More than a mile

When it comes to the joy and necessity of walking a mile in someone's shoes, To Kill a Mockingbird does a pretty good job of explaining:

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view--until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

Nonetheless, I personally prefer this quote from Joan Aiken's Is Underground:

“She thought about Penny teaching her to read. 'What’s the point of reading?' Is had grumbled at first. 'You can allus tell me stories, that’s better than reading.' 'I’ll not always be here,' Penny had said shortly. 'Besides, once you can read, you can learn somebody else. Folk should teach each other what they know.' 'Why?' 'If you don’t learn anything, you don’t grow. And someone’s gotta learn you.'

Well, thought Is, if I get outta here, I’ll be able to learn some other person the best way to get free from a rolled-up rug.”

There are worse reasons to do what I'm doing.

Replacements

This morning, I put a posting for my current job up on the Center’s social media pages. This afternoon, I submitted an application for the agency to receive another Project 55 Fellow. Full circle.

I’ve changed a lot and a lot has changed since I took this position. I’ve changed a lot and a lot has changed since I showed up on the first day of my fellowship. Finally, a lot has changed since I reached the end of my fellowship and, filling out the Project 55 exit survey, checked the box indicating no, no I would not recommend that they send another fellow there. Not in a million years.

There were worlds beyond my classroom. I knew this intellectually, but I finally realized it to be true when I arrived at my quiet desk with the computer and the filing cabinet and the phone extension. There are worlds beyond that desk, too, and over my years as a grant writer at the Center my involvement in projects and discussions beyond my job description have intensified. I frequently tell people that even on the days it frustrates me, I still like the job, because it's fascinating. Why do we do things this way? Why is she taking this so personally? Is this all nonprofits, or just us?

 
Adults are no more logical, no less fallible than children, but the adults I work with (generally) wouldn’t run at you with scissors, expose themselves to a classroom of their peers, or only respond to shouted commands. (Being me, it was this last I found most challenging and dispiriting.)

There are other things I love about the organization, too, that I didn’t get a whole lot of exposure to in my after school classroom: home visiting, bilingual immersion, the e-mails that happen behind the scenes when a family loses everything.

I changed my mind. I think, given an engaging, intellectual post for them to fill, I would certainly send another fellow. I think that, sitting where I’ve been sitting for almost two years now, they’d get that view of the big picture that can be so essential to understanding why you’re doing what you’re doing. I e-mailed and explained, and today I submitted the application.

I’ll be gone by the time the Fellow arrives. I’m wrapping up here at the end of May, the better to spend all of June in Paris with the Aged Ps before starting the MFA (final location decision pending--watch this space!). I want to make sure we’re in touch, though. I want to be able to tell them about my experience, and I want to hear about theirs. Because as much as I hated every other minute of it, I will always be grateful for my crazy, miserable, eye-opening fellowship year. It made where I am today--and where I’ll be next year--possible.