Author Archives: Meghan Green

Featured Student: Marissa, 2nd year MAPOF

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bbf9224b-b669-4e47-b629-9796eaeaa416Marissa is a second year student in our Master of Arts in Process-Oriented Facilitation and Conflict Studies program. We are thrilled to have been given permission to share some of her poetry which sheds light on a part of her experience growing up as a mixed-race person in the U.S. 
 
In addition to writing poetry, Marissa can also be found performing with her band at local spots around Portland. Thank you for sharing with us Marissa!
 

 

swimming lessons

 

it’s strange to learn a language secondhand

a language that lives in me

lives in my childhood

lives in my blood

yet shame so often holds it hostage to the tip of my tongue

it could “never be good enough”

a language that lives in the steam of dumpling baskets

the clanging of dim sum carts

and my mother’s beckoning hands

and too–

her scolding

passed down from mother to mother

“mei mei, don’t go to bed with your hair wet or you’ll wake up with a headache”

the language that lives in the food i’ve craved

as a 6 year old to 26 year old

but could never

and still cant ever

muster up the courage to order from a waiter

and claim the language as my own

my shame is my mother’s shame

and my clumsy american tongue could never be my mother’s native one

light and agile

carved around tones and ancestry

my ears can’t hear her accent

to me

her voice is just her own

to me

it has always been her own

but to her

her english was only ever

“never good enough.”

to others

her accent was a hassle

a dismissal

another reason to close an office door

to lay her off

to turn their head

to shut their eyes like blinds

she asked me at age 4 how to pronounce “zoo”

she still asks me sometimes, “shzoo”

i hear the hint of home in her accent

the hint of home

when spoken here

outcasts her

the hint of home

causing people to try to

translate her

TO TALK TO YOU LIKE THEY ARE ARE SHOUTING AT YOU FROM ANOTHER CONTINENT ACROSS THE OCEAN

but you swam here at 26

and you continue to swim

even though no one ever taught you how

at age 7

you reminded me everyday before YMCA swimming lessons

how lucky i was to learn to swim

because you were never so lucky

we would go to the pool

and you would stand at the shallow end

waving at me

standing alone

smiling

in your single

black

swimsuit

in the dressing room

i watched you gaze at your reflection in the mirror

turned sideways

head cocked

your hands cupping your belly

this swimsuit you bought specifically

to stand

not swim in

 

you float at the shallow end

avoiding the water so your hair doesn’t get wet

 
 
 
Interested in additional information about the Master of Arts in Process-Oriented Facilitation and Conflict Studies (MAPOF)? Click here to be taken to the MAPOF page or contact our Outreach and Admissions Coordinator to schedule an information session! 

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Featured Student: Vanessa, 2nd Year MAPOF

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unnamed (1)Vanessa says one of the things making her excited these days is applying her Processwork learning in the diverse projects she is involved in. Recently Vanessa has been working in various places that are in transition. This includes in Greece, where systems are collapsing or dying, as well as working in Canada helping to facilitate an ongoing truth and reconciliation process with indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. She shared a recent story of working with a young woman indigenous leader who is building new partnerships between youth and mainstream institutions and government. One of the big tensions is around different concepts of “time” and the different cultures around time: how to honor both the “funding deadlines” as well as the deeper historical arcs of time, and to bring into these partnerships that things need to take their own time. Vanessa worked with her on “in-sourced” power and “outsourced” power to remind her that she has more power in any situation than she thinks she does, especially when she goes into these meetings.
 
Vanessa shared another recent experience working in a facilitator role with a group of women religious leaders who are part of a massive transition in how institutional religious life is lived. Vanessa was able to introduce the idea of role theory, and that people are people, but they are also occupying roles that are assigned by any given field or context. This concept was so helpful to them as they were struggling particularly with the role of the “bully”. It’s a role that is alive in their leadership and congregation, and also is a systemic issue in the Church also around abuse of power. Vanessa was able to explain different types of power such as positional power, personal power, and social power, which helped them realize that at any given moment they can have a different relationship to power and be in a different role. Once they understood this idea, they were very creative about how to begin using these ideas, even to address bigger changes in the organizational hierarchy to which they belong.
 
Vanessa feels she is in a major change period of life. Part of engaging in the MA in Process-oriented facilitation allows her to see her world work as connected to a larger community of practice. Vanessa also writes poetry. She recently wrote a poem called “Into the Deep, A Worldwork Fairy Tale” after her 5-day live-in residency with her cohort. Some lines from the poem include:
 
We welcome the new Loves
unravel the old shames
reveal the burdens of
my pain,
your loser
our privilege, race and rank
 
We risk dissolving something known
to see the deeper, stranger truth
of our own experience
 
Thank you Vanessa for being our featured student and for sharing a bit of your experience with us!
 
 
Interested in additional information about the Master of Arts in Process-Oriented Facilitation and Conflict Studies (MAPOF)? Click here to be taken to the MAPOF page or contact our Outreach and Admissions Coordinator to schedule an information session! 

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