In a recent film called Tick… Tick… Boom!, about the life of the great Jonathan Larson, the question that is asked becomes a theme: “Do we do things out of fear or love?”
If you haven’t seen that movie, I strongly recommend it. Actually, run to see it. It is brilliant and Andrew Garfield is absolutely stunning.
I was listening to the music from the movie and thinking about the question. Fear or love? Am I doing things out of fear or love? As I shepherd my second child towards her driving license, I can tell you I love her dearly, but I am so fearful about her driving. I worry about her driving as a new driver with all the other drivers on the road. While I love her to pieces and I recognize that driving will give her independence, every part of my body is afraid of what could happen, what might happen.
Fear or love? Interesting to put those two words in the same sentence.
I’ve learned a lot about fear and about love from my magnificent students. The love they have for their people, their community, even the gang, is incredibly impressive. The fear that comes with that love of theirs breaks my heart into a thousand pieces again and again.
Fear or love? Working and raising erratic, hormonal teenagers has taught me an important lesson about the short distance between love, hate, fear, and excitement. Love and fear. The drama in my girls’ high school years has shown me that you can hate someone today, love them tomorrow, and vice versa. Maybe it’s not about loving and hating or being afraid. Maybe it’s more about what’s between them and not wasting the time to make the distance greater, but keeping it smaller.
Ironically, I have learned in this life of mine that we are incredibly afraid of what we love, and I have seen too many people fall in love with what they are afraid of.
Years ago, I was working in a girls’ lock up facility that is now closed. Recently, this facility has been in the news because of a horrible sex scandal that was going on there. This does not surprise me. Reading about it in the LA Times made me sick. While I do not know the specific girls who were brave enough to come forward, I do know so many exactly like them.
I was not there when this was going on, yet I feel guilty, sad, and horrible because shit like this SHOULD NOT HAPPEN! Period. In that same facility they used to send girls to the SHU, pronounced "shoe,” which stands for Security Housing Units. The SHU was a form of solitary confinement where they would be in a room, locked in closed quarters, alone. The nickname for it was also the “box.”
Since my time working there, the SHU has been banned and is no longer allowed, thank goodness. I remember a young woman telling me “Ms., I love the box. But I am also afraid of it.”
This girl was so young. I think it is a much bigger crime that she was detained in that facility, far more serious than any crime she could have ever committed.
“Tell me more,” I gently asked her.
“Well, I’m afraid to be alone, but I ain’t gonna lie. I also love being alone without all the females around me.” She adds, “You know Ms., I have lived with fear since I can remember. In my first foster home I remember telling myself, ‘Girl, you better love this fear and figure out how not to let it beat you.’ Right then, I decided to love what I am afraid of. The bitch is, sometimes I fucking am afraid of what I love and that ain’t good.”
I remember looking at this child. She was 14 at the time. This was one of the first girls’ groups I taught. I asked her, “What do you do in the box?”
“I dream, Ms. I make up songs and I breathe ‘cause I am alone and that is good. But after a while I sometimes get lonely, and then the depression finds me. You know, Ms., everything can turn to shit if you do it for too long.”
“That is very true,” I told her. “I am really sorry,” I added. “I am sorry that they did this to you.” She looked straight at me in shock.
“Why you go being sorry? You didn’t do nothing, Ms.” She was confused.
“I am sorry, because I care about you, and I don’t want you to be afraid.”
Her eyes got a little teary. “Fear is love, Ms. Don’t worry.”
I worry, Sweet Girl, I thought to myself. Oh, how I worry.
And because I had nothing wise to say I remember sitting quietly and putting my arm around this child so that maybe, just maybe, that day she felt more love than fear.
Eight years later, I am sitting watching this movie and I hear this song.
“Cages or wings?
Which do you prefer?
Ask the birds
Fear or love, baby?
Don't say the answer
Actions speak louder than words.
What does it take
To wake up a generation?
How can you make someone
Take off and fly?
If we don't wake up
And shake up the nation
We'll eat the dust of the world
Wondering why, why?”
I think of that girl and wonder what happened to her. Did she finally find the love that would ease her fear? Was she one of the girls who, out of fear, closed her eyes and let the people who were supposed to be taking care of her do what they wanted to her? I am incredibly afraid for the youth who are detained in the facilities we work in. I love them; however, now I don’t have direct contact with them because I have an amazing team that works with them. As always, it is my students who teach me the important lessons in life.
Face your fears with love. Try not to be afraid of what you love.
I add to that prayer. Yes, pray a lot. Pray for yourself. Pray for others.
I truly believe that someone is listening.
Sometimes it might be you just listening to yourself but that, too, is enough.
Fear or love? What moves YOU forward?
