Yesterday, I marched with immigrants. I don’t think I marched for myself. I marched for those who could not march.

I am an immigrant and so is my second son. But I have papers and so does my son. That makes a difference. I don’t think I did much to earn the honor of receiving papers. It just happened. We were lucky. Two of my other children were immigrants, but they chose to return home. The life of an immigrant was not for them. The call of home, of identity, was too strong.

My grandmother was an immigrant from England. She came to Australia to be with her sister and, I think, to escape from a less than wonderful world. To escape from crowding and bigotry and a marriage. She came to a land where she could not marry her partner of many years, where her children needed to remove their one pair of shoes after school. I wonder if she found her new country to be better. I never asked her and now I will never know.

My great-grandfather was an immigrant from Indonesia. He was sold for a bag of rice and became a companion for a captain’s wife. They say she brought him to Australia and treated him the way she did all her other children. But, even if that were true, did he feel equality, equity, humanity? He wasn’t allowed to marry. His skin was too brown. He lived as a fisher, was shipwrecked and saved those who were shipwrecked. A tram brought an end to him. His usual stop was cancelled, but he got off anyway.

My two countries, Australia and America, were once free of humans so in a way we are all immigrants. This world now has billions of people who continue to reproduce and who continue to search out new and better places to live. Humans are immigrants and I am human.

If you look at me, you probably don’t know that when I was in Kindergarten there were a group of children who changed my life. I can’t remember how old they were, but they were a little bigger than myself. They were dressed in their school uniforms. They looked like everyone else. Just kids. After school, I remember them teasing me and pointing at me. They would intimidate me with their body language and their catcalls of “Nigga, nigga, nigga.” They would ask why I was at their school and who did I think I was. At first, I would just slowly back off. My eyes fixed on them. Fear rising in my little heart. Then I would turn and run all the way home. Tears pouring from my eyes, leaving misty trails in the air. My mother’s reaction was very pragmatic. She didn’t know what to do or to say. I was her little “Indian princess.” She would hug me and say that I shouldn’t worry. She said that sticks and stones would break my bones but words could never hurt me. She was wrong, those words did hurt me. She said that by the time I was a teenager, they would all be very jealous of my skin. My five year old self was not consoled by either argument and continued to weep. I have to tell you that my kindergarten year was not successful. I was a very sick child and was not learning. On top of that, I spent a good deal of time in the corner and was punished in many different ways.

I remember my first day in high school. Our home room teacher went around the room assessing each student’s background and attitude. As a teacher myself, I expect that he was memorizing our names and starting to build himself as an authority figure.  As he went around the room, he asked rhetorical questions or made statements about our names and how we looked. He was faced with a room full of freshman who needed to be sculpted in fine young scholars. I cannot really recall what he was saying to people. Something like, “Jackson, that is a good Scottish name. Son of Jack, only you are a daughter. You look like a nice Scottish lass.” “Dobinson, that is an old name from Normandy. We will call you Dobbie.” “Willoughby, well you do not look like a Willoughby. I don’t really know what part of the world you come from. You could be from one of many places.” At the time, I was just glad that he moved on from there. I did not know what he was talking about. I was sitting in the back row watching the world and wondering where I fit in. I had just left Catholic school and this was my first day in public school. I didn’t know anyone or anything, and my teacher didn’t know where I came from. As it turned out, my mother was right. Aren’t all mothers always right in the end? By the end of high school, my friends thought my naturally tanned skin was amazing. They would lie on beach blankets slathered in coconut oil trying to match the pigment in my skin. High school was a good place for me. I had friends, relationships, and perhaps, a future.

Now I am older, quite a bit older, my sister says that she hates my “black” skin. Her “English” pigmentation has allowed wrinkles to proliferate. People have stopped asking “Who is the older sister?” My thicker skin and lack of extended exposure to the sun has allowed my skin to wrinkle much more slowly. Thanks goodness for melanin. Now that I live in the diversity that is Southern California, I am considered to be a white woman. Nobody seems to think that I have unusual skin. No one thinks I am an “Indian princess.” I am not harassed. I am not called names. Often, after vacation, someone will comment on the beautiful tan that I had procured. After spending time in the tropics, I thought this was a nice compliment. But then I realized that I also get the same comment after traveling to wintery places as well. Vacation and tanning seem to go together. But most of the time, I am judged as a white woman.
I don’t know what happened to those children who called me names. I don’t know why they would even know the name to call me. We lived in a very white Australia. We lived under the White Australia Policy so that it stayed that way for a long time. I guess adults around those kids must have filled them with hateful ideas. I just know that it hurt. It turns out that my high school teacher had been a soldier in the German SS Army. Many parents would not allow their teenagers to take his class. He had traveled in a dark circle of his own.

Today is my birthday which is driving me toward retirement. I still am wondering who I am. In hindsight, this all seems such a small part of my life, but it has helped me build my identity. In many ways, I am invisible to the rest of the world. They see what they want to see. If they think I am a white woman, then that is what I am. If they think, I am beautifully tanned, so be it. If they think I am an Indian princess, that is their choice. When I think of myself, my eyes are closed. The thickness of my skin, the color of my skin, nor the amount of wrinkles do not enter the equation. I think about my challenges, the love in my life and my successes. Today I will enjoy my birthday and not worry about who I am.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Really, I suppose every day is the first day of the rest of my life. Every day provides opportunity, tragedy, confusion. Every day allows me to determine who I am and where I am going, but some days become tipping points in life. Graduation. Marriage. Childbirth. Death. Sabbatical? For the last twenty years, I got up each morning and went to work. I love my job. I am energized by it and feel that it is meaningful.

But on Monday, I don’t have to go to work. No. I am not allowed to go to work. This is a very peculiar situation. I have worked tirelessly for twenty years and now. No. You are not allowed on campus. You will work from home. For one semester, I am on sabbatical. I have my project. I have my work to do, but I am not allowed on campus. I am cut off from my life of twenty years. I am having a hard time dealing with this tipping point. My heart is excited about the project I have ahead of me, but also sad about the loss of camaraderie with peers and insights from students.
For the next semester, I am a shadow. I will do work that nobody sees. I will shape my life in ways that only I will know. I will learn things that nobody hears. I am not sure how I will flourish in this shadow world. There are more questions than answers. On top of that, my boss told me that I need to leave my office. There is no replacement office at this time, just more shadows. So, not only am I leaving for a semester, but I need to leave no trace of myself.

 
Yesterday, I started cleaning out my office for real. I had been poking around for a couple of weeks. I moved several books to the storage room that will be their home for four months or longer. I took home my orchid which sat on top of my cabinet collecting dust and rarely being watered. But yesterday, I got serious. I cleaned out my drawers full of pens, erasers, coins and nametags. I took the papers that had littered my desk and piled them in the corner so that the new inhabitant of my office could work without being impacted by any aura that I left. They wouldn’t know that the previous tenant was a hoarder, a procrastinator. I do have some time ahead when I can sneak into the office that is no longer mine to remove my identity. To remove my things. To become a shadow.

 
I also feel that politically I have become a shadow. The new president and political views that are broadcast over the media are not my views. Mine are the shadows that can be seen but are not deemed valid. For at least two years, the political climate is set until there are more elections. Unlike my sabbatical, I have no plan, no project to get through this period. I am searching for something that would make an impact. The tipping point for the country is aligned with my tipping point. Hopefully, for myself, I can carve a future that is bright and rewarding. But politically, what do I do? Currently, I delete offensive Facebook posts. I try to limit my exposure to the fabrications and marketing of right wing politicians who want to send my students back to poverty and violence. They want to build walls and create fear. I try to make sense of fact and fiction. Do I make up my own lies? Do I exaggerate my own view of the world and broadcast that? Do I tell my friends that they are with me or against me? That there is no middle ground. Actually, that is just not my style and honestly, I don’t think it is useful. Hate speech is hate speech whether from them or from me. But what do I do. I guess that is the million dollar question.

 
In four months, my career direction will be set based on new findings and new technology. Along the way, I will travel and study; create and write. I am looking to have more freedom in teaching online. It will also give students more freedom and open up a space for me to continue to grow and learn. In four months, I will return from the shadows and become part of the world of light and dark. Hopefully, the country will also rise from the shadows and find its way again.

All my life, I have been very active. At school, this brought me all kinds of problems. I was that kid standing in the corner.  My report card repeatedly included phrases like “Talks too much,” “Can’t sit still” and “Doesn’t live up to potential.” This was bad. My mother nagged, but nothing helped. My doctor told my mom to find classes. “She needs to keep busy. She needs to expend the energy.” So I learned to swim at 3 years old and soon after that joined a swim club. I started dance lessons at 4, basketball at 7. But still the report cards came in with “Can’t sit still.”
Fast forward to me at 60: I sit in the office meeting with students. I stand in the classroom lecturing. At night, I crash on the couch. On top of that, I am an empty nester. Suddenly there is no laundry to do. No cleaning. No little league. No ballet. Just TV. Just work. No more hyper. No more svelte body.

But I am still surprised that suddenly the scale in the bathroom is rising. My reflection in the mirror is growing like a fun house illusion. Not exponentially. Slowly. Like a frog in a frying pan basking in the sauna. Slowly like a killer snail ready to take down my spinach. This is my fate.

Regardless, I am a problem solver who takes care of things. I know the solution. Listen to that doctor from my childhood. “Find classes. She needs to keep busy. She needs to expend the energy.” As a diligent patient, I joined a gym: Friday on the bicycle, Saturday on the Elliptical, Sunday in the pool. My miserly ways help. That gym is sucking money out of my bank account every month so I had better get my money’s worth. Every weekend, I ride that bike and get nowhere. I work that elliptical and the weight still creeps up. I forgot about the pool last year and spend time on the bicycle again on Sunday. I joined Tai Chi and attend Mondays and Wednesday. My doctor would be proud of me. But the creep never stops.

Why do I care? Why does weight matter? I am old (or at least older). I have earned to right to grow up or out or whatever way my body thinks fit to do. Haven’t I?

Why Write?

All my life I have loved to learn. I love to find out about things, all manner of things. If someone has a question, I am the first to run to Google to find the answer. I am an Explorer. At the same time, words do not come easily to me. Throughout school, I would avoid words. When we had to read a book and document our reading diligence, I read fables and fairy stories. Those were the shortest books I could find. If a composition was to be at least 100 words, I would write exactly 100 words. But without reading and vocabulary development, my writing always earned less than stellar grades. My writing brought insults from teachers and punishment from my parents. I just didn’t have the tools to put my thoughts onto paper. I didn’t have the words or the grammar.

So why take on an assignment to write an essay a week for a year. Why torture myself with finding the right words? Why? Why not continue in my relatively happy nonverbal life?

There are stories to be told. The older I get, the more I realize that books don’t always get it right. Where is my story? Where are my student’s stories? Where are my children’s stories? Now is the time for me to begin writing, to tackle the beast. I have so many stories that need to be told, that want to be told. I should at least try to capture some of them before it is too late.

I expect this will be a challenging, bumpy road. Many of the essays may not convey the right sentiment, use the right words, find the pocket. But hopefully, after a year of writing, I can find some diamonds in the rough. The reflection on my life, my heritage, and my legacy will guide me as I move towards the winter of my life. And maybe, just maybe, I will develop the tools that makes a good writer.