I have been working with disabled school kids for a year. I kept the artifacts of tenderness and trust along with diary entries from that time.
The room where people pace up and down flapping hands, drop on their knees in lament, hide their face in their hands, shout threats they’ll apologise in tears for later, talk to themselves quietly, circle around as if hovering above the floor, comfort one another, share the last chocolate, ask about and remember your entire family tree;
the room with ephemeral beings, eyes towards the ungraspable, thrown about by their love and anger, beings who want their hand held and who hide under the table when it gets too loud;
is my room, the community I belong, the room I understand and am understood, the room where there is space for being.
Undated
„Dear future me, you have no friends
I feel lonely
I look forward to my death
I feel worried about nothing
In 3rd year I will di
Yours sincerely, N***”
I cried at work today, that letter sent me back home.
8/11/2023
I look at the kids and see individuals, all so different. And at break I watch them, taken aback, thinking: they’re so small. Children!
It’s cause I don’t see the kids in them, I see people.
They like me, not sure why. I like those who flip chairs the best.
6/1/24
They moved me to a different class again. I can’t say I’m surprised, and my disappointment doesn’t allow me to take it as a result of a complicated funding situation in this wild system that couldn’t care less about the disabled. I take it as another shuffling behind the curtains,
personally personally personally
And the choice has been made; this is my last month. My being there makes no sense to me if I can’t sit beside my rebel boys, receive their insults, tell them ‘you can do it’, take them down off of the lockers, have autumn leaves and glitter thrown on my head, chase them up and down the stairs, listen as they tell me about their hardass families. Stay beside them, wipe their tears, transmute their anger into togetherness, at a table, at a desk, on the playground, on the concrete.
Furious boys are the only ones I want to work with, I want to sing them lullabies. Furious boys I understand. I am one.
Undated
At RE, *** explained Jesus with her disengaged, tired, dissociated voice that pretends politeness. Jesus approached the fishermen Andrew and Simon and ordered them to leave everything behind and follow him. And they left everything and went.
8/1/24
Bless the desperate fury of the autists.
„I want to cut out my brain and buy a new one. This one is not working” R*** said.
It was a good day, a day with small people who live on this earth partially at most, whose life goes on someplace else. It’s the rational people I fear.
10/1/23
R*** made his own grave out of Lego blocks today. R*** tried to choke himself. R***’s dad shouted at me.
After two days of him being tossed around in inner torment, hitting, throwing, shouting, hurting himself, and running away, then apologizing, apologizing, apologizing, and saying that he will die. That he is an idiot. That he hates this country.
R***, only the level of unyielding self-expression is what makes us different.
I cooked today, ate more than just bread. Personal success #1.
*** and *** told me, that R*** is much calmer with me, that it’s because I’m calm and never raise my voice. Personal success #2.
My kids from Y6 don’t hug me anymore. Only T*** greets me with a cheerful Good morning Miss Daria, and he’s not one of mine, he’s a little mischeif from nextdoor.
K*** likes me now, wants my attention.
I’m much lonelier than they are. I want approval of my kids much more than of any adult.
18/1/24
The act of kindness is only valid when one is capable of aggression. When one has a choice and able to make the most of it, when one has both tenderness and aggression to choose from.
I’m thinking about Y6 and how tender they were with R***. About acts of kindness and how aggression could be a result of self-respect, that one who doesn’t respect themselves wouldn’t be able to share an act of kindness without expecting anything in return.
Z*** with a cross made out of planks dug out from under the fence.
- So you’re a priest now?
- No, I’ll just repel anyone.
I miss him. I miss those that try to survive with any means necessary, aggressively and by their own reasoning. Those who fight and not beg. Never refuse to take part in any upheaval, never fall asleep in themselves.
That used to be the meaning of my day. The most difficult chunk of work, the most meaningful.