Creative Voices Curator · University of Washington · Tierney Nelson

In high school, I struggled in my home life. Freshman year, I was on the verge of failing multiple classes and had little motivation to care about anything. There was, however, one class I gladly attended that excited me and made me want to learn: AP English Composition. The class itself was just like any other composition class… plenty of Shakespeare, plays, and prose fiction. What made is special was my teacher, Ms. Cerasoli, who saw me like an actual person as opposed to just a student with missing work. She avidly encouraged me to keep writing and keep turning things in even though I was behind. She made sure I knew she was available to talk about anything (school or unrelated) during breaks or in between classes. Many teachers are overworked and tired; it makes sense they wouldn’t particularly care or reach out to one struggling student out of hundreds. I was lucky to have one teacher who told me that just because I’d been struggling didn’t mean I had to continue, and the fresh starts always exist. I believe in the school system, many kids, including myself, get so consumed with this idea of failure when they’re in it, they can’t see past it. Once a kid starts slipping in school, that’s how they look at themselves and how they place their self-worth. After that year, she always greeted me in the hallways and would occasionally chat and check in even though I wasn’t her student anymore. I got her as a teacher again my senior year; this time around, I was motivated to get into college through community college and had confidence in my intelligence. Now that I’m studying at University, the world still gets overwhelming and failures still happen. My teacher shaped my life as a student because now I know that being successful means learning from past mistakes, to not let them define me, and certainly never let them discourage me from trying to be better.

A recent project of mine is not one I will ever perform to the public. Instead, this project has been a journey of healing through art so I can learn how others can heal through art. I’m currently enrolled in DANCE 479: Liberation Theory and Praxis at the University of Washington. I have been a dancer my whole life, but in this class we merge academic readings with movement in the classroom to learn about the healing properties of dance. There is evidence that humans hold intergenerational trauma in our bodies; through the way we move, breathe, and navigate space. Many scholars believe that a way of breaking this cycle is through movement; through understanding why the body moves the way it does, why it responds the way it naturally does, then working towards freeing the body to move in ways that create joy and liberation. It has been an amazing journey and something I will continually pursue.

I am currently working on my senior capstone project, “Reflection Detention”. Aforementioned, I struggled personally in primary school. One thing I remember was sitting in detention being told to “think about why I ended up here”. That never worked once, I thought about anything except the real reason, which was that my home life was struggling. My project will bring yoga into middle school detentions, giving students the opportunity to get into their body and feel their emotions as opposed to forced silence. There are studies that show yoga helps those suffering from anxiety, depression, and PTSD which are all increasing problems within the new generation. These problems disproportionately affect children from single-parent households, low-income households, and communities of color; needless to say, this also affects their performance in school. The goal of the project is to make detention a place of actual rehabilitation instead of pure punishment.

The Gender Box
by Tierney Nelson

I was born free – a wildling who rolled in the mud and danced with bunnies –

They put me in a cardboard box and told me it was made of steel.

I never doubted so I never tried.

It got pretty boring in the box, pretty dark, pretty…

Very pretty.

I made sure the ribbon around my waist was shorter than the ribbon around my hips.

The corners of my mouth turned up into a million-dollar smile.

Why are you breathing so loud?!

Is that your chest rising up and down?!

STOP! Your tears will wet the cardboard—I mean steel!

Steel, I meant steel!!