I have been lucky to know Nicole since before Nia House. I mean, long before. We met in the nineties at Henry J. Kaiser, Jr. Elementary School in Oakland, when the scrunchies were large, the pants were low, and we were all wearing out cassette tapes of Boyz II Men's Cooleyhighharmony in a knock-off Walkmen. Nicole and I were both seriously studious, seriously silly kids whose force-of-nature moms were divorcing dads named Michael. We were fast friends and our families have been family ever since.
Even in elementary school, Nicole was something extraordinary. When we graduated, our class got to vote on the "salutatorian." As I remember it, this honor was not explained to us in the usual way -- as some kind of runner-up to the academic Valedictorian (for which Nicole was definitely in the running) -- but rather as the best, most good, kind and admirable human being. On this one thing, our class of crazy tweens was unanimous: there was only Nicole.
When she started teaching at Nia House, Nicole would regale our families at Christmas with stories of the kids' antics, cracking us up with the tractor-beam eye-movements she used to recall the littles to their best selves. Little did Tom and I know that before long two of those ingenious little Nia House critters would be our own.
Witnessing her adult power as an educator, and also as an artist, I think it comes down to this. Nicole is a supernatural phenomenon: she is in this world, but not of it. This situation is literal: she has one foot in the world that ought to be, and her calling as a teacher and as an artist is what links our broken reality to the just and gorgeous one that humans and other earthly beings can and must create together, in the company of their ancestors. In working with our children, Nicole is raising up citizens of that other world. And she is imparting daily lessons for their frazzled parents in the sustenance of beloved community in the meantime. She still has my vote for best human being, and I have no higher praise than to say that my heart is easy when my children are in her hands. If only all children could receive such apprenticeship; what a world would we have then.
