perspective

Sitting on the J train post the final session of one of my Sustainable Systems courses I receive this email by a correspondent at Oxford University Press.  

“I’m afraid we’re going to offer the writing project to a different author.”

Another job not contracted.  There is a pair of rubber crocs to the left of me, worn by someone having a speaker conversation.  Crocs morph into crocodiles.  Metal screeches against metal as we come to a stop at Marcy ave; the tin can I call it.  Sounds of severe and severed misalignment; there is somehow money for life size iPhones every five yards on a platform streaming Gucci but none for WD40 grease. Hungry mouths chopping at the bit of confusion. 

“You’ve been an incredible teacher, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to express how much of an impact you’ve had on me and my thinking.”  

Is the next email.  Tears bring much needed silence in a world of perpetual jack hammers. 

“I came into this session dreading the word “sustainability,” but I left much better informed and less ignorant about our environment.”  

Look up and building after building, gray box after shiny gray box, constructing a fictional reality dissociated from the inherent ecology. I don’t know why I live here. Some days, many days since the pandemic, the sounds alone are enough to wrap my head in a pillow and shove it in the corner of the couch. 

“This is one class where I never forget to tell my parents and boyfriend what you taught us.”  

Me too.  Me to my dear. 

When vertigo had me flipped upside down in 2021, 5,110 square miles was deforested in the Brazilian Amazon.  Indigenous forest protectors were murdered.  I am never doing enough. 

“When people ask why I came to Parsons, I tell them I came for the teachers, and I totally mean you and your class.”

For the final service design project, a Brazilian student of mine designed a lamp shade made out of kombucha leather she grew and palm paper from her families farm in Sãn Paulo.  With the help of my Goal Zero solar charger, the radiating warm tones through the reformed tree pulp was a dim reminder of the necessity for light after dark for completing homework. Tricky however and shady in perspective, because many palm plantations have replaced the rainforest. 

“I will never forget what you taught us or how you taught us.”

Me neither. 

A collaborative post with quotes from Parsons student Alifia Bandukwala.