February Reflections
Each month Jeni sets a theme for the newsletter. She is creative & thoughtful about what to focus on & when in the year we need to focus on it.
So, this month I have followed my familiar pattern of writing these words. It goes like this... Jeni is clear and organised with the theme the date I need to get my ramblings over to her for them to feature in the newsletter.
I have this information months in advance. I nestle this somewhere in my mind amongst other precious things that need doing. Time passes & the deadline gets closer, the awareness of needing to write something becomes more vivid in my mind. Eventually I end up the day before the deadline & here I am scrawling on my remarkable & wishing I could think creatively on to a screen: I do this every month, it is not a surprise, it is consistently my way.
I wonder, this pattern, the knowing and the waiting, the squeezing of time as if that’s the necessary force to extract my thoughts from my mind and decant them to the page. Is this pattern a habit or part of my identity?
I’m aware of it.
I don’t try to change it, its familiar in feeling and I chose this way. Perhaps from the outside it might look like procrastination, it's not. It may resemble avoidance, that is not my experience either. Perhaps it’s inertia or indifference to some, but that is not a box that I fit in either.
No matter what category others choose this is just me.
This week I visited a school to do an observation of a child. I was waved through the glass portal by a warm smile & an efficient orientation to the signing in screen.
I navigate the “visitor” section with ease these days, do the inevitable half squat to get low enough to be captured at child height in a grimace by the camera & then accept the photo regardless. (I will still be adorned with this mugshot sticker when I go shopping later tonight.)
The warm & friendly staff member passes me the correct colour lanyard & begins a phone call up to the class teacher, to let them know I’m on my way - grimace sticker in place. "Hello, I’ve got the person here from Curiosity Project... I'll send him up". for one moment I think she is talking about someone else, then recalibrate... no-it’s definitely only me here.
Again "Ok thanks - I’ll bring him up now".
I say nothing. That’s what is interesting, I say nothing. Internally I’m confused – I’ve just signed in - (Katy Beetham) I’ve spoken (soft voice) - I’ve even got longer hair for me (probably grade 3 at least!).
Not at any point do I think "But I don’t identify as he/him"
I go to all of the ways I look and sound as if it must be my 'fault' and I have confused her with my androgenous choice of identity. This is of course a much bigger ramble than the February newsletter, but the two experiences have collided and fuel like 2 sides of the same coin.
The internal, unseen part of us that we claim and own as a part of our identity, and the external version that others use to categorise us in terms of 'identity'. We all will do this at some points, with naivety & assumption mostly, hopefully.
But it impacts and matters. We all want to be seen, known & understood for who we are. None of us can know the internal world of another - but we all can be mindful of assumption and open heartedly curious along the way.
- Katy B (she/her)