'We Head Home'

Madonna University was the only school in Wayne County that did not close on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. My sister, who is still in high school, sent me two different drafts of a paper she’d been working on even before I got up. She was going to use her day off wisely.

I was going to school, and I was going to cause mischief.

The inauguration was on the t.v. in the Take 5 when I got there. I’d been getting updates from my facebook feed and tumblr all day, but it was nice to finally see it. Richard Blanco was onscreen, reading a poem from a binder. My boss was sitting next to a group of nursing students, who were quietly reviewing for a big test they had at one. I had just seen Ann on her way to eat lunch at the cafeteria, talking about how worried she was for that test. The life of a nursing student is not easy.

"All of us as vital as the one light we move through,
the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:
equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,
the "I have a dream" we keep dreaming,
or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won't explain
the empty desks of twenty children marked absent
today, and forever…"

Brooke, my roommate, had come down to the Take 5 with me. She was prepping for a big Pokemon tournament (my words, not hers) and needed fortification. She sat at one of the red tables, away from the t.v., while I sat on the floor and listened. Langston Hughes had been singing in my head all day; everywhere I could hear echoes of I, too, sing America. This new poet, this Cuban poet, did not sing like Langston Hughes did, and I had to concentrate to hear the music in his words.

Elisabeth appeared a few moments later, on her lunch break. She was wearing her blue SCOPE shirt, and wanted to start talking, but I hushed her. “Shh. Watching.” When I get interested in a program, I am very possessive of it.

Elisabeth wrinkled her nose and flounced over to the purple couch. “I won’t comment,” she said.

“Don’t you care at all? It’s history.”

She ignored me and went to go buy food.

"We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,"

When she came back, Richard Blanco had finished, and there was now a priest onscreen. Obama’s head was bowed; there were deep lines in his face. I remembered Sally’s commentary on facebook: Smile, Mr. President! He looks so much older, now. And there's so much left to do. Four years, and change is urgently needed...

“Amy’s going,” I remarked. “Did you see? She said she was going to go. Gosh, it must be freezing.”

“Yeah. I don’t know why she would.”

Because Romney’s party is too far away, I thought, and we weren’t invited, but I just shrugged and said, “Because it’s history. Don’t you want to be able to tell your grandchildren that you were there--”

Her face closed, and I shut up and started paying attention to the priest, whispering, “Amen,” when he finished. The cameras panned to Beyonce, who was going to sing the National Anthem.

Frances, my boss, got up and went back to the Writing Center. Her lunch break was over, and once Beyonce takes the stage you know it’s over.

“She looks good for someone who just had a kid,” Laura said, suddenly appearing at my shoulder.

Laura works with me at the Writing Center, and we were in the same Freshman cluster two years ago. She’s one of the smartest people I know, and she’s an amazing writer on top of that.

Together we watched Beyonce for a bit, and then discussed politics, scandalizing Elisabeth, who had no idea that we had elected a lesbian for Senate.

“From California?” she gasped.

“Wisconsin,” Laura said.

Not all LGBTQ people live in California. This is a fact. It costs too much to live there.

We broke shortly afterward for class. I have Marriage and the Family on Monday with Hannah and Nicole, both of whom I hadn’t seen in at least four days. I told them every little detail of my life, annoying them to death, and then Father George came in and had us pray that Barack Obama and Joe Biden would work hard for America in the next four years.

Father George is a slide-show person, and as he skipped through the slides, asking us why we are not writing down his tidbits of wisdom whenever he said something he felt was particularly poetic (“A human being is not a book to read. They are a book to take with you on the journey,” and “Feeling must be expressed at the right time, at the right place. Or your mother-in-law will try to sabotage your marriage.”) when he came to a slide about Feminist Theory.

“I think that women are now very empowered,” he said. “There are women in the senate, and in all major jobs. But, of course, there are feminists who try and tell women that they are still oppressed. Do any of you women still feel exploited?”

I nodded, and he called on me to explain. I gave one theory—just one, I could have gone on about this all day—and then looked around, wishing someone would step up and say, “Yes! I feel exploited, too!” But no one said anything.

Come on, I prayed, someone. Isn’t this more interesting than what we’re learning about onscreen? Aren’t you annoyed that you get paid less than men? That Afghanistan has a better maternity leave than the U.S. does? That 1 out of 3 women are raped, usually by men they know, and are too afraid to speak up about it?

Father George moved on and said, “I do not think that this is a big concern. Women are now very much equal to men.”

We only broke for class discussion when one of the two guys in the class said that the book had been written by women, and he was upset by this, and why didn’t women just say what they mean.

The book had been written by two men and a woman.

After class I ran off to my Sociology meeting, which was a lot of fun. Felicity, who used to live at the dorms with us, appeared and brought rainbow cupcakes, which we brought back to the Take 5 and ate. High on sugar, I decided to skip my Peace and Justice meeting, and Felicity, Hannah, Nicole and I went to Sheesh for dinner.

Sheesh is my favorite restaurant. When I was in Belfast, Sheesh was one of the places I missed the most. It’s cheap and it’s quick and it’s filling. Everything is doused in garlic, and I get to eat my fill of pita bread. Sitar music plays on the intercom, and pictures of Lebanon are all over the walls. I’ve gone to Sheesh so much, it actually inspired me to write a novel about it—an ongoing novel, at any rate.  When we came back to the school, the Candlit Service for MLK was in full swing, and I got to hear the recorded voice of the King himself: And I have a dream…

The day was going rather well, until I ran into my Mortal Enemy.

God sends certain people to try us (or perhaps the Devil sends certain people to drag us kicking and screaming to Hell, but whatever), and I am no exception. My own Mortal Enemy comes in the form of a jerkface who knows exactly how to push every single one of my buttons.

I did not miss him when I was in Belfast.

I got into a tiff with him, and then stomped off, and then he sent me an e-mail continuing the argument so I had to get off of my computer and stomp around the hallways, scaring my roommate because I was saying some very rude British words.

However, it’s hard to stay mad for long when you’re pouting in your room and Laura and Sarah come to serenade you, singing, “One day mooooreeee,” and then laughing loudly. The Writing Tutor group was meeting to watch The Last Enemy, which was extremely cheering because Benedict Cumberbatch took his shirt off, and then write. And gossip, of course. By the end of the day, there were two people sprawled out on my floor, Brooke Fox on my bed writing fanfiction, and my roommate Brooke on her bed watching funny videos on youtube and laughing every so often.

In the East, Barack Obama had finished his evening too. He referenced Stonewall, and was the first president to say the word “gay” in an official speech. Stonewall is one of those things you just don’t talk about, like the internment of the Nisei in World War II. But it’s time to start talking about these things. America never was America to me—as Langston Hughes would say--

And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!