Lending credence to his “Wild Card of the Blog” reputation, Dimples was the first to prove me wrong. Sort of.
I’d hightailed it to Cincinnati the weekend after my last day. The following Monday afternoon, while blissfully inhaling a few Skyline coneys to make up for months of withdrawal, my cell phone vibrated.
I glanced at the display – didn’t recognize the number, but it had a DC area code. I flipped open the phone and plugged my other ear so to hear over the clinking of forks against plates.
“Hello?”
No response.
“Hello…”
Still no response, so I tried to make out the background noises. It wasn’t difficult. I’ve been around long enough to know exactly what “muffled cheese bus chatter” sounds like. And considering it was a Monday (field trip day) at 2:30 (return trip timeframe), it also wasn’t difficult to determine exactly who was calling. I’d have been surprised if Pixel or Red called, but either one of them most certainly would’ve talked.
“You gonna say anything, [Dimples]?”
Still nothing.
“Okaaaaay.”
About ten more seconds of cheese bus noises and he hung up. I smiled ruefully and closed my phone with a sigh.
So despite my predictions to the contrary, someone did end up calling. But it didn’t exactly amount to much. I’m guessing it was some kind of test. Maybe a bet with himself to see if I actually gave him a working number. Maybe he didn’t know how to say “I miss you.” Maybe he was just infernally bored and wanted attention. Whatever it was, it didn’t exactly bring me any reassurance that he’d call should he ever really needed something. I’m not that naïve anymore.
Now, three-plus months later, I seem to have figured correctly. He hasn’t called since.
I considered writing the ‘afterward’ back then – the week I was in Ohio when Dimples called. I had some downtime with nothing to do but watch the Reds flounder below the .500 mark. And to think. To turn the previous 11 months over and over in my head, searching for some kind of grand meaning. But it was too soon. I tried updating my resume and learned unsurprisingly that my AmeriCorps experience was impossibly un-bullet-point-able.
Yet, I didn’t come up with a magical summation tool in the weeks and months since, either. Seriously, how does Mr. Cliff Notes do it? My still un-bullet-point-able resume remains as useless as ever. Something slightly less useless? An old worksheet from 4th grade I found crunched at the bottom of my closet during the aforementioned Ohio trip. I read it then and had a good laugh. But now I’m thinking of it again.
It was a piece of regular notebook paper, but labeled with the proper name/date/room number notations that proclaimed “official school assignment.” I’m guessing it was either a class self-esteem workshop or a weird, badly masked child psychology study of which we were unknowing participants. Each student in the class had to write some kind of “anonymous complement” to you — 30 lines filled with 30 different scrawled platitudes. Mine was predictably dominated with the type of stuff that I recall being noticeable among fellow kiddies – mostly variations on “you are good at sports” and “you are funny.” But I was surprised to see one of the last entries on the page said, “you stick up for everyone, even if other people don’t like them.”
Maybe that was my cliff notes version all along. I am self-aware enough to know not much has changed in 15 years — try putting “those who other people don’t like” into a socioeconomic metaphor. I wish I knew who among my childhood classmates was so perceptive… because it really just boils down to that.
In another entry, I alluded to why I wanted to do national service instead of getting a teaching job right away, but it’s really a lot simpler. I grew up in a middle class, close family with supportive parents and siblings. I went to a suburban public high school and got a great education, including playing two varsity sports and taking enough art classes to open my own wing at the Smithsonian. My parents had the means to send me to the college I wished to attend, and there I studied hard. And in between that and drinking pints of Guinness, I contemplated the meaning of life. I didn’t really come up with an answer, but surmised two infallible truths: one, I love Guinness. Two, I really did hit the upbringing jackpot. Sure, it wasn’t glamorous or exciting, but I had safety, an education, and people who supported and looked out for me 100%. So this year? This year I just wanted to stick up for the people who maybe didn’t have that.
Yay, a summary!
But this wasn’t like making room at the lunch table for the new girl that nobody else would talk to. This was every day, every minute, even when I wasn’t technically “at work.” This was apologizing to my roommate for not really “being myself” this year, because of all the alone time and mental health days I needed on weekends. This was feeling like a total failure more often than not because I didn’t understand how to reconcile just “being there” as making a difference. I joked about thinking I was getting an ulcer in another entry, but I honestly don’t think I was that far off. Being that constantly stressed out was uncharacteristic for an even-tempered person like me, and I often felt trapped in a vicious circle of helplessness and guilt. I’d worry about them, then I’d worry about me, then I’d feel guilty about worrying about me because at least I got to go home at night.
Throughout the year, I had more than one person tell me things like, “I can’t wait ‘til you’re done working in that hell hole.” Well, okay… I get you. Except not really. Sure, I didn’t expect it to be as turbulent and emotionally trying as it was (not that my AmeriCorps subgroup didn’t secretly look forward to all the Made For TV Movie material I relayed at every meeting), but the whole point was to go where people needed help and to, you know, do that. People shouldn’t be so shocked that it’s difficult, as if I was there against my will or something.
So I did it. And now I’m done, right? Wrong.
See, now I get the inevitable “so how was it” questions. I resist saying “don’t ask me, ask dee roll dot org” and instead stick with my new standard “well… I don’t think anything will ever seem difficult, ever again.”
This wouldn’t be a true Capitol Rear View entry without a few semi-obscure references to variations on the nerdy, sporty, or musical. So let’s revisit our old friend Frodo Baggins, who wondered while trying to re-adjust to normalcy after destroying the Ring: “How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand, there is no going back?”
You don’t. Not with this kind of new perspective. Which is why my answer is that, at least in my current mindset, nothing could ever possibly be more difficult. I feel I’ve lost all rationalization to complain about ANYTHING, ever again. Problems won’t seem like problems. I’ll stop there before I start spouting clichés and just say that I know this because of waiting a few months to write this entry. Instead of the intentional musings of my service being the most telling, it has been the myriad of unintentional reminders while processing seemingly unrelated things. It’s as if my brain has been completely rewired with this new perspective, and nothing I do is the same as “before.”
Let’s be real. My Facebook profile’s employment section with the position listing as “Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds” is completely sarcastic, as I didn’t do this to fulfill the stereotype and/or cultural delusion of White Person Saves Black People (which seemed cringeworthy before, but now is acutely nauseating). The very idea that they needed to be “saved” from something is upsetting to me, now that I’ve been part of the community. While it’s true that many of them face challenges both in and beyond their control that result in terrible circumstances, there are countless aspects of said community that I hope would never change. And until you truly experience and embrace another culture, you probably won’t understand how that’s possible, and why social injustice is wholly complex.
If this is all starting to sound like an academic paper to you, that’s because it probably will be some day. Soon. At a Georgetown University library near you.
Not that I’m surprised to be affected so much. I said before that I’m pretty self-aware, so I also know that I hold, at times, an unhealthy amount of empathy for others. Which is why I’m not capable of saying “my what an interesting year” and continuing on in my own world. Even if I’m not there anymore, even if I never see any of those kids ever again, I know that whatever I’m doing professionally will have some tie to them and that experience.
But I want to stress that what I did this year wasn’t some grand exercise or unique effort. It wasn’t any different than what thousands of other AmeriCorps members across the country and in various capacities did, even if mine seemed a little sexier due to certain events. So I can’t encourage participation in national and community service enough, even if it’s not the long-term kind like AmeriCorps. All you have to do is show up, fulfill, and be fulfilled. I don’t know how else to describe something that will affect everything else I ever do: how I see myself, how I see other people, how I conduct my life. There were lessons to be had in all of the good and bad that comes with that. On Abbey Road, Paul McCartney called it “carry[ing] that weight.”
So here I am, 24 years old and still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. I’m going to have another degree that, by design, isn’t exactly concrete about career paths. According to Myers-Briggs I need to do something “meaningful.” I couldn’t agree more, but gosh, that narrows it down. Good thing I know how “meaning” manifests in reality, because I lived it for 11 months. And so the only thing I’m certain of is that whether it’s indirectly or directly, I want to help people. What, does that sound trite to you? Because I think of Dimples, Tyson, Pixel, Red, Cupcake… and even Darth and Michael. And it doesn’t. It never will.
President Clinton recently published a book called Giving, which details various stories of community service from around the country and world. It also provides numerous resources for readers to become involved with service, themselves. It includes a lot of AmeriCorps mentions because the program as we know it now was founded through a Clinton initiative in 1994, much like JFK is remembered for his involvement with launching the Peace Corps. So, back in September, I heard he was scheduled to sign copies at the Pentagon City Costco. Since I didn’t have class that day, I got there bright and early and was probably about 40th in line for a signing that wouldn’t begin for 4 more hours.
I brought academic reading material but instead found myself lost in thought and people-watching the decidedly pluralistic crowd. If you don’t think that could keep me amused for 4 hours, you must be new to this blog.
Anyway, the event finally began and everything moved along efficiently – not surprising given the sheer number of people standing in line and the encroaching time limit. After nearing the front, the Secret Service agent ushered me around a fort of stacked 24-packs of coke and I watched those in front of me walk towards the former president (who was standing) for a smile, a handshake, and a signature, before being quickly shooed out the back. Finally I was motioned ahead to take my turn. But seeing as this would probably be the only chance I’d ever get, mid-handshake, I said, “thanks for AmeriCorps.”
His demeanor completely changed. It’s obvious what a personable and charming guy he is, and clearly he’d been sporting his meet-n-greet politician face, but I sensed a sudden change in authenticity. Not to mention he was actually talking to me when he apparently wasn’t supposed to. He asked me my name, and wanted to know about where I served, what it entailed, and what I thought about it. Our 3-minute conversation seemed to last an eternity considering the circumstances. He ended his last response to me with a “bless you” and signed my book. I joke with my friends now and laugh that “I was blessed by Bill Clinton in the Fresh Produce section of Costco,” but it’s clearly a conversation I’ll never forget.
The Secret Service had been quite explicit about herding us like a long string of cattle – that in the interest of time and security, there would be no inscriptions, no photos, no dawdling. Just get your damn book signed and move out.
So after settling into my seat in a strangely empty car of a blue line train, I opened my book and was surprised to find something above his signature:
“Danielle, thank you for serving in AmeriCorps.”
I’d just been personally thanked by a president. Not for a campaign donation or attending a rally, but for something so intimately important to me that I can’t put it in words. And while I will always have that permanent reminder, right there in black sharpie on the inside of my book, it will never compare to what I now have in my head and my heart — this perspective and empathy for a group of people that will always be the root of my motivation for pursuing some semblance of social justice in our society.
I looked at the metro map across the car from me, settling on a familiar neighborhood stop.
“No… thank you,” I said.
–Danielle Thomas, November 2007
If you managed to read this far, you deserve a cookie. I’d also love to know what you thought. Questions also welcomed.