Sweet saxophone-playing cool sugar daddy
He strode up to the podium. No, he strolled up to the podium. Gravelly voice, the color of sweet tea with lemon, graying fine hair, yet standing tall with old man swag. A rigorous academic, a musician at heart, and not giving a darn cause he's been around this long and knows he still looks good. He killed the ladies back in the day. Swept 'em up. You know he did. When he played Coltrane, I had to admit this fact: Had he been my music professor, I would been unashamedly present during office hours, asking all sorts of questions.
Blind chemist
A young woman with three accompaniments: an assistant, a cane, and a hijab. On the way out of a plenary session I accidentally bumped into her. Oh, God, I'm so sorry, excuse me. How you gonna bump into a blind person? It would have been understandable if it were the other way around, sheesh. She was forgiving and we struck up a conversation. She told me her story, with one constant refrain: People didn't think she could do it. Yet here she was, a Muslim blind woman with a PhD in chemistry. "Are there any other blind chemists?" she asked. "I know others like me have finished their degrees, but have they stayed in academia?" The question struck deep, partly because I recognized it on some level. That Lorraine Hansberry quotation: "The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely." I teared up, not out of pity, but out of admiration. She is a person, a strong, persistent, brilliant, unique person who exists and is making her voice heard.
"Your mom was my professor's ESL teacher?"
Totally on that black-girl-nerd-academic-feeling-each-other's-work kick with a Haitian-American professor. Talking about my project and the Caribbean and having helped my professor edit her new book that just came out about Dominican identity. "She's the first Dominican professor at Harvard," I said, proudly. "Wait, are you talking about ____?" she asked. YES! "What??! How do you know her?" "Girl, my mom was her ESL teacher back in the day." Mind so blown. Wait till I tell my prof I met her old ESL teacher's daughter who is now a professor. What a small, ridiculous world.
Excuse me, may I slide into this Spanglish?
During lunch alongside two Latino guys going at it in furious Spanglish. I politely inserted myself into the convo in Spanish and without skipping a beat, the three of us were going at it, talking about our work, throwing out sources and if we hadn't heard of the source, furiously writing it down for later review. We interwove English and Spanish. Switching over when it felt easier, or when it felt right. They seemed interested in and impressed by my project, and I felt honored to be welcomed into that moment, this space where I could join in, participate in a predominantly Latino mode of expression even though I'm not Latina.
Bits and pieces
A Mexican-American roommate specializing in Italian language and Italian medieval history and culture. A senior professor whose work I cited in my dissertation, and I teared up when I realized, yes, he was that guy who wrote that book on slavery in Peru and that he was a Ford Fellow, too. Reconnecting with someone I originally met when I was a study abroad program assistant in Cuba. This refreshing time and space. Being a part of something special, valuable and rare. I don't take it for granted.
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