Control — Annie Calhoun

There are many things I can’t control.

I can’t stop time and keep my son at the crazy, strong willed 14 months he is right now. Currently, “Day-Doh!” is his made up word for any type of communicating and it’s hilarious the way he bandies it about it with force, gusto and nuance. There are three sound categories that cover the animal kingdom in his world, and it may be something to consider for all of us as we look to save time and consolidate.

“Grrrrr” (lion, bear, duck, tiger, elephant, hippo, pig)

“Twee-tee” (bird, mouse, ostrich, monkey, chicken)

“Ah-ah-ah-ah” (goat, sheep, horse, rooster, cat, dolphin)

There’s a recent musical theatre graduate of ChiArts. I can’t control the fact that a student who has the dancing and singing ability of someone well past his 18 years, who hugged me the hardest at graduation, who went through trials and obstacles to begin his journey, who exudes a 100 watt smile, failed to get into the college that would’ve helped launch his career simply because he got confused about paperwork.

I can’t control the legal consequences in the school system.

I can’t control melting ice caps. And I really love New York City and Los Angeles…

I can’t control the extreme mom guilt I feel every day when I leave my 14 month old for 7 plus hours. I also have guilt when I look forward to work…

And I can’t control my want to win as an old lady. Apparently in an effort to honor my 96-year-old grandmother Mimi, my cousin Marty asked us for phrases Mimi says so she could make a book. I couldn’t think of any…mostly because my grandma doesn’t have a lot of phrases.

In an effort to steal back control, I’ve been getting angry at things that seem as though they could be easily fixed if I could just find the right phone number to call.

I don’t understand the name fifth third bank. It bothers me so much because where I can’t halt time, or save a student’s future, or re-ice the caps so NYC and LA don’t flood, or ensure I am an old lady worth making a phrase book about, this seems like such an easy fix. Bank people are smart. But how can I respect a business named after an uneven fraction in a non-funny, literal way? I’ve tried very hard to come up with all the reasons 5th/3rd chose its name.

1)Maybe it’s some kind of fun secret or play on fractions. If 5th/3rd when converted to 1 and 2/3rds meant “banking with us is easy as 1, 2, 3!” then okay maybe.

2)Maybe the CEO had only two formative experiences in life. On her 5th and 3rd birthdays.

3)Maybe when naming time came the person who made the signs had a cold and heard “5th/3rd” but what was really said was “Hamford” and maybe the CEO was type B and didn’t really care to spend the money to change all their advertising.

For whatever reason, this bank makes me downright angry when I drive by, and all the anger I’m not able to feel for the things I can’t change comes out. I’ve contemplated walking in and talking to a bank teller but I don’t want to blame the waiter for the cook’s errors. What I really need is the right phone number…

The birth of the internet and smart phones also makes me angry at all the small non-tech things that could’ve been fixed by now if we hadn’t been so focused on the computer in our pockets. Like those white ties they put on bread bags that look like tiny horse shoes. These are dumb, flimsy, break, are a choking hazard for toddlers, and don’t really seal the bag.

***

As I was finishing this blog I was in LA for 24 hours helping a friend this weekend and as I got off the plane, was texting with Kipp Scholar folks and realized it was 8th grade graduation in four hours! I taught many of them as 5th graders in my small group English class and throughout my theatre program and so I jumped in so many Ubers I could’ve bought a nice 2002 used Toyota, and hustled around LA to get there in time! And when I walked in to graduation 25 minutes late, I discovered something beautiful about the things we can’t control when we do try to affect the things we can.

I can and could control how much energy I put into these kids and this school – starting and running their theatre program, teaching low readers English, taking them on multiple arts trips over the summer, and setting up theatre outings and meet up with them every six months as I’ve visited LA for the last two years I’ve been in Chicago.

What I couldn’t control was the explosion of joy I felt walking into the auditorium (which we rent out from Dorsey HS since our school has no large indoor space), and the excited waves from a certain valedictorian who has a lot of social anxiety and who was my theatre kid J Abraham is getting a full ride worth well over 100,000 dollars to a boarding school for extremely gifted kids. I couldn’t control the rising level of belonging I felt in the on slot of hugs and the tears from a couple kids who I didn’t know could get emotional in this way. Then my eyes fell on the grown ups. The team of teachers, many new (as there is often turn over in schools that aren’t easy), and those same founders who showed up the summer of 2012 to help start this thing and boy were those years of heavy lifting. Tommy (math), Aisha (science), Tiffany (principal), Allan (English) and Annie (Humanities) painting the walls, going to pick up old furniture from a college that was throwing things in a dumpster. Every founding teacher is now a leader or admin somewhere and in some way. Tommy is still at KSA in leadership now, Tiffany continues to be a revolutionary principal, Allan is a leading schools in NYC, Aisha is the new principal for Kipp Vida, the K-4 school that’s down the street and feeds kids to KSA, and I stand in the Midwest heading up theatre at ChiArts. I’m not a crier. But ask me to speak aloud about this place and these people and I can’t control the wave of emotion that comes from the back breaking work and incredible bonds formed among those who push rocks up mountains in the name of equity in education. And don’t get me started on my other school I have a similar amount of uncontrollable passion for, ChiArts. Interestingly enough, I have now completed five years at each school. And what a magnificent decade it’s been…

I end this blog with a 180… As angering as it can be to have things you can’t control in the world, there rises up the most beautiful of moments, independent of control. Those that stun you, bring you back to an anchored purpose, give a few possible answers to the existential whys, and so on...

Note

(below are some current and unrelated Solly things I wanted to add so I have a place where I don’t forget them ; )

--waves at everyone on elevators and who pass by and has the ability to make people who are zoned out smile at him

--tracks airplanes from dots to slightly bigger dots to dots again in the sky with great excitement and pointing

--LOVES trains. LOVES them. You can see the train from our porch and he signs “more more more” when they leave the station

--He loves his kids songs especially “little blue car”

--when one of us gets him up in the morning he says the name of the other parent till he gets to see them

--he finally started saying Mama!!!!!!!

--he cries when I leave him

--he doesn’t smile or run to me when I get home. His whole body lifts, he opens his mouth, points to something and goes “ohhh!” as if he’s so overwhelmed his only way of connecting in the moment is to show me things

--he does lots of animal noises on command and knows where the essential body parts are if you ask him

--he says “day-doh” for all forms of communication - not sure why - but if he wants anything, wants down, wants up, wants in, wants out, wants a book read - he says “day-doh”

--he knows tons of commands and you can ask him to find you pretty much anything and he’ll find it

--he says “ooooo’s” for shoes

--he says “eyyyeees” for toes

--he chuckles

--he goes “huh - ohhh” when something is cool

When my now 96 year old grandma Mimi turned 90, my oldest cousin Marty asked that we all send her phrases Mimi said so she could make them into a little book. Mimi and I just spoke on the phone last week. She has a soft croissant like body, thin hair always pulled back in a those big grandma bows, a crooked big toe, a lazy eye from when a dog bit her face as a child, and an easy laugh she uses to cover up anything bad. She joined TLC a couple years ago, a group I started with my middle schoolers in LA (The Literary and Chocolate Society) because she asked if she could join and I said yes but she had to tell me what she was reading. She gave me half the title for my first middle grade novel because of the vivid stories told about her sandbox rival Pug Brown (my book is called “CJ and Pug”). Then she sat and read the whole thing a few pages of big type at a time when I sent a chunk. She had twins with no pain killers and entered the hospital thinking there was only one. This is because even though she tried to tell her doctor she suspected two, he told her she was just fat. Yes, make America great again because the 50’s seem like a time woman could really thrive in…

So when my cousin asked for phrases, even though I had many memories, I couldn’t think of any. Crap. Is this how I will end up being evaluated when I’m 90? By my catchy phrases? I have lots of chants and things I’ve made up for schools - everything from where to put a comma to how to act a scene in a play to the entire Shakespeare cannon titles. But I can’t think of a single cool phrase I’ve coined or say a lot?!

I want to win at being an old lady. Because right now I don’t really feel like I’m winning. I feel like I’m climbing up a muddy hill trying to pull a bunch of kids and teachers with me while also trying to seem fun and energetic in every other moment I’m not at work so I can play with my son. Mom guilt. REAL. Work guilt. REAL. There’s just so many changes I’d love to make to the culture of the ChiArts theatre department and it’s two steps forward five steps back a lot of the time. I’m also realizing there is no reward for being an administrator like there is in the classroom. Even if you feel awful, there’s always a kid or two that you feel you lifted and therefore lifted you. Admin work is pretty much thankless and that’s okay, it’s just the nature of the beast. I feel bad I’m not with my kid all day. But I also am happy to leave sometimes cuz I’d have a hard time sitting with him the whole day stacking blocks. I have an overactive brain and imagination so I look forward to the chaos of work in a way, and in a way I dread it. I am not sure how people overcome mom guilt / work guilt. Maybe I should stop writing about this because it makes me sad and I don’t have answers right now so I’ll just make a list of things Solly does at 14 months old.