from trevor’s encyclopedia of the simple

He stepped off the bus and onto the street. 

Small groups of people were standing around, waiting to welcome their travelers. 

No one was waiting for him. 

“Oh well,” he thought, “I might not be welcomed with a kiss, but I was sent out with one. And by a guardian angel at that. So I’ve got that going for me.”

The early spring sun was bright in his eyes and made him squint to see the people and buildings around him. 

A hint of warmth was beginning to ease the chill of the upstate morning.

He put two quarters into the slot of a newspaper rack beside the bus station and took out a copy of the news. 

He walked a block toward Main Street and found a small diner that served breakfast from 5 A.M. til 10:30 A.M. and meat and three veggie plates for the rest of the day. 

Little bells rang as he opened the glass door and stepped inside.

“Mornin’,” said a waitress.

“Welcome to the Scrambled Egg. 

My name’s Gabby and today’s my tenth anniversary of workin’ here. 

I’ll be servin’ you today.”

“Hey Gabby,” he said. 

He reached out to shake her hand and take a menu from her. 

“My name’s Elias. 

It’s been ten years since I’ve been to the upstate. 

Happy Anniversary to us!”

“¡Gracias!

Where you comin’ from?”

“I came up from the low country through the night on the Greyhound bus.”

“The low country, huh? I love the low country. There’s nothin’ like wakin’ up early, just before sunrise, and walkin’ on the beach. Good gracious, I bet you didn’t get much sleep on that bus! Come over and have a seat at this table by the window. It’s the best seat in the house.”

“Thank you.”

“What can I get for you?”

“Well, I could use a hot cup of coffee and some pancakes.”

“Then you’ve come to the right place. I’ll be right back with your coffee.”

He took out his notebook and pen. He wrote as he read the article in the newspaper.

WHO - Governor

WHAT - Gave a speech endorsing a bill that a state legislator from the upstate intends to introduce that would cut off state funding for three years for any town or city that becomes a sanctuary city

*A sanctuary city (for example San Francisco) does not share the immigration status with federal, state and local officials of a person in custody charged with a crime

*Currently, there are no sanctuary cities in the upstate

A graduate student at the big upstate University, who is working on a thesis examining teachers’ attitudes and awareness about the rights of immigrant students, thinks the Governors comments are a “political ploy”

He thinks the state legislator’s bill would make immigrants less likely to report crimes or cooperate with law enforcement officials

He thinks the bill could increase the chance of “families being ripped apart” if an illegal immigrant is arrested for a minor offense and is deported

WHEN - October 23

WHERE - The county courthouse

WHY - The President wants to build a wall between the US and Mexico to keep illegal immigrants OUT of the US

The Governor endorsed the bill because he is afraid sanctuary cities will “take root in our state.” 

He doesn’t want any town or city to take part in “lawlessness”

The President attended a fundraiser for the Governor the week before the Governor’s speech.

* Note: I do not call people “illegal” or “aliens.” I say “undocumented” and “immigrant”

Gabby walked up beside him as he wrote.

“I don’t mean to interrupt what you’re doing, but your breakfast is ready.” 

There was a deep kindness in her brown eyes.

“Hmm,” she noted, “You’re writing with a pen in a notebook. 

Don’t see that much anymore.”

“I’m old fashioned, I guess. 

I still like to see the words I write on a page. 

Helps me see that I’m moving from point A to point B and getting somewhere.”

“If you don’t mind me askin’, what’re you writin’?”

“I don’t mind you asking. 

I’m working on a story for my newspaper. 

I’m a journalist.”

“What’s your story about?”

“It’s about a family I met in the low country, a migrant family picking peaches and tomatoes on the farms down there. 

When I met them, they were living in an old, gutted out school bus behind the lower 40 acres of a peach farm. 

I wrote a series of articles about them last summer to try to help people walk in their shoes.”

“Well, you’re my only customer right now. 

Mind if I sit down with you and hear their story?”

from trevor’s encyclopedia of lost and beautiful things

“There were deep wrinkles in the corners of her eyes and across her forehead. 

They didn’t seem to be wrinkles of worry that he’d seen on his mami and abuelo’s faces as they worked the fields and lived among strangers in small southern towns. 

No, they seemed to be wrinkles of kindness that might have come from years and years of loving and hoping, the kind of wrinkles you get when you cradle a baby in your arms and rock it deep into the night, the kind that come when you study the small, quiet things in the world and wonder why so few people see or hear the beauty they hold.”

These words and thoughts tell the story of how I’ve come to study life.

They paint a picture of my student, Daniel.

He’s one of those small, quiet people.

He and his family are from Mexico.

He’s a big brother to three younger siblings.

He speaks fluent Spanish at home and fluent English at school.

He’s a math whiz.

He’s a great writer.

At the end of the school day, when all of my students are swinging their backpacks over their shoulders and saying their goodbyes, he’s straightening up the tables and picking up bits and pieces of paper on the floor.

If students are struggling with reading, writing or ‘rithmatic, he’s always there to help.

If students are crying from skinned knees or hurt feelings, he’s always there to comfort them.

Sometimes he whispers to his neighbors when he’s not supposed to be talking or tries to play a game on his Chromebook when he’s supposed to be working, but most times he’s as saintly as a ten year old can be.

By that I mean this.

There is a Latin phrase that is etched on the side of my college ring.

“Esse Quam Videri,” it reads.

To be, rather than to seem.

The essence is more important than the video.

He’s small and quiet.

He brings beauty and wonder to my classroom and our world.

from trevor’s encyclopedia of lost and beautiful things

She reached out her hand, battered and bruised, and found her father’s hand to hold. 

She tried to bend her fingers around his fingers, but they were too stiff and sore to move. 

She took a slow, deep breath through her mouth into her tired lungs. 

She couldn’t breathe in through her nose. 

Her opponent had broken it in the second round with a left hook and it was stuffed with packing gauze. 

“Oh well,” she thought, “I’m just a migrant kid and a boxer. My face doesn’t matter. Only my heart and my hands do.” 

She breathed out through her swollen, cracked lips and sighed.

She felt the pain of boxing.

It was deep and aching in her stomach and moved out as weakness into her arms and legs, moved out as despair into her mind and heart. 

A lump formed in her throat.

She closed her eyes and a tear rolled down her cheek and onto the dust and dirt of the floor of the dark, quiet room.

She knew then, so deeply and clearly, why her father worked the fields in bare feet, why he wore the same clothes day after day and year after year. 

She knew why he took so little of the food he prepared for the family. 

In that moment, she realized how much her father loved her and how much she loved him.

She realized her father was beautiful.

from trevor’s encyclopedia of lost and beautiful things

Taki put the palm of her hand on the trunk of the tree.

"When I was an agnaiyaaq, a little girl, my aaka held this hand and walked with me outside of Point Hope," she said, "and talked with me about the plants around us, the ones animals can and cannot eat, the ones people can and cannot eat, the ones animals and people can use for medicine.

This, Little Salt, is called the Balm of Gilead tree."

Salito looked closely at the buds on the lower branches of the tree and breathed deeply the sweet smell of the resin.

He whistled for the wonder of it all.

"Balm of Gilead resin can soothe a cough or keep a small wound or cut or scrape from getting infected.

Maybe it could help a mute boy from El Salvador talk, huh?

Just kidding.

You can rub the resin on your skin or gargle it with water and it helps relieve burns and sore throats.

It grows here even out of the hard, frozen land.

Look at the heart shaped leaves. They remind us that the heart is the place where we learn to share, cooperate, take responsibility, avoid conflict and respect others, all of the qualities the old ones try to pass along to us.

Aaka told me, she said, 'Taki, these are the values of The People. They keep hearts beating and life living in these frozen, Arctic lands.'"

Taki closed her eyes.

She put her ear on the smooth, light brown bark of the tree.

"I hear the tree," she whispered. "It is saying, 'Take only what you need from nature. Use what you have to help others. Always speak your own language.'"

Salito put the fingers of his hand on the petals of the flower.

"When I was a niño pequeño, a little boy, my abuelo held this hand and walked me outside of the migrant camps where we stayed," he whistled, "and taught me about the plants around us there, the ones you can eat, the ones you can use for medicine. 

This is the izote flower. 

It's the national flower of El Salvador."

Taki looked at the milky, bell shaped flowers clustered above the leaves of the plant.

She breathed in the sweet smell of the flowers.

"You can eat the flowers and they help relieve arthritis and headaches.

You can break the stems, plant them in the ground, and they will take root and grow new leaves and flowers."

Look at the sword shaped leaves," whistled Hilcias softly. "They remind us of our will to live. They remind us that the pen is a sword and that we can write stories to help us understand each other and be kind to each other."

He closed his eyes. 

He put his ear to the evergreen leaves.

Their sharp spines pricked his skin.

"I hear the flowers," he whistled. "They're saying, 'Give ingenuity, beauty and wonder to world with the simplicity, plainness and ordinariness of your own language...of 

you.'"

from trevor’s encyclopedia of lost and beautiful things

“¿Cómo estás, Luisa?” Gabby asked the small woman in the window seat of the city bud as she sat down beside her. “How you doin’?”

“Bien,” Luisa answered. “A little tired. I cleaned a lot of rooms at the Poinsett Hotel today. ¿Y tu?”

“Si, bien. Un poco cansado, tambien. I scrambled a lot of eggs at the Scrambled Egg. I can’t wait to put my feet up and rest them. What you doing this evening?”

“I’m going to cook supper for my family and take my daughter to help me clean the doctor’s office. Then I’ll rest.”

Gabby put her arm around Luisa’s shoulder and hugged her.

“Eres una buena mujer,” she said. “You are a good woman. I’m glad you’re my friend.”

“Yo también, mi amiga. Yo también.”

Gabby got off the bus in front of her apartment. 

‘Sup Gabby. How you doin’?” asked Bryant, who everyone called Big B.

“Hola Big B. Not much. Just glad to be home. How was your day?”

“It was all good. The squeaky wheel got the grease, as they say, today and ev’ry day.”

“One of these days I’m gonna buy a car and the only person I’m gonna let work on it is you.”

“Deal. If you need anything, let me know, okay?”

“Sure thing! Same here.”

“You could come over and cook up some steak and eggs for me, you know.”

“Ugh, anything but that. I’ve cooked enough steak and eggs today...and ev’ry day!”

“Bet. I’m jus’ kiddin’ wit’ cha. Night Gabby. Be safe.”

“Night B. You be safe, too.”

She took her key out of her pocket and opened the door to her apartment. 

It was one room. 

There was a holey sofa that pulled out into a bed with a small table and a lamp beside it. 

Three books were on a bookshelf made of a cut board and two concrete blocks against the wall. 

An ancient transistor radio was in the corner. 

A painting by Jasper Johns of three American Flags, one on top of the other, smallest to largest, was on the wall. It was a gift from one of her regular customers at The Scrambled Egg.

The room was simple and beautiful, like her.

She picked a small book of poems from the bookshelf, Poems For A Brown-Eyed Girl.

She turned on the lamp and sat down on the sofa.

She stretched out her legs in front of her and opened the book to the poem “An Ode to Feet.”

She read out loud.

Her feet 

were calloused and cracked  

like rocks 

in plowed ground, 

like stones 

in turned soil, 

the soil 

she walked over 

barefooted 

as her grandfather 

turned the earth 

with donkey and plow. 

She had 

the feet 

of her grandfather, 

for she walked 

beside him 

down long rows 

of beans and corn.

He walked 

up and down 

those rows 

until his feet 

were bent and broken

and made him appear 

to be 

continually 

genuflecting 

to God, 

or to the wealthy land owner, 

or to the land itself. 

Her feet 

one day 

would be bent and broken

like that.

When her feet 

were in the soil 

it was 

as if 

they were part 

of the land, 

as if 

they held the secrets 

of the earth, 

as if 

they knew the mystery 

of how 

seed 

and dirt 

and water 

become 

a bean 

in a pod,

a kernel 

on an ear 

of corn. 

Her heart 

was in her feet, 

her heart 

was in the land, 

her heart 

was the mystery.

Her feet spoke, 

"Estoy aquí, 

estoy aquí." 

Her feet 

were signs 

to the world - 

"I am here."

from trevor’s encyclopedia of lost and beautiful things

9 out of 10 students at my Title 1 elementary school come from families whose income level meets the federal guidelines for economic poverty.

Paola, a kid from El Salvador, is one of them. 

She is 6 years old and is in 1st grade.

She lives in a small, one room apartment with her grandma, mom, sister and uncle. 

As her teacher, I struggle against her poverty with all of the compassion, creativity and commitment inside of me.

I’m aware of her poverty.

Today, though, I celebrate her riches.

She might be economically poor, but she is the most valuable kid in the world.

(Well, truly, each kid is the most valuable kid in the world, huh?)

She is a first grade hero.

I wish you could see her eyes, mind and heart.

They are filled with beauty, ingenuity, wonder and courage.

She is amazingly awesome and awesomely amazing.

Let me tell you a story about her.

She met a new student named Billy.

“Hi,” she whispered to him as he sat down beside her. “I’m glad you’re in our class.”

She didn’t know the story of the suffering that brought him to our school.

I knew.

Perhaps she recognized something familiar in his taut face, quivering voice and shaking hands.

“This is your journal. It goes in your desk, like this,” she explained. 

“These are our crayons and markers. You can use them if you want to. Don’t worry. There’s lots to learn. I’ll help you.”

She reached out to him. 

I’m astonished at her empathy. 

And very thankful for it.

And very thankful for her.

In that moment, she was my teacher and I was her student.

Later on in the day, I sat down beside her in the lunchroom.

“What made you want to help Billy?” I asked.

“Oh, I remember when I was the new student,” she said. 

“And sometimes I feel the way he looked when he sat down beside me. 

I just wanted to be kind to him. 

It helps when people are kind to each other. 

He’s my neighbor, you know.”

I know.

Yep, I’m aware of Paola’s poverty. 

But I’m aware of her riches, too. 

I curse her poverty and will fight like hell for ways to make her life more whole.

I bless her soft heart and will fight like heaven for ways to keep it that way.

Thanks for showing me the way, Paola.

You’re my hero.