breathe.
I walk into the White Pine County Library tucked away in a park on which I spent seconds and childhoods playing. The poster hangs searing bright in the Nevada sun and reads “Spokes America Workshops”. An arrow points towards the room on the left towards the “Self Compassion and Creative Writing” workshop. I enter, timidly. My eyes shoot down to someone sitting criss-cross apple sauce on an alphabet rug used just an hour before for story time. Sticky notes litter the floor with a stack of white lined paper glued to the ground.
“Hi everyone, my name is Vivian. Can everyone introduce themselves to their neighbor and share one aspect about your identity?” The instructor smiles. I smile back.
I scan the room and notice some other students are older with their I’m-in-highschool air and others are fresh, crispy six-graders. I settle into the carpet and wiggle my toes out.
Vivian leads us in a meditation focusing on our breath and body, which I have never done before. When I open my eyes, I gently re-enter the world and feel a shift towards slower breathing and simple awareness. As the workshop goes on, Vivian speaks more about self-compassion and asks us to write down a moment when we’ve felt shame onto a sticky-note. I’m a little nervous at first about what I write down, but then I hear around the room other sticky notes read out loud, such as “I felt shame when I failed my math test and I thought I was the dumbest one in my friend group and that I wasn’t smart” and “I felt shame when I said something mean to my sibling and then regret that I said it. I felt like a terrible person.” As others open up, I feel less alone.
We move from exercises of self-kindness into creative writing exercises and I am handed a sheet of paper. The papers pass from my hands to the hands of the person on my left. Slowly, line-by-line the class collectively adds a line to the many poems passing around. When we read the final poems out-loud, I discover my favorite and let out a laugh that sends my hands patting the floor.
the whistle of the wind behind my ear
it made it hard to hear
such random thoughts of fear
with monsters and droughts at dark
good thing I’m hydrated and am unafraid of monsters!
some moms are monsters
but atleast they don’t green skin
THEY HAVE BLUE SKIN
but I guess that’s better than yellow
-poem collectively written by Ely’s creative young'uns
A few poems and readings later, I end up in the center of a cinnamon roll hug, thanking the class for showing up and thanking the people for the real moments we shared.
//
sprint.
Before I even enter the room I can hear the buzz-- containers tapping on tables, a mother whispering to her daughter in the corner, seventh graders asking, “So when are going to make the lava lamps?” Many voices hover like dragonfly wings, leaving the room echoing with breath and anticipation. Like dominoes lined up, we say our name and a bit about us.
Brian, our teacher, asks with excitement and fire-ready enthusiasm, “Why do we study chemistry?”
A boy half the height of his neighbor replies, “To make hypotheses and prove laws like how the world works or how matter cannot be created or destroyed except for in black holes because the laws of physics don’t apply there.”
The kid is nine years old. “He’s a budding genius,” I say to myself.
Brian carries out a basin of hydrogen peroxide, and the girl on the corner is stirring a paste of yeast, watching the clumps dissolve into a foamy tan liquid. I notice my hand shoot up and Brian selects me for the prized job of pouring liquids together. I pour the yeast in the funnel and BOOM-- blue foam flies out, and ten pairs of hands fly in to touch it. Two minutes later, foam ends up on the door handle, on the desktop, and in hair.
Elephant toothpaste!
A few minutes later, oil, water, and food coloring quickly turn into lava lamps. Brian explains to the classroom the chemistry behind the chemical interactions.
“Ooh can I add a drop of food coloring and see what happens?”
“Ooh what if I drop alkaseltzer in here?”
“Ooh if I close the cap, will it build up pressure and explode?”
A frantic dash to grab ingredients unfolds and before Brian can see what happens, bottles burst, bubble, and boil.
Brian quickly shifts gears and says, “So who wants to make icecream with dry ice?”
Chocolate melts onto my tongue and tastes even better because I helped make it.
Making icecream with dry ice
//
uphill.
“Pick a card, any card.”
“Now put it back in the deck anywhere… I’m going to deal out three stacks of cards. Pay attention carefully. Your card will appear, but don’t tell me when you see it. Just tell me what stack it is in.”
I watch my card appear in one stack. My teacher Brad repeats. I select the next stack again. Repeat. Select. Brad flips up the first card in the stack and asks, “Is this your card?”
I stop and laugh. It's my card. Brad responds, “Do you want to know the math behind this really cool magic trick?”
The room shuffles and excitement rises. Brad starts to explain exponents and his secret sauce to the trick. He does a variation of the trick, which involves slapping the cards and picking my favorite number. When it comes to the math part, my brain tries to grasp the concept of base three. The 17-year-old in the room catches on quickly while the 9-year-old struggles a bit. For the younger ones, it’s an uphill battle in terms of depth of the math concepts, but Brad does his best to meet the students where they are.
When the workshop ends, ten little magicians walk out of the room. I can’t wait to come home and show my mom the newest trick up my sleeve.
//
summit.
At first, I am not sure the workshop would happen because my friends crowded in the other room for the chemistry workshop. I still wanted to go to the environmental workshop so I hover next to a girl named Rachel, who with her big smile appears to be the instructor of the workshop.
With only one other student in the room, it becomes a one-on-two workshop personalized for my many curiosities.
Rachel lights up as she talks about the renewable energy sources, letting me blow bubbles into the water to turn the solution yellow and spin the plastic lego-like replica of a wind turbine.
We start talking about little things we can do to conserve energy. I pose a question, “Rachel, why are the lights on? Don't we want to conserve energy? Let’s have the workshop in the dark!” The light switch flips, and the room takes a new mood with only sunlight raining through the window.
Rachel shares a list of other energy-conserving and more energy sustainable steps we can take in our lives. She’s one of the first teachers I have ever seen live out fully what she talks about and delights in the story of her own journey going zero-waste for a year.
This is it. Finally, what I’ve been wanting to learn. I stay after class to copy down the rest of the items on the list.
//
~Vivian