A few days ago when we were asked to free write in class about what we thought it meant to "stretch or die", I thought, oddly enough, of babies. First off, I love kids and spending time with them, and over the years, I have noticed how extremely flexible most kids are. From what I've seen, there is a direct correlation between age and flexibility; the younger you are, the more you can stretch. It's when we get older, spend our days sitting in school, then sitting in work, and then just sitting for the sake of sitting because we're all so damn tired, that's when we can't stretch.
I noticed myself losing the ability to stretch when I was ten, the day I twisted my neck too hard when I heard my father yell a racist remark with the car window half way down because "the moron in front of him was going to slow"
My arms started really hurting when I realized most of the people who I had been hugging didn't really care about understanding the world outside of themselves.
The amount of Tylenol I take to numb my lower back is absurd. Some days I just stay in bed, manipulating my spine into different positions as I keep the door to my room locked. I heard somewhere K College is supposed to change your life. Yesterday the only thing I wanted to hear was my own heartbeat in my ears, thumping against the earplugs. My room kept me safe, but my back still really fucking hurts.
But then I remember, stretch, or die. Stay in bed, don't talk to people because you don't want to hear the racist things they casually say. Die. Stretch out your arms, hug as many different people as you can, listen to them. You're not dying. Eventually there is comfort. Keep stretching.
Stretch like you're 10 before you got that kink in your neck, 9, 8, 7 when you didn't care who your friends were, 6, 5, 4 when you could smile at strangers, 3 when you learned how to give high fives and stare at people because you thought people were funny and beautiful and made weird noises, 2, 1, don't stop stretching.
You've got a long time to live.
Lesley,
ReplyDeleteI love your poetic use of language to describe the way racism (and no doubt other -isms) has had an impact on the way you see the world. In contrast with your experience, I can't recall my parents or other adults in my community saying overtly racist things growing up. Going to school in Newton, Massachusetts, there was a strong emphasis on learning about differences and diversity. This was both genuinely good and well-intentioned, AND somewhat hypocritical. I was taught a history that was not entirely whitewashed/Eurocentric -- learned about Ida B. Wells in 5th grade, for instance, and about the Haitian Revolution in 10th -- but I did not see my community modeling a particularly just/equitable vision of the world in terms of making structural change.
According to the 2010 census (pretending for a moment that the census reflects some truth in identity), Newton is about 80% white, 12% Asian, 3% African American... I remember noticing that most of the black kids in school were from Boston, and had to wake up before 6 AM to take a bus to Newton every day to attend a school system in which they were outsiders -- geographically, racially, culturally. To me, this seems more true in later grades than in elementary school, which maybe shows how ideas about racial categories grow in us (and limit our ability to stretch) as we grow older.
It was like we white (and some Asian? [which I include to complicate definitions of race, and bring in the idea of the "model minority," which was totally a part of growing up in Newton]) kids were expected to stretch only so much. We were educated about non-white people, and were taught to avoid using racially charged and offensive language. I think the fact that I learned to speak in a "nice" and perhaps "politically correct" way so early still impacts me today: I have to do some extra stretching when discussing race because I tend to be hyperaware of my use of language. And, this educational stretching seemed to let many of us off the hook from stretching any further; allowed us to learn about history only to leave it in the past, and pretend that things like racism weren't issues that affected us in our little Newton bubble. There were exceptions -- a class I took in 11th grade, "Leadership in a Diverse Society," was explicitly about all the -isms and complicated identities -- but I don't think that was the norm. All this said, who knows if I would know enough to care about being involved in anti-racist work had I not gotten the education that I did?
Two other things you brought up that I want to address but don't have tons of room for here:
1.) Lots of things in our college environment make me cringe... and being at such a small school is pushing me to see the reality of certain issues that I used to mostly think of in the abstract.
2.) My emotional state is so very connected to my physical wellbeing. Sometimes staying in bed is not the thing to do; I have to get up, engage with the world, and stretch, stretch, stretch! But sometimes, hiding under the covers is a totally appropriate response to the world. Sometimes it feels like if I stretch in certain ways, or too much at once, I will break. Finding a balance is hard, but it is far from impossible.
I truly love this piece, Lesley. And ironic enough I too started losing the same flexibility you speak of when I heard prejudiced comments made by my father in the car at drivers. The hardest place for me to stretch is not here at KCollege. Oddly enough, it is at home. Getting my parents to reform forty some years of prejudiced thoughts is not easy, but it takes so many steps. We can even say it take baby steps and many times I have had to take steps back. It hurts when comments can be made from your own family about your own people. I hate the term "Spick," but the first time I heard it was from my very own family members towards a Latino man driving ahead of us. How often will I have to stretch until my back eventually breaks and someone else will have to fill that void? But then your final line gives me so much hope, Lesley, "you've got a long time to live," and I hope more than anything that this is true. Sometimes I forget that. Okay....Very often I forget that and I get frustrated with loved ones when they do not get racial concepts or why it is not okay to say certain things and to internalize racism about our own people. It is a pain that sometimes all the Tylenol in the world cannot relieve.
ReplyDeleteOh, I see you Lesley.
ReplyDeleteI like how the end of your piece addresses a way in which you cope, the way in which you strive to stretch everyday. I also enjoy how you related stretching to childhood; the contextualization of stretching and growing as a person juxtaposed against the image of aging backwards is beautiful. Personally, the idea of stretching as a coping mechanism is the way I interpreted the poem, and to see your examples of coping truly brings out the relevant meaning of the poem. There are many ways in which everyone has to stretch and when you mention, "my room kept me safe, but my back still really fucking hurts," I thought of how we may try to cope, but sometimes we are ineffective. Sometimes I try to face racism, but at the end of the day I feel as though I have failed.
This may be a stretch (no pun intended), but when I read the first sentence I paused and thought about labor, and birth, and how a woman's cervix must stretch in order to bring life into the world. Without stretching there is no life, and everyone must stretch—especially those who casually say racist things.