Who are you?

If there's a central question in my life, it's the one that Emily Dickinson asked:  "I'm Nobody. Who are you? / Are you Nobody, too?"  She goes on to tell her imagined, commiserating friend that they ought to keep their status quiet, that being Nobody is risky, that we risk "banishment".  As she continues, she wonders what it means to be Somebody.  What does it mean to be admired for being that somebody?  Her conclusion:  boring.  It seems boring to live life that way.  In her very private way, Dickinson seemed to sort out her own writing life in that poem.  Her writing, her poetry was meant for her.  She was not trying to be Somebody.  She was simply trying to exist in a world where, frankly, women weren't meant to be much anyway.  In her world, being Somebody was only compatible with men's work.  But, her writing did make her exist.  It bore out the reality that, in the end, all people want desperately both to be known and to not be alone.  She wanted a partner and she wanted to put words on a page.  She wanted communion, a shared experience of the world and a confirmation that our place in it isn't entirely meaningless, particularly if we extend ourselves.  If we reach out and if we say something, whether it be privately or broadcast to the entire world, we instantly become something that we weren't.  We become honest, and that honesty begs for validation.  Is this true to you?  Is this how you see the world?  I think we don't want to be alone in our understanding of these things.  But, still, I've struggled with the question of being Somebody my entire life.  Often, I've found myself believing that my self-worth can only be defined by the measurable amount of impact I have on other people's lives.  It turns out, this is very hard to measure and see.  Dickinson's poem is terse, it has a sardonic twist, I think, that points it's finger in the face of society, asking them why a woman like her is Nobody.  In the end, I don't think she believed that at all about herself.  So, in her footsteps, I'm setting out believe similarly, no matter what I decide to do.  For now, I'm wondering what it means to accept that friendship, love and a simpler giving of one's self is enough.

As I move through this last week of my "work," I return to the thought that this work has been primarily about friendship, love, reaching out and speaking up.  Teaching is an inside-out profession.  By that, I mean that you can't do it without great reflection and emotion.  In fact, I think it's rooted in an essential belief about human beings:  we are all Somebody.  As I think back, as I anticipate the cleaning of shelves and cabinets, as I listen to end-of-year student reflections, and as I say goodbye, I find great solace in the idea that I've pursued something passionately and that I know what it means to feel that.  Particularly, I know what it means to work in pursuit of something so hopeful.  I think in teaching, we(teachers) hope that we (students, teachers, schools) are all Somebody, people capable of change and growth.  By working with teenagers, I have learned so much, the greatest of which is that hope is inextricably linked with our ability to change.  When we can't envision a different path or envision a different version of ourselves, we stay mired in whatever current misery we might be experiencing.  For many of my students, that misery is a much more palpable version of anything I've ever experienced.  And yet, so many of them have moved forward:  college, graduate school, writing, performing, rebelling, becoming activists.  They've taught me that it's brave to imagine something different, and it is also scary.  I am incredibly grateful to have been taught that.  I will remember them for that bravery, and for reasurring me that I will never be alone in feeling like a Nobody.  Again, for many of my students, society has not expected great things of them, but they knew better.  They knew to reach out, to speak up, to make friends and to love.  The knew to carry on.  They are incredible.  And I know, somewhere out there, one of them thinks I'm a Somebody.  That's enough.