loaf of bread

I walked into my only on-campus class on Tuesday afternoon.

Familiar hallways. Familiar classroom. Familiar, uncomfortable desks.

This is my last semester at this school.

I waited for the professor to show up. I talked to a few people in the class. Anything to break the uncomfortable silence that always falls between new students.

I looked around the room and noticed people. Wondered who would last the semester. Wondered if there was someone in this room that would one day change the world. I wanted to know their names... and I wondered who I'd become friends with by May.

The Carol walked in. Ms. Stiles. She started babbling about how it only took her 15 minutes to get to campus from Hamburg. About cataract surgery. And how next Tuesday we won't have class.

She explained the syllabus. And her attendance policy. Which is, "you get six absences. No more. If you want to take a mental health day, take a mental health day. It's up to you. But six is all you get."

I smiled.

I always worry when I like my professors right off the bat. The pattern has been, the ones I love on the first day, I loathe by midterm, and have taught me more about life by finals than many other people in my life combined.

I like Ms. Stiles.

Here we go.

So she tells us about her 30 years in social work. And about how we are required to have 25 hours of volunteer work for this semester. That teaching Sunday school doesn't count.

I left that class with that feeling in my chest, like my reservoir had just been filled.

I went back to class today. Having had a particularly hard day. I had lost the full feeling. I was empty.

Drained.

Desperate.

Lonely.

Worried.

I tried to push my emotions down. Shut them off. Tune into my logical mind. But I am not good at that yet. So I prayed.

Does it make me crazy that I have to pray for protection from myself?

I waited for Ms. Stiles to walk in. She had lost her keys. So she took off her coat. And left again. Only to come back, triumphantly dangling her keys from her fingers.

And so we began.

-

We all introduced ourselves.

The refugee from the Congo sat next to me.

The Iraq vet behind me.

The little lady from Mexico across the room.

Beside the ex-felon.

And the Vietnam combat nurse.

And the twenty year old with the colored markers.

-

I sat and listened.

And I felt my tank being filled.

Stories of what they wanted to do with their degree... what led them here in the first place....

And I wondered again if there wasn't someone in this room that might change this city.

-

Then Ms. Stiles started talking.

"Social workers get dirty".

And she had my attention.

"I start all my students in practicum off with folding clothes. I had a student one year tell me that she wasn't going to school to learn how to do laundry. And I showed her the door. If you are not willing to fold clothes for little kids to wear, I don't want you here."

I almost cried.

Ms. Stiles laughed. "Got it?"

We started talking about LCSW and psychologists and about field work and volunteer time. About how many fields go hand in hand and how people need help from a lot of sources.

"A social worker's job is more about helping people get a loaf of bread than understanding why they don't have that loaf of bread in the first place."

I laughed at this.

Considering the only counselor I know, does both for most of the people he comes in contact with.

"Social workers work mostly with the poor."

"When they have no one else to talk to, we are there."


And then....

"I see a lot of nursing majors come through my door." Ms Stiles smiled. "They say: I HATE biology, I dont know why I chose nursing, I just want to help people. Without biology."

It was as if she had been talking to me. About me.

"I just want to help people."

-

I left slowly today.

After her announcement that next week we would have a new classroom. OSB 305.

I walked out into the cold and got in my car.

The full feeling had returned.

-

It might be a stretch to think that a little, middle-class, white girl could cause a lot of change.

And it might be a stretch to think that this is what I will do for the rest of my life.

But this makes sense. On a level that things haven't made sense on in a very long time.

Because I just want to help people.

Sing for those who have no voice.

-

In twenty years, we will see if I was right. If this is what I was meant to do with my life. There's no way of knowing today.

(And you can remind me of this full feeling when thing get really rough over the next few years.)

-

I got in my car and remembered Ms. Stiles saying that we would meet in room 305 next week.

And I laughed.

Room 305 in the Oswald Building was where I had my first college class ever.

History 109 with Mr. Hinkle.

-

Things will end where they began.