the I in tabitha

The I in Tabitha.

What on earth, you must wonder, is she talking about? I'll get there soon, but I'm going to go around in circles a bit before I get to the point, because part of the point is, I'm not going to self edit tonight, or take my thoughts and condense it down to a haiku or find a poem by another poet that says exactly what I'm feeling or thinking. I'm going to just write it, mistakes and all.

Tonight, whilst driving home from UCLA all I kept thinking was - where has the I in Tabitha gone? Where am I? Who am I? Where is the "I" in my poetry, in my academic writing, and even more important than that, the strong sense of self that comes with the pronoun I, in the way that I share myself with others in my life?

I tell my students often to find their voice. Find your voice in your writing. Be yourself. But I find it so hard for myself to do. It almost feels life threatening sometimes, to just be me. To own who I am. To own the I. To say: this is what I know, this is what I believe, this is what I think.

When I go to Starbucks and order my coffee they'll always ask at the end of my order, what is your name? Very few spell it the way I do and I often get Tabatha scribbled on the side of my cup with a sharpie.

When I introduce myself to people who's native tongue isn't English they always pronounce my name that way too - tab/tha or tabata. I love my name - it's my mom's greatest gift to me - that she spent time searching the bible and that she asked a Catholic nun for advice to find my name - and so I usually wait awhile before I let people I meet call me by my nickname. But for people who can't pronounce my name the first time, I always try to make it easy for them and say, just call me Tabby. It puts them at ease. I don't mind but I'm not sure if it comes across to the people I meet, how I like my entire name, how it means something significant to me.

So tonight, I'm feeling frustrated, because I know that in my poetry and in my academic writing, my voice is not coming through. I feel like I am a string of beautiful words, well crafted syllables, and poetic sentences. But I don't feel like I'm being brave and just being me.

There's this essay by Linda Gregg, a poet that I love. I love her because she's so naked in her writing. She's vulnerable. She can be writing about horses or making allusions to Greek myths, but you know it's about her and whatever it is she is going through - it could be joy or it could be loss or it could be love or loneliness. But it's there, you know that it is her. Her essay was about the art of finding the poem. That it isn't the craft but the content, or the heart that is most important. It doesn't matter how well written a poem or an essay is if it doesn't share something enormously personal about the poet, if it doesn't speak to who they are, what they believe, what they know.

I shared two things with two writing groups today. I'm having marathon days. And given that I've been using poems on this blog like a force field to prevent my readers from knowing what's really going on, you may not know what I mean by marathon days. I am a writing fellow with the Los Angeles Writing Project at Cal State L.A. (part of the National Writing Project taking place across the nation) and I just started the Principal Leadership Institute at UCLA. Simultaneously. I start at 9 in the morning and end at 9 in the evening. I'm in pursuit of a deeper understanding of the two things that I love the most: writing and teaching.

I shared my final poem in the morning and then my nine page vision for education in the evening. And in both sessions, I knew that although they were both wonderful pieces, I knew that I held back, I knew that I was not being fully me. I was hiding behind a wall of beautiful words and refusing to share the me behind the words.

And so, this is all about the feedback about my vision for education in the 21st century. My colleagues had great things to say about what I wrote but these are in essence what they had to say:

Take ownership of your vision. 
Make the paper your own. I want to know Pang!
Show us your voice.

My voice.

I'm so glad for their critique, for their gentle push, to just say it, to just put it out there, to be brave enough to say - this is what I believe, without apology or without hesitation.

They even asked me - is it cultural? is it because you've been taught to write in this way? have you been conditioned to write to please the teacher? And inside I recoiled, not in anger, but in disbelief. Am I that stereotypical Asian American woman? You know, the quiet, polite, apologetic, shy, eager to please, overly studious stereotype of the Asian American woman? I don't see myself in that way at all, but in writing, was that what came across???

This must be some turning point, or it has to be for me. I want to channel the younger me. I was the most obnoxious little girl. I'd brag about everything and I'd boss everybody around. I was the epitome of the only, unruly child. I was defiant. And I miss her.

I won't suddenly yell at the next barista that spells my name wrong, but the goal before summer's end is to reclaim myself from myself. To stop caring whether I'm wrong or if things sound right or if the person across from me is offended or disagrees with what I'm saying or if they feel uncomfortable. I'm going to channel my defiance in defense of the I in my name.