Crazy in Love

It's official.  It's all over between me and '(s)he who must be obeyed.'  (Thanks Rumpole!)  No more slogging into big rectangular-prism shaped buildings, those blocky uglinesses bedecked with corporate logos, working on empty things, pleasing no one important, humming old Beatles tunes and composing haiku as I toil, vain efforts to keep my mind from turning into mush.  Lord knows I tried, but the relationship was doomed from the get-go.  I was just so blind.  Communication broke down over the years and less and less often could I lay softly on my nightbed dreaming of tomorrow's triumphs, likely instead to find myself stewing about today's lunacy.  Industrial relations counseling didn't help.

No more DuPont or EDS or ArvinMeritor.  Yesternight I quit them all, completely and forever.  Good riddance.

You see, I'm crazy in love again.  It's a great feeling.  My school, my wilderness boarding school for boys with learning and/or social difficulties, is my new workplace, my new focus, and I'm absolutely in love with the whole experience.  I think this one is for keeps.

It's kind of odd though, and somehow karmic in a very good way, that I would find a place, a purpose, helping to mold the minds of boys, showing them a new way to see themselves, all the while learning a few things about myself and the human condition.  Odd because I never was one of them.  Oh, I was a boy all right, at least at one time in my life, but one who went from being twelve to being a little shy of twenty overnight.  Poof!  Unintentionally and quite unwillingly I missed those intervening years.  Boys that age always seemed like an alien species to me.  My own boyhood truncated by harsh visitations, I grew up with no brothers, but I did have sisters, and all the neighbor children were girls.  Me and an even dozen girls who basically ran the daily affairs of three remote dairy farms in the stead of three sets of absent or distracted parents.  When I grew up I fathered two daughters.  My sisters bore daughters.  My friends had daughters.  I had absolutely no experience with boys.

Ah, but therein lies, perhaps, the advantage.  To have little surety of a situation is liberating.  I couldn't carry any baggage into this new job because my preconceptions were immediately dashed on the rocks of a mistaken shore; I had no history to draw upon.  I was, and am, as blank a slate as my charges are.  Yes, they do learn from me, and I am making a positive contribution to both the individual and collective lives of my students, but at least as important to me is that I am learning also at a sometimes breakneck pace.  It is one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life.

I wrote about my first forays into this new work relationship in several earlier postings, and I won't repeat that here, but know that the students in this wilderness boarding school present behaviors ranging from ODD through OCD to ADHD, with severity from mild to severe.  Also know that the names of the boys have been changed to protect their identity and the name of the school cannot be revealed in the context of my posts.

Here are a few glimpses into this new world:

Last weekend Quentin, a student in my group, asked me if the Spanish word for 'fish' (we were fishing for our dinner) would mean the same thing it does in English.  We have several Hispanic students which I thought might have stoked his curiosity, but I didn't quite understand his question.  "Sure," I said, "'fish' is 'pescado' in Spanish."  "I know the word but that's not what I mean," he said, "I want to know if when Hector says 'pescado' he has the same thing in his head that I have in mine when I say 'fish.'  Does it mean the same thing to him?  When I can't control my anger do I have the same kind of image (his word and emphasis) in my head that Hector has in his when he acts like me?  Would I be calmer if I thought with calmer words and would I then act more calmly?"  I was stunned by this quiet fifteen year old boy's sophisticated question.  That his thought process could even implicitly recognize the ties between language, his internal mental landscape, and his worldview was astounding to me.  I didn't think of it at the time but Rapunzel's post reminded me of an article I read recently and of a great quote: " To have a second language is to have a second soul ."  We talked for over an hour, touching on how language is both a reflection and creator of perception, exploring the distinction between meaning and significance, and, at his behest, diving into the waters of positive self-direction and individuality in a social setting.  Oh yes, we also talked about the best way to prepare and cook the perch we caught.  They were delicious.

A few days later I accompanied my group on a rock climbing expedition and enjoyed a similar experience.  Allen, one of my students and a boy I was just starting to know, was hanging off the side of a boulder, maybe twenty feet above me, when he turned and said: "Mr Krupp, want to know what I was thinking about?"  Without waiting for a reply he continued: "Human beings are a renewable resource, but individual human beings, you, me, Mr Lacy, the other guys, we aren't renewable at all."  He had a look of elation on his face as he chewed and digested the sustenance of his own thought.  Then he turned and continued upward.  Fortunately my being twenty feet below him meant that I was standing on flat ground and in no danger of falling other than over.  What an insightful comment, and one of special import and value to its maker.  Within Allen's mind that day two powerful self-images were contesting for his future; the old one, of an angry and defiant young man, one who had little value for the rights and prerogatives of others, and the new one, of someone who recognizes the validity of social contracts and simultaneously rejoices in the individual.  The outcome of Allen's internal struggle is important - to him, to me, and to you.  I have read Allen's testing results, absorbed his background reports, memorized his profile, and I interact with him as often as I can, but the one thing that stands out in this vast sea of information is the simple fact that Allen is a leader, make that Leader, one of the highest magnitude.  He's the kind of person, who through sheer force of personality, commands attention regardless of the age or gender or social circumstances of those with whom he interacts.  I'm happy to write that since this day the latter self-image seems to be ascendant.  Allen is not ready to graduate the program at my school yet, but I have no doubt that he will be ready sooner than many of his peers.  If he turns himself to the task, and I believe he will, he will rise to a position of influence in whatever endeavor he chooses.  He has the potential to make positive change in the world we live in.  Remember, you heard it here first.

And then there's Michael, a younger student from another class who is occasionally placed with my group for logistical reasons.  I had been told by other staff that Michael was admitted to the school primarily due to behavioral issues rooted in OCD.  However, in my few interactions with him I had not seen that diagnosis present itself, until one day....  Michael is a renowned hacky-sack player.   He can keep the footbag moving for a very long time and perform amazing feats of acrobatics and balance while doing so.  No one else at the school comes close to his level of expertise.  While waiting for a campfire dinner to be prepared one weekend I watched as Michael performed his wizardry.  I was captivated by the skill he exhibited and the graceful beauty of his moves.  After about ten minutes he missed and the bag tumbled to the ground.  He started again.  Missed again in ten minutes.  Started again.  Missed again.  Then he picked up the hacky-sack, threw it into the woods, scrunched his face up, and sat on the ground crying.  "Why'd you do that?" I asked.  "That was wonderful."  "It wasn't perfect," came the anguished reply.  I asked what perfect would be and was treated to a twelve minute routine, perfectly choreographed but sans footbag, of what he was trying to do.  "It's only twelve kinds of kicks in twelve groups going forward and reverse twelve times in twelve minutes, and I can't get it right.  I can't get it right.  I've been trying for a year.  I can't get it perfect.  God hates me, God completely hates me."  He was attempting 3,456 kicks in twelve minutes, many of high difficulty.  When another student told Michael that the world record for five minutes is only 1,019 kicks Michael responded that he didn't care about world records, "I want perfect."  I'm not an expert in how OCD manifests itself, but for the rest of the evening Michael was withdrawn and walked around the campsite miming his moves and talking to himself.  Falling asleep that night I heard noise on the opposite side of the bunkhouse and saw him flicking his legs and arms, perhaps dreaming of hacky-sack perfection.  "Don't worry Mr Krupp, he does that all the time" chimed another student.  I'm taking every opportunity to talk to Michael, to learn more, and happily heard that he is working with both the school psychologist and psychiatrist. 

A few days ago another of my students asked: "Hey Mr Krupp, why does everything bad I do have a name, but everything good I do have none?"  Alex cannot seem to complete a sentence without an obligatory "fuck" or "shit" or some other socially restricted word.  What he presents is not a tic, such as in coprolalia, which someone once told him he had, and which he believes he has, but a looser thing, I think one of background more than of pathology.   Once again Rapunzel's post, and Ted's question, got me thinking.  I checked the DSM IV TR (Thanks Krissy!) and sure enough, there is no word for someone who utters good things.  Why not, I thought, create a new word?  If coprolalia translate literally as 'feces tongue,' let's use "eulalia" for 'pleasing tongue.' ('eu' - the Latin prefix for pleasing.)  So that's what I do.  Every time I hear Ted say something 'good,' I say, "There you go again with your eulalia.  I always get a smile.  A couple of the other students have started using it too.  Now for the staff.

I'm not slow at these things, and I always wondered if anyone could engage me to the degree my daughters had when they were this age.  My students not only keep up, but in many cases they flat out challenge me to keep pace with them.  I think the greatest thing I can do with my life right now is to contribute to the future of our little spaceship through working with these budding adults. 

Crazy in love indeed.