Checking in with all of my friends, both American and Palestinian. I need to know how my loved ones are holding up.
You would not believe the things these kids tell you in their innocence. It's, sometimes, a little uncomfortable. My job does involve me in communication with the kids of our community, I learn so much from what I do. The single greatest reward my job offers to my life is the ability to communicate with the youth and understand their needs. There is so much humanity in what I have been chosen to do, you know. In the tongue of warmth, we compel each other to speak of what is needed, not only of what it is feared.
Kids will tell you so innocently about their fathers threatening their mothers with violence, y'know. Or, they might reveal, unknowingly, the ways in which they've been abused in recent days. It's stuff like that, y'know. Detroit is a beautiful place, but it is a human place. There is a whole lot of emotion that seeps through the cracks. That sort of golden sunshine that pokes through the clouds above this city in the fall conceals a sadness that is carried in the hearts of nearly all of the city's natives.
I look at the news, of course I look at the news. That special brand of politically motivated narcissist I've become in my youth was born of a chemical imbalance caused by endless broadcasts of Afghan War updates. My parents are both geniuses, it's the worst kind of wonderful to be blessed with as a child. You're not allowed to be stupid in that house, I was gonna be an Einstein whether I liked it or not.
I look at the news, and I see the Nazis have arrived in Chicago. I don't know what I expected. Why did I think nothing was gonna happen? It got to me. Worked myself stiff, and my mind stood still. I have to get active.
I've grown accustomed to the warmth of the lay. I stopped being somebody to be a steward of opportunity for the kids. I guess sometimes it feels like a worthy sacrifice, but sometimes I think Mister Rogers would be disappointed in that resignment I've assigned to my station. I mean the Mister Rogers from TV, I do.
I see beautiful smiles every day at work. I work in the sunshine, in the morning of our world. It makes it difficult to remember the reality outside. I don't cower from the facts of it, the experience of it, but I lament the limitations of this peace.
I remember one of her friends was a genius. The kind you really have to look out for, y'know? I could never understand what she saw in her ex, but I guess I can understand her mindset a little more. I guess I know how to pick 'em, too.
Ironic.
I was thinking about how Nico was a Nazi. Yes, Nico, the singer who did the songs with Lou Reed. That Nico.
You always wish that a "genius" would get the right answers on everything. It’s never that easy. A genius is only just a person who's really good at one thing. There are billions of regular people in this world that are supremely intelligent, capable and kind, and they aren't geniuses. They're something much better.
My goal is to be one of the legion of regular people that push society forward towards a better future. I want to be part of the community that changes the world, I want to be one of the billions. I don't want to be an idol, a figure. I'm a person. I believe that. I know that.
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