Walking on Sunshine: Finding work that works.
Posted in Uncategorized on August 28th, 2008 by timmwest
For the past two decades, I’ve lived my life mostly as a professional student. My first job after undergrad (1994) was as an Admissions Officer at my alma mater (Duke), where I got tapped into the hopes and aspirations of students eager to take the next big steps towards professionalism. I’m an activist and artist at core. I’m most happy when I’m writing, performing, and creating change. So the dilemma after the undergraduate years– having majored in Philosophy (I’m a Socratic beast) and with concentration in Women’s Studies (Feminism is at the core of what needs to be changed in the world)– was to find something that allowed me to follow my passions and provide means, not just to survive, but live comfortably, thrive professionally and make a difference. The years in Admissions were a great foundation for any job that would come after: lots of research, customer service, sales, travel, meticulous record keeping, events planning, and late-night projects. Two years of it reminded me that I did enjoy learning and wanted more schooling. A former Pre-law student, I wasn’t sure if Law School or Grad School would be the right direction. In hindsight I can admit that I didn’t know any gay black lawyers (who were “out” as such) but knew several black queer professors, so I made my decision based on the imposition of a glass ceiling that suggested that living authentically limited professional options. I hope that young people like my daughter, Shay, don’t limit themselves the way I did.
I entered Graduate School at The New School for Social Research where I welcomed the more urban experience of one of our world’s amazing cities; and all the joyous diversity there. The New School sits just north of the NYU campus, but is even less so a campus, so I lived in Bedstuy, Brooklyn, took trains everywhere, and in addition to studies in Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, and Cultural Anthropology, really fell in love with the beat of the city. The New School carried one vice. Their funding wasn’t so great. My time at the New School included several jobs (Graduate Admissions, Writing Center Consultant, Undergraduate Admissions Personnel, teaching) that amounted to 30+ hours a week as a full-time student. Still, I’m grateful for the way it enabled me to boost my academic record (a B/B+ student at Duke, I was an A student at a very rigorous graduate institution) and enabled me to make the next leap to a university like Stanford, where I would be accepted to their Ph.D. program in Modern Thought and Literature.
So I was on the fast-track to becoming an professional intellectual, or so I thought. Academia held promise for a person like me with lots of ideas, who loves reading, writing, and theorizing, and who didn’t want to restrictions that “professionalism” often requires: I hate wearing ties, like my eyebrow piercing and mohawk or locs or whatever nappy-do I’ve sported over the years, and feel that I do my best work when I’m comfortable. Stanford provided a great deal of support. Still, I worked a lot because I was always wary of only having academia as a professional option. The echoes of “get a real job with all them fancy degrees” were persistent. And when, at the end of a very successful first-year in a Ph.D program, I discovered I was living with AIDS, my whole world seemed to close in. With 192 T cells, being around a lot longer wasn’t a given. I needed to decide fast what legacy I wanted to be remembered for: dense philosophical-laden theory, or something that would leave, perhaps, a more lasting impression– something that could be shared moreso with the masses and that was more palpable: my writing, my music, my he-art.
I struggled to make Stanford work, completing a full range of MA level courses required before exams and the start of a dissertation, which I was excited about. “Gaze on Mandingo” was about Foucault’s notion of Bio-power and how black-male(d) subjectivity grapples with complex question of gender, race, and sexuality under the panoptic gaze of The MAN. That kind of shit seriously excites me. I loved it! But I realized that living was more important that making an impression in the academy. And ultimately I’ve come to do that anyway– leaving Stanford with an additional MA (2002); and continuing to marry theory with my creative work and many scholarly publications. Now in 2008, three books later, 4 Hip Hop albums later (four with DDC and 2 solo), I’m pretty pleased about the legacy I’ll leave behind. I still have lots more to add. But what about the other parts of my dream: the ability to afford a home, the aspirations for partnership and a means to provide for a family, give more support to my daughter Shay and consider building a newer family with my partner Dave?
Well…there was The Bay, then DC, then ATL, then Houston. In Oakland I was inaugural faculty at Oakland School for the Arts (2002-04)– something that remains among my most proud accomplishments, if it was stained by a depressing resignation due to sharp pedagogical differences and feeling disrespected by the school’s founding director. I believed that the OSA job would be the one I’d grow old doing. I was an emotional wreck after, if only because of my deep investment in students and families lives who knew how much I loved teaching.
After, I needed to find work in Oakland and worked off and on, both part-time and full-time at a queer youth center (SMAAC). This work was in some ways a perfect marriage between my aspirations to teach, and the activist work for queer youth and those affected by and with HIV. However, I could not pay my bills anymore and decided to take the first job offered to me (in a certain salary range), wherever it was. In DC I took a job doing AIDS Services work (04); stuff I love, but certainly not the most challenging work intellectually. I began to miss students and wanted to teach again. At Cesar Chavez Public School for Public Policy (05) I fell in love with teaching DC students English/Language Arts in my own way– but realized soon that the dictates of “Leave All the Childrens’ Behinds” drained my creative ingenuity and could not be “standardized” into a scripted curriculum. I figured the working for College Summit, Inc. (06), a great organization that I have “founding” history with, would allow me some time to continue activist intentions to close the economic gap and address poverty through getting more kids into college. Because it’s work I do rather effortlessly, it might also offer some space to figure it all out. Sound confusing? Bare with me, I’m abbreviating.
So then I moved to Atlanta (2007). Heartbreak and dissatisfaction with where I was in my life led to a mini-crisis and I needed space to sort it out. I decided to put more energy into www.reddirt.biz, become a more serious artist, and get a part time job to help support me. It was cool, but I was always broke. At 25, I could live with that, at 35, I couldn’t. Something’s gotta give. Falling in love earlier this year and my partner Dave being in Houston, provided me an opportunity to be closer to my family in the Ark-La-Tex region, and in a large enough city to offer all the creative, cosmopolitan perks I desire. Still, I was clear that I wanted to find a job in which didn’t “settle”. I didn’t realize how all the jumping around and schooling may have made me, despite accolades, appear like someone incapable of professional stability, when it is, in fact, the thing i desire. I could not seem to find work there: overqualified, part-time, low pay no thanks offers, so I became a bit depressed.
God is good when you believe that life is fundamentally balanced and that with positive thinking comes great blessings. I received an opportunity this Fall 2008 to teach as Visiting Lecturer at Humboldt State University in Northern California– a place near and dear to me because it’s where one of my mentors, the late Eric Rofes, taught before his untimely and unexpected passing in 06. Consulting my partner Dave, he encouraged me to take the position. He knows his guy likes being around hippies, liberals, books, and postmodern thought. LOL. I’m grateful for his trust and encouragement; and most of all to be in such a “mature” relationship with so many reasons to stay together. But taking the job at HSU (albeit temporary) was also about finally arriving at a place understanding that temporary sacrifice may lead to greater stability in doing the very things I was born to do. No compromises necessary.
Today I awakened at 6:15 a.m. in Arcata, CA eager and excited about teaching the class that I’m now about to race to (anyone who knows me knows that’s odd, cuz I’m not a morning person). It’s such an amazing feeling… the Redwoods, the friendly people, being respected and appreciated for being a thinker, activist, and artist. I’m really happy here. I’d like to find such work in Houston, where my partner is, but know that Humboldt might be a necessary step in the direction towards a professionalism about which I can be proud and happy. People should always be excited about going to work; and though much of my future is uncertain, I’m clear that, today, I’m doing the right thing…and that it’ll all work out.
(feel free to sing along….)
I’m walking on sunshine , wooah
I’m walking on sunshine, woooah
I’m walking on sunshine, woooah
and don’t it feel good!!
I’m walking on sunshine , wooah
I’m walking on sunshine, woooah
I’m walking on sunshine, woooah
and don’t it feel good!!
