. The work done by everyone before us, and an incalculable gratitude for it, and the work to come.
