Congratulations to the winner Arsh Patel for designing the new OASIS logo!
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A big thank you to everyone for their design submissions!
NINA CAMILLE BURRUSS p. 26 - 27 MD Program, Class of 2020 Hometown – Louisville, KY Favorite Artist – Hedieh Ilchi Favorite Creative Medium – Gouache and Watercolor JESSE CANN p. 16 - 17 MD Program, Class of 2020 Hometown – Alpharetta, GA Favorite Artist – Ai Weiwei Favorite Creative Medium – Magnets JOY HALLMARK p. 12 - 13 MD Program, Class of 2019 Hometown – Bayside, NY Favorite Artist – Louise Glück Favorite Creative Medium – Poetry TAYLOR LAMMERT MD Program, Class of 2019
p. 28 - 29
CLAIRE MESSAGEE p. 6 - 7 LANIER MD Program, Class of 2020 Hometown – Greensboro, NC Favorite Artist – Paul Signac Favorite Creative Medium – Watercolor SCOTT MCGINNIS MD Program, Class of 2021 Hometown – Charlotte, NC
p. 22 - 23
K. PATRICK OBER, M.D. p. 18 - 21 Professor, Endocrinology and Metabolism Hometown – Conrad, Iowa Favorite Artist – Mark Twain Favorite Creative Medium – Pen and paper and words IVORY SHELTON p. 8 - 9 MD Program, Class of 2020 Hometown – Erwin, TN Favorite Artist – Hans Zimmer Favorite Creative Medium – Music & Composition DEVIN WASHING p. 10 - 11 Nurse Anesthesia Program, Class of 2019 Hometown – Clemmons, NC Favorite Artist – Akiane Kramirak Favorite Creative Medium – Oil and acrylic paint WILLIAM WARD p. 24-25 Medical Student, Class of 2021 Hometown – Bloomington, IL Favorite Artist – René Juan Pérez Joglar Favorite Creative Medium – Novel BARETT ZIMMERMAN p. 4 - 5 MD Program, Class of 2020 Hometown – Westhampton, MA Favorite Artist – Edward Abbey Favorite Creative Medium – Miss Cleo JUSTINE ZOELLER p. 14 - 15 Nurse Anesthesia Program, Class of 2019 Hometown – Sherman, CT Favorite Artist – George Balanchine Favorite Creative Medium – Writing
CLINICAL VIGNETTE Barret Zimmerman
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“Okay, he’s crashing. Now what?” the attending demands as the other students’ faces convene on my body, my face, and my hands. In this building a 94/100 on an exam feels like six more casualties, a 5am arrival is 15 minutes late, and every conversation has an angle with a convergence that is performance: I am on stage. My fingers fumble across ribs, counting, eyes surveying the bare chest, hands steadied against its pink expanse to stop their shaking. One, two, second intercostal, midclavicular, that is your spot. I press the needle into the soft skin. It doesn’t advance. “What are you going to do?” Classmates watch with apprehension and relief at a wallowing debut, the weight of their role lightened. Repositioning the needle, I press again, and this time it slides effortless through skin into the chest cavity. Green lines on the monitor approve, the manikin’s eyes blink with a robotic snap, and the attending looks up from his watch “Good. Next.” I withdraw the needle and can’t help but smile.
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Extempore
Oil and Acrylic on recyled wood from furniture packaging CLAIRE MESSAGEE LANIER
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REAL LIFE Ivory Shelton
When I started medical school, I came in ready. I had been told time and time again how difficult the academics would be. How everything about my study habits and approach to learning would have to change. How “fun” would become a block in my calendar, rather than a descriptor of my day to day life. But, again, I was ready. Ready to settle into the books and the labs and the patient encounters the only way I knew how: with grit and determination (well, as much as someone fresh across the collegiate stage could muster). Now, looking back across the months since I took that first seat in the large tiered classroom, these things, these statements, have all held true. The academic rigor sets a new pace, a new tone, and a new level of demand that is truly not understood unless you are in it... living it. But, I also have a new theory... one that doesn’t seem to be brought up very often, if at all. It goes like this: The academics are not, and never will be, the hardest part of medical school (at least for me). Yes, the exams and
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quizzes and the summative patient encounters... they are difficult. They take time and energy and mental stamina, no doubt. But at the end of each of these events, you get a grade... a checked box... a chance to review the things you missed or messed up on. A chance to self-correct and remediate next time. You can find a tutor or a professor or a clinical skills coach to walk you back through the process to see where you went wrong, where you went right, and where you could be excellent with just a few tweaks. You know what doesn’t have any of that? Life. (You know.... the life that keeps going on while medical school seems to press pause on the clock of the “outside world”?) The decisions we make... everyday... big and small. The decision to go out or stay in. The decision to study or to rest. The decision to walk away. The decision to come back. The decision to help yourself or to help others. Every word we say... every relationship we navigate... every place we go... every action we carry out... There is no email coming with a grade
or a check-mark or some “formative feedback”. There aren’t really tutors... and there definitely isn’t a review/remediation period. We do this ourselves. We learn it for ourselves..... and while sometimes there is clear “right” and “wrong” (a clear “high-yield best answer”) to the decisions in our lives, most times there isn’t. And we have to learn to live with that. We have to learn to use kindness and compassion, for both ourselves and others, as the only compass we have (granted for me it is sometimes a very. faulty. compass). We have to learn to apologize when we hurt each other. To self-correct when we are steering down the wrong path. To be honest with ourselves as to our motives and our faults.
“Medicine is the science of uncertainty, and the art of probability.” - William Osler
We have to learn that no matter our decisions, no matter those faults, no matter our (my?) “youthful naivete”... we are worthy of love, support, and kindness.... simply because we are. Overall, we have to learn to live with guilt and pride... surety and uncertainty. Because these are lessons much harder to learn than the Fick Equation or the immunology of asthma... ...Yet, aren’t they so much more the art of actual medicine???
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Oh Deer
Oil paint on 5’ x 4’ canvas DEVIN WASHING
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Acceptance
Charcoal on sketch paper DEVIN WASHING
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Indulge Joy Hallmark
I remember that night vividly, when I was sitting by my window, looking out at the moon just barely a sliver, disappearing behind a sheet of fog, and you called me for the first time in years, with your voice wavering, and your words stumbling over one another, as if they wanted to be heard, but not said aloud, as you told me you were lonely. I know that feeling intimately, I replied, as I sipped my glass of wine, and listened to your unsteady breaths, inadvertently matching mine to yours. We breathed together, in and out, just existing like that for a few moments, as the silence seeped between us, and elucidated the cracks we both felt, but rarely acknowledged. Friend, I said, indulge, expose your soul and greet the emptiness, allow the pain to escalate your being, and then transcend it before it consumes you. Your mind is beautiful, and if we never speak again, know that I can’t take your pain away, but I can feel what you feel, and my heart can hurt with your heart, and together, separately, we will be okay.
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Jalapeños Joy Hallmark
There were many people before you, From which I learned what love is not. Love is not a raging fire, Ignited by the friction of our bodies. It does not burn fervently, Nor does it diminish into nothing. Love is not a carbon atom, It does not change form, Gain or lose energy. It does nothing other than humbly exist. Love is not a promise. Just because we have seen night turn into day, 9,125 times still, We cannot be sure it will happen again. In physics, the observer effect declares, That simply witnessing a phenomenon, Can change it. Such is not true with love. So what do I know about love, then? I find that when I write, If I can start with one pure sentence, The rest of the words will settle around it, Like leaves descending from a tree in the fall. The same must be true about love. Love is sustainable. Like the garden our friends would plant in the spring and say, “Just wait a few months and we will have jalapeños.” In the summer, we always had jalapeños
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What does a nurse need to learn? Justine Zoeller What does a nurse need to learn? I push the button to silence the mechanical ventilator for two minutes. The loud "circuit disconnect" alarm makes parents and patients edgy. Besides, an unanswered ventilator alarm is a signal to other nurses - "I need help in here!"- and I know all the other nurses are busy with their patients. I don't want them to have to leave their rooms to check on me. Before suctioning, I usually push another button to give my patient 100% oxygen, but I don't for this baby. With his anatomy, too much oxygen can flood his lungs, decrease his blood pressures, and even cause myocardial ischemia- a heart attack. I turn my attention to the squirming infant in the bed. He is silently crying- face purple and screwed up, tears forming in the corner of his eyes. A quick glance at the monitor tells me that his heart rate and blood pressure are high. Not surprising, based on how upset he is at the moment. I disconnect the ventilator tubing from the endotracheal tube. This pencil sized tube is inserted through his mouth into his trachea so the mechanical ventilator can give breaths directly into his lungs. The external portion is secured to his face with tape. It's secure for now, but I'll keep a close eye on it throughout my shift- this is a drooly baby, and the difference of a centimeter in or out can have serious negative consequences. Across the crib from me, the baby's mom winces. "It's so hard to see him like this." "I know," I reply. "The good thing is, he won't remember any of it. You will though!" I try to strike a calm, upbeat and sympathetic tone. She smiles, reassured, but doesn't take her eyes off the baby. Carefully keeping my right hand sterile, I advance the suction catheter through the tube into his lungs. I anchor the tube with my other, un-sterile hand as I apply suction and withdraw the catheter. 14
I can tell from the sound that I'm clearing a lot of secretions. "I think it was just the coughing making him upset. If he doesn't settle after I change his diaper, we'll definitely give him some extra pain medicine." She nods. It's good to have a plan. On the monitor, I see the baby's heart rate start to dip- 160, 120, 90, 70, 60. Using my unsterile hand, I connect the ambu bag to the endotracheal tube and quickly push breaths into his tiny lungs. His heart rate recovers right away, and his blood pressure was stable the whole time. I think it was just a sinus bradycardia- normal baby business in response to suctioning- but I'll take a closer look at the telemetry later. As I pass the suction catheter again, I hear a beeper go off outside the room. My charge nurse sticks her head in. "I'm going to an RRT on 5." RRT stands for rapid response team Any doctor or nurse can call an RRT for a patient outside of the ICU if they're concerned that the patient is quickly getting worse, and a critical care nurse and respiratory therapist will respond. We can perform assessments and interventions and offer recommendations. If we think the patient might need ICU care, or want a critical care doctor's input, we call the covering Pediatric ICU fellow. "Okay!" I reply, as I give the baby a few more breaths, satisfied I've cleared the majority of his secretions, and then reconnect to the ventilator. "Who do you have again?" "I have bed 6. She should be fine, but can you keep an ear out for Christine? Her post-op is starting to get a little hypotensive. We have epinephrine in line and there's blood in the fridge if they want to give volume." "Sure, no problem. Call me if you need a hand down there."
My vent beeps. Two minutes have passed. The baby is already starting to settle. His heart rate and blood pressure have normalized, his eyes are closed and face is calm, and he's sucking on his tube like it's a pacifier. I wash my hands, and make sure mom doesn't need anything right now. I do a quick scan of my room- alarms are on, emergency equipment is available, tubes and IV lines are secure, and I have enough of my continuous IV medication drips to last for a few hours. I go to check on Christine. It's her first unstable post op, and she's probably a little nervous. After 4 years in the pediatric cardiac ICU, these actions and conversations and thousands of quick decisions are second nature for me, but I remember a time when they were not. There is so much to learn, and it is all so important. These patients are small and sick. For nurses new to our unit, the things that have to be learned before they are independent clinicians are understandably daunting. First- the sheer volume of information. Nursing school doesn't prepare us for the complexity of critical care, or inherent degree of specialization of a unit like this. There are hundreds of diagnoses and accompanying medications and surgeries. There are EKGs, blood gasses, and x- rays. There's specialized ICU equipment- ventilators and monitors, but also pacemakers, and ventricular assist devices, and continuous dialysis, and even long term heartlung bypass, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. I often remind new nurses coming off orientation how much they've already learned. What used to be alphabet soup- HLHS, TAPVR, SVT, RVOT, ECMO, EAT- has become a common language, a tool for sharing information about our patients. The psychomotor skills. Nursing is hands on. We touch to feel pulses, skin temperature, swelling, induration. We bathe, we suction, we secure, we insert, we remove, we change dressings, we change sheets. We do these things carefully- sometimes steriley- to prevent further harm or infection. New skills are slow and clumsy, and take time to become as quick and sure as they need to be.
treat parents with kindness and respect, even if they're difficult, because they're always having a worse day than us. If there's a code, we drop what we're doing and go help. Some questions are less clear. What tasks are okay to leave for the next nurse? How do you handle a patient or family member who doesn't treat you with respect? If the patient needs more pain medication, or their blood pressure is low, or their most recent blood gas shows an increasing acidosis, who do we talk to? More difficult still- what do we do if we talk to a provider and disagree with their plan? How hard do we push? How quickly should we escalate? New nurses have to synthesize all of his new knowledge and experience to make decisions in real time. Some decisions aren't time sensitive and can be debated- should I turn the baby to the other side or let them sleep? Is this endotracheal tube tape secure enough or should I re-tape it? Many decisions are more critical and cannot wait. Should I call the doctor about this low blood pressure, or do I need to do something right now? Will this heart rate come back up when I give a few breaths with an ambu bag- or do I need to start chest compressions? Then, slowly, surely, they put it all together. They assess and intervene and make quick decisions and perform necessary skills confidently and correctly while calming anxious parents. While calling the doctor and the blood bank and the lab. When, unpredictability, things change. A very sick kid at a different hospital needs to come right now. A post-op won't stop bleeding, and his chest needs to be opened emergently at the bedside. They do it when there are not enough nurses, and there's hardly time to think before rushing off to the next task. These new nurses handle it, and with each new experience their skill and competence grows. They have learned so much, and they are not the same. They go home, and they wonder if they did enough, and their families ask how work was. "Fine." They say. “Busy, but fine.�
The culture. Some things are simple. Safety first. We answer each other's alarms. We help each other. We 15
Medicine and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Pen and Paper
JESSE CANN
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THE ART OF GIVING BACK: A Lesson of Gratitude from the Swamp
K. Patrick Ober
This is a Florida story. Florida has a complicated geography and complex demographics, and they can run into each other in unexpected ways. Tourists flock to Florida in search of balmy weather, pristine orange groves, dazzling white beaches, and Disney World fantasies. These out-of-staters are rarely confused with the permanent residents, who generally do the same mundane things that people do in all fifty states: they go to school, sell insurance, drive cabs, stock shelves, work on computers, wait tables, build houses, wash cars, and raise families. For the most part, the year-round residents seem to appreciate their life in Florida, but little of what they do is uniquely Floridian. And then there are the other fulltime residents. They are not the Floridians of the resorts and beaches, or even the Floridians of the grocery stores and shopping malls. They seem to live in less habitable environs rarely seen by the rest of us. Life in Florida is a happenstance for them, not an advantage. For them, life in the Sunshine State can be a gritty, grimy, sweaty, and sunburned challenge. These Floridians are often short on formal education, limited in resources, and lacking in opportunities. Even so, most of them find a way to make a life. They are survivors who have learned to cope with whatever comes their way. Surprisingly, it is among the people in this last category – the ones who have so little by our own standards – who often seem to be most comfortable in expressing their gratitude for what they do have. Those of us who are more advantaged can be enriched immensely by the life 18
lessons they have to tell us, if we are fortunate enough to spend time with them. The only requirement is that we take the time to listen carefully. Such teachers of profound human insights can be found anywhere, but this is a story about one medical student and one man from Florida. ------The student entered the patient’s room with some apprehension. By the time she walked out, she had been given a lesson in gratitude she would never forget. She was a third year medical student, nearing the end of her psychiatry rotation. A man had been hospitalized for treatment of a gangrenous toe. The toe had been amputated, and after the surgery he said some things that suggested he might be contemplating suicide. A psychiatry consultation was requested, and it was her responsibility to talk to the man and assess his state of mind. The first thing the student noticed about the patient was his massive size. He was an imposing giant of a man who, at first glance, seemed to be nearly seven feet tall. His skin was leathery and tanned, suggesting a life largely spent in the Florida outdoors. His words came out slowly, fighting their way through his thick, dense drawl. His comments betrayed a droll sense of humor she had not anticipated. He appeared to be hiding his emotions behind the mask of his deadpan style. The student realized that his dry wit and his slow drawl could lead an inattentive listener to misinterpret his words. She listened carefully, though, and she quickly determined that suicide was the farthest thing from his mind. His main frustration, the man explained to
this visitor who listened to him so intently, was that he had been cooped up in the hospital for about as long as he could stand it. He needed to go home. He needed to see his dog. He had plans to buy some dog food, but he had no plans to kill himself. He confessed he may have made a flippant comment about his desire to leave, and he might even have said it in a manner that was misinterpreted by his surgical team, but he was as interested in staying alive as anyone could be. Most of his life had been committed to staying alive, in more ways than he was willing to tell her right now. His hospital stay had been distressing to him, though, and he was willing to explain the most troubling aspects to this student who showed such a sincere interest in his experience. His conflicts during the hospitalization boiled down to a single disagreement, really, but it was a critical one. He told the surgeon to save his toe, but the surgeon hadn’t done it. In fact, the patient made clear, he told the surgeon several times to save his toe. In spite of all of his pleading, the surgeon did not save it. The student explained to the patient that an amputation is often the only option for treatment of gangrene. In fact, she said, he might have died without the amputation. The surgeon did the right thing for him, she assured him, even though she understood how distressing it must be to have a body part cut off. At first he nodded thoughtfully and seemed to understand everything she said, but then his next words suggested otherwise. “I already know all of that,” the patient replied, “but I told the doctor to save my toe, and he wouldn’t save it.” The earnest student again explained the nature of gangrene and the medical necessity for the amputation, using the simplest terms she could muster up to help her patient understand. Despite her heroic efforts, the conversation went around and around on the same track for several laps, and with each new effort she felt that she was somehow losing more ground than she was gaining. Her patient affirmed his clear understanding of her teaching after each of her attempts to explain, but on each
occasion he followed up by expressing his intense anger toward the surgeon who failed to save his toe. On the second or third revolution through the futile cycle of attempted communication, the student realized that her patient’s definition of “saving the toe” was different from her own. For her, “saving the toe” meant administration of a treatment that would have restored the viability of the toe and prevented the amputation. Her patient, though, was already long past having any such hope. From the moment he was admitted to the hospital, he was fully aware that his toe was dead, and he knew there was no option except to remove it. His request for “saving the toe” had nothing to do with any medical salvation. In his mind, “saving the toe” was not a clinical matter. He was asking his doctors for something more important than a medical miracle. He was seeking fairness and respect. As he saw it, the toe was still his toe. He had not given it away. He had not sold it. He had not loaned it to anyone. His simple request was for his doctor to put his disconnected gangrenous toe into any convenient container (a Mason jar would be fine, or even a clean Dixie cup), and return it to him, its rightful owner. It was as simple as that, and yet the doctors insisted on arguing about it every time he brought up his request. For him, more was at stake than the simple possession of the toe. After a great deal of forethought, he had come up with a soul-satisfying solution for the ultimate fate of his toe. (The medical student had determined earlier that he had made no plans for committing suicide, but it was becoming clear that he had worked out a remarkable plan for the future of his toe.) He gave the student a detailed description of his strategy. He would take the toe and travel with it down back roads and swampy trails known only to him, until he came to a marshy lake that few people knew about. The lake was in one of the most desolate regions of Florida; it was his natural territory. He would fight his way through the dense overgrowth and slog his way through the swampy marshland until he reached a specific place on the 19
shoreline of the lake. He would stop at the lake’s edge. He would bow his head and observe a moment of silence. He would then throw his toe into the water. When the deed was completed, he was going to retrace his steps to return to his home and his dog. (His homecoming would not include the toe.) The medical student had been an attentive listener. She seemed nonjudgmental. She seemed curious about the purpose of this elaborate ceremony, and he was willing to explain. She needed to understand that his life had been a hard one. He was a loner. He had lived much of his life in the swamps and wilderness, doing whatever he needed to do to survive. At his most desperate times, on the brink of starvation, he had been known to kill and eat an alligator in order to stay alive. He guessed he had probably killed and consumed a total of seventeen or eighteen alligators in his lifetime. He often thought about the alligators during his times of solitude. His thoughts always took him to a single conclusion – he owed something to the alligators. He had taken their lives so that he could live. The alligators kept him alive when he was near starvation. He always fretted about how he might repay the alligators, but he could never come up with a good method. Now that his toe had been removed, the amputation seemed to be almost a blessing, and he finally saw a path to some closure. He finally had a way to give something of himself back to the alligators. He was alive because he ate the alligators. Now he would show his appreciation by giving one of them a piece of him. He knew where to find them. It wouldn’t be complete payback for what the alligators had given him (it was not possible to do that), but he finally had the means to make a small gesture of reparation and restitution. It was only a toe (and a gangrenous one at that), and the act would be more a matter of symbolism than of nutrition, but he understood that the expression of gratitude was often more about symbolism than substance. The demonstration of gratitude is a giving of thanks. Its purpose is not to repay all that has been re20
ceived; its purpose is to acknowledge the generosity of the gift giver. Gratitude does not involve business principles; it is a matter of spirituality. Tossing his dismembered toe into the lake would be the perfect way for him to show the alligators his gratitude for the gift of life they had given him. It was a small gesture that would let him set things right, just a little. The only problem was, he explained to the student, the surgeon didn’t save his toe.
The backstory: In February 2017, the University of Florida College of Medicine [my alma mater] hosted a regional meeting of the Gold Humanism Honor Society. I was invited to return to campus as a visiting professor for the event. In one session, students told the stories of their “most memorable� patients. I was enthralled when UF senior medical student Christina Turn told the story of an irascible patient who requested the return of an amputated toe so that he could repay his debt to the alligators. It was a classic story of Gainesville, Florida. On that evening in February 2017, I was transported back in time, 40+ years, to memories of my own medical school experiences with the wonderful patients of rural northern Florida. My retelling of the story is undoubtedly colored by the emotions that rushed through me as I heard it for the first time, and [as is true for all stories] my version undoubtedly contains some details created by my own speculation and embellishment. The primary facts of this story are repeated as I heard them, though, without fabrication or invention. I have two purposes in passing on this marvelous story. It is a testimonial to an unnamed man of great wisdom and high principles who might have been overlooked because of his limited formal education and humble background; it is also a tribute to the compassionate medical student who cared for her patient, listened to him, and let him tell his full story. His story reminds us of how fortunate we are to have a career in medicine; it reminds us of our need to be grateful to our patients for all that they contribute to our lives. 21
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Adventures before medical school Photography
SCOTT MCGINNIS
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I. In fear and hurriedness this place lies behind a mirage of forced forgetfulness. But on occasion, I sink down into the Earth where things once tall and strong have fallen,
PACHA William Ward
Where teeming creatures reclaim tissue, reclaim consciousness, that was lent. It is an uncomfortable place —that obscures memory —seems devoid of sentimentality everything compacted into a tumultuous petrification. I quickly outwear my welcome the soil—evermore damp and encroaching to the touch. Paralyzed, I panic I retract and fix my eyes up
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II. I flee the abyss mouth gaping eyes squinting seeking refuge in the heavens. I gaze upon the clear, starry sky seeking extrication from tumult. I ascend into celestial silence and clarity, Stretching backwards and forwards through the eons, I feel the pulse of life’s resilience.
III. I open my eyes in a mountain valley between the sod and starry sky. Water trickles past my feet and through my mind. A mockingbird sings with an earthen orchestra to the constellations and the setting sun. I collapse on a grassy bank. Cheeks wet with grief and gratitude.
Yet as I float amongst the distant galaxies, stagnation encroaches on my sentience. Sterility bleaches vitality from my soul
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Untitled
4-inch wooden embroidery hoop with cotton thread
NINA CAMILLE BURUSS
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When I was a younger man, back in college, I joined a group called the men’s project. It was wonderful. The goal of the group was for male identified folks to interrogate masculinity. We focused on a different topic each night, which usually involved self-reflection and a discussion about different forms of oppression. For instance, one night we talked about sex education we had in school growing up. People contributed experiences from programs all over the world. We were shocked by how very few had even mentioned consent. I’d say all of us considered ourselves feminists, and we wanted to figure out what our role should be on campus and in the community as men. We wanted to lend our voices and our efforts to support other groups that had been working for years, thanklessly and tirelessly to stop sexual assault on campuses and provide kindness to survivors. We wanted to assist- we didn’t want to steal the spotlight. Our goal was to find healthy masculinity, redefine what it means to be a man. We all wanted to be good advocates, to be good men, ultimately to be kind. One night, we did an activity that involved some acting. We were to act out an experience from our lives that had been violent. Examples ranged from wolf-whistling at a VS fashion show watch party. Calling someone a pussy or using “raped” in online video game conversations. To creepy unctuous relatives. And finally abusive fathers. As an aside there are two large male figures in my life. There’s my dad. And there’s my mom’s dad. They are a lesson in opposites. My dad is quiet. He is kind. He is the kind of person who hears that you like something and asks you about it. And within five minutes he can have you talking about your most passionate hopes and dreams. He’s the kind of man that you like yourself more after being around him. He’s the kind of man you want to get a beer with. My grandfather is not like that. For the sake of brevity- my dad you want to share a drink and fellowship with-
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the drinking is to withstand my grandfather. Back to that night. My friend volunteered that we would act out the night his father found him and a friend making out. It was his first physically intimate moment with another male. My role, was to be that father. I wanted to do my role justice. So I heard about method acting, in my film class I had been taking. I tried on the role of the angry father. I imagined what a father from Alabama would say to his son. Out of bigotry. Out of fear. For his son and fear of his son. And we went there. I am no thespian. And I’ve only seen a few plays. But I knew about those few times when someone acts and it feels real. The illusion of fiction is swept away and you are left with the fact that you are causing an emotional change in someone. I looked up and I was hurting this boy. It was so easy. It was so terrifyingly easy to call from my experience: On school busses. At football practice. On late night milkshake runs. On late night cross country runs. In jujitsu class. In fights on middle school playgrounds. I just barely had to reach to find inspiration to call this kid adjectives and nouns that I knew would cut as deep as knives. Men commit most of the violence in this world. You look up the statistics on gun violence, on assault, the perpetrators are almost always men. Kindness is not expected of us. Our violence is often excused, expected, and often times it is taught. Passed down generation after generation. Next instead of having someone else jump in to try to intervene in this memory brought to life, the facilitator let us act it out again. As if we ourselves were deciding what to say. I tried to pull from the discussions, I tried to pull from the kindness my father had shown me, I pulled from the love and selflessness so many women in my life had shown and modeled for me. I listened. As he said words to this stand in for his father. I let him say the words he needed to say as if drawing out poison. And then I told him that I may
never understand fully what he’s going through or what he’s feeling, but that I care about you, and I want you to be safe, and happy, and whole. One of my favorite lines from J.K. Rowling is, “Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.” I choose to advocate. I try to learn and to teach with the ultimate goal that there will be less violence in this world. That men will not commit it. People on occasion ask why I do this. Why do I advocate. You aren’t a woman? You aren’t gay? You aren’t (fill in the blank) And the only truthful answer I have for them, is because it’s the right thing to do.
TAYLOR LAMMERT
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