Until I was eight or nine years old our neighborhood was the kind of place where few people locked their doors. We were all lower middle class and mostly white. We knew almost every family that lived on our street by name. The neighborhood always felt safe and the threat of violence was totally absent from our minds. It wasn’t an oasis that we lived in but, more accurately, a bubble. Columbus, Ohio had already changed outside of our imaginary borders but the streets we lived on still had only one story.
Life provided a few glimpses of stories that were different from our own during my days at Fairmoor Elementary School. Damon came to our school in the first grade. He was the first African-American I can ever remember getting to know in person. Kids would run up to him and ask to touch his hair because the texture was different from their own. I can’t imagine how strange this felt to him. Damon was eventually accepted when kids realized although he looked different, he was really just like us.
Just a few weeks after the start of the school year the Principal introduced Sivaley to our third grade class. Sivaley was an extremely shy Asian boy who didn't speak a word of English. We discovered he and his family were recent immigrants from war-torn Vietnam. The war had only ended a few years before. At first Sivaley seemed so foreign to us that he may as well have been from another planet. He spent his first few weeks, quiet as a mouse, taking it all in. He drew tanks and artillery on the blackboard, which were likely the last memories he had of his country. Considering how young he was, war might have been the only life he knew.
A few of us kids took Sivaley under our wings and made sure he had someone to hang out with during recess. I had a Superball, which was a small rubber ball that would bounce hundreds of feet in the air. This is the first time I remember seeing Sivaley relax and attempt to communicate. We began connecting on a human level. It was as though playing with the ball made him forget all of the fears and anxieties running through his head. I lost track of him after third grade and often wonder what became of him.
LIfe in our eastside neighborhood changed swiftly and significantly at the start of the 1978-1979 school year. This was the year desegregation officially began in Columbus, Ohio. I'll never forget when the outcome of the voting was announced on the radio during my summer vacation. That day I remember sensing a feeling of helplessness and disbelief amongst the adults in my life. It was a done deal, for fourth and fifth grade kids in our neighborhood would be bused into one of the worst neighborhoods in the entire city. As a child of nine my stomach felt like it was twisted into knots. As the end of Summer approached, I was terrified.
That first day of fourth grade we gathered on a corner a few hundred feet from our house. I realized that morning it was only a fifteen minute ride to a different world. Our bus driver, Mrs. Love greeted us with a smile as we boarded her bus. The stereo blasted funk music the entire way to Fair Avenue School. As we approached the school I saw a neighborhood that was much different from our own. Houses were boarded up, yards unkempt, and trash littered the streets.
The first few days of that experience were uncomfortable and, in some ways, shocking. This was my first immersion in a story different from my own. Fair Avenue school got easier every day. Although it was uncomfortable at first, I consider the education I received at this school, from the curriculum and otherwise, was among the best I ever have in my life.
By the time I started ninth grade at Eastmoor High School in 1984 our own neighborhood was undergoing a more radical transformation. It was the year the crack epidemic descended on Columbus. Gangs from larger cities, including the L.A. Crips had started to move into the east side. Law enforcement wasn't prepared, city leaders outright denied the city had a gang problem. Our neighborhood fell quickly, seemingly overnight, to become a haven for drug dealing, prostitution, and violence. Everyone who could afford to move elsewhere did and any residents who stayed became the minority.
As my teenage years sped by I met many different people of many different backgrounds and races. It was uncomfortable and sometimes very difficult to feel like, at times, you didn’t belong. The lesson I've taken away is people are pretty much people and the only real measure of a person is the quality of their character. I appreciate exposure to the many different perspectives and lifestyles which have enriched my life in ways that I could never have imagined. As an adult I'd like to think it’s made me a more empathetic and well-rounded person.
There is a great divide in our country and our world today. This divide isn’t just one of race but one of religion, culture, economic class, and political beliefs. The divide is driven by certain factions of our society for a purpose, an end goal. They wish us to be distracted, they try to dehumanize those they wish us to hate, they want us to forget our power, ultimately they want to control us. The truth is, the great divide they continue to perpetuate exists primarily within the confines of our own minds. Our superpower, maybe the only one we have left, is we can wake up. Nothing frightens those who perpetuate division, fear, and hate more than this.
I think possibly the first step to building the bridge to understanding one another is to realize that there is more than one story. In this life each of us has the opportunity to be both a student and a teacher. We must find the courage to teach our stories and learn the stories of others. Each of us on the planet are suffering from some kind of trauma. If we can find nothing else in common at least we have that one commonality. Sometimes both individually and collectively we have to tell ourselves, "That's enough, this no longer serves me."
When this happens we'll realize who the real enemy is. We have to be ready to share our stories and listen to the stories of others, open ourselves up and allow ourselves to be uncomfortable. The dividends this pays are well worth it. Familiarity doesn't always breed contempt, it can also breed kindness and compassion.
When we can finally open our minds to this fact, maybe we can begin to process the trauma we all have trapped inside, and the true healing can begin. What's Your Story?
(Gifs sourced by Giphy.com.)
Poetry should move us, it should change us, it should glitch our brains, shift our moods to another frequency. Poetry should evoke feelings of melancholy, whimsy, it should remind us what it feels like to be in love, or cause us to think about something in a completely different way. I view poetry, and all art really, as a temporary and fragile bridge between our world and a more pure and refined one. This is a world we could bring into creation if enough of us believed in it. This book is ephemera, destined to end up forgotten, lingering on some dusty shelf or tucked away in a dark attic. Yet the words, they will live on in memory. I hope these words become a part of you, bubble up into your memory when you least expect them to and make you feel a little more alive.
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Most of us have experienced a moment of perfect peace at least once in our lives. In these moments we lose ourselves and feel connected to everything. I call these mindful moments. Words can’t describe how complete they make us feel.
These moments are usually fragile, evaporating in seconds. What if there was a way to train your mind to experience more of them? It’s deceptively easy and requires nothing more than a subtle shift in mindset. My new book, Mindful Moments, will teach you to be much more content despite the chaos and imperfect circumstances continuing to unfold around you. Upgrade your life experience today for only $15.99 on Amazon.com.
