Being Human in Public

Musings on band merch, street art, and the meaning of life

Note: A different version of this post was initially written on my very first blog. So much has changed since then, but the story stayed with me. So, with renewed excitement to be writing online thanks to Substack, I’m sharing it again here with a few updates.

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When the teacher is the student

As many of you know, my full-time day job is teaching (brilliant, resilient, and inspiring) vulnerable youth in a high school alternate education program. Sometimes in the afternoon, I linger in my classroom puttering around in the company of students who are waiting for their buses or avoiding heading home for a myriad of reasons.

There’s a calm energy to my classroom after school. I liken it to the days growing up when my grandmother and I would each read our own books from separate couches in her living room. Alone yet together; in the company of safe people, but turning inwards to decompress from the day. (This year, the students who stick around have dubbed themselves The After School Club and we all look forward to this quieter time of day.)

One day a few years ago—just before the pandemic, actually—I was replying to emails and tidying my classroom while students with overdue assignments worked peacefully at their desks.

Scanning the room, I happened to notice a student’s hat which read: BEING HUMAN IN PUBLIC.

This particular student had been working diligently to complete a project that was missed because her mental health had prevented her from coming to school for a few days.

The words on her hat meant something to me, and I wanted to know what they meant to her.

Before she left that day, I called her over to my desk and asked quietly her about the hat. She told me it was the title of a Jessie Reyes album.

“I wear it when I’m having a hard time showing up here,” she added. “To remind myself that everyone is just, literally… being human in public. And that can suck, but at least we suck together.”

These words have always stuck with me.

Image designed by Salini Perera

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But, why?

Sometimes I ask myself why I choose to devote my precious minutes to the online world. To the passions, people, businesses, and customers that exist mostly (to me) inside my phone or behind my laptop screen.

Or why I choose to dive headfirst into the type of teaching position that tugs so painfully on my heartstrings.

Or why I love certain “unimportant” things like articles about iconic fashion, well-made cups of coffee, or GRWM videos.

The answer to each of these whys is the same…

Because each of these passions of mine is, at the heart, about being human in public and celebrating the beautiful, messy, complicated, and awe-inspiring stories, ideas, and creations that spout from our humanity.

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Evidence of humans in public

I’m partway through writing a series of posts from our recent road trips to the Rockies and down the Pacific coast. As I look back on the photos I took, I’ve noticed a recurring theme: As much as I like to stop and snap a pic or two (and watch my father-in-law snap at least 500) of a mountain or a glacier, I’m truly excited about documenting the evidence of humanity that surrounds us.

Typefaces, shop displays, graffiti, street art, locals’ outfits, music blaring from cars stopped next to ours at red lights and all things people-made captured my eye, got me thinking, and brought me back to this story about my sweet student and her hat.

And, of course, I recognize that human beings don’t exactly have the best reputation for their impact on the earth.

But I suppose what I’m trying to say is that every stamp we leave behind, every work of art—digital or physical; intentional or accidental—is a form of the collective story we tell: We were here. As humans. In public.

To me that’s worth seeing, documenting, and celebrating.

Not instead of acknowledging damage or pain. But because of it and right alongside it. Because if ugliness is a sign of our human ability to cause harm, then surely beauty and art signal our capacity for resilience, healing, and change.

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Beauty in the contradiction

I find there’s a tingly sort of tension embedded in this way of approaching the world. I personally love nice stuf (see above!) and feel deeply about social justice, the environment, and many very not nice issues in the world.

I come back to this way of thinking to remind myself that two things (infinite things!) can be true at once.

We can like nice things. And we can do it in a way that doesn’t ruin our world but instead builds the potential for a better one.

Thank you for reading, friend.

I hope that within this story you find some inspiration to document something that catches your eye, create your own work of art or beauty, and just, you know, continue being human in public with me.

If you’re newer here, go have a read about me and this publication. I hope you decide to stick around.