Last night I saw the Neofuturists perform 30 plays in 60 minutes at Woolly Mammoth Theatre here in D.C. Some made me laugh. Some made my eyes tear up. Some made me angry. And they all made me very happy that I spent the night with this talented group of 5 artists giving their hearts and minds to an audience that was both receptive to the work and more than willing to participate.
Their inventive style of storytelling is something I’ve admired from afar for many years, and I’m so glad that I got a chance to experience their work first-hand. A must see in D.C. this season, the show runs through January 3rd at Woolly. More details here: http://www.woollymammoth.net/
This weekend, I had the great privilege to work with a team on Innovation Station, a design for a new middle school design that marries storytelling and the product development process to teach core subjects and career-based skills.
The startup competition was sponsored by 4.0 schools and CityBridge Foundation in Washington D.C. I had the seed of this idea in 2007 and I’ve left it untouched in a file on my computer for many years. It was really an honor to be able to devote a weekend to it with a talented group of people, and see what we could craft together.
Though my team didn’t win, the experience was invaluable and I met a number of wonderful and passionate people who care as much about education as I do. And it’s got the wheels turning in my head. Maybe this is a new beginning…
Have you ever been around someone who makes you feel a certain way, even when you can’t quite put your finger on why? This feeling can be positive or negative, brought about by being with someone or even just thinking about him or her. Trust that feeling, whatever it is. The gut, the seat of all of your psychic energy and intuition, never lies. The head won’t understand. The heart surely won’t understand. But you must trust and embrace that gut feeling, even if there’s no way to explain why. The “why” doesn’t matter. Just the fact that it exists is enough of a reason to follow its advice.
Sometimes we face circumstances that don’t make any sense. That happened to me yesterday and I took a few steps to get a better perspective. First, I had to physically distance myself from the situation. Sometimes when we are so close to a problem, it’s tough to see a way through it. The distance helps.
Second, I distracted myself with a fun activity that had nothing to do with the circumstances of my problem. This gave my brain a break and elevated my mood.
Finally, I made the decision to accept that I know what I know and that I don’t know what I don’t know. I know I’m going to have to remedy this problem by eventually walking away from it. Now is not the time to do that for a multitude of reasons, but that day will come and when it does I’ll be ready to make the leap. And, the universe works in mysterious ways. We don’t always immediately know why something’s happening or how it’s going to turn out in the long run. What we can do is trust that eventually it will all make sense and we’ll understand why things had to unfold the way that they did.
My travel companions: Between the World and Me on my Kindle, passport, and neck pillow
Reading while traveling has always been special to me. While I’m learning about other cultures, books help me see how much I have to learn about my own home. While I was in Sarajevo and Budapest, I read Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. It is a tough and necessary read, especially for Americans who aren’t black. While I will never truly understand what it means to be black in America, I do want to understand as much and as best I can. This book forced me to wake up.
I live just north of Howard University, where Coates went to school and where his father worked for many years. After reading this book, I see Howard in a new light. That is sacred ground for its students because for many, their time there is the beginning of them feeling fully accepted and respected by those around them.
Coates talks about the constant pursuit by black Americans to work twice as hard to get half as far as whites in America. He talks about The Dream and The Dreamers, and how neither are fully accessible, much less possible, for many black people in America. He talks about the constant message we send to black youth—when dealing with storied institutions here, keep your head down, your mouth shut, and your eyes and ears open for danger. This book, and its truths, broke my heart
I will fully admit that I cried through much of the book, out of sadness, embarrassment, and anger. 250 years on from the end of the Civil War and still, it rages on in the streets all over this country. I had hoped the book would wrap up with ideas of how to solve the struggle. It didn’t. And maybe that’s the point. We can’t erase history. We can only learn from it and use it as context to frame the situation currently at-hand. Coates wrote this book as a guide to taking the first step on the journey, not a guide to get to some pre-determined destination.
With this book, I have more awareness and understanding of the anger and fear felt by the black community, especially in light of the year we’ve had. And that’s a start.
Christa Avampato 