[three minutes]

the past is a place
not far away
my fingers in yours
and the root of the cause still undiscovered
your lips
a foreign place
my eyes close tightly
as i whisper, gently, the reasons i'm not
"no one can tell me not to find it..."
a line erased
is it truly black?
the fire is so much hotter than you know
rewind
rewind
a girl stands alone on a bridge
with memory railings
and her feet feel like null space
but her eyes follow the smile beneath icy water
too late to swim
too early to fly

[catalyst]

"Did I do that?"

It's a question I've asked myself so often recently. Did my words spark this debate? Were my actions a defining factor? Was the outcome different because I exist?

It's an important question for me. My ability to claim victories is often my only vindication from the social marginalization that I experience as a consequence of my actions. But my desire to denounce negative outcomes leads me to question the cause-and-effect model.

Maybe I didn't break it.
Maybe it was already cracked.
Maybe I didn't create something beautiful.
Maybe I just pulled the curtains off a masterpiece we all thought we weren't supposed to touch.

One of the most difficult stances that I have ever taken has recently taken legitimate roots in policy discussion. The actions I took regarding this issue resulted in criticism from my peers and caused a few of my family members to stop speaking to me, but I believed in what I was doing. But now that white-collar conversations are taking place, everyone seems to want me to keep my name out of it. I am daring but I am not legitimate. I can take the heat, but not the credit. An issue that I was passionate enough to risk everything for will go down in records as having been effectively addressed by people other than me. It stings in a way that others warned me about but I never fully understood. But I can't change the system externally if the system is unwilling to engage with me. So was it worth it? Did my actions make a difference? Would the framework or context for what's happening now still exist had my actions not been taken?

I don't know, and I guess I never will. I'd like to believe that my actions held a defining role in how things played out, because maybe that will make the marginalization, both from my family and my peers, feel worth it. Maybe it will be the difference between feeling critical and feeling used.

There are so many great movements that I have been a part of at UMBC that I can proudly point to and say, "I did that- I was a part of that. I spoke up and that happened as a result!" But the real world is complex, and nothing is as simple as cause-and-effect. Maybe my questions led to a change in policy interpretation, but maybe the policy writers left that clever loophole on purpose, and sooner or later someone would have challenged it. I can claim my actions, but I can't claim the results.

This is both discouraging and comforting. If the policy whose interpretation changed because of a challenge I made to it is revised and tightened, resulting in less rights for students, is that my fault for having challenged it?

No. I can no more feel guilty for things that have been destroyed than I can claim as my victory those which have been created. I am but one player in a game that transcends neat categories and strategy guides. To simplify a system so that blame can be neatly placed is to mock those who participate in it.

I have been called a catalyst by others. And at first glace, maybe I am. A catalyst does not participate in a chemical reaction. A catalyst is not consumed by it. A catalyst can participate in multiple reactions at once. A catalyst slows or speeds a reaction by changing the activation energy of a complex. It allows reactions to happen that would otherwise be impossible, energy-wise, but its atoms do not actually end up in the product, at least not mathematically. At least not to anyone who doesn't understand the mechanisms behind the reaction. To the casual observer, a catalyst exists peacefully while a chemical reaction swarms around it. It appears to do nothing, but the truth is, it is doing everything. But the end result seems to indicate that the catalyst is untouched. So maybe that's me.

Sometimes I feel like I break everything I touch. Sometimes I feel like I touch everything within arm's reach. Sometimes I feel like my ability to touch the things that other people can't even see is my greatest strength.

But I am not a catalyst. These reactions consume me. Activism is not chemistry, unfortunately for me.

I don't know what I am. But I am alive. And I am going to keep on trying to figure it out.

[be inspired by your own story]

Watch your thoughts, for they become your words.
Watch your words, for they become your actions.
Watch your actions, for they become your habits.
Watch your habits, for they become your character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.
[Freeman Hrabowski]


The first time Freeman Hrabowski took notice of me, I was an 18-year-old college freshman with short-cropped, spiky hair, a determination to be heard, and a fire in my voice. As I spoke out against the injustices I saw in a pending university decision to a crowd of my peers, professors, and university administration, I could see his eyes soften with the impact of each verbal plea.

A lot of people spoke out that day against the decision for UMBC to become a Reserve Officer Training Corps host site, for a variety of reasons, ranging from bold statements like "the military's purpose is death" to timid, respectful questions about how UMBC could justify inviting in a program that violated our own non-discrimination policy. I will never forget watching one UMBC staff member who I knew was not usually inclined to speak out step in front of the microphone and raise his objections to allowing LGBT people to be be discriminated against on the UMBC campus. I will never forget the tortured look in the eyes of one ROTC cadet who undoubtedly had a story to tell, but could not, for the very reason that many of us did not want ROTC here. I admire so many of the people who spoke that day for their courage. I don't think I have ever felt such deep solidarity with my community. I didn't feel like a hero that day; I felt like part of a powerful movement.

But somehow I stood out that day. What I had to say grabbed the attention of many, and hundreds of opportunities arose for me from those town hall meetings. They acted as my springboard into activism, because for the first time, I realized the power I held if only I chose to unleash it.

I could change things for people if I spoke.

Freeman Hrabowski found me after the town hall meeting to shake my hand. He complimented my courage and persuasion, and expressed an interest in working with Freedom Alliance and I to address some of the challenges LGBT students face at UMBC. It was an exciting moment for us.

Most of my interactions with President Hrabowski over the next six months centered around planting the seeds for what would be the beginning of a subtle revolution in the way the university prioritized LGBT issues. He always complimented me as articulate and intelligent, and he gave all of us the sense that we were heard and respected, even if we were frustrated with the lack of immediate action on the university's part. What we couldn't see at the time was what Nancy Young and our other mentors had assured us, that our power lay not in our ability to drive hard bargains or criticize university practices, but in our ability to open the eyes of those we spoke to. When we left the President's Council meeting where we had delivered a presentation to a room full of some of the most powerful people at UMBC, there were tears and stricken faces around the conference table.

I could change more than just those around me. I could change my community.

And I did. I became deeply involved in campus culture. I had been introduced to an unquenchable thirst to make an impact. I learned that, as a student, my voice was powerful, and that sometimes asking the right question was all it took to make an impact. I stumbled and made mistakes along the way, but for the most part, the world was forgiving of my inexperience and my mentors willing to point me in the right direction when I got disoriented. I helped instigate new programs and changes in policies. I led students in creating our own change where the system did not offer us the option. I lost a student government election, but I engaged students who would otherwise never have been, and we broke a voting record with an uncontested presidential ticket.

Realities of a situation were different when I was through with them. I could change my world.

Most of my interactions with President Hrabowski during the remainder of my sophomore year were brief, but positive. He attended the Allies' Dinner I organized later that fall and delivered the opening remarks. We also often saw each other at Center for Women and IT scholar events, where he usually delivered a few words, sometimes mentioning me in his speeches. We interacted indirectly when I championed student first amendment rights at the end of the year by attaining the license to show a controversial adult film in protest after the MD State Legislature had threatened to de-fund College Park in its entirety if they allowed students to show adult films on campus. We never spoke directly about the issue, but UMBC was tied to the issue by the media, and President Hrabowski became involved in conversations about the issue partially as a result of my actions. Administration who I did interact with took my stance on the pornography issue surprisingly seriously and tried to work with me rather than cut me off or dissuade me from taking action. The respect that I was given while advocating such a demonized issue made me feel both proud of the reputation I had built for myself as an activist and grateful for those with influence and power who saw students as purposeful agents of change rather than inconvenient rebels. I could change my world, not just once, but over and over. I could purposefully and powerfully impact situational dynamics by taking calculated risks. I could do what I knew in my heart was right.

I didn't just have the potential to be an activist-- I undeniably was one at my core.
I didn't just believe that it was possible for me change the world-- I knew for certain that I would.


Each of you will have the opportunity to have an impact on thousands of lives.
Each of you.
I want you to see the vision.
I want you to think about the fact that the time will come, when you get your education, and you go on and do greater-- you can have an impact on thousands of lives.
So it is possible to imagine that your class can change the world.
Be inspired by your own story.
[Freeman Hrabowski (Convocation 2009)]


Today I had a longer conversation with Freeman Hrabowski than I've had with him in a while after a lunch set up by CWIT. During lunch, we'd spent some time discussing gender dynamics at UMBC and the role we as scholars have to play in impacting the community around us. Afterwards, he asked me about the interdisciplinary studies major I had mentioned pursuing earlier that hour, and I told him that I wanted to combine Mathematical Modeling and Sexuality Politics to form an INDS major in addition to the Chemical Engineering degree I was pursuing.

Hrabowski expressed some disappointment with that idea. He urged me to stick to Mathematical Modeling and Chemical Engineering, but to use the modeling for research in applied science or engineering rather than applying it to sexuality politics, also suggesting that I merely minor in sexuality politics so I could focus on Chemical Engineering and go on to pursue my PhD.

It's not atypical for people to react to my proposed course of study this way, so I said that I didn't think I'd be pursuing a PhD in Chemical Engineering because I was fairly certain that I wanted to be an activist, and that I wanted to double-major because I'd decided to spread my Chemical Engineering degree out over five years instead of four. I also mentioned that I still might pursue a PhD in a field more relevant to my career goals instead.

Dr. Hrabowski spent the next several minutes trying to convince me that I was too smart for that. Too smart to be an activist, too smart to take five years to graduate, and too smart not to get a PhD in Chemical Engineering or Mathematics and become a professor.

I smiled knowingly, pointing out that he himself had gotten a bachelor's degree in Mathematics but had gone on to pursue a PhD in Higher Education, and that he'd had been able to have a huge impact in areas he was passionate about as a result. I also reminded him that one of the first things he'd said to me when he met me was that I should become a lawyer.

He laughed and said that was before he knew I could do math.

There was a little more back and forth, but I don't think either of us really got through to the other. In many ways we were speaking different languages. In the end, I laughed and told him I'd look into the 5 year BS/MS program and keep a PhD in Chemical Engineering in mind, knowing that those things have been in mind all along regardless.


Hold fast to dreams.
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow
[Langston Hughs]


I once heard President Hrabowski describe how when he was a boy he used to look himself in the mirror each day and say, "Good morning, Dr. Hrabowski!" From a young age, he knew that it was his dream to pursue a PhD despite the odds against him at that time. He was a civil rights activist as a young teenager, arrested at the age of 13 for marching in the streets to protest the jailing of Martin Luther King, Jr. He was the only black student at the University of Illinois, graduating with his bachelor's degree in Mathematics at 18 and going on to earn a PhD, author two books, and transform a university from a no-name school in Baltimore to the number-one ranked up-and-coming university in the United States with almost unparalleled levels of diversity and groundbreaking academic achievement by minority students.

In many ways, President Hrabowski's disapproval of my desire to be an activist carries a lot of irony; his story is a highly relevant example of someone who was brilliant at mathematics and succeeded despite the odds against him, but opted to enter a less prestigious field in order to make a difference.

Hrabowski changed his world. Hrabowski changed a lot of worlds.

The Langston Hughs poem above is often quoted to Meyerhoff scholars to remind them to stay the course and pursue their dreams of earning a PhD. And in some ways, maybe that is a reasonable application, because one of the pretenses for entering the program is an intention to pursue a PhD. But today, I'd like to quote this poem back at President Hrabowski, because once upon a time, I had dreams of being an activist, and now I am. I still have dreams of changing the world, and I will.

I refuse to believe that my ability to excel at something is indicative of an obligation or destiny to proceed down that path. I don't doubt that I could be a great researcher or chemical engineer. And I don't doubt my brilliance or my ability to succeed despite the odds. But I have a dream. I have something to contribute. I see things that need to change, and I am going to change them.

As David Hoffman points out, my destiny is in my hands. Whether the path I choose is truly reflective of my own goals and values or merely rises to meet other people’s expectations is up to me. There is no such thing as being too smart to pursue my passion. Passion is the one thing that no one can take from me. It is the ultimate investment.

So what do I think?

I think I speak out against injustice because conversations need to be started.
I think I take actions because they are right, not because they are safe.
I think I am effective. I think I am a force to reckon with.
I think I can and will change the world.


Watch your thoughts, for they become your words.
Watch your words, for they become your actions.
Watch your actions, for they become your habits.
Watch your habits, for they become your character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.
[Freeman Hrabowski]

[everything i ever wanted... but differently]

So I spent the last two weeks of my summer on a lot of firsts. First Amtrak train ride, first time traveling by myself, and my first trip to the western United States. It was an incredible feeling to step out of the train station in Chicago and explore downtown on my own. I've spent the last two years being independent, so such feelings usually don't phase me, but something about being hundreds of miles away from home by myself felt different. Seeing the western states on the way to Nevada by train and then by airplane on the way back was incredible. And something about traveling so far on my own felt like I was claiming something. It gave me a lot of time to reflect on myself and the world around me, to forge hopes and dreams in a material perhaps stronger than anything I've used before.

As the airplane descended on the scattered blanket of Christmas lights that was the Baltimore metropolis, I felt a surge of something warm and mighty. It was so good to be home. I hadn't felt so glad to see Baltimore since I returned from my last trip to India at the age of thirteen.

Today I dumped out my backpack on the floor of my bedroom and headed out to grab some groceries. As I strolled down Calvert street, historical townhouses on either side of me, I couldn't help but realize how very awesome it was that I was living in Mount Vernon.

Sure, I was forced out of my housing at UMBC and had to live out of a backpack for five weeks. Sure, the commute to UMBC without a car will be difficult and time-consuming. Sure, I live in a warehouse space with lead paint in the ceiling, no air conditioning, and rust in the pipes. But in spite of how I got here, I am somewhere I have wanted to be for a long time.

If you asked 17-year-old me what I would do next if I could do anything, I'm sure I would have told you that I wanted to go to college. I knew I wanted to live on campus my freshman year, but I dreamed of living in downtown Baltimore someday. If you told 17-year-old me that when I was 20, I'd be living in Mount Vernon with four good friends, attending UMBC on a full scholarship, and studying mathematics, chemical engineering, sexuality politics, and how to change the world, I think the elicited response would have been "FUCK YEAH!"

I have less money than I'd like right now. Some weeks I eat a little less than I'd like. The commute to UMBC is somewhat long. I have to work more hours than I'd like, and I get to do fewer extracurriculars as a result. I have a few more credit-hours in my class schedule than I think I can handle. I'm worried about paying for books, making rent, and paying for food. Money and time are my major limitations, and they are stressful ones to have without much of a support system in place.

Coming home let me, for a moment, look beyond those stress factors at where I actually am in life. And I realized, today, that I am exactly where I have wanted to be for a long time. If anything, I got there even faster than I thought possible.

I'm worried about how the pieces will fall together. I am worried about failing myself. I am worried about not being able to handle my own life. Maybe everything I wanted is really too much for me. There is a feeling of security within the walls of UMBC, even if the reality is that I am on my own either way. If my life falls apart in the city, and I am living out of my backpack or doing nothing important with my life, that seems fine. No major consequences. If my life falls apart and I'm taking classes, and I fail out of school...

My faith in myself has been wavering. I'm having trouble believing that I can do or handle anything I want. I'm worried about what will happen this semester, and that makes enjoying where I am in life hard.

But boy is my life awesome. Sometimes I just need to remind myself. I have everything I ever wanted. Just differently.

UMBC Fall 2009, bring it on.

[phase iii]

[thirteen]

Halfway around the globe, a bead of sweat hit the sink. I had just stepped out of the shower, but salty-sweet sweat had already crept out of my pores, mixing with the water that coated my hair and skin. Even after two months in India, I still took hot showers. Wrapping a towel around my thin, prepubescent body, I tiptoed down the hallway, a stolen razor clutched against me. The room where I slept was empty. I latched the door and hid the razor carefully among my things before towel-drying my short, dark hair. I watched myself in the mirror.

My skin was darker than I'd ever seen it from the India sun, and my legs were unfamiliarly smooth. My body had yet to catch up with those of the other girls I went to school with, though, and I hated my short-cropped hair. I felt silly in girls' clothes. I sat on the bed and traced the ragged, painful tears in the skin of my upper arms- my mother's doing.

A surge of anger rushed through me. I hadn't deserved those. I usually didn't.

I wasn't sure whether to hate my brother or my mother or myself. I felt empty and lonely. I didn't know what I wanted, but I was tired of giving in. I wanted to speak up for myself. I wanted to stop feeling so insecure. I wanted some control over my life, and, in a foreign country, where I didn't speak the language, thousands of miles from anyone I trusted, I had never felt more powerless.

But life wasn't all bad. Tomorrow I turned thirteen, which meant presents, my favorite cake from Birdie's, and a call from my dad. I wondered if being a teenager would feel different from being twelve.

I hoped with everything I had that it did.


[twenty]

The body in the mirror is different now. Almost everything is different. The daring action is not to shave my legs in secret, but to refuse to do so at all. I have grown my hair and I have cut it all off. I don't feel so silly in girls' clothes any more. I have incredible self-confidence in my body image. And no one, no one, has laid a hand on me in many years. There are no more physical scars to cradle.

It turns out that thirteen-year-old me didn't really understand what I wanted. I don't want to look like all the others. I don't envy the blond hair, the Disneyland vacations, the material possessions. I don't envy the money or seemingly painless lives or boyfriends or family dinners. I know now that what I thought I wanted so badly at the age of thirteen is really not what I wanted at all. It is the opposite of what I have grown to be, to value, to crave.

How much has changed over the course of my teenage years.

It's so easy to summarize who I was at thirteen, but who am I now? What vignette can I paint that symbolizes this year? Is it a portrait of a fading teenager on a Baltimore City sidewalk, leaning back on an overstuffed blue backpack, eating raw ramen noodles and peaches from Lexington Market? Is it a snapshot of a smiling young woman in a grey suit blazer, graciously accepting an award for emerging leadership at a college award ceremony? Is it a heated dialogue between advisor and student-activist on the second floor of the UMBC Commons? Is it a lonely girl, sitting in the windowsill of the fifth floor of a warehouse in Baltimore City, gazing out over Penn Station with a cigarette between her lips and wondering what comes next?

If I know anything for certain about what these coming years will hold, it's that I haven't got a clue what that is. If I understand anything, it's that I understand very little about my place in this world. Maybe when I finished high school I knew almost everything there was to know about myself, but I sure as hell didn't have a clue how those things related to the world around me. In many ways I still don't. And without a context those revelations mean much less than I thought.

It's time to move on. I felt it as my second year at UMBC drew to a close. Am I ready to move into the next phase of my life? I asked myself cautiously as I chose to leave the UMBC campus behind to seek home elsewhere. I didn't know that the answer was yes at the time but I did know that avoiding stagnancy was worth the risk of not being ready.

Now I know the answer though. I can feel a new phase beginning. I'm growing restless of the limitations of college life, and sometimes I wonder if the best thing that this scholarship will ever do for me is show me what college is not, so that I don't spend the rest of my life feeling sorry for myself because an economic barrier kept me from reaching my "potential."

What is seven years? On my 27th birthday, will I be reading this and shaking my head, scolding myself for my stupidity? Will what I want then be the opposite of what I want now?

One thing is almost certain: the vast majority of my life is before me. As much as I feel like I have in my past, as much as I think I have lived and seen, it is nothing compared to what is coming. I have so much of my life left to live, left to discover. There are so many adventures to be had. There are so many worlds to build around myself for a time and then leave behind, only to move on to the next. Maybe there will be pieces that I will carry with me, and maybe I will leave everything behind. But the adventure is far from over. It has hardly begun.


[what matters]

I spent 15 years trying to figure out why you couldn't give me what I needed. And I've spent the last 5 trying to figure out how to give it to myself since you didn't.

What took me 15 years to figure out is that it doesn't matter why you couldn't or didn't. That's your problem. That's your life. It doesn't have a thing to do with me except that maybe I don't like that about you.

What matters is why I can't give you what I want to give. What matters is why I can't love you just because you didn't love me the way I needed.

That is the only question that is relevant to this life. To me.

It's time to stop blaming you for all the pain I have felt for so long. The fault is irrelevant. I'm past the point where I need to remind myself that it was your fault just to convince myself that it wasn't mine. Your inability to love me unconditionally is nothing compared to the pain that my inability to love others unconditionally has caused me. And I am the only one who can fix that.

I'm 20 years into my life. It's time to let go. It's time to stop searching for an answer that isn't there and doesn't matter. It's time to take hold of my own heart and fix what has perhaps always been broken. The solution is inside me.

It's over. An era is over. Something new will begin now. I'm six steps out the door and I've already let the keys slip away into the gutter.