Many years ago when I was still teaching in the classroom I found my people. My people came to me. I didn’t have to go looking for them because tra-la-laaaa I am just that ridiculously lazy. For some reason, a bunch of young teachers and I all seemed to click together one year. We were teaching at a middle school and everyone seemed fantastically awesome. Like I had fallen into the land of Oz of teaching where we ate flower cups and swam in a lake of chocolate. Hold on. That’s Willy Wonka. I’m actually going to just leave that analogy because it still fits. Except there was no Violet turning Violet, Violet nor was there a fat kid getting sucked up by a tube. There might have been a golden goose who was behind the curtain with a robot chicken.

My God. My childhood movie watching has morphed into my adult late night television watching and mixed itself a cocktail. Somebody either hold me or get me a bowl of Fruity Pebbles. Because I can tell this story is going to take a left turn at Albuquerque. 

LEFT.

Before I mention My People I have to mention running into some idiots this past week who were so far removed from My People that I had to wonder if they were people themselves. It was a group of people at the mall (the mall, y’all) where I had to run in to get my tights for the season. That sounds like a weird thing, but I love tights and wear them throughout the fall months because I enjoy keeping all my goodies intact even though sometimes I’m sure they’re trying to strangle me and sell my body parts to the Mattel Corporation for use in the mocha-colored Barbie dolls. There is such a thing, isn’t there? So, while I’m power walking through the mall to get said tights I see a gaggle of students whom I am trying to avoid because the administrator in me wants to yell, ‘PULL UP YOUR PANTS’ even though I know I shouldn’t do that when they’re just trying to get a warm pretzel but still. It almost comes out of my mouth but I sidestep them and they don’t really notice that it’s me which is a really good thing because I tire of the whole “What are YOU doing here?” question I always get because apparently I am an android who doesn’t require groceries or clothing or furniture polish. Then, I happen upon these people who are taking pictures of their socks. SOCKS. Socks that are not at all interesting. There are no sparkles or Santa wearing underwear or anything and I’m seriously starting to wonder if I shouldn’t do my tight shopping online. Socks. WTF, sock fetishists? 

My People like socks, but they don’t need to take pictures of them. My People were enthusiastic, creative, helpful teachers. We didn’t all teach the same curriculum either. Math, science, language arts. But something about this group of seven women clicked and we stuck with it. In the time since I started teaching with them we’ve seen marriage, divorce, house-building, pregnancy, miscarriage, hospital stays, autism, ADHD, and parties. There’s something I can say for that group: they know how to party. It was an anything goes time for us and someday I might tell you about the time we crashed a Halloween party when I was dressed as a pregnant nun and handed out communion (Hello, Hell. Are you ready for me yet?) and then later had to use the restroom so badly but didn’t feel like heading back into the house because it was constantly In Use so I just relieved myself outside. On the lawn. Of a stranger’s house. Dressed as a nun. 

These are the stories I can’t wait to tell the grandkids.

These gals helped me find myself and have fun doing it. They cried with me and laughed at me and we cooked together and I got my nickname of “Mocha” from one of them. It’s a beautiful thing when we can watch each other crash and burn and then pick up the pieces while each of us moves through the maze to find ourselves. It’s not always pretty, but it is what it is. But the really beautiful thing is that they also taught me to be vulnerable and allow myself to be taken care of and to always speak my mind because I might just have something interesting to say. Ok, so not like right now or anything. But sometimes. And when I get my lips to flapping I don’t always remember that it may be not-so-much-PC or that I let fly an opinion about a topic without wondering what the other person’s experiences have taught them about the topic and let loose a firestorm.

Last year I was talking with another former colleague and friend who told me that she won a $500 library for her classroom because of something I said. I was horrified that I might have said something rather stupid and I asked what thing could have possibly fallen out of my mouth to make her win books. One time in her classroom and we were talking about a myriad of things related to race and education and I told her that I started reading adolescent fiction and began to feel sorry for Black girls because they don’t often get to see a true reflection of themselves in literature. “Black girls don’t want to read ONLY about white girls and their experiences. They want to see themselves in books. Do you always assume that a character is white when you read a novel? Is that because the cover shows a white girl? Black girls want to read about themselves, too.” Without telling me about it, she responded to my comment by purchasing more adolescent fiction about Black girls and has continued to add them to her classroom collection until she started taking classes to get her Master’s degree and then mentioned this to someone who mentioned it to someone else and…well, the story goes that she wrote about it in a contest and won the money to put toward more books to help her students of all colors see themselves in what they read. She said to me, “If I made a difference it’s because someone opened my eyes. That was you.” Then, of course, I wept myself into a little puddle and felt so proud of my big mouth because, in a strange turn of events, it led to making a change in her that led to making a change in her classroom with her students and the students to come.

I might have made the youthful mistake of urinating outside one time while dressed as a nun, but sometimes my stupidity actually has some nice, unintended consequences. Willy Wonka would be smug about this whole thing.