Story and photos by Katie Tarter, 18,  a senior at Tucson High Magnet School

After spending the holidays of 2008 stuffing my face with rich, delicious foods, I felt as bloated as a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade balloon. My love for good food had led me to struggle with my weight for years, and so that New Year’s, I decided to change things. One afternoon, I wandered into Borders looking for a few Christmas-clearance weight-loss books. Most seemed like gimmicks, but one caught my eye because instead of obsessing about ways to burn fat, it talked about becoming healthier by cutting out dairy and meat. Basically, it told me to be vegan.

Though I didn’t buy the book, I took some of its ideas to heart, and three days later, after searching the web for exactly what veganism entailed (and stumbling onto a few horrifying videos taken from factory farms), I announced to my mother that starting January 1^st, I would be going vegan.

She thought I was nuts, but only insisted that I make sure to get all the proper protein and nutrients. Her confusion was understandable. I’d been an avid fan of the five Cs my entire life: Chocolate, Chicken, Cheese, Chinese takeout, and Cereal. But she sighed and let me take charge of the grocery shopping so I could tailor it to my new needs.

That first grocery trip, we bought three packages of fake meats, five canisters of oatmeal, two half-gallons of soymilk, and about six pounds of black, seedless grapes. For the first few weeks, I loved my new lifestyle. My insides had never felt healthier and after a surprisingly smooth colon cleanse, I felt full of energy. It was the first time I’d ever felt a real difference in the way my body was working. I was breathing just a little bit easier and got tired a lot less. I thought I was doing great—so what if I had to avoid a few of my old staples? I lost fifteen pounds, and I didn’t miss chicken anymore.

But I realize now that I wasn’t a true vegan. Though I was happy with my soy and tofu and fruits, it was only because I was able to cheat on the side; if I accidentally ate something that had eggs or milk in it (like candy bars or bread) I didn’t beat myself up. I told myself, “Whoops! Forgot to ask for no Parmesan on this pasta! Oh well—I shouldn’t waste this food!”

As I became more and more immersed in the vegan community, I realized that I wasn’t really a true vegan. My “true” vegan friends were so passionate about stopping animal cruelty. I ate beef substitutes one second, then turned around and snatched up a brownie the next. I began to wonder why it mattered so much that I was “cheating.” The only thing worse than the though of suffering animals was the Look my friends gave me when they saw me snacking on a little gluten-based candy—the Look said, “You call yourself vegan? Try again, vegetarian.” I vowed to suck it up and take my conversion seriously.

But between the hectic hours of homework, rising extra early for a trip to the gym before a 45-minute commute to school by city bus, and my new part-time job, I had no time to cook something vegan-friendly at the end of a long day. I realized that being healthy took a lot of time. I found myself drinking bowls of green tea and eating nothing but oatmeal and grapes out of lack of interest in anything else. I was even starting to hate soymilk because it became thick and creamy overnight and had to be shaken each morning, reminding me of some kind of rotting cream. I had always been a picky eater and without the time to really put an effort into my veganism, I found my food options, and my energy, dwindling.

Eating—such a major component of my life, my family gatherings, and my identity—had turned into a daunting task. Why would I want to eat rubbery chicken substitutes when the real stuff was sitting right next to it in the chilled bins of the grocery store? Why would I want to eat wheat crackers when I could grab a box of goldfish or sour cream and onion potato chips? And really, why would I want to cook my dinner when I was such a master of the microwave? I realized that I loved being a non-vegan because it brought me closer to my family, like when my mom and I would sit in the car with soft-serve ice-cream and listen to NPR, or when we would bring home a club from Beyond Bread and split it in front of Star Trek re-runs.

Veganism began to feel like a frustrating trap. No matter what I tried I couldn’t make it fit into a lifestyle I’d established nearly ten years before that revolved around cartons of teriyaki chicken and chef Boyardee warmed in the microwave. I didn’t have the patience or time to change everything for veganism, and veganism wasn’t going to change for me.

I promised myself I’d suck it up for the rest of the year, and that I’d quit if I couldn’t make it work by December. I dreaded facing down the Marching Band season in the fall, where there’d be piles of pizza, nachos, Chick-A -Fil-A, and boxes of honeyed granola—all a constant temptation at games and competitions.

I didn’t survive the month of June before temptation won out.

As I opened the fridge one hot afternoon, I paused, entranced by the dairy compartment. A block of fluorescent orange the size of a building brick sat beneath the clear sliding door. Wrapped in protective purple and black plastic, unopened, fresh from the store. My mom had done the shopping, and without me to guide her through the aisles and the grocery list, she didn’t realize what she was bringing into the house. My mother had brought home the one kind of cheese I’d ever truly been addicted to: Extra. Sharp. Cheddar.

In my head, my inner omnivore drooled.

Sliding open the clear door to the cheese compartment, I took in hand the cold slab of forbidden deliciousness. It was heavy.

I grabbed a knife, stabbed it through the plastic, and tore into that brick like a ravenous wolf, all the while hollering through the house, “Mom! I’m not vegan anymore!” I cut out a huge corner and sank my teeth into the soft, chewy stuff. It was better than I remembered.

I tried to be an honest vegan. I failed with gusto.

I guess I realized that sometimes failure makes a bigger impact on your life than success. Veganism didn’t work for me this time around because I failed to fall in love with it.  But I also succeeded at it—because if veganism, at its core, is about being more conscious, that’s exactly what my experience gave me. I became overwhelmingly conscious of the fact that, in the end, soy is healthy, and being healthy just doesn’t work for me.

Story by Kelsey Grace Marie Gates

I placed my hand gently on the cold, shiny doorknob and slowly rotated my wrist to ensure a silent entrance. But I tripped on my foot and ended up stumbling into the crowded classroom, pens falling out of my purse and my papers rearranging themselves on the floor in disarray. My face blushed Pepto-Bismol pink with embarrassment as a room full of eyes followed me to the front of the classroom. I was late to my own choir practice.

“Hello,” I said awkwardly.  “Thank you all for trying this out with me.”

Starting the first choir at my small charter high school didn’t make me feel nervous, but I was worried about how I was going to lead a group of singers when I had never led a choir before. I couldn’t even read music. What I did know was that I was good at singing, and singing with a group of friends somehow made me feel better about my day.

***
I have been singing since I was a little girl in Louisiana. Every couple of years we moved from state to state: my mom, Carrie, liked to keep things fresh. Our lives were always hanging: new school, new friends. We enjoyed the sense of adventure. But no matter where we lived, karaoke bars were always part of our lives. My mother would take my brother, sister, and me out to sing. My mom doesn’t always hit every note, but her ambition for singing has never faded.

During a day trip to Phoenix on a sunny, summer Arizona day, Mom drove me in our black Ford Escort. Gazing out the window, I watched Tucson slowly morph into Phoenix. Long, sheet-like clouds stretched across the blue mattress of the sky and spaces in between the clouds exposed the blue, looking like cigarette burns in a sheet. I stared into the sky as my mom flicked her cigarette ashes out onto the interstate. We were singing the Dixie Chicks’ “Wide Open Spaces,” a song I find calming. It is a song about choices, directions, crossroads. My mother and I were both singing, but we were not singing a duet.

***
Timid to be the one to start singing first, I suggested we establish a pitch we each felt comfortable singing in. We grouped ourselves into high, medium and low voice ranges in an attempt to harmonize. I then handed out ten copies of the lyrics to the song “Lean on Me” and we started to really sing, our raw voices struggling to sound complimentary.

By the end of the choir’s second rehearsal, we became comfortable singing together. We warmed up our voices by singing through the scales and then went straight to our vocal range groups (high, medium, and low) and sang for the whole hour-long practice. At the next practice we created a harmony group. At the practice after that, we kept practicing the harmonies until they sounded right. But at the fifth rehearsal, our progress stalled. I decided that we needed to hire a choir director—a professional—to help us progress. Within a few weeks, we’d hired a friend of a friend, Loren, who was working with a church choir. We started getting better again, learning more about timing and singing in unison.

When I started the choir, I had high hopes. I wanted us to sing at my school’s weekly assembly. I wanted us to sing at graduation. I wanted the choir to continue on after I go on to college in the fall. Right now, none of my goals have been met: we ran out of time to practice for the assembly and it turned out, I’m not experienced enough to lead a group of singers who are going to perform anywhere. But I’m not sad, and I don’t regret trying.

At the end of each rehearsal, we were more prepared for the school day. We were awake and we were less stressed. Most importantly, we felt good about ourselves.
City High Choir is currently practicing on Tuesday mornings.

(VOICES Photo/Fern Frias)

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Cleopatra Caperón Mendoza, 15, a freshman at Sunnyside High School, writes about the person the financial cuts to the current adult GED programs in Arizona will really affect: her mother.

Click here to go directly to the story on the Tucson Weekly’s website.

Nina Foushee, 17, a student at University High School, writes about the complex reasons that motivate her to volunteer at the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation (SAAF).

Click here to go to story on the Tucson Weekly’s website.

Jazz Solos and Social Skills

By:  Brigette Dumais, 16, Tucson High Magnet School

The coffee shop at the Idyllwild Arts Academy in the mountains of southern California had several round tables that could sit four or five people at once, wooden floors and big windows that faced the forest. It smelled like rain and freshly brewed coffee. I was sitting by myself at a table by the windows, feeling very nervous about playing my very first solo at the final music camp concert. I had just discovered jazz, and it was like a foreign language to me. I don’t know how I managed to audition in to a solo spot. Regardless of the reasons, I still had to play an improvised solo in four days and I needed help. So, I asked two other musicians to meet with me after band practice. When they finally showed up, I was having a full-blown panic attack. They were experienced jazzers, I didn’t want them to know how amateur I was. “Brigette, relax,” they told me. “It’s your solo. You can play whatever you want. Don’t be afraid to play something simple, just outline the arpeggios.” We spent the next half hour writing out my solo. The jazz we were playing made social interaction absolutely necessary: in order to develop improvisational skills, we learned to listen to the other players and borrow and exchange ideas with them.

When I came back to Tucson for my first semester at Tucson High, I enrolled in band, and realized that social interaction is what the arts are all about: in order to make good music, you have to be able to be creative and interact positively with the people playing around you. When I joined the band program, I made a lot of friends who weren’t just the stereotypical band geeks that are portrayed in movies like American Pie: they didn’t sleep with their instruments, they didn’t have out-of-fashion clothes, they didn’t talk about “this one time at band camp” all the time, and they had passions other than just band. These band kids were smart and high-achieving. Being around my new friends inspired me and challenged me to be successful. By the time I had finished my first semester at Tucson High, I had a 4.0 GPA and a newly discovered sense of self-confidence.

Unfortunately, The Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) has cut their budgets this year. Even more unfortunately, these budget cuts leave fine arts programs vulnerable. While funding for the arts has always been slim, the band kids at Tucson High have already begun to feel the lack of support: instruments sit in the back of the band room, unrepaired, our jazz band’s trips to jazz festivals are in jeopardy, and our band director got a RIFF notice. This is all at Tucson High—a fine arts magnet.

Learning the arts in school is necessary because it allows students to discover opportunities they may not have otherwise known existed. My family has always encouraged me to explore the arts, even outside of school (that’s how I found my way to Idyllwild). But what if I wasn’t encouraged to pursue the arts? How would I have found my niche? I would have to rely on the information I receive at school. And 2+2=4 does not directly lead to social skills or excelling grades.

Cutting fine arts classes from public schools deprives students of opportunities they might not seek if they hadn’t become interested through school programs. Students go to school to get an education—and the arts teach the flexibility and social skills we need in order to succeed in and out of the classroom.

(VOICES Photo/Reyes Suarez)

My cheeks were as hot as fresh Hamentaschen cookies. I was up on a podium, reciting from the Torah at my Bat Mitzvah, the traditional rite of passage for most 13-year-old Jewish girls. My eyes, wet with salt water, gave me a blurred view of the Hebrew texts. I knew that I shouldn’t be there. All I could think about was how I could have possibly dug myself into such a deep, dirty hole. My belief in God was nonexistent, I wasn’t an avid supporter of Judaic ideals, and, fundamentally, I was only up there because of a lie.  

I remember the first time I talked to my parents about whether or not I should have a Bat Mitzvah. We were in the den of a Tucson Residence Inn, freshly transplanted from Gainesville, Florida. I’d always imagined having this conversation in the big, black chairs in our old “fireplace room” in Florida. But we were here, and I just wanted to go back home. Both of my parents had gone through with their Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, and I could see no reason why I would pass up an opportunity to “transform” from girl to woman. I am a descendent of long-established Jews who are very adamant about keeping the normal Jewish traditions. Finally, after thinking about it, I decided to go through with it because a) I thought it would be amazing to have a ceremony that declares me a woman, b) it would make my family happy, c) I would get a ton of gifts, and d) my parents promised me a kitten.

I admit that my ethics were questionable. Consequently, Sunday School was pure, unsweetened hell. As soon as I set my tiny, flat feet into the drab, gray-carpeted classroom, I felt the first burn of regret. My classmates made it crystal clear that I was unwanted, staring at me as though I were some oddity from space. They seemed so intrigued by what we were learning. But I lacked the sparkle and devotion they seemed to spew.

Not long after I enrolled in Sunday School, I began one-on-one Hebrew lessons on Monday nights. At the start of every week, I visited my Hebrew instructor’s house for memorization of the Aleph Bet, learning and relearning the vowels. After a few weeks of my lessons, I began to get so burnt out on Hebrew that I started to wonder why I was even doing this in the first place. I couldn’t even justify my beliefs in God. I began to realize that my justification for going through with the Bat Mitzvah made no sense. But my parents had already sent out invitations, booked a hotel, and set the date. March 13th, 2005. Lucky 13.             

As I sang my last Bat Mitzvah note, I felt the most immense feeling of relief. I walked off the velvety red steps leading to the altar as my congregation, friends, and family members lined up to shake my trembling hand. After a day of reuniting with my relatives, we headed to the after party. The ballroom at the Viscount Hotel on Broadway Blvd. was filled with booming hip-hop tunes. The round tables, scattered around the wide room, were sprinkled with confetti, disposable cameras, and plates covered with remnants of the four-course dinner, which entailed salmon fillet, mashed potatoes, and chocolate chip cookies. Something about having a full stomach made the regret hit me so much harder.

The party ended at midnight. Had it been someone else’s party, I would have left early, but it was mine. Fortunately, my parents had the foresight to rent a room at the hotel. I walked groggily up to our room, my eyes smudged with a conglomeration of sweat and mascara. The last thing I remember that night was tearing open my perfectly wrapped presents that I didn’t deserve.

I consider my Bat Mitzvah to be among the worst mistakes I ever made. I realized this right as I stepped up onto the cherry wood altar. I allowed myself to forfeit my honesty for gifts. I lied to my whole family. Something I can say, though, is that I transformed into a woman throughout the whole process. Even though I didn’t experience a profound acceptance of God, I grew up in a different way.

(VOICES Photo/Lilliana Lopez)

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