When I first saw this Radical Act I also asked myself “who do I hate”. That’s easy. I hate the people who make a living selling drugs to high school kids. They know the kids are vulnerable, they know they have money and they go after them. They market to them. It’s a lucrative business. Kids never know what hit them.

My son went to a boarding prep high school. I knew I was in trouble when I mentioned pot to my son’s advisor and there was zero response. The school culture was not in line with mine. Polar opposite. But I still trusted that the school administration would have the students’ best interests at heart. Until a boy was rushed from an off campus party to the hospital – a drug overdose. Off campus parties were explicitly against school rules. However the school policy was that no questions would be asked in such an emergency if the Headmaster was called. The students invoked that caveat. Thankfully the boy was saved. Almost the entire student council was suspended from school – but not dismissed which, without the caveat, they would all have been. Then the parents rolled in, many from long distances and the campus was roiled in fear, anger, and hate. At a parent meeting the Headmaster stated on behalf of the administration “we are not here to teach morality. We are only here to teach your children so they will get into college”. My hand went up, involuntarily. I asked in all sincerity and I am ashamed to say naively why couldn’t morality be part of the curriculum. The Headmaster’s eyes flashed and he sliced me deeply with a cutting remark so that the room erupted in cruel laughter. The other administrators sitting with him steeled their bodies. But their response was nothing compared to a few other parents. They were the ones who had been hosting such parties, with full knowledge of  what went on.

I was pretty shaken after that meeting. Not only did I not fit in, but I felt for my son. Young and vibrant and oozing creativity and energy. How could he survive this environment? He did, and that’s another story.

I did too. And later, at graduation time, one of the moms looked me in the eye and quietly said that she and her husband totally agreed with me.

It would be interesting to have a real conversation with the Headmaster someday. How did I ever miss that a school is a business too.

I’m pretty calm about it all now. I don’t hate the Headmaster or the school. There is a brick on campus with my son’s name on it. He was a part of it all, our family was a part of it all. We all grew together.

I do work every moment, every day to see through the view that life is all about the physical – buying, selling, eating, drugging, profiting. It helps me to not hate. Anyone.

The scene is near the end of the movie when the quieter brother asks his popular brother how he does it and mentions an instance back in high school where his brother had loved a girl even though she and others had made fun of him behind his back.  The extroverted brother had replied that he really did love this girl, knew that she was making fun of him, but refused to stop loving her.  He said:

Donald Kaufman: I loved Sarah, Charles. It was mine, that love. I owned it. Even Sarah didn’t have the right to take it away. I can love whoever I want.
Charlie Kaufman: But she thought you were pathetic.
Donald Kaufman: That was her business, not mine. You are what you love, not what loves you. That’s what I decided a long time ago.

Lately, when I’m tempted to resent or let go of certain relationships because they’re challenging, sometimes I think of this scene and it helps me to remember that resentment, hatred, etc  do not have the right to keep me from loving.  I too, “can love whoever I want” and it’s my choice to realize that the love is mine and that nothing has the right to take it away.

“Who hates me, who hates me, who hates me?” I thought this morning, in the spirit of today’s RA :) Nope, couldn’t think of anyone, so I moved on.

Got a call later from a friend who asked me to pick up her son from our local high school nurses office and take him home.  As I stepped through the door, and my eyes met the head nurse’s, I remembered.  “Oh yeah, here’s who hates me”!

Years ago when I trudged my son’s enrollment paperwork from office to office for processing, visibly missing were his immunization records. To the nurse’s initial dismay and then outright disagreement, I explained our family’s religious or personal beliefs allowed us to opt out. I was perfectly within my rights but that didn’t stop the nurse from angrily lecturing my son and I on how our practices – she might as well have said selfish irresponsibility  – made it unsafe for him and others.  Both my son and I called her a bad name when we left her office shamed that day. Then when California mandated a particular immunization, I brought in the record to the nurse.  Unfortunately, I needed the same record for his college but I’d given Nurse Meanie the original.  When I went to retrieve it, she assured me I’d never brought it in, that she had nothing on file.  She went so far as to say that it was unlikely there would be any record since our family didn’t believe in immunizations.  I really felt at the time that she was being spiteful.

Over the years, I’ve been back to the school a few times to pick up my nephew or niece when they didn’t feel well and then today my friend’s son.  Each time I’ve gone back, she always does the same thing - sees me, scowls, furrows her brow and asks with a tone of puzzled suspicion, “do I know you? I feel like I know you.”  I always act like we’ve probably never met.

Today, after giving me the third degree for picking up someone else’s kid, she continued in conversation with another nurse, who was chatting about her past. “If I had to go back in time I wouldn’t change anything” said the other nurse, and then Nurse Hostile replied “I’d change a lot of things. I’d have a better childhood, I’d have more fun”.  And I watched her face sadden before my eyes and my heart melted a bit. To my own surprise, I suddenly jumped in the conversation saying “you know, each time I walk into this high school, I get butterflies in my stomach”.  Nurse Melancholy, now curious, asked why.  And I confessed “because high school was really difficult for me and when I come here, it’s like I’m back there all over again.”  And she looked at me so earnestly and openly and beamed “I LOVED high school!  Those were the best years of my life!”  And I watched her memory take her back, and she visibly brightened and then she smiled at me, for the first time ever. She has a lovely smile.

It’s possible that this nurse and I could think polar opposites in everything - for sure our views on preventative healthcare and high school - but I feel like our ‘hate’ slate got cleaned today and I’m so grateful that Radical Acts is tuning me into transformative possibilities such as this.

Little hates
m
a
k
e
little gates
t
h
a
t
cannot swing
L
o
v
e

i
s
for opening.

by Ann C. Stewart