The Bluebonnet that Grew from Concrete

This time last year, Austin was suffocating in 90 degree temperatures + humidity and all the bluebonnets that once had dreams of breaking through soil, were trampled by the beginnings of one of the most intense heat waves in Texas since the early 1900's. Sadly, no families did the cliched trample across the meadow, clad in kaki pants and white Polo shirts, because there were no state treasures blossoming around Texas (and if there were, I couldn't find them). My parents came and went on Easter, remembering only the feel of sweat down one's back that feels more like a mobile spider on your spine than anything else. Instead of a magical hike in Emma Long Park, my dad and I trudged through an almost palpable curtain of thick, humid air, both of us bitching about lack of water and squinting to try and find anything remotely alive around us.

This year, however, the forecast is much more favorable and the flowers, from all the recent rain, are absolutely electrifying around Hill Country. The most interesting arrays, to me, are the ones that pop up between highway lanes, as though mocking modern industry in their blatant blandness and refusing to let them prevail. Instead, the flowers culminate in every spare corner, using the grayness of the road as but a mere template, like a white wall, in which to splatter their colors upon.

My kids and I (ahem...students) studied a Tupac poem back in November called, "The Rose that Grew from Concrete." I was thrilled when, after only slight provoking, the students understood the symbolism of the rose being Tupac the artist, and the concrete as his tumultuous childhood and past. I was even more thrilled when my students remembered this poem, and it's overall meaning, last week when I had them connect that poem to the book I read a passage out of called Before Tupac and D Foster (I can't find the underline button, so please forgive the book title not being underlined). If there is one common theme that brings students together, it's struggle, and from that common theme I hope they see another: redemption.

One of my students, we can call her I, has lived apart from her parents (who are in Mexico) for almost two years now. She came here to learn English, and so she has, and over the two years, and the divine pleasure of teaching this young girl, I have watched an impossibly emotional situation filled with loneliness and linguistic isolation turn into one that is triumphant. She did not hop a bus home after an entire school day throwing a foreign language at her, or crying at home over homework she couldn't understand and birthdays come and gone in Mexico she'd missed. She stayed, and rose above, and now I has a confidence that two years ago seemed light years away. (And of course this student, I, has had some less adorable teenage moments, especially with eye rolls that need no translation at all, for they are a worldwide F*#$ you, but hey, she is thirteen after all, and I can be a bit pushy.)

Last week, I watched as she laughed at a joke the AP told her (in English), the same AP whose mere presence and voice once made her scurry behind me, almost pulling my dress down to hide beneath it, like a little toddler.

The beauty of redemption is that there is always a chance to change and be better. Let's look at Stanley Tookie Willims III, who was born and raised in SouthCentral LA. He was the co-founder of one of the most infamous gangs of all time, the Crips. After being convicted of murder four times, he finally begain to seek redemption. While in jail, Williams wrote numerous anti-gang books and pieces of literature geared for kids and repeatedly admitted to making bad choices in his past. Now, does his story end well? Unfortunately, not as well as we'd like. Arnold Shwartzanegger did not let the obvious 'change of heart' of Williams affect what was imminent, his execution. Now, don't be angry with me for not giving you a happy ending (truly, I apologize!) because Williams did get his redemption, in my opinion. He forced the connotations from his name to be switched from one of the worst proponents of violence and gang authority to one that now helps teach kids the bloody reality of such a lifestyle. He gained the atonement, if not from his state, at least from himself. He was part of one of the most important processes of the human spirit: transformation.

Let's just say, I may or may not have just ordered his book for some of my more gang-interested 7th grade boys......

So why is it that we want to rise from something? Why not stay down, low to the floor, and look at that concrete and think, well, at least it doesn't get dirt under my nails....

I don't think there is an actual answer to this. I think it should, and will, remain one of the must delicious secrets of humankind (second only to the hiccups). Why is it that most of us have an internal arrow trying desperately to point north, toward Heaven or whatever place of sanctuary and self-actualization we can think of? I want to believe it is more than indoctrination from a society that tells us what is good or what is right, because my little nephew, who doesn't grasp the English language yet, knows that being hugged is good, and that laughter is divine, without being told that by society.

And again, to regress to my obsession with non-verbal communication, I will tell you the brief story of last Thursday......

I had taken three of my ESL girls to see the Hunger Games, one of which was I, (mentioned earlier) who read the book in Spanish (since her reading level is at about 2nd grade). Well, when I's grandmother came to pick her up, she insisted on getting out of her car. I watched as she slowly walked toward me, her face carved upon by years of life and laughter, and she came right up to me, tears in her eyes, and hugged me tightly. Not one of those gentle hugs, but a hug that says, I want to hold you and tell you something with my grip, because this is what it means to not let go. While there were brief words exchanged in Spanish, we were both silent while she held my face with her small wrinkled hands, both of our eyes on the verge of flooding. She reminded that loving and sharing and believing are the signposts that guide us, that make us want to be better, and that this process never should stop, even when you are 78 and raising teenagers. I know that whoever hammered those relentless signposts within me is responsible for everything I have tried to do and be in my life.

Even though the bluebonnets couldn't rise last year, they still lived, even suffocated and shrunken they waited beneath the earth for the next spring, when the rain would come, because it always does, and then they resurrected, more beautiful and plentiful than ever. I suppose we should all hope to reach such profound redemptive beauty. After all, it's Spring guys, and all that poetic crap is a cliche around this time of year for a reason....because those flowers can teach us something after all.