Steffany

Favorite dress? Check. It’s black with thick white stripes running along the sides and collar. It was sold exclusively in the plus-sized section. The white stripes are supposed to add a flattering effect on the body, which they succeed in doing. My twist out was fresh. I’d left my twists in all day, stuffed under a baseball cap, preserving them for the big moment. I’d rubbed olive oil between my hands when carefully untwisting my hair. After minutes of pulling, smoothing down the edges with the tips of my fingers, and padding with the palms of my hands, I’d managed to achieve a certain shine and luster and volume. I was meeting Zadie Smith, and I planned to make my presence known.

I sat down in the front row, or as close to the front as I could get considering I didn’t pay to have access to legitimate front row seats. Next to me was a poet, conversing with her own kind, about the witty limericks written in the fancy European notebook her mother gifted her for her 17th birthday. Behind me were people whispering about our guest, whose “books I never read, but she’s kind of a big deal, man. People love her!” I admire her, love would be strong. A little too strong a descriptor in the presence of a distinguished writer known for her personal interrogation of the trappings of fame.

She walked past me before getting on to the stage, in my mind I said hello and we engaged in deep intellectual conversation, but in real life I held my breath. Meeting the people you idealize is always weird, which isn’t her fault in any way, mine only for my own preconceived notion of who she is. Which is more than a byline in the New Yorker, but when they opened their archive that one summer, I fell in love with her essays and short stories. A sight to behold with high cheekbones, freckles, and a headwrap radiating through my YouTube screen. When she approached the podium, she had more of a professorly presence, PowerPoint included. She read “Three Essays About Being A Person” that being the theme that tied each essay to the one before it. The first one, “Flaming June,” about an art poster she bought for her Cambridge dormroom. Her last one, a meditation on Justin Bieber’s seemingly impersonal connection with his fans intertwined with the philosophy of Martin Buber, first time I’d heard of him.

The essay that mattered was titled, “The Bathroom.” It was everything that I needed to hear. Looking directly out into the audience, Zadie Smith told a story of being a lower-middle-class, black girl in England. The audience deemed itself progressive, down for the cause. I attend an institution where KILL ALL RAPISTS flannels flap in the breeze and pocket sized Marx and Lenin philosophy with half chewed off covers are haphazardly stuffed into JanSports adorned with buttons that read “FUCK CAPITALISM.” Bold words from kids whose trust funds are a direct result of generations of brutal capitalism, but who cares anyway? It’s about the cause, man! While the audience giggled at funny parts of an experience so distant from their own, I teared up a bit, sank into my seat and felt so lucky to be there.

When she talked about her mother devoting her time to decorate their childhood bathroom with tropical plants, it made me think we had the same mother. When my family had its Jeffersons moment and moved to our version of the east side, my mom painstakingly decorated not one, but both of the bathrooms in our apartment. She squeezed the sea motif into everything, overtly in the main bathroom, and covertly in the second half a bath—the seafoam green matching the tiling, matching the towels we couldn’t use, matching the tacky wall decor covered in semi-inspirational quotes.

I smile and “mmm!” through the whole story because there are so many points to which I relate. The part about our parents sacrificing their whole lives and dreams so that their children can flourish. The lower middle class cliché: “Be better than me.” The freedom that is allotted to us as children. My sheer existence is the product of my parents’ unrealized dreams gone by—abandoned when they had another human to look after. They haven’t looked back since, at least not in a way that would exact guilt from their children, that’s now how parents like ours operate. Instead, they take their passion and become our cheerleaders: “You are destined for greatness and I know for a fact you can do anything.” Lower-middle-class children like us, are encouraged to pursue our own paths, no matter how impractical to others. As far as my parents were concerned, I could do anything, no matter how absurd, and if they could lend support, they would. They bought me the keyboard when I was Fakelicia Keys, cornrows and beads and all; the guitar when Corinne Bailey Rae was the center of my universe; and the sewing machine and kit after I was inspired by Project Runway.

After the reading, and answering repetitive questions, Smith began signing books. She went out of her way to engage in conversation with everyone who approached the table. She discussed Penny Dreadful with the girl ahead of me, even though she looked a bit fatigued. She asked me about my earrings, with genuine curiosity. I told her that “The Bathroom” resonated with me, that I was without a major, and that I wrote occasionally but didn’t quite see the value in pursuing a writing degree. Maybe that’s not something to say to any writing professor at NYU, let alone Zadie Smith. Yet, it was how I felt, and how I feel often takes precedence over other things. For better or for worse.

I looked online for “The Bathroom.” I intended to print it out and pour over every word, only I couldn’t find it online. I’d never read a piece that resonated so loudly, which may be the same thing I said about the last piece that resonated with me, but still! There was a part of me on those papers, in those words. I’d rant about the importance of representation in literature, but there’s no need. Let’s just say for a moment, I felt the way all those angst-ridden white dudes feel when they first get their hands on A Catcher in the Rye, be it from an older brother, educator, or colleague. Instead got the story straight from the mouth of the woman herself.

I need to pour over the words and reevaluate them because I secretly believe it’d help me come to terms with how I feel about my predicament. Being the child of lower middle class parents, there’s no career path I’m banned from pursuing. Zadie can back me up on this. “The world is your oyster” is a corny quote, but also a way for my parents to empower me to seek to expand my worldview and make the most of my experience. Some days I see it that way, other days it means I have to follow my dreams against all the odds, suck the world dry, and chase down my ambitions by any means necessary.

Despite their pleas for me to forge my own path, I take with me the unrealized dreams of my parents. To throw caution to the wind and continue without acknowledging the sacrifices made feels wrong. Sacrifices that range from shelving their aspirations of being a social worker to stepping on sewing needles I’d spilled throughout the apartment in a creative frenzy. Or watch the keyboard they’d spent hard-earned money on collect dust, another “dream” unfulfilled. Not an ounce of contempt, but rather a roll with the punches approach, laughs, and being comfortable with a life where their kids are the center. Having an upbringing such as mine, such as Zadie’s, with immense support from my loved ones, you’d think I’d take a more bohemian approach to life: Take on the clichés of a writer, keep a Moleskine in my pocket, keep a watchful eye on potential characters and interesting quotes from my peers. Dramatic, tortured, constantly in pursuit of new experiences to communicate through prose. Why don’t I think I fit the criteria? Why is writing not a noble enough profession? Why did I tell Zadie Smith I didn’t think it was worth getting a degree in?

I do know it has something to do with my growing up during a time where entrepreneurship is en vogue. My parents telling me money isn’t synonymous with success meant nothing to me when Mark Zuckerberg was a 23-year-old billionaire. A kind of accessible figure from the same county as I, in fact in a town about 15 minutes away. Being told that nothing is out of reach while concurrently watching people reach new heights—it motivates you. It moves you to want to go above and beyond. To buy Daddy that rolex, and give Mommy an unlimited budget to decorate an infinite number of bathrooms; lofty yet not completely unachievable goals.

And so, I often ask myself, do I want to write the profiles of important people or be the subject of the profile? I’d much prefer the latter. That alone informs my decisions and outlook. Everything else isn’t clear to me; I’m reconciling my own beliefs little by little. I’m also 18, an excuse I fall back on when necessary and now is as a good a time as any! I don’t have it all worked out. Who has it all worked out? I might just will myself into being a prolific writer, or CEO, or both? After all, “the world is my oyster,” and seeing as my parents want me to “be better than them” I can move in either direction, their “lower middle class clichés” and the literature of Zadie Smith to guide me along.