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Posted: November 8th, 2007 at 2:12am By: Anne E. Ulvestad
"It's like a game," she said. "I want to laugh. Here are a bunch of adults talking for an hour about what a couple of 7th graders want to do. It's funny for me. There are so many more important things to talk about."
She continued, "How about the girl from Armenia? She is 15. Her parents are 32 or 33. They, too, are still very young. She is away from home for the first time and is not just lonely, but alone. She misses class and gets a detention. Now she is being punished with no one to tell."
Continuing, she has caught my attention completely. "It is not like the girl from California. She gets reprimanded and is immediately on the phone to her mother. 'Oh, Momma,' she cries. The mother calls up the director, 'What are you doing to my daughter?'
"Do you think the same thing would happen if this girl from Armenia would tell her mother she is scrubbing toilets?" Before I can even formulate an answer, or even an imagined response, she continues, "This woman grew up with a hard life. She will tell her daughter, 'Good. You must have deserved it. That is why you are getting punished.' "
Now she comes back to our initial meeting about whether or not to do what the 7th graders are lobbying for. "And we spend all our time playing this silly game with the other children. They want something. Should we give it to them? How much should we give them? It is funny for me.
"I have lived most of my life in my country, but I don't belong to them anymore. I have come to this country, but I don't belong here either. I am, what do you say ... There is a story in my town about the cat who walks alone. I am that cat."
There are many images and feelings flitting through my mind and heart, but none surface quickly enough to say out loud in response. It is probably just as well, since what I have to say seems so banal compared to the wisdom of this woman. Just that is her point.
"I am too old to spend my time playing this children's game. I am here, in this school, because I want to make a difference in the lives of these children. I want to focus on those things that will make that difference.
"I sent my children to this country with not even a dime in their pockets. I sent them here alone, and I told them they could make something of themselves. Now, one has her Ph.D. The other will graduate in May. I asked them, 'What is important in life?' "
She answers her own question: "To be kind; to work hard; not to hurt anyone else's heart; to be happy with who you are, and what you can do." I am looking at her with tears in my eyes. She is a brave woman, and unlikely to cry at what she would consider such an ordinary sentiment. I blink my tears away.
She is an interesting woman. She speaks with a heavy accent, and cannot always find the correct word for her thought. She smiles, and laughs at herself and others quite a bit. She repeats herself frequently, and has a tendency to run on, as do her sentences. Since I am often busy at work, she is not one I would choose to talk to.
But we were going home at the same time, and I gave her a ride to the Metro. We sat in the car for a while as she told me her thoughts about the meeting we had just finished at school. "I don't like to say a lot. Sometimes they will just brush off my ideas. That is OK. I will continue to care for these children as if they were my own. But I will not play their children's games."
I told her then that she was very wise. Her wisdom was not the conventional, intellectual type that is often so highly valued, but a true, rich wisdom of the heart that must be sought after and mined for the treasure that it is. I got lucky. This nugget just happened my way. I'm so glad that I was sitting down as it plopped right in my lap.
— — —
Anne E. Ulvestad is a free-lance writer residing in Maryland. She has her masters in earth literacy, and is available for public lectures and group presentations and rituals on Spirituality and the Environment. Anne can be reached at {email anne@ourplaceintheuniverse.com}anne@ourplaceintheuniverse.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Anne E. Ulvestad
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"It's like a game," she said. "I want to laugh. Here are a bunch of adults talking for an hour about what a couple of 7th graders want to do. It's funny for me. There are so many more important things to talk about."
She continued, "How about the girl from Armenia? She is 15. Her parents are 32 or 33. They, too, are still very young. She is away from home for the first time and is not just lonely, but alone. She misses class and gets a detention. Now she is being punished with no one to tell."
Continuing, she has caught my attention completely. "It is not like the girl from California. She gets reprimanded and is immediately on the phone to her mother. 'Oh, Momma,' she cries. The mother calls up the director, 'What are you doing to my daughter?'
"Do you think the same thing would happen if this girl from Armenia would tell her mother she is scrubbing toilets?" Before I can even formulate an answer, or even an imagined response, she continues, "This woman grew up with a hard life. She will tell her daughter, 'Good. You must have deserved it. That is why you are getting punished.' "
Now she comes back to our initial meeting about whether or not to do what the 7th graders are lobbying for. "And we spend all our time playing this silly game with the other children. They want something. Should we give it to them? How much should we give them? It is funny for me.
"I have lived most of my life in my country, but I don't belong to them anymore. I have come to this country, but I don't belong here either. I am, what do you say ... There is a story in my town about the cat who walks alone. I am that cat."
There are many images and feelings flitting through my mind and heart, but none surface quickly enough to say out loud in response. It is probably just as well, since what I have to say seems so banal compared to the wisdom of this woman. Just that is her point.
"I am too old to spend my time playing this children's game. I am here, in this school, because I want to make a difference in the lives of these children. I want to focus on those things that will make that difference.
"I sent my children to this country with not even a dime in their pockets. I sent them here alone, and I told them they could make something of themselves. Now, one has her Ph.D. The other will graduate in May. I asked them, 'What is important in life?' "
She answers her own question: "To be kind; to work hard; not to hurt anyone else's heart; to be happy with who you are, and what you can do." I am looking at her with tears in my eyes. She is a brave woman, and unlikely to cry at what she would consider such an ordinary sentiment. I blink my tears away.
She is an interesting woman. She speaks with a heavy accent, and cannot always find the correct word for her thought. She smiles, and laughs at herself and others quite a bit. She repeats herself frequently, and has a tendency to run on, as do her sentences. Since I am often busy at work, she is not one I would choose to talk to.
But we were going home at the same time, and I gave her a ride to the Metro. We sat in the car for a while as she told me her thoughts about the meeting we had just finished at school. "I don't like to say a lot. Sometimes they will just brush off my ideas. That is OK. I will continue to care for these children as if they were my own. But I will not play their children's games."
I told her then that she was very wise. Her wisdom was not the conventional, intellectual type that is often so highly valued, but a true, rich wisdom of the heart that must be sought after and mined for the treasure that it is. I got lucky. This nugget just happened my way. I'm so glad that I was sitting down as it plopped right in my lap.
— — —
Anne E. Ulvestad is a free-lance writer residing in Maryland. She has her masters in earth literacy, and is available for public lectures and group presentations and rituals on Spirituality and the Environment. Anne can be reached at {email anne@ourplaceintheuniverse.com}anne@ourplaceintheuniverse.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Anne E. Ulvestad
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