Email Overview: entirely sponsored by serendipity

    ^ drawing the ‘how-to-zine’ zine

A young woman who'd volunteered at BOOK's at the thrift store friended me on FB recently--I hadn't seen her since Covid, and she's moved out east.
Her beautiful spirit was always grace in the grind, and I was glad to meet her again. She emailed asking for a copy of the How to Darn a Sock zine, and I wrote back.

I'm putting most of my email to her here, as a record of where I am at this moment:

Hello, Akiko [not her real name]!!!

It was so nice to see you pop up on FaceBook a while ago! Thank you for friending me there, and all those years ago (five?) at the store too.

You were actually just the tonic that I needed a few weeks ago.
See, about 12 weeks ago, I started working as a Special Ed Assistant (SEA) with autistic students at W High School.

I've had nothing to do with public education since I left it myself, forty-plus years ago.
I remember high school un-fondly, as being like mind-control prison.
I was surprised to discover that it's not changed much!
There aren't dress codes, so that's better;
but the doors are locked from the inside and outside, and that's worse:
"Let's give up freedom for the illusion of 'safety'."
Is that a good trade?
I don't think so.

"We have to lock the doors because of shooters," everyone tells me.
???
"Uh-huh," I say. "Haven't you seen the movie? The call is from inside the house.
Like, it's quite likely a shooter would be a student like at Columbine who brought guns INSIDE the school. And now everyone's trapped inside."

Anyway---I was feeling down about this the day you popped up, and I was heartened:
THERE ARE PEOPLE LIKE AKIKO out there, working for a different world for kids, and for all.

I remember you gardening with young people, for instance--and of course the bang-up job you did with kids books at the store.
Thank you!

I felt so encouraged by those memories --and how you are always so generous with your support of other people working for Community-- I felt boosted to keep doing what I can do inside the system.
And actually, I can do a lot.

It's like at the thrift store, where I'd felt so down sometimes about the larger system, but I never stopped believing that miniature things matter, like approaching each person AS A PERSON... asking them their name, etc.

One of the last things that came to me at work was the opportunity to bless a little plushy dog that a street worker was buying herself for protection. I was putting out toys and I happened to be holding a magic toy wand (from Frozen, LOL). I offered to bless the stuffed dog, and she accepted. I said something like,
"Be a good friend for our friend, watch out for her and keep her safe."

It was actually a high point of my time there--
that I could take what I'd learned at the store (don't be afraid; see everybody),
blend in my love of stuffed animals (did you know I repair/restore them sometimes?),
and call on my time in the Catholic Church, which is almost the only human place where I've encountered remnants of magic.
And now I can take that into school!

There are TONS of opportunities to import "stealth magic" into high school for kids who are mostly treated as not-equals in school.

I want to add, there are some wonderfully creative, smart, loving adults and opportunities in the school too.
A student could have a great time there, getting involved in theater or robot-building; studying ASL or Arabic; and other cool things.

But, overall, if you're in a locked building and some people (adults) can get out, but you (kids) can't... ?
Yeah.
Not equal.

So, little things like introducing zines---not so little!
I made the sock darning zine in art class---I attend this "gen-ed" (not special ed) class with one autistic student, and I can work on my own stuff.

The librarian who is my favorite person in the school (surprise, surprise) suggested he put the zine out in the library, free for the taking.
YAY!
(I will work on other mending zines and send them to you, but so far this is the only one.)

Then I got the idea to make another zine with instructions on "How to Make a Zine Like This"
(I'll mail you a copy of that one too, and I'll put it out at the library too)---
and the special-ed English teacher I assist said we can offer zine-making as an option to kids when they make their own graphic memoirs.

Sadly to me, most of my immediate coworkers don't care about this sort of thing.
They tend to focus on getting kids to comply...
Sigh.

But again, that means there's lots of room to introduce a little liberation...
The other day in that English class, the teacher had to leave for about 10 minutes, unexpectedly.
She handed me a grammar worksheet about pronouns (first, second, third person--not gender), and asked if I'd teach it.

I started into it, and it was immediately clear the students didn't even understand the concept of parts of speech at all---no one had laid the groundwork by explaining what grammar IS.
I was unprepared, but I brought in...
Stuffed animals! (I can't even remember how this came up, but it sort of fit in naturally...)
I said I sleep with a very soft koala--did anyone else have a plushie?

I said that no one had to talk, but eventually everyone joined in talking about their stuffed animals!
The English teacher is always shutting the kids down---she wants them to be QUIET--so any little conversation about their lives feels important.
And some kid brought up a scary experience---unrelated to anything except his entire life---and we talked about that a little.

So many of the kids have tough life experiences...
We could so easily be talking about that as we read Romeo & Juliet, etc.
I actually don't understand why the teacher discourages this, because it'd be so much more fun and meaningful for the adults as well:
We're stuck here all day too!

I don't understand a lot of what I'm seeing, so I'm waiting and watching... and doing what I can when I see openings.

Meanwhile, I'm starting to sew/mend more again in public--outside at parks and waterfronts-- with my friend Julia, who I met years ago when we both volunteered at Steeple People Thrift (closed before your time, I think). We used to do that a lot, before Covid.

People often stop and ask what we're doing if we sew in public... So we thought we'd start doing that a lot more.
We're going to be mending at the riverfront this Saturday by Stone Arch Bridge & the farmers market---This is not something we're announcing, it's entirely unofficial--
entirely sponsored by serendipity.

I'll bring my sock mending zine to give away.
I wish you could drop by!

I'm happy you've connected with a good person out east! From your FB, it looked like the break-up with S. was rocky--I'm sorry about that.
And your birthday came with a mental health crisis? I'm sad for that, but it looks like you have good support... and GOOD SPIRIT!

Thanks, by the way, for your words of support for the supporters--your acknowledgement of that work was really nice for me personally.
It's like we're all the clean-up crew for each other, mopping up the damage inflicted by systems like the one that thinks it's a good idea to lock students in...

But we can do it!
We can create within those stunting systems!
We can send tendrils of green growing things through the bars!

On we go...
Love, Fresca