MC Quixote

Jade Torres: Amiga Part 6

She's a Poly / Latina I met at the first FACE meeting. That first meeting was tense. It seemed like all the Latinos were on one side of the room and all the Polys, an African American girl, and this Mormon white girl were on the other side of the room.

I remember seeing Theresa Martinez first. A Latina professor from the University of Utah, greeting everyone from the door as they entered. She held my hand, looked into my eyes and said,

"Welcome to a safe place."

Then, after a pause she said,

"I'm sorry for your loss."

I didn't really get exactly what she meant, but I did feel like she sincerely cared about me, us, our school, our community, humanity. That humanness helped set a civil tone, but at the same time there was a tension in the room.

I could feel the fear, the vengeance, resentments, and that ugliest type of hate, which seems to fall to the bottom of your stomach like lead, weighing you down in the most primitive way. We were all ready to explode, ready to pick up the desks and chairs and whale them at each other. I was ready to maim, ready to kill, or be killed, I wanted to explode rather than let that ball of hate out of my gut.

I couldn't even look at them across the room. I just looked down at my shoes and felt the sensation that there wasn't enough air in the room, not enough oxygen, stifling.

Theresa came out of the hall and slowly walked between both of our groups and she had the wisdom to just keep walking all the way to the end of the room and she pulled open a window, all the way open. She took a deep breath, then she said, "Now that helps." And it did, it was as if angels flew in and demons jumped out and everyone in the room could now breathe.

Then Theresa said,

"I just want everyone to exercise silence for a moment. Sometimes, all you have is silence to heal a tragedy."

She walked around the room, her head bowed, looking at her hands, slowly walking and looking at her fingers, moving slowly, quietly, around the room, through both groups on both sides of the room. The quiet lasted a long time, it was way past the time when everyone started to feel uncomfortable.

Finally, she said,

"I want to express how much I respect everyone who had the courage to come into this room. You are the heroes of this tragedy and this community needs you now more than ever."

Then, she was silent for a while, an uncomfortably long quiet.

She raised her head and looked around at us again, looking at all of us, eye to eye.

"This is your group, I'm a part of it, but it will be your creation, I can't create it. I can get the room, I can present some questions, I can orchestrate, facilitate, but I can't tell you what to do. It has to come from you, this is your creation."

And then it was quiet again.

"There's only one rule with this group, respect. Is there anyone who is willing to speak to this?"

More quiet. Finally, Jade Torres stood up and said,

"Look at how everyone here has already taken sides. It's either the Poly side or the Latino side, look, look at yourselves. What side do I take? It's more complicated for me. My dad is Mexican, and my mom is Tongan, so where do I stand in this room?"

More silence, and then Theresa asked,

"Isn't there respect in answering someone's question? After they put themselves out there, risking so much, the least we can do is try to acknowledge what she's asking."

And then it was as if something moved through me, I had to say something for Jade, she did put herself out there, and I was still looking down at my feet, planted solidly on the Latino side of the room, and I said,

"We can't even face each other."

More silence. Then Jade said,

"That's what we should call this group, Face, The Face Movement."

And Jade and I have been friends ever since.