The office of the Resilience Coach does not have a desk. A desk suggests authority, authority suggests oppression, oppression suggests that being closed down is better than being opened up. It is the mission of the Resilience Coach to open up everyone. The Resilience Coach does not have any compartments to store files, or files for that matter. Compartments engender secrecy; files, rigidity. “Transparency” and “spontaneity,” in addition to “openness”, are the watchwords of the Resilience Coach.
The walls of the Resilience Coach bare no evidence of certification. For although the Resilience Coach position is a consolidation of three traditional forms of school counseling, accreditation is far less demanding and the results of the work are far more fluid. Instead, the Resilience Coach prefers to inspire students with decorative motivational sayings like “You got this!” and an abstract sort of painting the meaning of which is theirs to arrive at in their own minds. She has scented candles she’s not allowed to light, ambient music she’s not allowed to play, and flavored teas she’s not allowed to serve. She also has a therapeutic lamp for seasonal depression, though that is not necessarily for them.
In fact all indicators of officiousness in the Resilience Coach’s office have been entirely removed, including the word “office.” The Resilience Coach sees her room as an inlet nestled away from the raging torrent of the surrounding school. Cozy, sheltering, and moist in the most reasonable ways: the Resilience Cove is where students are encouraged to catch their breath and unburden themselves of their troubles and traumas, which they may do while seated on one of the two beanbag chairs in the center of the Cove.
“People ask me when I feel most resilient,” the Resilience Coach says as she beams a smile that comforts in the same way a corporate logo might comfort to the less enthused visitor at the Cove. “And to me it’s when I am set before a blank piece of paper.” She holds up an unwritten page of her legal pad. “What’s daunting to some is incredibly thrilling for me. A blank page has infinite possibilities, a surplus of still-realizable potential. It’s the beginning of the adventure. And it begins with my first mark.” She takes out her pen and begins to write. “‘Angela … Peterson.’ Great! Now, before I get into the nitty-gritty, it’s good to get out of the way why you’re here.”
Angela says nothing, in part out of surliness and in part out of her struggle to stabilize in a chair she has never sat in before this moment, as far as she can remember.
“This look familiar?” The Resilience Coach holds up a crumpled piece of paper, its potential spoiled by a list and tally marks next to each item.
“Yeah. This the poll I took in Geometry.”
“Care to give me some context?”
“You know the context.”
“I’d like to hear your context.”
Angela sighs at the prospect of so dull a repetition. “I got bored and thought it’d be funny if Miss Greer got drawn and quartered in a village square. Like in the Dark Ages. Then I asked the people near me what they thought would be the best medieval execution method for Miss Greer.”
The Resilience Coach begins her note-taking, dotting the page in rapid jabs.
“I don’t think my context is any different from Miss Greer’s other than it is probably less tearful.” She pauses, dipping into a sullen reverie. “I am disappointed that the Iron Maiden won out over my favorite.”
“Interesting.”
“Is it though?”
“So here is what we’re going to do. They say making sense of the teenage mind is like doing a Rubik’s Cube in a haystack. You want to ask them straight ‘What’s the matter?’ and they’ll almost always answer contrary to their actual feelings. Either because they think it’s easier or it’s more fun. That, to me, doesn’t engender a greater opportunity for better, more meaningful resilience. Does it?”
“I guess not.”
“First, I want to say right out that this is a safe space.”
Angela rolls her eyes.
“Now what does that mean? It means that nothing I say is binding in any administrative or clinical sense. Nothing you tell me can be passed onto your parents or other teachers unless they make a formal and very time-consuming request. Nothing will go on your transcript; nothing will follow you to college or wherever you want to go after graduation. I only want to assess your well-being so that we have no …” she stops to search for an alternative to “liability,” “ … misunderstanding, whether between you and your peers, you and your mentors, or you and yourself.”
Angela shifts in the beanbag chair against her will.
“What I like to do, especially with first-timers, is something a bit more … circular … maybe. Some say that the shortest way is through, but to me the most complete way is around. So I’m going to ask you some basic prompts, some free association which may help us better arrive at what you are struggling with today. There are no wrong answers.”
Angela assumes an upright posture, as best as she is able, at the Pavlovian cliché.
“Everything is useful to explore our options. Shall we?”
“Sure.”
“Great! Starting off: What are you most thankful for?”
“Air conditioning.”
“Are you … sure?”
“What? I thought you said no wrong answers?
“Well yes, but—”
“I can’t appreciate the fruits of a developed society?”
“No … but this is your moment to be—“
“More soul-baring … more teenaged?”
“Maybe let’s set that one aside for the moment. Uhm … What is your best childhood memory?”
“Sticking a pair of scissors into my brother’s Stretch Armstrong doll in front of him while he’s on the toilet.”
“How did you feel when you did that?”
“Disappointed. I didn’t even break it. It took me all day but I finally did it and left it in pieces outside his door. Which got all gooped up in the hallway carpet so I got grounded for a week. Everything has tradeoffs.”
“Do you see Miss Greer as being like Stretch Armstrong?” the Resilience Coach inquires. “Filled with liquid rubber? Easily dismembered?”
“I wouldn’t say easily.”
The Resilience Coach stops note-taking as if to puzzle over what she has just written and continues without any indication of having solved it.
“What qualities do you admire most?”
“Good-nature.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“Because some people with good nature are actually very mean. Like way meaner than real mean people and I admire that kind of work-life balance. Also people who are actually good-natured are very helpful to people like me. I guess I admire what I can’t be.” She leans forward with an earnest expression. “I’m neither kind of good-natured.”
“There’s no stigma in the Resilience Cove, Angela.”
“I never felt stigmatized before you brought it up.”
“What fear have you overcome?”
“When I was a kid I was afraid that my care bear would come to life and blowtorch all my hair off.”
“And now?”
“I’ve overcome most of it.”
“What calms you down after a difficult day?”
“Leatherface swinging his chainsaw like a man-child maniac.”
“How would you describe yourself to a stranger?”
“Underage.”
“What is the most important trait of a hero?”
“Boundary issues.”
“What is the most important trait of a villain?”
“Thinking you’re a hero.”
“What are some of your most important values?”
“You already asked me that.”
“I asked you what qualities you admired.”
“The values are implied in the qualities.”
“What are you good at?”
“Wasting my potential.”
“What does success mean to you?”
“Wearing clown makeup and no one noticing.”
“What would you tell your past self right now?”
“That literally nothing can hurt you.”
“What is your greatest ambition?”
“Finding the next witchcraft and hunting it.”
“What would you tell your future self right now?”
“That what hurt you wasn’t really that important.”
“What are your favorite hobbies and why?”
“Looking at pictures of amusement park accidents on 4chan, and I don’t know.”
“What does contentment mean to you?”
“Being with my friends. Even if it’s in a nursing home and we’re sharing the same bedpan.”
“What do you need more of in your life?”
“Black mold.”
“What do you need less of in your life?”
“At the moment, beanbag chairs.”
“What would you like to let go of?”
“Having to participate in some rich mental patient’s idea of a coming-of-age ritual.”
“Is that the Rose Ball to you?”
“At least we don’t have to recite Emily Dickinson out loud.”
“I see …”
“Now that I’m thankful for. If I have to read Emily Dickinson or Plath ever again I might just pour gas on myself.”
The Resilience Coach pauses her note-taking and regards Angela in purse-lipped concern.
“This is my soul,” Angela says with a robust drone. “This is my teenage soul.”
The Resilience Coach’s face softens as she looks down at her legal pad to trace the exact fault in her penmanship between legibility and Pollock-like spams.
“Anything good?” A now more sweetly comported Angela asks.
“Uhm … interesting, definitely.”
“Is it though?”