I’ve been thinking about a kid I used to know, one I worked with in Gulfton some years back. The Gulfton area houses 71% immigrants and many languages in crowded apartments.

This kid was slight, wore black rimmed glasses and oversized shorts. A little bit of fuzz sprouted from his chin. He could be described as bookish until you sit with him and notice the angel of death pendant and tattooed markings of having been jumped into a gang — a process which usually requires one to be beaten by other gang members or for the initiate to jump or kill a rival gang member. Gangs have their own rituals of belonging.

The whole class was a frustrating one for me. I felt like I talked at the kids while they zoned out. I was charged with teaching them about mindfulness and emotional well being amidst palpable trauma that buzzed in the air. This particular kid never said a word, sat impassive though not entirely inattentive with arms crossed low against his belt. At some point in the semester I changed tacks, let go completely of the lessons which probably felt like distant galaxies to them, and began to sit with each kid one on one. I lead with a few questions to facilitate conversation and then just followed their threads.

The day I got to his name on my alphabetized list I thought the conversation would be short and sweet, peppered with single syllable answers. It wound up being one of the longest and he was the only kid I got to. It was a rainy Thursday, fat drops pelting against the roof.

I had no idea what his voice sounded like before then. I said something goofy, I don’t remember what, and he laughed.

He had the most beautiful boyish laugh, one I will always equate with rain.

We got caught in one of those cycles where the laughter loops back and forth and by the time you’re finished laughing and laughing you don’t remember what made you laugh in the first place. Most of our conversation that day was spoken in the language of that kind of laughter. Something broke open.

What I learned about him was that he was one infraction away from being locked up. What I learned was that his gang gave him belonging and safety where he didn’t have it. What I learned was that there were consequences for leaving it. What I learned was that he had a younger sibling for whom he cared deeply, a sibling who looked up to him. What I learned was that he felt terrified and brave and tough and soft all at once.

What I saw that day, the first day I heard his voice, his laughter, was the little boy with the goofy sense of humor who in other spaces could not risk letting that eek out from under his facade. I didn’t save his life or even change it. I was not heroic. I don’t know if he is locked up or if he got out of the gang. I don’t even know if he finished high school or remembers that day the way I do — rain, laughter, silences, words. For the remainder of the semester, the most I got was a sly smile and a quick fist bump.

The day we sat in the hall and had a whole conversation peppered with laughter mixed up and swallowed in our shared air, we revealed something of ourselves to one another. It was a moment of grace without hierarchy, judgement, or empty promises. Just two inner kids who let their guards down, unable to stop giggling. Shared moments like this are connective and vulnerable and also unusual. They are what freedom tastes like. What could it look like to craft a space inhabited by our free selves? By the child within unmasked by shoulds and oughts? If we lean into these moments, whether they be defined by grief or joy or uncertainty, something of ourselves is revealed in another. This is the idea of a non-separate self: I am in you and you are in me. Your laughter is in mine and mine in yours.