Learning Autobiography

Mercedes Grandin
Southern Maine Writing Project Learning Autobiography

Old friends

Memory brushes the same years

Silently sharing the same fears

A time it was, and what a time it was, it was

A time of innocence

A time of confidences

Long ago it must be

I have a photograph

Preserve your memories

They're all that's left you

As I was cleaning out my classroom this June, preparing to depart one endeavor and start another undetermined future endeavor, I found this old cassette player sitting covered in dust in the yellow metal supply cabinet in my room. At first it didn’t appear to work and then I realized that, though the silver antenna was broken, I could plug it into the wall to power it on. After confirming it was operational, I brought it home and proceeded to dig out all of my old cassette tapes, which I had carefully stored in a black soft shell case that had disintegrated over the decades. I dusted off each tape individually and carefully as it was caked in some toxic black dust from the old case. As I took out the cassettes and cleaned them one by one, each tape brought back memories that delivered me back in time and filled my heart with joy, love, longing and some sadness.

The lines from this song, written by Simon & Garfunkel and sung here by Richie Havens, instantly transport me back to my adolescence or formative years. These were passionate, carefree and often somewhat volatile times filled with emotion and vivid experience. I remember filling journals upon journals with my writings and reflections during this time period, often including excerpts from song lyrics, poems, clippings from various magazines, newspapers, etc.  

Some of these writings (and the tapes themselves) came from my experience attending a summer sleepaway camp, Lochearn Camp for Girls, for five years, between the ages of 11 and 15.

Lochearn (pronounced with a Scottish lilt) is a treasured spot tucked away in the rolling Green Mountains of Vermont, nestled deep in lake country on beautiful Lake Fairlee. Every Sunday we’d dress in our navy khaki shorts, white polo shirts embroidered with the camp logo of two pine cones and a pine bough, Scottish plaids and navy knee socks and march up to campfire hill, where we’d light a sizable fire and sing campfire songs. The smell of pine and burning wood was palpable. After the bugle played Taps, we walked up to the hill together and got into formation by cabin. There were ceremonious torches led to the summit by two campers, and we would sing songs like “Barges, The House Pooh Corner and Flicker”: “So give me the light of a campfire, warm and bright, And give me some friends to sing with; I'll be here all night Love is for those who find it; I found mine right here, Just you and me and the campfire and songs we love to hear, do do do do do do!” I can still hear the everyone singing the chorus in a round, in the campfire glow, their voices echoing across the pines and out over the glass surface of the lake.

At the end of the summer at camp, we would make each other mix tapes to remember each other by. Our mixes were complete with drawings and cutouts from magazines and a full set list for both sides (title and artist). One gem was titled “CTs are slick 96 mix”. I can still remember the exact tract sequence for each side, hearing the notes merge in at the end of one song and before the next begins. “YES! The Doobies’ Black Water is up next followed by Zappa’s Camarillo Brillo then Janis’ “Summertime”. This side ends with Little Martha and Side A track 1 starts with Joni Mitchell belting out “Woke up it was a Chelsea morning and the first thing that I saw was the sun through yellow curtains and the rainbow on my wall.” When I listen to these tapes, all of these experiences and memories come flooding back to me and my brain immediately understands sequence through sound as if I’m rereading a favorite book for the 100th time.

These tapes are jewel boxes in my memory bank, they mark the passing of time and connect me to previous iterations and eras of my self discovery. There is something about voice that triggers memory and transports us viscerally and intimately back to the past. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the past in the context of the future. The early experiences of my childhood and adolescence have shaped my sensory and emotional memories to such an extent that they have been engrained in my DNA. It is through these lived experiences that I have launched myself into adulthood and while I don’t often pause to deliberately recall these memories, when triggered they unleash themselves like a flood, and I remember how essential they have been to the fabric that is my physical, mental and spiritual being.

My most memorable and resonant experiences as a learner have taken place outside of the classroom walls and in experientially-based learning environments. As a junior in high school, I participated in a summer service learning trip in the American southwest through Deer Hill Expeditions, a nonprofit based in Mancos, Colorado, focused on field- based learning, environmental stewardship and community service in local Native American communities. The trip I took, the Navajo & Mountain trip, involved both service learning on the Navajo reservation (living with and helping Navajo families with service projects), as well as hiking and exploring Canyonlands National Park and the Colorado wilderness. In one memorable experience, we helped a Navajo family dig a well and build a sheep corral. It was tedious, grueling, not entirely successful and yet also incredibly satisfying work. That evening we were rewarded by our Navajo hosts, an elder couple who made turquoise and silver jewelry and beautiful hand-woven Navajo rugs, with homemade fry bread and a delicious homemade yucca stew. The end of our trip culminated in a group sweat lodge in a small covered domed structure burning sage over a fire, our entire group crammed into a tiny circle that we sat in for several hours, talking, singing and sharing stories.  When trying to pinpoint why this experience was so memorable and important to me, it connects with the feeling and idea that I was part of something much larger than myself. I learned about people and their relationship to place. I was a part of a community and connecting to a landscape. I was exploring myself in relation to others and the world around me.

This experience inspired me so much that I continued my interest in learning about Native American culture and the stories of indigenous peoples and their forced migrations. My junior year of college I studied abroad in Tibet, Nepal, and India and when I returned I went back to the Navajo Reservation to teach at an arts camp for Navajo youth.  One of the most memorable experiences I had in Tibet was hiking up 16,000 feet to a monastery where the Crystal Cave of Guru’s Rinpoche’s mind (there are 3 caves spread across Tibet that represent Guru Rinpoche’s body, mind and spirit). This is where I overcame one of my greatest fears. After hiking up to 16,000 + feet and fighting off altitude sickness and the incredible physical exertion required for the hike, we had to climb up these rope ladders into a dark black hole in order to get inside the cave. I remember the feeling of following my peers and climbing up the rope in total darkness, not knowing what was ahead, and strangely having the sensation of being held in a comfortable womb, rather than in a dark claustrophobic tunnel. The reward after climbing up up up into the darkness was entering and emerging into the opening of the cave. Suddenly millions of crystals appeared, stalactites and stalagmites hanging down like celestial ice and stardust, glittering and shining into the dark void. It was beyond otherworldly. I felt so connected, so at peace and fulfilled in that moment, and able to conquer any fear.

In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, the relationship between teacher and disciple or mentor and student lies at the heart of the practice, providing the foundation that guides the way for the student’s inner development and life path. As a teacher, my own experiences as a learner have shaped my quest to find meaningful and fulfilling work. My most memorable life experiences have involved connection to the Earth and to the people living on it, and an element of exploration and self discovery. For me, teaching and learning is about a broader dialogue between myself, my students, and the world. It’s about asking deeper questions (often without simple answers) and continually exploring and discovering ourselves in relation to one another. This sense of exploration and discovery is something I have tried to integrate into my work as a teacher. The lived experience, one that often occurs outside of systems and structures that often seem oppressive, are often the most powerful and liberating experiences for self growth. These are the places where we push ourselves beyond our immediate limits, where we uncover places we didn’t know existed within us, mentally, physically and spiritually. When we take students outside of their comfort zones (and the classroom) and push them to discover in new, outside of the box ways, the most magical learning and self-discovery takes place. I have found this to be true in my own experiences as a teacher. At the end of this year, after I’d hit all of the required Common Core standards at the pace of RoadRunner, I did something I was passionate about and took my students outside for a solo experience in nature. I asked them to reflect on their sensory awareness and to record their observations in that place. They then culled their observations into found poems and produced some of the most powerful and creative writing I’d seen from them all year. Not only that, they loved the experience. Helping my students discover themselves, explore and ask questions and tap into their own creativity is at the heart of why I became a teacher. At this important juncture in my life, I hope that this mission will continue to be supported wherever I land next. And wherever I land, may there be music, laughter, tears and the joy of self discovery.

Learning Autobio final version: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10NT-EP396_c5kywoQeSPtXzjMvEGQlQvmhpzjfQCUSk/edit

Learning Autobio pictures: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Nt_fXCv9rTXFvyPHnPY1ihM6t2SGtWSeBEmBHMcRTAY/edit#slide=id.g151ac40689_0_9

Learning Autobiography cut/edited text: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bxFAtNyoafLDSaLailEEuaGBrBm9rmbVQdMEPEkxUkA/edit