I Made New Friends: Balls Involved

You already know I would have got in!

I sat in a Ball Pit.

I am in my 30's and I sat in a Ball Pit. One made by students with folding tables, plastic wrap and physics. At work. In the middle of the day. Having just come from a rally on campus “calling for justice” at the report of a hate/bias incident. A rally where current students protested for the microphone to speak out against the Administration, and specifically their belief of its inability to support them.

I passed the Ball Pit on the way to the rally. I stopped on my way back to my office. I took off my Cathy Jean boots. I got my 30+ year old body as low to the ground as humanly possible. I climbed in.

I made new friends.

This year, during the student staff training I showed a video a friend (FMB) posted to Facebook. SoulPancake (follow them, it’ll be the best follow you make as you endeavor to lead) created a Ball Pit. They only asked two things of potential ball pit’ers. Take a seat. Make a new friend. I loved that video so much! I shared it on my various social media pages. Told my friends about it, and talked it up to my Professional Staff team. I wanted this type of simplicity to be the vehicle in which we tackled a complexity facing students face today: building connections, engaging in conversations, and creating community.

Lots of people made new friends.

In the Ball Pit I was asked a few questions, obviously. First, about something “life-changing” in my existence. I told them about my experience being American, not in America. About going to Europe and embracing this new identity that I’ve always had. I have been American in Texas, California, New York, New Jersey and even Arkansas. And it was not until I got to the Netherlands, thousands of miles away from the United States, did I see America in me. As if my life was being documented and narrated in a Soledad O’Brien expose on a group’s lived experience in some unheard of sect of the world. One young lady, an 18 year old junior from the East Bay, said that she wanted to study abroad. She seemed enamored with my European travels. I’m enamored with them too.

Next I was asked about love. I was asked to tell them about the first time I fell in love. Everyone in the Ball Pit looked to me, as I earlier revealed my age, assuming that I would have a (great) response. They were smiling. One young lady admitted that she’s never fallen in love. Two things happened. I immediately thought to the love I most recently lost. And that made me silent. Silent and still. Then I remembered all the love I ever had before that…loss. I told them about “a” time I fell in love, because for me, there isn’t a first or second or last. There is just love. I described the feeling as being connected to a person in every single way, who hasn’t even figured out everything there is to know about you.  Being loved in, through and despite the unknown. Love you for your good, your bad and your unknown. Being free to love each other. There’s nothing that you don’t know about each other and its okay. Like the parachute jump[1] Zora Neale Hurston spoke and wrote of. And though I have hit the ground a few times, I soared all the way down. I think they might have been a little confused by that explanation…kinda like Joe.

Lastly, I was asked about inspiration. Who inspires me? I went last. Not because I did not have a response, but that they seemed so ready to answer to this question. Each one of them spoke of a parent, as many of us can. A parent or guardian that has saved every day for them with their super human powers of care, sacrifice, laughter, wisdom and love. I have a similar narrative. My father’s struggles are epic battles…like the Zooks and the Yooks warring over the rights to butter side up or down their toast. My Daddie is undefeated. And even though I know that he will not live always, he has already left his legacy. My Daddie has already made a provision for my children’s future. Nestled safely in me. I will somehow become all the great things he wanted to be, when he can no longer do that in this life. Congestive heart failure is not strong enough to take him out. It will just reveal a new champion. I’ve already volunteered #HungerGames. But I did not say any of that.

I told them about Thomas Henderson. A sixteen year old kid from Wexford, PA who changed the course of my entire life in one month. Thomas and I went through the forming, storming and norming in a matter of hours. And though he is no longer with me, we will never adjourn. He is the reason I show up. He is the reason I have this passion for this work. I want to be better for Thomas when I am unable to find a reason to be better for myself. And, he is also the reason TSA has to ask me to go back through the detectors or make me stand to the side to be searched by the next female officer. I have usually forgotten to take something off, because I am dressed like I am going to work, at the airport, at 6:00am. At the McCarran Airport in Las Vegas. With a half marathon medal around my neck. Because Thomas showed me how to pay respect to the pilots that get me from race, to conference, to home, to Christmas break – pilots that I never see. Thomas’ father was his champion – flying the not always “so friendly” skies.

So, right in the moment when my staff needed me to be in my office carefully crafting correspondences to those who needed to know what they needed to know to better support them, I was in a Ball Pit – being their champion. Only, I had no idea. The students in the Ball Pit also asked me what was on my bucket list. My list is pretty abstract. One thing, however abstract, on my list, is to do something, for someone who owes me nothing. Something that changes everything for them, kind of the way Thomas changed me. I am not even sure I want to know what it is I have done (I totally do not want to know), or get some grand show of gratitude (grand shows about me make me incredibly anxious and awkward #ImmaFakeLeoSometimes). I just want to get that feeling deep down in my spirit that I accomplished it. Now, I have imagined that this thing will take some huge sacrifice, right? That it is going to cost me tons of money, or time, or energy. I am going to have to stop, mid-haste to the next shoe sale to do this very important thing. That is how I have day dreamed it – which surprises me because I am usually more creative.

When I woke up this morning at 5:45am, I got the feeling that maybe I did it. I showed a video in late August days before my 33^rd birthday. I had no idea that three months later, I would sitting in a Ball Pit, steps from my office, making new friends, on a day the campus is wrought with so much negative energy about race, violence, crime, misunderstanding that doing just that, making a new friend, is the last thing anyone really wants to do.

But. Anyone who knows me knows I am an (over)achiever. If I did indeed “do it” already, I am going to try and do it again. 5:45am never feels like that. It felt damn good. 5:45am NEVER feels (damn) good! Not even when there’s a race medal involved. #MedalMonday

Yep. I’m pretty sure I did it.

The real donut monster is reading this, and she just called me an overachiever. #14in2014

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[1] “I didn’t just fall in love, I made a parachute jump.” #ZNH