Labor Day: Or the long journey from Cartman to Carmen

It’s Labor Day weekend. Or as we like to call it, Happy Days Are Here Again…..the kids return to school this week in Manhattan. Hallelujah! 

Dylan goes to The Children’s Workshop School, here in the East Village, and to our delight Gavin will be starting in their free preschool this year as well. After touring several schools in the neighborhood last fall we fell upon this one by accident. We were treated to a tour on our first visit and after inquiring about the cost (there is none) and the waiting list (we bypassed that) we got in simply because the secretary “liked us.” How this happened we will never know. All we know is that we were under a lucky star that day. We didn’t realize it at the time, but Dylan’s life at school has largely guided our journey in New York.

Considered one of the “best kept secrets of New York,” The Children’s Workshop School is an alternative public school of “choice”. Coming from Colorado none of us knew what this meant. We were told the school has a focus on writing, art and music, yet we were unprepared for the magnitude. When you enter you are greeted with art everywhere: art from students and art from the community covers every corner of the 100 yr old building. Colorful murals from local East Village street artist Chico line the hallways. The classrooms are immaculate, filled with light and have impossibly tall ceilings. Even the people themselves are like artwork. This is truly Sesame Street: families and children from every color of the rainbow and every corner of the world fill the halls.

Her class was small with fewer than 30 kids. She’s always been one of the tallest, and here again she stood out.  Her first few weeks were rough. She was getting picked on by the queen bees of the classroom. The school Gatekeeper, a towering black man of over 6 feet with 3 foot dreadlocks yelled so loud he frightened her. There wasn’t enough recess. Soon we were getting notes that her dolphin and horse noises were disrupting the classroom. Her report card suggested she be “mindful of her body and language’ and make ‘more appropriate and thoughtful decisions.’ She wanted to come home. Not good.

Gavin and I flew out to visit in mid January. Our mere presence at morning drop off seemed to signal to others that we were in fact for real. Kids were very interested in this white bread family from the Midwest. “Is this your Mutha?” “Is this your brutha?” “Your Mom and Dad look like sista and brutha.” By the end of the week we had all the kids in the vicinity interviewing us quizzically and warming up to the idea of us as actual people even if we were a little odd ball. I watched as Dylan started to slowly thaw with the realization that these kids were just like her: curious, cautious, funny and interesting. We were making progress.

By the time Gavin and I moved here in late February, Dylan had already found her place and made a name for herself. She was the ‘Girl Who Liked to Hug’ and she made great animal sounds. The ‘bullies’ were now her best friends. The kids in her class were from France, Japan, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Guatemala, and Venezuela. Kids came up to us asking for play dates with Dylan at least 3-4 times a week. The Gatekeeper’s name was Gary, and he just happened to be the art teacher (bonus).  Dylan now hugged him every morning and he said, “Hi Honey.” According to Dylan we were going to be O.K. in New York. We’ve basically taken our cues from her ever since.

Gavin adjusted in to NY in his own way. He became fascinated with the street scene. People didn’t know what to make of him. He didn’t ‘walk’ to school, he meandered. He sauntered. He stopped. He went backwards. He went sideways. He flew from his cockpit. He picked up anything and everything he could get his hands on. One day he found a key chain from South Park, the raunchy and hilarious cartoon whose creators are from Colorado. It was a character from the show and we started saying that Gavin was carrying around Cartman (imagine us talking in Cartman’s voice {here}). 

Of course our kids are too young to know the show so Steve began playing episodes off YouTube for them. A few inappropriate scenes later we settled on the Casa Bonita episode, which then became a nice moment of ‘Colorado Art and Entertainment Lesson 101’ for our Colorado kids living in NYC. (This feel good story came to a quick end when a few days later a local New Yorker pointed out the character on the key chain was in fact Stan, not Cartman, and as if I wasn’t embarrassed enough by my mistake, some kid came up and grabbed the key chain out of Gavin’s hands yelling “Hey! This is MINE!” Just another of our many “Go Back to Colorado Losers!” moments).

As the semester progressed, we were not only shocked at how well Dylan was adjusting; we were shocked by the amount of art and music she was exposed to on a daily basis. This school didn’t have normal clubs; they had clubs to rival most art classes in Colorado: she was in Glee Club, Circus Club, Sports Club and Guitar Club. Many of these clubs are run by parents who have full time jobs, but art is a way of life here. They didn't just have fundraisers, they had events like Schoolapalooza where Lisa Lisa (great band from the 80’s) performed and it was written up in the New York Times.

One of our first school events was a live performance by some parents of kids in her class. We were floored at the talent of Marcel Van Dam and Frankie V who performed at The Living Room (seen here at the Sidewalk café).  They were later joined by Robert Figueiredo, another parent who just happened to perform opera at the Amato Opera. Steve and I agreed that these three parents were easily more talented than many professional artists we’d seen live in Colorado. Welcome to the Big Apple baby.

The school year culminated with a field trip and performance. The field trip was the finale to her Glee Club, and it landed us at a famous local recording studio, Tu Casa. Gavin and I watched from the control room as Dylan recorded GaGa's Born This Way in the studio where the likes of Enigma, Smithereens and Black Flag have recorded. It felt surreal to see her singing into a microphone and imagine that perhaps she may arrive there to record again someday.

Up to this point we had no idea Dylan had been in a dance class at school, but we were delighted when she treated us to a rehearsal at home the night before, complete with a fan and a dance that looked a lot like Carmen. The next day we were in the school auditorium, standing room only, surrounded by hundreds of parents and 1^st and 2^nd graders in full costume. This wasn’t just a performance; this was none other than Ballet Hispanico: the New York school of dance. They have an education and outreach program supported by such groups as The Ford and Hearst Foundations, and had been working with the kids all semester. Dylan’s class performed El Son de la Negra. Not only did our girl perform, she radiated. We were stunned.

As Dylan's final report card said, "As we moved into our poetry unit Dylan brightened up and blossomed into an enthusiastic writer who loves to incorporate her ideas and imagination into her pieces." Dylan's school has opened our eyes to what it means to truly LIVE New York. To live here is to live art every day. It’s impossible to walk outside without being surrounded by music, poetry, theater, art and culture and all this on the sidewalks alone.  This city eats, breathes and sleeps art 24 hours a day, and we soak it up like it’s our last meal just in case we have to leave here tomorrow. For now it looks like we’ll stay, and our journey from Cartman to Carmen continues……