Delta Dooder Da

My mother always says to me, "You're like a knotted rope, and the harder we pull, the tighter you make yourself.  It's like I can't untangle you."

My mom says this in reference to my aloofness, but most times I know she means my stubbornness.  And it's true.  I'm as stubborn as a hangnail, refusing to be clipped.  I'm as stubborn as an un-roasted pistachio, unwilling to be opened.  I'm as stubborn as my father... and my mother.  I'm as stubborn as they come.  The harder someone tries to get an answer out of me or to get me to do something, the harder I refuse.  Eventually my mind implodes and I give into whatever secret was festering inside, but the road to that is usually difficult and filled with my dirty stares.

My stubbornness is what brings me here tonight, writing away my pre-adventure jitters.  It's 12:40 AM in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and by this time tomorrow I'll be on my way to training in the Mississippi Delta.  13 hours away from home.

The story of my life is that I never knew what I wanted to be growing up.  When teachers would ask me, I had a different answer every year.  The world seemed so big and there were so many things I could try.  Many would say this was the first sign of a flighty woman, but I say... bollocks to them! I'm just as stubborn as they come.  The first time I said I wanted to be an artist but by age 7 I had been told that I would be penniless and working part-time as a mime in Paris.  The second time was right after my uncle had passed and I told them I wanted to be a scientist who found a cure for cancer; but I knew I was lying because, even at age 9, I hated science. When I graduated from the 5th grade I had a bevy of teachers tell me I was going to become President of the United States, and I thought... why would I want to be that?

It was years before I had to ask myself that question again.  That dirty little question popped right back into my life during my junior year of high school.  It was time to be a big girl and figure out things like colleges, majors, minors, specifications, associations.... I still had no idea.  But I knew I didn't want to not know.

I told one of my best friends that I was thinking of going into journalism.  I loved to write and I really really really just wanted to travel.  He told me I was too smart to settle for "something like journalism" and that I was wasting my brain.  Say what?!?!?   I must say I was only 5% flattered and 95% offended at that comment, but later that year when he asked me out I still said yes because I was such a sucker.  Our adolescent love didn't last but he planted an idea inside of me that I always kept burning in the back of my mind: why settle?

I didn't really want to be a journalist, I just loved to write.  And when I entered college as an art major, I didn't really want to do that either, I just wanted to paint.  And when I switched into fashion design a year later, I still didn't want to do that, I just wanted a stable job and health insurance.

Here I am, 2 years out of college.  I have a bachelor's and an associates in Fashion Design.  Three weeks ago I quit my design job at a multi-billion dollar corporation so I could teach art to kids in the Mississippi Delta.  I didn't even know where that was; I had to google-map it. And use Wikipedia.

The point is.... maybe I didn't want to settle for great benefits, a stable salary, and 65 hour weeks.  I don't know much about the South, or Mississippi, or Arkansas, or the Delta in general.

The truth is I'm terrified.  All of my midnight doubts are hitting me. What if I suck at this.  What if I walk into that classroom and they laugh at me and they tell me to kick my stilettos up and go back to where I came from.... That won't be good.

I just want to help people.  I want to ask kids what they think they'll be when they grow up.  I want to believe in whatever answer they give me, and most of all, I want them to believe it too.

When I quit my job, I told my boss that I'm the type of person who walks into a job and always wants to give 200% of myself, and if I were to give 200% of myself it was damned well going to be for something more meaningful than striped polo shirts.

So here I am, not quite the President of the United States as my teachers once predicted, but ready to make changes nonetheless.