brooklyn

once again i realize i do not deserve the gifts these children bring every day but i take them anyway and keep them because i am selfish. and because i know a good story when i hear it.

it is one week since the storm and it is the first day the students are back at school. we are not sure what will happen, how they will be or what they will need. we are not even sure where some of our children are. i am, to be honest, a little nervous. i do not handle dramatic displays of unhappiness well and i am not a great comfort, especially to teenagers. i suppose that, in general, nobody is a great comfort to teenagers. they are inconsolable for years.

but because we are english teachers and because writing is how we believe the world works things out, my co-teachers and i start things off by having the kids open their journals. they write. they put down their stories. i tell them that is the easy part. they've been telling their stories all week without thinking about them. now is the time to record them for real. to save what they know. and they do.

but the second part is tougher. we ask them to think about their city, a city everyone in the world knows. they are not living in the city they were living in a week ago. it is a whole new place, for bad and for good. and we ask them how it is new, what they see for their city down the road. we ask how things have changed and what that means.

they write silently for a while. fifteen minutes. twenty. some of them finish and sit still. i look at them, see not quite a page written and say, very plainly, more than that happened. you have more to say. and they know it. they pick up their pens and keep writing.

we ask them, maybe twenty five minutes in, if they want to talk. they have written so they can organize their thoughts and we have found that this helps them speak more clearly. they are more confident when they have their own words and ideas sitting there in front of them.

they are ninth and tenth and eleventh graders. children who want to believe that they are adults. they speak in low voices, not shy, just softer than usual. they all want to talk at once but we remind them that they are more generous than that, that everyone's story will be heard.

one boy describes cars floating away. he watched them from his window. this is new for them. they are children of the city and have seen, at fifteen or so, more than many adults will ever see but this is the first time any of them have ever seen cars floating down the street. the way they speak is beautiful. they describe what they have seen so simply, with muted emotion. they are not in love with the violence of the storm or the chaos of what has come after. they are not what you think teenagers are.

a child explains that he's staying with family a while. there's not electricity, no heat, no water in his own home. he has been there five days now and it is difficult being in a place that is not his own, even if it is with family. he says it will be three weeks before he is back where he belongs and although i suspect it will be longer, i know enough to keep my mouth shut. he is honest. it is hard, he says. he doesn't want to spend three weeks this way. it is what he says next, though, that makes the room quiet. he has been thinking, he says. he keeps thinking there are people in the world who live like this all the time. it's a few weeks for me, but for some people, it's their whole lives, it's how they live. he knows where he is in the world and although it's not where he would like to be, he knows how much he has.


one girl describes her apartment, where all the bedrooms were underwater. her family has lost everything in those rooms. i don't know if you know about teenagers, but losing the contents of a teenager's bedroom is akin to losing one's soul. the bedroom of a teenager, terrifying to any outsider, is a holy place to them, a sanctuary. she describes the situation with a worn out voice, explaining that she, too, is staying with family. it's okay, she says. they're just things. they don't matter. she does not say this because she is a child of wealthy parents who will simply replace everything. she says it because it is something she knows to be true.

the eleventh graders do not want to talk so much about what they have seen. they want to talk about what comes next. they talk about the gas lines, the looting, the fires. they talk about the opportunities for local hardware stores and construction workers. they ask more questions. they want to know why the cyclone didn't blow down. it is so old and rickety and wooden, they say, but it is clear they are proud of their ancient roller coaster for not plunging into the sea the way roller coasters in other states seem to have done. they want to know about sharks in basements. they want to know how long. i tell them about my own town, how they are still rebuilding more than a year later. i tell them things will not be fixed quickly but they should work to fix things anyway. they do not flinch.

they do not understand why adults might rebuild where the ocean came up and destroyed but they do understand that this ugliness they have been through will give them new choices. rebuilding is not just about structures. it is about how they decide to look at what is before them. tomorrow they will be home again. it is election day and they will be, many of them, staring out of someone else's windows, watching someone else's t.v., sleeping on floors. with each class, i do not want to let them go out the door and back into whatever they will go to. i want to keep them where they are, safe for a few hours, thinking about how to move forward. but the bell rings, no matter what i want. so i tell them what i can. be safe tomorrow, i say. go out and do something useful. a week ago i wouldn't have been sure, but today i am. they will do exactly what i have asked. not because i have asked them. they will do it because they have seen, firsthand, that they are needed.