On September 7, 2019, I attended the All Tapestry Fall Picnic. Before participants started arriving, I recorded a voice memo describing the playground where the event was taking place and reflecting on some of the meta questions I was chewing on at the time, including how to form relationships with the youth and how my various roles fit together. I have very lightly edited the recording for de-identification and modest sound quality improvements.
Annotated Transcript
Okay, I’m here at the playground. Let’s see what’s going on. The playground itself is off to the left from where I’m sitting at this picnic table. It’s really windy. So I don’t know how this audio is going turn out. I’ve got the wind sock on but that might not be enough.
There’s like one or two families over there playing on the … playing the equipment. A kid on the swing and pushed by an adult. There’s a mom outside—looks like a mom outside—the little fenced-in playground area. She’s wearing a big trucker hat sitting in front of a stroller. There’s a toddler slightly older kid standing with her. There might be another kid in the stroller. It looks like a baby-outfitted stroller.
There are ton of pigeons and Canada Goose. Geese, geeses, gooses? Some ducks swimming around in a little pond thing. The mechanical sound in the background is a … is a … what’s the word? A bounce house pump, pump keeping about bounce house inflated. And it’s set up outside of what looks like a little like community center or snack shop or something. I can’t quite see but there’s a door open and some … and some like party streamers hanging across the door and kids kids coming in and out.
It seems like really inter- … interracial, interethnic hangout spot right now. I see I see white families. I see Asian American families. I see Black families.
It looks like a good place for a picnic. It’s kind of open. There’s all these tables, there’s grills. But I know that we won’t be grilling because Sam has told me that he needs to pick up the sandwiches and asked me to be here early to welcome folks in case in case he didn’t make it in time because he was worried that the sandwich making would take longer then the store had promised and he’s coming from sort of the other end of this metropolitan area. And so, you know, it’s a bit of a hike and he’s worried about making it in time.
So I’m here in his place. So I know we’re having sandwiches despite the fact that this looks like it’d be a great spot for grilling and I think … I think I think it was called a picnic and not a barbecue or cookout, so I guess technically speaking, we don’t need the we don’t need the grills.
Sam is flying solo today as director. Hannah is off traveling on vacation. I am pretty nervous about today about a month ago Hannah put me in touch with the facilitators for the two teams that we are going to try to embed me with to begin this digital storytelling adventure and had a lot of back and forth, sent a lot of planning.
It sounds like I’m going to meet … I don’t have pseudonyms out for these young people. So I’ll just I’ll use their names here and I will—first names, of course only—and then I’ll edit them out. [Zoe]: I will be meeting with her team on Monday night for the first time. Both mentors will be there and the facilitator told me to make sure to, you know, not plan on sort of being the whole outing. They’ve got other stuff they want to do. But I’ll be meeting with them for the first time.
I hadn’t heard anything back from the facilitator of [Reggie’s] group. So I’m emailed him yesterday and told him I assumed we wouldn’t be talking about the project at all today. And he reached out and told me more or less what I had heard from Hannah already, which was that … was that his group has been having some difficulties. Only one of the mentors is going to be here. The facilitator is not going to be here. So he said feel free to meet with them and talk about the project. Feel free to tell them that I suggested that you talk about it. But my instincts are to just hang out.
Given the way that Sam and Hannah have kind of steered things so far in this collaboration, we’ve really wanted to err on the side of … of acknowledging that lots of young people, lots of youth, build trust really slowly. And the goal is to try to lean into the existing emotional and developmental support that’s already there in the form of the relationships between the youth and their mentors and for me to come alongside that and and and use that structure and that community and that trust, to the extent that that’s possible, rather than trying to kind of independently build a new sort of trusting structured relationship.
Obviously, like like it will be important that that that [Reggie] and [Zoe] and others I work with come to know and trust me also. But that resonates with my experience too from the pilot study: sort of parachuting in and saying hey, let’s do this project together instead of what you’re used to doing was … was, you know … I knew that was not a great idea heading in but it was what it was was, kind of how we had to do things to get the pilot done. And no coincidence that the three youth that I had a relationship with already were the ones who elected to stick with the project, I think. And so yeah so building those relationships I think I think we’ll be good.
I am grateful that both Sam and and Hannah have have seemed to be really comfortable asking me to take small leadership roles around the organization at the various All Tapestry outings that I’ve attended. At the very first one I attended, at the training, Hannah was flying solo and asked me to sit at the door and welcome people and that’s a similar role to what Sam has asked me to do today: to sort of be here to welcome, to guide.
And that seems to filter down. I mean it was remarkable to me, at least in one of the facilitator email conversations I’ve had, just how much clarity there is, you know, going forward for the next month. She was able to share with me the calendar of here are the the next four outings that our youth and our mentors, that is the team, will be going on. Here’s the next four, here’s the mentors that will be teach one, here’s whether there’s a plan we’re not for what they’re going to be doing, yeah, who’s going to be present. So I think that sense of, you know, my hypothesis—and I think it’s not an unreasonable one—is is that, you know, Sam and Hannah are really aware of the level of, you know, sometimes at least chaos and uncertainty that can be a part of the lives of the young people involved in this organization. And it seems to me that that part of the sense of safety and trust, part of the container that they’re trying to build, is around as a real sense of knowing what’s knowing what’s coming.
So what I know is coming is the sandwiches, as I said, and some tie-dye. The other role that I’ve been asked to play, asked by asked by Hannah, is to do a post to the to the Tapestry Instagram account today. I did pause briefly when she made that invitation to reflect on whether that was wise. And she also anticipated, it seems, that that was at least you know, that was a that was a role clarity question that we at least needed to reflect on a little bit.
This connection I’m wondering about may well be true. But on re-listening, I’m struck by just how hard it is not to assume connections that are clear to me are also clear to others.
She said, you know, I understand if this is a conflict of interest for you, I think with the way that she put it. Possibly because we’d had a conversation via email two or three weeks ago about the possibility of me attending a run walk event with them, but turns out there’s some pretty strong fundraising goals. And she said yeah, you can definitely come to the run-walk with us. But it’s pretty expensive, so we’re asking participants to help us raise money to pay … for the very least, pay for their admission, and hopefully help us raise money in the course of the event which is of course what this run-walk is kind of all about.
And I said that I didn’t think it was appropriate for me to help them raise money because that would involve being very public about my connection to the organization. Which would, you know, undermine the protections that we’ve tried to build in in terms of anonymity for the program and the young people involved. I said, “But I would be happy to just pay my way. But let me talk to my mentors first about whether it’s appropriate for me to do that.” I have given a small small amount of money to the organization in the past, and encouraged others to do so. This was before we had a kind of formal relationship and it was just an organization that I was getting to know. But I, in that prior email, said “My sense is that whether I’ve given you money or not has not impacted your desire to work with me on this project.” And I think she appreciated that, you know, transparency and and agreed that it that it was not. And, you know, so I think we both agreed that if I donated money for the purposes of attending this run-walk, that also would not you know not represent a conflict of interest.
Anyway, it was an interesting conversation. I do want to follow up with Lalitha about it, who of course is on vacation … or not vacation, sabbatical. So time we get together is sometimes a little uncertain. So anyway, I do want to check in with her about that. But but it was very clear to me that … or again my suspicion is that Hannah, you know, kind of internalized that. And I shared with her that that’s … one of my research questions is, you know, what what what is my what is my role here? How does my priesthood … how does my story facilitation and storytelling … interest, how does that shape my engagement with the organization and the tasks that I have to play here? As as researcher, primarily, but also as storyteller, as facilitator, as all the rest. So how do those various intersecting selves relate?
So I appreciate that I think she’s sort of taken me up on the invitation to be explicit about how we reflect on that, to be alert to potential conflicts and potential ambiguities, you know, to address them in whatever appropriate ways we can identify going forward. And yeah, so that’s been a good it’s been a good experience.
This has turned into a little more of a rant than I was expecting. I think people are starting to arrive, so I’m inclined to put my tape recorder away here.
So yeah: a little nervous about the ambiguity today, a little nervous about my role as, you know, social media storyteller for the organization. But I hope it’s going to go well. And sure I’ll have more to say afterward.