On Angry Inner Children, Awkward Lab Conversations, An Ugly Blanket, Unconventional Vessels and Identity

a poetry country for KTHT’s Promptastic June week 3

Seeing the inner child in everyone

Anger — is when I most commonly see someone’s inner child, their inner message being shouted out because some past context meant that their only learned coping skill for survival was to tantrum in order to survive, even though in this adulty situation, it’s not the case.

While I do not condone it, I first seek to extend an olive branch, to tackle the underlying message and see if that helps.

It’s not up to me to manage someone else’s emotions, and I do encourage others to be professional in career settings, but I also know that this year, this decade, this lifetime has been filled with stress-inducing messages, of doomsday environmental change, of worsening economic burden, and to that, I can deeply relate.

With empathy, and while intentionally conscious about my own boundaries and comfort, I extend compassion however I can, because who knows?

Maybe it’s the first time someone has been like that to them.

It was for me, and that’s what changed me.

Author’s note: I used to hate children as a teen, possibly because you’re simply trying to quietly grocery shop and the child in the next aisle is having a meltdown. In the most self-centric adolescent way of thinking that you are the First in the world to Ever Suffer an Emotion, I thought “why is this kid crying? I should be the one crying.”

We’ve come a long way since then, thankfully! I’ve come to love kids even though I’m not interested in having any of my own. I’ve come to know that kids scared into silence and submission the way many in my generation have carry wounds into their adulthood, yet the ones feeling comfortable enough to excitedly shriek in joy is quite normative for a child. I’ve come to empathize that children aren’t supposed to have it all together just yet based on their development, and that it wasn’t fair that I had to be at that age.

I’ve come to realize that adults who have different experiences than me carry judgment and coping behaviours that might harm others. I set boundaries on being in charge of eternally tolerating that behaviour, but I always make space so that my self-care cup to pour a sip for someone else. While I do not subscribe to being in CHARGE of 100% “fixing” someone, which is not how any of this works, I am in favour of community healing. And part of community healing involves planting healing seeds, one seed at a time. One smile. One olive branch. One question.

One focus on message and tackling that immediate need, with later accountability to ask that person to shift away from outwardly aggressive behaviour.

And this poem was about that.

Changing the frequency of thought

He stepped into the lab and asked us, but budding newbies, a stats question —

we answered the best we could, stumbling and fumbling, giving an answer that upon reflection, was both not bad, and horrendously naive.

He looked at us, confused, clarifying that we misunderstood the question, and we, mere puppies to this world, tried again… again wrong.

Now I am him, and the new puppies are them, and I focus on thinking back to how I felt in those awkward moments as we stumbled and fumbled on a completely different wavelength.

As a mentor, as a senior student, I strive to remember those days, those earlier frequencies, so that I can switch back and forth to illuminate a road towards mastery, without invoking feelings of shame.

Author’s note: This is SUCH a hilarious memory to me because a senior TA used to hop by our labs and ask us what we thought about [ insert statistical thing ]. Based on our very early knowledge of things, we’d trip and fall as we try to answer something, and he’d look confused and try to clarify again. It felt like we were speaking two different alien languages.

It’s a funny story, but recognizing that without an adequate support network to joke about that shared awkwardness with a labmate, an experience like this invokes imposter syndrome like no tomorrow. I hope, armed with the hilarious memories of these encounters, I’m digesting information enough for new students when I mentor them, so that I’m always just challenging them outside of their comfort zone, but not too much that they feel like they’ll never make it in this career. Because that’s quite a lot to feel.

Cocooned in loving energy

Cocooned in loving energy, a crocheted blanket of weird shape, not quite a rectangle OR a square, but something more like a trapezoid — these shape terms coming back to me from third grade math.

Lovingly crocheted by yours truly, me, and my un-nimble fingers, with large holes and small holes and loosened rows amongst tight rows, it embodied hours if not days of concentrating, tongue stuck out as if that helps.

Author’s note: It sometimes surprises me how universal the body language of “tongue stuck out one side of the mouth” illustrates concentration, but it helps! Kind of like opening up your mouth to put on mascara. Why does it help in any way? I don’t know. But it sure does, and that’s magical to me.

Imperfect vessels

Imperfect vessels, cracked and mended with gold, more beautiful than original;

imperfect vessels, molded in pottery class with un-nimble fingers furrowed brows, focussed on not creating holes in the vessel — success!

imperfect vessels, customized for some specific use, donated after years of embarassment, thrifted by an artist upcycled into a candle.

Author’s note: A more surface interpretation of this prompt! Sometimes it’s good to take a rest, like Diana C. mentioned in this week’s prompts. On the one hand, the word “vessels” reminds me of this in-depth 3-class discussion we had over The Handmaid’s Tale and the use of “vessels” to describe bodies with a womb. It was eerie then, and eerier now. And I didn’t want to go there today.

So I went elsewhere. I went to the earlier poem I wrote about Kintsugi, I went to my life-long dream to one day attend a pottery class after Jisoo and Rosé took, and I went to thinking about the amazing artists I encounter on artsharewlucy who upcycle old thrifted vessels into candles.

No permanence is ours

No permanence is ours, yet we claim identity among the silence.

Author’s note: A tiny poem! I certainly need to do more tiny poems with these prompts because in tiny poems we need succinctness, something I still need to work on.

Hi I’m Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) and I’d like to thank Diana C. for Promptastic June week 3!