Judy Sunde Hanawalt

Things I'm Thinking About

Month: February 2015

My First Big Lie

February 17, 2015 / / 1 Comment

It was the first day of summer day camp. At Camp Wahne, kids  kindergarten through sixth grade spent hot summer days doing crafts, playing games and singing camp songs in a converted stable, while the parents attended meetings nearby. That first day, we lined up in front of the old tack room to give our names and ages to be assigned a counselor.

Standing in line, watching the other kids, I started to feel too tall and too big to be just five and only in kindergarten. Often, when I told an adult my age, they would exclaim how tall I was, how much older I looked. No other five-year-olds seemed to be wearing  glasses; my pink cat-eye glasses, with lenses that made my eyes look huge, felt conspicuous. As the line moved me slowly toward the desk where I would tell them who I was, I was nervous. What would they think of me? That I did not look like what I was, that I did not fit?

When I reached the front of the line, my mind started to spin. The woman with the clipboard asked me what grade I was in, and a little lie spilled out. “Fifth grade,” I said. I had thought for a moment before I said it. I might not look old enough to be in sixth grade, I reasoned, but five and fifth are close enough. It was just a little exaggeration. “Wow!” she said. “You’re small for your age!” That was just what I wanted to be.

The fifth-grade counselor was everyone’s favorite. Kids from all the groups would run to her for hugs. There were 10 or so kids in our large, concrete-floored stall, and one of our first activities was to choose a name for ourselves and paint the walls to illustrate our identity. We planned it out, sketched the outlines in pencil on the wooden walls, and began to paint our mural. I worked so carefully, staying in the lines, painting a horse and some flowers. Another camper watched my work, complimented my painting and commented on how small I was. “Yes,” I answered, “I’m small for my age.” It was working out just fine.

We listened to stories, we played games, we did crafts. On the second day of camp, though, my lie began to fray around the edges. Under a big, shady tree, we sat in a circle for story time, but today we were taking turns reading the story out loud. Panic clenched in my stomach. I did not know how to read. How would I fake that? I thought about confessing, but I was afraid. When my turn came, I said I did not want to read,  I was too shy. My face flushed bright red, like a neon sign flashing my deception.

That evening, after my parents picked me up, I tearfully told my mother about my problem. I skimmed over the details of how it happened that I was in the wrong group, and I think she thought it was just a mix-up. She told the camp staff, and soon after dinner, the kindergarten counselor came over to me, put her arm around me and welcomed me to her group. A safe, non-reading group. I sank into my chair, so relieved to not have to act older, to talk about things I didn’t understand, to worry that someone would find out.

The next day at camp, I felt free. No one mentioned my days as a big kid. Even the occasional “so tall!” or “four-eyes” comments rolled right off me. I was happy to let everybody think it was an accident, a simple mix-up of five and fifth.

When the other kids ran to the popular fifth-grade counselor, I went with them, but I stayed to the back, out of the flurry of hugs and greetings. I was sure that she knew it wasn’t just a mix-up. In my five-year-old mind, I had committed a grave offense. I had lied.

Looking back, I’m sure she must have known I wasn’t just small for my age, and she probably wasn’t surprised when I left for the kindergarten group. I’m also sure she wasn’t angry with me, even though I lied, and wouldn’t have minded if I ran to her for a hug with the others.

I wish I could have learned the simple lesson of being honest and being myself at that early age, but it has taken many more painful experiences of trying to be what I thought others expected, or trying to appear more important or accomplished or impressive than I felt. Seeing myself as that little girl with pigtails and pink glasses helps me to have compassion for myself, though, as I walk through this long process of growing up and becoming comfortable with who I am.

Vinegar and Milk

February 12, 2015 / / 1 Comment

“Why does it smell like vinegar?” I asked Tim. “And why are those people carrying jugs of milk?” It was our first protest. My son and I came out on the third or fourth night of protests in Berkeley and Oakland after the Ferguson policeman who killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was not indicted by a Grand Jury.

We rode the bus from our house to downtown Berkeley, nervous. After finding only a very small crowd at the Berkeley Police Station, where the march was supposed to start that night, we followed the route we thought the protesters were taking. Hurrying down University Avenue, eerily empty of traffic, we were afraid we had missed it. We finally caught up to the crowd near the freeway.

They were bunched there nose-to-nose with officers in a police line, a physical barrier to keep protesters from stopping traffic on the freeway. After lingering and chanting slogans, the loud but peaceful group moved on, Tim and I with them, and found a different route to a frontage road. We stopped traffic on busy San Pablo Avenue, we brought a passenger train to a horn-blowing standstill at an intersection, we piled onto  a chain link fence and pulled it down and we scrambled up onto the freeway, blocking traffic in both directions. It was a feeling of power, with cars and trucks honking in support, and the police looking on from a distance.

I use the word “we” loosely, because I wasn’t out front pushing through barriers and laying down on train tracks. I was trailing along, ready to turn around if it felt too risky, trying to decide if I was willing to cross the line from protest to civil disobedience. When we heard a rumor in the crowd that the police were putting on their gas masks, I told Tim I couldn’t stay. Scrambling back down the embankment, I scratched my ankle on the barbed wire from the fence. We made our way back, passing a steady flow of new marchers joining the group.

The next day, back in my sunny, care-free life, my scratched ankle reminded me that the experience had been very real.

I joined the group not just as an observer. I felt a kinship with my fellow protestors. We were a diverse group–young adults, parents with small children, teens, old folks using canes–and a beautiful mix of black, brown and white skin. We called out together for justice, demanding that the world notice that the monster of racism still rages, and not just in some deep, dark back-woods, but in our everyday lives, even in our justice system.

I also saw angry young men and women of color shouting at the police, their desire to strike back at the system that treats them with fear, distrust and disrespect thumping just below the surface. Everyday, they feel backed into a corner in our culture; they are told they are scary, bad, too much or not enough in ways sometimes subtle, sometimes direct, always destructive. Tonight though, they were anonymous and safe, in this large group on the world stage, to throw insults and curses at uniformed officers, the same ones who usually represent a threat to them.

“They’re not bad kids,” Tim reminds me. I know. I don’t feel afraid or angry. As tears run down my face, I feel helpless. I love them. I wish I could reach out to them. They are kids just like my kids. They are my kids’ friends and teammates and classmates. They are my daughter’s husband and his family. They are my grandchildren. They are my family.

I joined the protest because I want to be a part of this moment in history, I want to contribute to the momentum of the march toward justice. Black lives matter,  yet they are often treated as if they are worth less than white lives, as if they don’t matter at all. It felt scary to be out in the street, tip-toeing over lines into civil disobedience, but I want to stand with my community.

I am a witness to the injustice.

I learned later that vinegar-soaked bandanas to cover my mouth and nose and milk to rinse my eyes are protest-proven protection from tear gas. Good information for my next time out.

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