dreaming of floors

i know it's not july.  i've known it's not july for the past nine months.

i know because of the constant date that i have to swipe away every time i unlock my phone.  i know because it's felt like early february for about 6 months.

i know because i'm surrounded by an ocean of cement and jungle of concrete.

i know it's not july, but i'm blogging anyway.

i'm blogging because, even though it's not july, i'm still connected to the julys that i have left behind and they are still connected to me.  it's true.

it's always been true.  it's been true for all of my months of all of my years.  always.

sometime it's difficult for me to remember that truth.  sometimes it's difficult for me to feel that truth.

sometimes it feels like the moment i'm in is the only moment that i've ever known.

sometimes if feels like i'm not standing on the shoulders of every person that has ever raised a fist in the air for women, for the oppressed, for equality, for education, or for justice.




and then, sometimes, i scroll down my facebook news feed and that truth stares me in the face.



let me explain.

my july of 2012 was spent learning and teaching and loving in the Dominican Republic.  i wanted to understand DR so that i could understand my community, so that i could understand my school, so that i could understand my classroom.

while i never forgot those lessons, while they inform my relationship with my community on a daily basis, i wonder about the community that i left in DR and if any of that summer meant as much to them as it did to me.

i'm sure it didn't.

but just like all of the people that have gone before me, just like all of the heroes i look up to, i stand on their shoulders without their knowledge.  their lives form mine and most of them will never know.  most of them aren't even alive to see it.

culture is forming around us all of the time.  it's day in and day out.  it's every moment.

sometimes we form cultures and never see them change.  sometimes we plant seeds and never see the fruit.

when i was in DR i colored with kids on a shattered cement floor.  i left DR, those kids, and the shattered cement floor.

when i was sitting in my living room scrolling my facebook news feed i saw that same floor.

i saw it restored.

new.  perfect.  


like a dream.

i don't claim any part of that process.  i don't take any credit for the new cement that was poured.

i don't.

i'm well aware of my place in the world.  i have no disillusions of grandeur.



all of it made me think, though, about how change takes time and about how we rarely see the effect of our actions in the moment.

it made me think about how our actions in the moment are important because they make the changes that we might never see.

it gave me hope for DR, for my neighborhood, for my school.

it gives me hope when my friends and i get together in the evening to pick up trash on the streets and the same streets are flooded with litter when i walk to work the next morning.

it gives me hope when my kids live in a world that has given them an uneven playing field and all they want to do is play baseball.

it gives me hope when people dream bigger dreams for the world around me, even if i never see them come true.