october 13 cns
I just spent hours and hours (and hours, and hours) talking to my Rocker Step writing partner Daniel about, well, everything. And, like all conversations about "everything," it was largely about one thing. That one thing boils down to a question, and that question is only three letters (and one punctuation mark) long.
Why?
When I was in Grade 6, my homeroom teacher Mr. Whittaker told a room full of 11- and 12-year olds a story. The story was about a university exam. The exam had only one question on it. The question was only one word long.
Why?
Mr. Whittaker was a tremendous teacher. He was interesting, interested, and curious. I learned a lot from him, including but not limited to how to properly pronounce "Etobicoke" and how a teacher could communicate that you were in trouble without making you feel afraid.
Anyway, Whittaker tells us this story, and we're like, yeah, okay, whatever, but then this goofy motherfucker makes us do the exam.
Kind of.
He asks us to answer the question. We're dumbfounded or at least confused because we are children so we go quiet like the Red October. Except something inside me makes me put my hand straight up.
Whittaker calls on me.
I say, "because."
The class laughs like I was doing a joke. I was not doing a joke. I was playing a hunch. When you're a kid, you ask "why?" when you don't understand something, sure, but also when you don't like something and want an explanation as to why you have to do it because you have, at that point (whatever point that is in your life), grown to an age where you feel justified in interrogating the people with power over you.
"Eat your vegetables," your mom says. "Why?" you ask, defiantly. "So you can grow up big and strong." This holds, so you do it even if you don't like it.
"Go to bed," your mom says. "Why?" you ask. "Because I said so." This holds, even though it shouldn't, because it's not an answer as much as it's a statement about roles and power. You don't process it like this when you're a kid, but that's what it is.
I was playing the hunch that "because" was an answer in and of itself, because it seemed like it was, or at least that it could be.
Whittaker told me that if I had answered that on the university exam, I would have received 50%. Sure, it wasn't the best mark but it was a great deal better than the rest of my cohort.
Later, when Whittaker told us the answer ("answer") was "why not?" I knew that something in me was forever changed.
🌲 gonna
🌼 go
🌱 touch rest
🌳 grass up
🌷 now
Be good to yourself.
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