It's been a tough year, and one I would not care to repeat, but it has changed me in ways I wouldn't trade for anything and on my last day I felt very loved. To repay some of the kindness that was done to me by welcoming me to the Center, I gave each of the kids one of my books, carefully selected to match their personalities and needs from among the stack of books deaccessioned from my childhood library. FP, who is a quiet, deep-thinking writer, got a hardcover book of poetry. FJ, who I wouldn't be surprised to find myself working for one day, got Julie of the Wolves. Two of the boys, best friends and artists, got Dinotopia and The World Beneath. AP got Harriet the Spy. Her brother got Captain Underpants. And on and on and on. Since my precocity had limits, I went ahead and bought two Anna Deavere Smith books for the girls in the evening program who worked with me to write the play.
I think I may do more for literacy at the Center by my absence than by my presence, as I'm given to understand that letters may already be on their way to me in the mail.
I'm not going far. After taking July to help my parents move, I will be returning to the Center (different site, same organization) as a grant-writer. I'm happy because I'm not leaving entirely; I'll still have to opportunity to see the kids and coworkers I'll miss the most. It'll be very different, though. I'll have a desk, a computer, a filing cabinet, a phone extension, and a boss who checks in with me regularly. I'll have working adult hours. It'll be stressful, but not in the way this year has been. It'll be challenging, but on a professional and not a basic, personal level. I will miss those deep-digging revelations about the world and myself that I had on an almost weekly basis, but I won't miss the time I snatched scissors out of a girl's hand, or the time I had to break up a rapidly escalating fight, or the time there were shots fired outside the school where we did pickup, or those times I kept it together at work only to burst into tears on Lake Shore Drive on the way home.
But, wait, how am I Claire Fisher, youngest Fisher child and red-haired heroine of HBO's Six Feet Under? I have blogged before about my passing resemblance to Roland Pryzbylewski. Now, and not for the first time, I feel myself identifying with Claire, who is semi-catapulted into adulthood as she drives away from the place that has been her house for years while "Breathe Me" by Sia plays in the background.
Claire and I have very little in common in the grand scheme of things, but while I was driving away from Chicago to Champaign where I would spend one night with my best friend's family before embarking on my parents' big move the next day, "Breathe Me" shuffled its way onto my iPod. I found myself thinking of Claire, whose creative struggles I took to heart at the beginning of my time at the Center. "Maybe you're not an artist," her aunt says to her, and she gets really offended, because she knows fundamentally that she is but with every passing day she has less proof. She tries a job that isn't her before finding one that is, but going for it requires a big leap of faith. She leaves her home, and she's uncertain but she's hopeful.
I've found that dealing with uncertainty in one area of your life narrows your focus in others. You start to think of what's really important to you. You may not act on it immediately, but at least you know. Working with the kids at the Center changed my setting just as saying goodbye to "home" changed my setting, but these things also made me more myself. More experiences. More growth. More challenges. More people to identify with.
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