At approximately 3:05 pm on this day I completed my first year of graduate studies at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Almost immediately I began to feel this huge sense of gratitude for the road that got me here and the road ahead. I wept on the train for happy reasons this time (v.s. my in ability to tolerate one more round of “show time” on the 2 train). None of this was on the trajectory for me even 3 years ago, and even when the blips did start to show, I was very doubtful of my ability to get accepted to a “reputable program” and excel in any way. The truth is I wouldn’t be here had I not had the kind words, good deeds, financial support, and sweeping generosity of others.
To my family: You’re the greatest. Thanks for supporting me even when you didn’t quite understand what it is I’m going after. One day it’ll all make sense.
To my friends: Your love, light and laughter keep me going on sooooo many days. You have no idea how many times I look back on our text conversations/emails or listen to voice mails just to feel connected when I feel like an idiot or like I’m all alone in this thing (yes, this makes me weird … and a little stalkish, but you knew this about me already.)
To my classmates: My special group of comrades in the trenches, who get how emotionally crippling it can be when plot lines don’t make sense, or your protag doesn’t have a proper antagonist, or when your story doesn’t have a dramatic arc, but by god is it fucking funny. Thank you for the time spent looking at my work and sharing your opinions in an effort to help me make it better.
(and to my Tisch Asia crew … YOU MADE IT MUPHUCKAS!!!! Party up! I look forward to growing long friendships with you all that with any luck leads to us swimming in a sickening amount of cash … that we can then hand over to the government for our student loans.)
Ok, this is getting longer than I wanted it to be and I don’t want it to come off like some douchey acceptance speech, but I do think it’s proper to stop, observe, and give thanks because I definitely didn’t make it this far on my own.
Salute!
Rosie.
p.s. If you’ve stumbled upon this blog at a point in your life when your deciding whether or not you’re good enough for … whatever … fuck that. You are. Just do it. You never know where it might take you.
My time at Tisch and NYC in general, thus far has lead me to some realizations, startling and otherwise. Once the apartment hunting was done (The Bronx … who knew), the classes were paid for, and the first day had, it dawned on me that I had in no real way prepared for getting what I wanted. That’s right, I’d thrown so much energy into the fight to get here that I’d invested essentially none on what I would do once I was doing what I came here to do. Hence, I have spent the last four weeks flopping around like an epileptic at a performance of River Dance (I’m sorry, that was horrible). Moving on.
The first startling realization was that I was the only Black one in my graduating class. (Ok, so it wasn’t that startling. I sat down the first day, looked around, I was it.) I spent the first week and a half feeling like I, as one of my friends so aptly put it ,”the future of Black playwriting was on my shoulders.” This thought served to simultaneously stroke my ego; as I pictured myself doing battle with a hyper-villainous Tyler Perry driving my mighty quill through his coonish heart, and scare the beloved shit outta me. “Everything I say has to be so carefully laid out, my message clear and concise. It’s so important.” I thought as I lay around and wrote not a fuckin’ THING. I was stuck. This lead me to my second startling realization.
I had no CLUE what I wanted to write about. I had a million lofty ideas that seem to do nothing but dance around in my skull 24hrs a day when was in Charlotte. In New York, I dunno, I think they were chased out by the sounds of trains, screaming vagrants, and cholo cart bells (alas coconut icee, I shall miss you this winter). The scrap of sanity I felt I had left lead me to seek refuge in my usual avenues. I met good people, did grounding things, got sound advice, and pulled my head just far enough out of my ass to have a moment of clarity which lead me to my third realization (or I should say re-realization because it always comes back to this for me).
Nobody gives a shit. I don’t mean this in that too-cool-for-school Bronx Tale kinda way, but rather people are far too busy worrying about their own real lives to give a shit about whether I can generate words for this outrageously expensive graduate program I chose to attend. This is my “dream car”. I have to drive it. I have to provide the fuel that determines the type of exhaust I put out. I use regular gas. I’mma get regular assed exhaust, the kind people choke on and does the world little good. However, if I use the brain between my ears and keep the pen moving in my hand, I might be able to produce something I can be proud of whatever or whoever it’s about.*
The ideas have slowly but surely began to repopulate. This New York life has started to feel more like mine despite the people and places I miss back in Charlotte. I can make a go of this I think. Right? Write.
Rosie.
*where the hell did that car analogy come from tho?
For the last week or so I’ve been letting it all soak in (that and panicking over whether or not I’d receive a Grad Plus Loan). After nearly two years of highs, lows, breakthroughs and disappointments I am now poised to take my seat in one of the most prestigious MFA programs for dramatic writing in the world. Any doubts that I had about deserving to be here have been obliterated. Fuck. That. I’ve worked my ass off, paid dues, took praises, and people’s slick shit talkin’. So why do I still feel like a pimply faced 16 year-old most of the time? As the old adage goes: No matter where you go there you are.
One truth that my experience thus far has drilled into me is human nature’s constant state of flux. The irony is we seem to be born equipped to detest even the slightest changes and will often do the strangest things, e.g. self sabotaging (my go to strategy btw), to avoid it. I at times literally have to be dragged kicking and screaming into transition. Sometimes I’ll put a toe in the pool of transition only to have Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed shove me, lovingly, all the way in.
And shoved I was this summer. Nothing, and I do me NO. THING. Has been constant since I’ve left the safety of my job, family, and friends in sunny Charlotte, NC. I have been living a little of everywhere. I have been jobless since July 20th. Now … in the grand scheme of joblessness, I know this is no major deal but going from knowing exactly where your next dollar is coming from for fourteen years to not knowing when the hell I’m ever gonna work again, for me is terrifying. Calculate in my baseline fear that this shit was gonna fall apart in any second and I would be headed back to Charlotte with my tail tucked firmly between my legs, and it seems that I should very well be a basket case. These are the times that I give thanks for my grounding practices.
Recovery, yoga, meditation, great friends, supportive family, arts, and culture have collectively saved my life this summer. The abundance of it to be found for free is proof for me that the universe wants to love us through the changes that we will inevitably go through no matter what we have or don’t have. More often than not this summer I’ve felt like the kid who’d ventured out to the middle of the monkey bars and lost faith that he could get to the other side. Then I’d call or text someone and find the courage to extend my hand to the next bar. I got my heart broken. I headed to a meeting, and was off swinging again. My job hunt was essentially fruitless. I dangled wanting very badly to let go, but then I go to yoga and listen while Amy (the most amazing yogi I’ve met thus far) tells me to “root my tree” and just like that, I am here, on the other side of the monkey bar … only to realize that there is a playground called life that’s full of them.
The gift of my summer of discontent is my enhanced ability to thrive through unpredictability. Finding peace within while my clothes are scattered to the four corners of Newark, centering when in the midst of the realization that I may not accomplish what I came all this way to do, and taking the next required action with my hands shaking and the tears falling has served to make me ready for whatever is next. Even if I’m not, I know help is available for the Bible, Quran, Yoga Vedas, Deepak Chopra, Oprah Winfrey, and my Momma tell me so.
It was the 80s. Cyndi Lauper was reppin’ Cap’n Lou Albanohard. The then WWF was in its golden age and was the happy ending to many children’s (and adults) Saturday morning brain freeze. There were the rivalries. Oh, the rivalries! Rowdy Roddy Piper vs. Superfly Jimmy Snuka. Randy “Macho Man” Savage vs. The Ultimate Warrior, George “The Animal” Steele vs. any turnbuckle he encountered. The rivalries that really made you lick your chops though … I’m talkin’ the ones that would unite the neighborhood bully with the lithe bookworm whose ass he’d just kicked the Friday afternoon before; were the USA vs. the “Evil Foreigner” grudge matches . The USA would usually be represented by the Sergeant Slaughters or The Hulk Hogans of the world. The “Evil Foreigner” would be represented by some one like say, The Iron Sheik. The shit felt real as hell too. It felt like the world was going to end and evil would run rampant throughout the planet if Sergeant Slaughter got snared in The Sheik’s deadly Camel Clutch.
This sort of sentiment is not new and it echoes throughout American life. It’s like the US can’t find shit else to unite about except a tragedy reigned down upon our innocent souls by a real or imagined demonic boogie men (exclusively from somewhere else, because you can’t honest and for true be American and evil simultaneously) or our hatred of other countries/races because of their refusal to bow down to our natural superiority. I don’t say this from an “above it all” place either. I was sitting on my couch, crying uncontrollably, and singing God Bless America on September 12th 2001 like many other Americans. As far as I was concerned, on that day, “W” coulda rendered the entire middle east dust. The fact is, at that time, that level of violence on American soil was extremely foreign, at least to my generation. It felt like a complete violation of who we were and something had to be done, right then, right there, no matter the cost. America … FUCK YEAH.
Over ten years of hindsight has removed the rose-colored glasses that allowed us to continue the view of America as “Police Officer of the World” … well some of us anyway. Many now recognize that we may need to sweep around our own proverbial front porches before we go about taking on the liberation and democratization of nations around the globe. However, lately when it seems every week POTIS is headed to another American city to give a speech of condolence and empowerment, the Unity Mob mentality seems to have grown and mutated (with the help of social media of course) into this beastly caricature of stock American values that rages like a new pimple for about a week, but is salved by a healthy dose of baby KimYe coverage.
As horrible as I felt about what happened in Boston, I could not help but cringe while listening to the post capture rhetoric that began to sound like Oscar speeches. It’s fantastic that they caught this guy alive, and that we’ll hopefully be able to peek into the mind of people like him to find out why they carry out horrific attacks like the one at the marathon, but does there need to be an exaggerated sense of celebration in a major American city being on lock down (to the tune I’ve heard of $33 million a day?!) There were Lock Down Parties. Jesus M. H. Christ what does it all mean?
At this point, I’ve become a little unpatriotic to some, sacrilegious to others, and probably both to Newt Gingrich who would probably call me an ungrateful black slut if I ever made it onto his radar, but I would really like to know where the extended man hunts are for the crime trodden streets of the inner city of Chicago? Do they not occur because you can’t encapsulate the issues of the inner city into a neatly boxed media package that can be consumed and shat out in under a week? Where are the Unity Mobs when our kids are being fed directly from schools into prison by a sub par education system? Where are the Unity Mobs when young black and latino teens are privy to being target by NYPD on a whim because the police have carte blanche to determine who “looks” like a criminal? Is it that these segments of America not worth getting fired up over to the angry masses?
Or are they so busy warming up their typing fingers for the new big “it” tragedy? Maybe they’re somewhere wracking their brains trying to figure out where the dreadful folks who do this type of thing come from? Well I’ve got a theory. I believe they come from Us. Yes, the great old US of A that has been creating sociological problems and ignoring the repercussions since inception. We made these monsters, and instead of chasing them down desperately trying to connect them to the “other” via religion or race, maybe we should be trying to figure out and take action to heal the parts of our system that is creating such beautiful minds with a propensity for death and destruction.
In 2002 I sat for the clinical exams for my RRT (Registered Respiratory Therapist) credential. The easiest part, at least for me, were the straight forward questions on the shit that could easily be found Egan’s Fundamentals of Respiratory Care textbook. The shitty part, and the part ironically that would tend to foreshadow what my career in respiratory care looked like, were the clinical simulations. The clinical sims walked you through theoretical scenarios. Some of the patients had blatantly obvious problems like pneumonia, COPD, asthma the stuff you knew you were signing up for as a therapist. It got fuzzy when babies with ambiguous symptoms came rolling through your virtual ED and all you could rely on were your clinical assessment skills. So, Patient Q came barreling through the door with a persistent 3 week dry cough, low-grade fever, and other symptoms that could mean everything yet nothing.
I’d go through a specific symptom, apply the solution that I thought was correct, and would receive the heart stopping response of:
PHYSICIAN DISAGREES
By the 3rd or 4th “disagreement” I thought for sure that I’d killed my virtual patient and shat away the hundreds of dollars that I’d spent on the exam. As it turns out my patient survived because of the choices I made. I walked out of the H&R block testing center fist pumping like 80s Judd Nelson. Now let’s apply that to my real life in respiratory therapy shall we:
I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve had an opinion that was the “right answer” in the direction of patient care but was summarily ignored by the physician charged with caring for the patient. The difference in real life is that lives will not be miraculously saved by a test that happens to know which care plan is better. In fact …
*Bombshell Alert*
People get very sick and or die because of physician pride, incompetence, or apathy. I wish I could say that I haven’t seen it as many times as I have in this now almost 14 years as a therapist, but it’s true. When a physician would rather Google how to operate a particular type of life support rather than ask the real live person on duty who has experience with the equipment how to proceed (yes, this happened … to ME), then there is a major problem with how the healthcare team functions and the real losers in this game are, as always, patients. Do I blame all physicians? No.
I blame the set up of the healthcare “system”. Doctors are all too often placed in a position where they cannot be vulnerable, where they can’t say “I don’t know” or appear not to, hell where a patient with no medical knowledge whatsoever can waltz into their office and tell them what to prescribe. This type of system sets doctors up to be on the defensive. They have the image of the authoritarian on all things medical to uphold after all. It’s a sucky conundrum and a large chunk of the reason why I didn’t proceed to medical school.
The only solution I see in this age of information where the patient truly is more well versed about their disease process than the doctor, is a more team based approach where the doctor is still at the helm, but know when to trust the advice of specialist that have seen certain things a time or two more that she/he has. I’ve seen this set up before, mainly at teaching hospitals, and from what I’ve experienced it works. Granted, it then places the responsibility for competency in the lap of staff, but I’d rather have my opinion respected and expected than to just be a “knob turner” at the mercy of a doctor who is burned out, apathetic, and just doesn’t want to be called anymore. Mutual respect to the benefit of those we are charged to care for: Is that too much to ask? Me thinkest not.
I and apparently thousands of other Americans went to watch Quentin Tarantino‘s Django Unchanged over the Christmas holiday. This post is not about that film … really. It is about why the film, like it or not, is an important move forward in the discussion of who tells the stories of blacks in America and at what cost. Hollywood (film and television) for better or worse is how many people globally are exposed to African Americans and/or African American culture. If one keeps in mind the images of African Americans that are put out through these vehicles it is no surprise that we are highly misunderstood by the much of world at large. The fact is the “African American Experience” is as broad and diverse as the people who live it. This is a fact that is often over looked or blatantly disregarded to the detriment of Blacks in America.
Our story isthis country’s dirty laundry, shoved aside, hid under humor, rage, and stock characters but never fully exposed or wholly understood. Whose responsibility is it to tell the story of blacks in America? The most logical answer would seem to be the people that have walked through it. The next questions could then be: “which” people? Black people, white people, hell the entire country for that matter has some level of interest/perspective in African American history. There are as many “truths” as there are people, but what I feel cannot and should not be discounted or disrespected in the telling of any story of Blacks in America is the ugliness of the past and it’s legacy that bleeds into the Black American existence to this day.
Even then the question of what counts as “disrespect” lingers. It’s all too sordid and was the main reason I left Django Unchained mildly enraged and only vaguely entertained. For me it just leaves the flood gates open for random violation of a history that has already been looted and pillaged beyond recognition. (See shit like this:
… *sigh*)
I wanted lay into their asses something awful, but what would be the point? There is no united front of black folks that are prepared to shut down the Hollywood machine on the strength of disrespect of our culture. (see: Jews vs. Mel Gibson‘s career)
What is there to do if anything about protecting, preserving, and presenting a diverse view of what it is to be Black in America? Well from where I sit there are a few options:
1. Tell my own Black story as open and honestly as I can and do my best to ensure it reaches somebody thensomebody else then somebody else …
2. Stop depending on/expecting Hollywood to tell your, my, our “truth” (see: Awkward Black Girl) They don’t give a shit bout nothing but a dollar, period. If they think it’ll put asses in seats … it’ll get made.
3. Stop feeling like it is our responsibility to make people out side our race and culture understand us. Fuck that. We have no control over how people are going think or feel about us. If they really want to understand “the black community”* then they better damn well get off their asses and do the research.
Okay, I think I got it all out. At least for now … until the next bit of unintentional bigotry surfaces … which is probably goin’ down right now at some hipster drinking establishment in Williamsburg. (ugggh!)
Rosie.
* this term should be outlawed and those insisting on using it systematically tortured … but that’s another post all together.
http://youtu.be/aAthMi5Kz5g
I was absolutely BUSTING to be in the middle of the melee that is the DNC in CLT when I arrived in Uptown Charlotte this past Tuesday. No sooner than my feet hit the pavement had I been greeted by the mad bullhorn ravings of the pro-lifers. They gnashed their terrible teeth, roared their terrible roars, rolled their terrible eyes, and brandished their terrible photos of mangled fetuses. They called the president a Muslim as if it were the most wicked thing one could be. They said “Mmmmussslim” in a tone that eerily mimicked the sound of the word Nigger in pre-civil rights Alabama. Then in the next breath spoke about the loving redemption to be found in Christ and how we must protect our children against the threat posed by the Obama administration.
For my money, the pro-lifers are far more threatening and imposing than any presidential administration I’ve ever lived through. It is not their religion, but more so the application of it that is frightening. Using the Bible/Christianity to justify dictating a woman’s reproductive rights mirrors the mentality used to justify the enslavement of an entire race of people. It’s that “white-male-forefather” mentality re-imagined and thinly veiled. It implies that there is one moral code that applies universally when that simply isn’t true.
While there are certain things that tend to apply across cultures (e.g. though shalt not kill, steal etc.) almost everything else really depends on the views of the individuals or groups within a culture. When those “views” impeded on individual human rights then it’s time to re-evaluate those views; as was done with slavery, as was done during women’s suffrage … Oh wait, we have dealt with this shit already (See Roe vs. Wade). Then, as was stated and re-stated during speeches and discussions after last night’s DNC coverage, “Why in the hell are we still talking about it?”
My theory: Because of those damn monsters! Those control seeking, white-male-paternalistic monsters inside the minds and hearts of certain men. They continue to seek to make their religion, their morals, their values the law of the land, all while conveniently forgetting this patch of green wasn’t theirs to begin with. They resist the inevitable transitions happening in this country sometimes aloud with bullhorns, hellfire, and brimstone or sometimes quietly with laws and legislation designed to “protect” women and children. Well I, as a woman and the descendant of those that were “owned”, would like to suggest that these folk shove their ideology up their asses.
I’m a grown woman who is mentally intact (on most days). I’m fully capable of making my own decisions (“right” or “wrong”) about my body. I will resist at the cellular level any attempt to control, dominate, suppress, undermine or otherwise violate my Barbara Goodbush or the body in which she resides. I would hope any woman in her right mind would do the same.
Rosie.
The word of the day is VAGINA. Can you say that Vuh J-eye Nuuuh
Given the history of race relations in this country I find it 100% absurd that black Americans are often silently requested to mute their pride in America’s first black president. At the same time we’re also asked to ignore the fact that every president before him was white and male. God bless America and it’s bottomless self-denial. God bless America’s blissful ignorance that allows people to ignore the air of bitterness, resentment, and out right hatred have supposedly has nothing to do with the color of our president’s skin.
I refuse to hold my tongue a second longer. The fact that Barack Obama is our president and black at the same time does my heart good. Something that was deemed a mission impossible that quite frankly I’d given up hope of ever seeing happen, happened in 2008. I was proud of our country’s ability to galvanize behind someone that more closely represented what we’re supposed to be as a nation, and it’s tragic that some don’t see it that way.
As much as I disliked George Bush, I never hated him. I never wished ill on him. Did I question his decision making skills? Yes. Did I or anyone I knew for that matter create racist bumper stickers lobbying against his re-election … No.
Well, wait. I’d have to be in a position of power or a member of a dominating majority, thus enabling me to withhold certain rights and privileges from another group to in fact be “racist”. So umm no, couldn’t have done that effectively if I’d tried … moving on.
There is a dialogue about race that bubbles under the surface of this country that longs to be had. That erupts in groups like the Tea Party that call for a return to the America of our “Forefathers” who may I remind, grew this country on the backs of slaves. It’s the continued perpetuation of falsehoods about President Obama’s nationality and what religion he practices. Really? Like any of that nullifies that he’s probably one of the most intelligent presidents this country has had and that his story and that of his wife are walking interpretations of the “American Dream”.
The story of blacks in America is a story among many thousands of stories about people who endure adversity around the world. It begins and ends with race for black people in America. Period. To deny the story of race in America would be like Jews denying the holocaust. We would never dream of asking Jews to forget the atrocities of the holocaust, so why then does it seem within reason to ask that blacks in America forget, deny or (my favorite) “get over racism” when it penetrates every facet of our lives? You don’t see it? Then there’s a great chance you’re not black.
My race is not ALL that I am, but it has played a major role in making me who I am. Why am I playing the race card? Because it is the card I was dealt, and dammit we have to play the hand we are dealt. Barack and Michelle Obama played the hell out of theirs and they inspire me to achieve despite any circumstances that are in my way. That lesson applies across race, creed, sexual preference, physical ability, you name it … it applies. Republican or Democrat you can’t deny that.
Barack Obama’s success can be our success as a country. We as a nation have to “call a spade a spade” when it comes to the underlying rage displayed by so many at the mere mention of the Obama name. We’re better than this. We must allow ourselves the opportunity to see the significance of who Barack Obama is and what his story means outside of our feelings one way or the other about his politics. And after that damn speech Willie Clinton laid down, I don’t know about you, but I am FIRED UP and READY TO GO!!! I’m ready to believe, like a five year old in the tooth fairy, that this country can be a nation united.
I’ll be the very first to admit that I don’t know much of shit about politics. I’ll go even further and say that most people who cast their votes don’t either. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. We’re all too busy living our lives I suppose. However, as a writer, I sometimes feel compelled to have a “voice” or a solid opinion on “key” issues when all I really have is my experience which is the source of most of the material I write. If it resonates with a group or speaks to larger “profound” vision. Cool. If not, it doesn’t really matter. It’s still my truth, and I am the only person I can speak for.
Now I find myself in the middle of a political convention as a writer wanting to say something, but not feeling qualified enough. There are plenty of people up and down the glorious throughway of North Tryon St., on television, on the internet, and on the radio poised to shove their opinion down, through, and in any orifice you have available whether you’d like it or not. Me, well all I can give you is this whole shindig through my own cultural filter. With that said …
… this is who I am: I’m a lower middle class black female, a single mother of one. I grew up culturally rich but fiscally poor and black in the New Jersey. These elements are my lens through which I see my life. It is that lens that I will present my muses, random ramblings, and flickers of inspiration for the next few days. It may not be comfortable for all audiences. I will be non-belligerent, and as honest as my cowardly soul will allow me to be. I vow to keep is simple as Sesame Street when I can. Come to think of it, that’s what Uptown Charlotte feels like right now … a really warped Sesame Street … only there are too many guest stars and not enough Muppets to greet them so they just roam endlessly and scream about the things that bother them … All while Snuffy sits in the infamous “empty chair” and smokes a hooka and giggles. Anyway … Ready kids? We’re going to the DNC!
Level I: The Bottom Line – (breathe, eat, sleep, crap, pay rent … repeat.)
I like my job. My day job … respiratory therapy … yeah, like it. I like the hospital where I work, and the folks (day and night shift) that I work with. I do not love my job. I don’t love it for reasons that have nothing to do with the job itself, more so than I do not enjoy being under the employ of others. I do not like other people having the ability to decide (at their on discretion, by the way, in this great state of North Carolina) whether or not I will receive a pay check that I will use to support myself and my family. What I have come to learn though is that it’s not necessarily the employment, but the attitude that I carry in with me that determines whether or not I am happy. We gotta work, there’s no denying that, sooo …
I work. And on my way to work this past Thursday, as is often customary, I was listening to NPR. Then this warming humanitarian piece came pouring through the car stereo:
All manner of bells, whistles, and alerts went off. Negro spirituals ebbed and flowed, pickaninnies danced spirited jigs, visions of Haile Selassie with a shine kit ready to buff well worn loafers into golden sandals appeared and disappeared. Then Rush … Rush Limbaugh in all his boundless wisdom entered and said, “Goddam liberal media.” –– and I agreed with him (terrifying, I know).
Maybe in an America in an alternate universe where the African Slave Trade never happened, where blacks many years post slavery were not largely prevented performing anything but menial work due to roadblocks in education, financial, and sociological advancement, this story could be a soul stirring human interest story. This ain’t that America. And I could not conceive of how this story got green lighted. I mean JEEZ:
“At Concourse D, there’s one shoeshiner with a thick African accent, a soul patch, and an interesting story to tell.”
Like what in the entirefuckis and “African accent” or a soul patch for that matter. Ok … digressing.
During my post listen nausea I began to think of the very sordid and stereotype riddled relationship with blacks and labor in this country, and realized that this was probably another source for my disdain for work. Then some of my humanist buddhisty thought kicked in (which is great, because being frustrated with racism in this “post racial” world is exhausting.) This allowed my view to broaden enough for me to arrive at the next level.
Level II: Be SOMEBODY! – (I want you to want me, I need you to need me.)
I dare say that everybody wants to be important/significant/necessary. In our society, and in many for that matter, a person’s livelihood or role in that society is the means by which people arrive at their “somebodyhood”. Which works, except when it doesn’t. I will refer to my healthcare career again here.
During my career I have met the most brilliant CNAs (nurse aids as they were once called) and the most brilliantly idiotic doctors (some dangerously so). In the healthcare hierarchy of deeds it is the MD that receives all the respect and accolades in the general public, followed closely by nursing. What the general public does not often see, unless they have the misfortune of becoming ill, is the entire healthcare team.
Respiratory therapists, pharmacy techs, secretaries, lab, x-ray, PT, OT, Speech therapists, the social work team, environmental services, clinical engineering … we make up an intricate web of people who take care of those who have limited or no ability to take care of themselves. We are where the rubber meets the road, the folks that carryout the orders of the good (and not so good) doctors. I’m not saying that I haven’t worked with some amazing doctors in my time as a therapist because I have and without nursing there would be a gaping hole in healthcare that would be impossible to fill, but it sucks that as important/significant/necessary/ as our jobs are people often don’t know or care that we’re doing them … unless we’re not.
So why do we still do the work? Mainly because of the bottom line, but when you find folks that have hung in there for years and are still generally happy there’s usually a bigger reason (either that or they’re masochists 😉 ). At our core, or at least at mine, I enjoy people. My patients, my co-workers, err body. They make the work I do bearable. Over the years we have loved each other through unspeakable tragedy and limitless joy. I have laughed harder than I have ever laughed at work and cried harder than I have ever cried. It was this that I was thinking of when I made my final decent into the parking lot of “The U” last Thursday. I was glowing with the light of universal love and brotherhood. I had arrived at …
Level III: I AM somebody.
My mother is the foundation of my beliefs about work. She worked hard from age 16 to age 42 at a job on which she was one of the first blacks. She had to take a test to even get the job, an effort by a then lily white company (New Jersey Bell) to keep blacks out. My mother went on to become a union delegate. She fought (sometimes literally) for the rights of the worker that while they might not be recognized individually that they be respected and treated fairly. This I believe this to be the real bottom line, decent work for decent compensation and fair treatment. My mother was never one to see one person’s job as important and another person’s as insignificant. Work was work. I couldn’t appreciate her example then, but I do now.
As much as it pains me to admit it, even the shoe shiner’s job is important/significant/necessary. It provides a moment of respite for the weary business traveler, a means of financial support for “Shine”, his family, and the league of Ethiopian shoe shiners in training he has back at home (I’m sorry … I’m trying to let it go, but can’t he find something else to do?) Just as the healthcare team is a bridge of support for the sick, we are a bridge of support for one another in life. Each section of the bridge from the bolts (shoe shines) to the the planks (doctors) perform a function that we might not necessarily understand, but without which we would be lacking.
From the Rose's Mouth 