El bosque

Quiero ser más como el bosque

Sabia, presente, generativa, colaboradora

Una entrega a lo que es 

Al rendirse al fuego 

Y una resurrección al soltar sus semillas

Antes de volverse ceniza.

Quiero doblar por horas como el bosque en un huracán

Dejando que el soplo de los vientos se lleven lo que ya no es necesario y deje lo que es esencial y eterno

Y en esta purificación 

Todo lo que queda para nutrir es lo esencial. 

• Patrícia 22.junio.23

A Treasure of Stories

 A Treasure of Stories

by Patrícia Cerqueira Seidler

There was a time when stories were shared

Well before books and e-books alike

There was a time when stories were shared 

In the truest of original audiobook form

There was a time when stories were shared 

Over and over again they were shared

They were passed down, 

Loved, expanded, edited, remembered 

There was a time well before the first book

When stories were shared so that one day

Books would be written and read

Loved, expanded, edited, remembered

There was a time well before the first book 

And thousands of years after the first story told 

When telling and sharing stories always existed

Sharing books and reading connect us to each other

And to that which is eternally unfolding 

The vast human experience and humbling mysteries of life

That connect us to each other and other dimensions

To worlds where we want to belong and worlds we come home to

In reading we can travel, mother ourselves, dream, strive, and thrive 

In sharing books, we ensure that the endless treasure of stories are 

Loved, expanded, edited, and remembered

La Mar es Madre

Mother Sea, la mar, shows us change is the truth and the way.

Ebbs stretch into flows.
Crest, equilibrium, trough.
Temporary.

Temporary.

Vast, expansive, abundant.

Present, salty, quenching.

Perspective.

Perspective.
Buoyant anger morphs into drowning.
Calm and quiet follow.
Surrender.

Surrender.

No perpetual calm or quiet.

No everlasting anger or thrashing.

Impermanence.

Impermanence.
Tides wandering, retreating, and withdrawn.
Opening, returning, and stretching.
Growth.                                                                                       

Growth.

Carrying us to new lands.
Welcoming us home.

Presence.

Presencia. 

Madre 

Mother
Mar

Sea

Eternal Life

Nature surprised me this summer morning
As dew still dwelled on shaded blades perched above Mother's soil
Inviting me to notice all the other blades already kissed by the dew of early morn

Reminding me that I too have been kissed and touched by all those who have sailed with me in my Soul's journey in friendship, sisterhood, partnership, motherhood, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction alike Embraced by their wisdom, fierce loving compassion, teachings,

Courageous examples of open-heartedness, learning from watching them be cracked open and Brought to their knees only to rise again by the lightness of their wings from the shedding
Mothering guides from afar uplifting me as I carve my own path and soar by the grace of surrender.

Touched by all those whom I once mourned and still do as I visit their candlelight in the soul yards of my heart.
Loved ones gone too soon,
Sages and prophets of the past joined today by the splendid Toni Morrison.

Ever so slightly the fear loosens its grip from the unimaginable
Premature loss of my children or their father, my life partner; my sister, my North Star, her children, my brother by law, and my brother by birth.
Inhale, lungs expand, belly floats back down.

Opening to this moment, loving my loved ones deeper, savoring their presence
This moment is a lifetime.
This moment, the true promise of our eternal life.
For like dew, we have already been touched and kissed by each other's souls.

Like dew we will sooner or later move onto the next stop in our soul's cycle
Leaving the blade seemingly untouched by our presence, our greatest fear
Only to discover that the blade has already been blessed by the early dew.
Forever changed, nurtured, and watered by dew's abundant presence

Bent by those we are lucky to hold
Like dew on Mother's abundant grass

Why did they invent guns?

Why did they invent guns? He asked at six.

My mind spirals through the history of guns climbing its DNA stretching back to its beginnings.
My heart retracts into the fear I have of losing my son to gun violence like my best friend's mother did twenty years ago. My best friend, my brother shot on Good Friday and gone by Easter.

Why did they invent guns? He repeats.
Thats a powerful question, I say.
But, why did they invent guns? Insisting on an answer now.

I stumble over my thoughts and hold back my words. And suddenly my words feel like bullets as I have struggled in adulthood to put myself and my words out there even with my own children.

Why did they invent guns mama? Again he begs.
How will I explain this? Pega leve (go easy whispers the intrusive maternal voice in my head).

...
Mama, why did they invent guns?  He waits patiently as if time has frozen.
...

My silence masks the rant within:
Because external power is a drug bringing the psychedelic illusion of wholeness
giving a rush that extends the ego to the skies and hides any pain we carry within. Supremacy.

Because gun powder smokes and the ego loves to fire up that which makes us vulnerable and hurt
like a wild forest fire set ablaze by entitlement. Wrath.

Because the man's ego trip felt powerless and small in Nature's presence and co-existing is exhausting more so than the weight of ammunition and weapons carried across fields by those premeditating victory by bloodshed. Pride.

Because the colonizers' need for control was blinding when faced with the brilliance of other men and women who had better navigation tools or were skilled in their sustainable interdependence with the land. Envy.

Because the King's men felt entitled to the Indigenous body, their wisdom, their co-creations with nature, their riches, their presence, and their flesh. Greed.

Because learning, teaching, being, creating, stillness, and connection require more than the pull of a trigger. Vulnerability.

Guns are patriotic.

I wonder where we would be if mental health was tied to patriotism like guns, whiteness, and racism. If when as beings we ached and struggled, we would be offered therapeutic help and presence with the same ease that we are handed hot dogs and fireworks on the fourth of July.

Because guns were valuable and what they conquered was instantly priceless.
And yet, guns are cheaper than tutoring, therapy, rehab, and summer camp.

Cheaper than enough therapists to support our students and their families at community centers and schools. Cheaper than raising the minimum wage to a livable wage and cheaper than paid time off for families to care for each other, their neighbors, their babies, or themselves. Thousands cheaper than health insurance, smaller class sizes, and schools that don't look or feel like prison.

Guns are cheaper than rent, a car, and a semester's tuition. Guns are so cheap. The cheapest way to take, steal, kidnap, traumatize, destroy, oppress, torture, shatter, manipulate, dominate, and terrorize children and communities, dreams and hearts by the dozen.

Guns protect us they say...

Guns protect us only in so much as numbing our pain and fear-based living does as well.
True protection is connecting the mind, body, and spirit within community because that is how we  decolonize ourselves and start healing. True safety comes from turning inward to nurture the essence of our soul. Embracing the uncertainty and mystery of life, giving heart space for feeling our grief, listening to learn and do better, listening, listening, listening,... that protects us.

Owning our privilege, using privilege to reverse the oppressive systems by which we live, by which too many die. What protects us is conversations, conflict resolution, and committed listening not pulling a trigger.

Pulling the trigger never hugs us, holds us, nurtures us, mothers us, heals our traumas, walks with us through the shadows of the valley of death. Guns kill us and our communities over and over while holding redemption and resurrection in a choke hold.

... Mama?

Why did they invent guns?
That is a powerful question meu amor.
Guns were invented for the same reason they are still around.

To kill.

Morning Choice

Our bodies have changed.
Softer, rounder, smoother, and wiser.

Our skins have weathered too.
Freckled, thinner, and beautifully etched.

Our hearts are deeper and broken open.
From abundant joys, scarring losses, the greatest bonds, and everything in between.
Cancer, gun violence, miscarriages, childbirth, graduations, hellos, goodbyes, ruptures and repairs, new jobs and old ones.

Our minds wider and more quieted.
Each heartbreak a hurricane sprinkling drops of humility.
Humbled.

Our creations metamorphosed through the years.
They have grown and they grow us up.

Our dreams no longer rest on the lap of accomplishment.
They consist of intentionally authoring love actions.

So much has changed.

And yet the choice I make every morning,
To walk at your side,
Through this abundant and wild ride,
Remains the same.

Vamos

A Pipa

Amor é como pipa... só voa quando solta

Dando corda da fé
      segurando firme a gentileza
                  e dançando com presença
             as mudanças, balanços,
       e desafios que o vento da vida
traz
      Enxergando
           e fazendo o esforço
             pois amar é um verbo
                Respeitando
               a dança
           autentica
        da
  individualidade
aprendendo
   a lingua
     do amor
        do outro
      Vamos lá
     soltar a nossa pipa
    e ver
           para aonde
               o  vento
                    nos l
                            e
                           v
                         a
                       r
                     á

Esta Tranquilo

Tá tudo bem aqui. 

Não precisa fugir para o túnel do pensamento

e a camara de tortura propria. 

Ta tudo bem, fica aqui.

Não precisa correr aqui tem graça,

vem para mim. 

-Presente 

Pai

Pai

Sempre com fome. 

Disposto a comer. 

Porque é mais fácil botar para dentro do que derramar. 

A muralha se contém com mais tijolos do que com a enchente de lágrimas que surgiriam ao escavar as dores lá de dentro ao pentear os fios da vulnerabilidade e o desconforto das paredes desmoronadas de um ser imperfeito. 

Sabia que parede desmoronada pode se tornar um belo mural poderoso? 

Mas temos que ir lá pintar e cultivar o imperfeito. Não temos que irmos sós. Pintar nos pede presença, nos pede arrego, e nos ensina a entregar as armas que carregamos. Pintar nos chama para descer da muralha, do forte, no posto de salva vidas que salva vidas mortas. 

Vem vamos pintar, não é hora do jantar.

Breathing with You

Dear Friend,

I cannot imagine the way your heart is hemorrhaging several times a day. The physical passing of a sister is not something I have experienced and the thing I most dread in this journey. I cry just at the thought of it. 

And yet, here you are at this juncture when you will never be the same yet never be without her. 

I bare witness to your pain and tears washing up against the shore from the storms of days, months, and years passed. May you breathe into your pain and nurse it as you just cannot pretend when the pain is this severe. A measure and testament of the love, joy, and memories you shared of a lifetime tying the most precious bonds of friendship. Two Angels you in each other’s lives holding hands through the waves of this journey.

I walk with you now my beloved friend. Whatever the path will bring I will breathe it in with you.
Breathing in the pain in the love and light of the Divine Mother Nature. 

We are each other’s keepers. 

Photo by: Tichaamando
Spring 2018

Prayer for Mis Pollitos

Mis Pollitos, 

My prayer for you is that in this world of so much beauty, courage, vulnerability, sadness, distraction, mystery and creation; may you always find courage to bend towards the Source.

Bend towards the light and know that you can always 

seek out the Source from which you came. 

The wonderful goddess that mama calls Mother Nature. She is there in your next breath, over the horizon, 

and underneath your wiggly feet.

In light and warmth, 

Mamãe 

Photo by: Tichaamando 

¿Qué van a decir?

¿Qué van a decir?

¿Qué van a decir de los que decidieron venir por una vida de más promesas y remesas? Un sueño lejano que casi hallaron en sus manos antes que el calor del desierto por cierto los matara. 

What will they say of the courage they carried to seek a new promise land where their dreams are now buried.  Will they speak their names and write them down in history like those who came before them through the turbulent waters of the North Sea and the Atlantic?

¿Cómo será la despedida y la promesa perdida?

Will their names be forever silent in the automated lips of those who use their deaths as loud weapons of hate convincing the masses that a wall will cure us and rid us of any trespassers. Will the wall oxidize like Lady Liberty?

La negación de la humanidad y seres contrabandeados 

Vidas dignas, valientes, y esperanzadas.

¿Hay alguien que nos escuche? 

¿Qué van a decir?

Improv Meditation for the Anxious Soul: Ocean is Mother

Improv Meditation for the Anxious Soul -  I created these improv meditations in loving kindness for the sensitive souls in my life (me included) who struggle to surrender into sleep and bend towards the grips of anxiety that grip tightly at night. This anxiety might sound like "I am too hot (take off the covers), I am cold now (shift... shift... shifting in bed), I cannot fall asleep, I won't ever be able to fall asleep..."  Often, I would already be my own sleep world when these words would wake me up. At first, I would feel anxious or irritable to be awoken but with time I discovered my breath and this improv meditations that would flow out of me from a place deep inside. A place that felt like love, warmth, compassion, and kindness even in my exhausted sleepiness. I do as much or as little of these meditations as my sweet ones will tolerate or hold. I share here in hopes that this might serve you or your anxious loved ones. 

Breathe in, relax your hands
Breathe out, relax your wrists

Breathe in, relax your arms
Breathe out, sink into your body and relax your shoulders

Breathe in, relax your feet
Breathe out, relax your ankles

Breathe in, relax your legs
Breathe out, sink into your backside and relax your hips

Breathe in, relax your hands onto your belly
Breathe out, feel the gentle fall of your belly

Breathe in, feel your belly rise
Breathe out, feel the gentle fall of your belly

Breathe in, you began your physical journey in this life form in the belly
Breathe out, your belly is the home of all creation

Breathe in, imagine yourself standing watching out onto the vast ocean
Breathe out, feel the sand underneath your feet and in between your toes

Breathe in, Ocean is a most ancient and wise mother
Breathe out, smell the salty spray the Ocean gifts you as it rushes and receding

Breathe in, the Ocean teaches us the way with its ebbs and flows
Breathe out, the Ocean waxes and wains as our breath

Breathe in, our breath is a wise teacher like the Ocean
Breathe out, feel the calm of the Ocean in your breath

Breathe in gratitude for Mother Ocean keeping rhythm with ancient breaths
Breathe out, rest into your breath embracing the temporary as your belly will rise again

Breathe in, feel the rise of your belly resting as Mother Ocean rests
Breathe out, sink deep into your breath to rest

Breathe in, feel the rise of your belly resting as Mother Ocean rests
Breathe out, sink deep into your breath to rest

Breathe in, hear the Ocean sounds in your breath
Breathe out, the quiet retracting of each wave

Breathe in, the Ocean is Mother
Breathe out, wise, ancient, Mother like your ancestral breath

Breathe in
Breathe out

Improv Meditations for the Anxious Soul: Belly the home of all creation

Improv Meditation for the Anxious Soul -  I created these improv meditations in loving kindness for the sensitive souls in my life (me included) who struggle to surrender into sleep and bend towards the grips of anxiety that grip tightly at night. This anxiety might sound like "I am too hot (take off the covers), I am cold now (shift... shift... shifting in bed), I cannot fall asleep, I won't ever be able to fall asleep..."  Often, I would already be my own sleep world when these words would wake me up. At first, I would feel anxious or irritable to be awoken but with time I discovered my breath and this improv meditations that would flow out of me from a place deep inside. A place that felt like love, warmth, compassion, and kindness even in my exhausted sleepiness. I do as much or as little of these meditations as my sweet ones will tolerate or hold. I say each part slowly embracing the Divine feminine energy that is slow and patient. I share here in hopes that this might serve you or your anxious loved ones.

Breathe in, relax your hands
Breathe out, relax your wrists

Breathe in, relax your arms
Breathe out, sink into your body and relax your shoulders

Breathe in, relax your feet
Breathe out, relax your ankles

Breathe in, relax your legs
Breathe out, sink into your backside and relax your hips

Breathe in, relax your hands onto your belly
Breathe out, feel the gentle fall of your belly

Breathe in, feel your belly rise
Breathe out, feel the gentle fall of your belly

Breathe in, you began your physical journey in this life form in the belly
Breathe out, your belly is the home of all creation

Breathe in, feel your belly rise and know that you were once in a belly
Breathe out, feel your belly fall as you celebrate this breath that gives you life

Breathe in gratitude for your breath
Breathe out feel the freedom that comes with a breath

Breathe in gratitude for your breath's rhythm reminding us that everything is temporary
Breathe out the freedom that comes with knowing you can find your breath when life hardens you

Breathe in, relax your head onto your pillow
Breathe out, relax your neck onto your pillow

Breathe in gratitude for your pillow, warmth, and your mattress
Breathe out, sink into the warmth of your body and breath

Breathe in, rise
Breathe out, fall

Breathe in, rise
Breathe out, fall

Breathe in, rise
Breathe out, fall 

Secure Attachment - A love letter to my lovable inner child

Come little one.
Come in your rage, your indignations, and burning anger.
No better, I will come to you.

I will sit with you, hold you, or just take your hands.
Whatever feels safe and containing, I will offer you asking nothing in return.
We will weather this nasty storm together.

No storm is too great to defeat us as storms are treacherous yet temporary.
Storms bend us, shake us to our core, and in that painful dance we discover our strength.
I will dance with you until we both discover the mountain we are made of.
So I will not ask you to stop or show up any differently than in this here storm.

I will stay with you lovable child even when I want to run away because you are crafty at getting at my very last nerve or asking for that which I do not know how to give.
I will stay with you even not having gotten this refuge in my journey.
I will stay with you and embrace this painful reality for the only way around the storm is through, anything else is a detour to the land of numbing.

Come to me little one in your fully sensitive humanness.
I will hold you in warmth and light embracing all your feelings in loving kindness.
Come little one.
No better, I will come to you.

Just the Beginning

-----Original Message----- 
From: Patricia de Cerqueira Leite 
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 2:06 AM 
To: Ticha 
Subject: First day!

Hi All,

I am really sorry about the MASS email, but you are getting this because you are either a dear friend or family that has inspired me, supported me, and helped me get to where I am now... IN THE CLASSROOM!! ... and I have only one question... Why the h#$& did you let me do it?!

Ok, just kidding!

My first day of teaching at Prospect Hill Academy Charter School (formerly known as Somerville Charter School) was challenging to say the least.  Although I am not a homeroom teacher, I teach 5 classes with about 24 students in each for 50 minutes at a time. I don't have my own room, so I float from classroom to classroom and my desk is housed in 1A - a first grade homeroom (happy to have a desk!)

The day today was off to a great start as I had many fun activities planned to build relationships w/ my students. However, I learned that my first graders like pictures better than word search puzzles. My second graders loved the word puzzle but wanted to color instead of searching for every word. My third graders were all about testing my boundaries... my more patient attitude was REALLY not working well w/ them today. Fourth graders were a breath of fresh air and finished their word search faster than the sleepy but sweet fifth graders.

After 2 beers, a good talk w/ my colleague (who is also new, teaches Spanish and left almost in tears) and a LONG nap, I am able to take comfort in the few positive minutes of my first day of teaching just as a child that is scared of the dark finds comfort in a night light.... Does that make any sense at all?! LOL!

Today was all that I expected... EXTREMELY frustrating, exciting, scary, and full of surprises... and while I am not bursting with fruit flavors saying "I LOVE MY JOB" ... I see it all in the horizon. In the meantime, I am taking notes... for a lot of policy work awaits me as does my elementary education certification classes!

I miss all of you and thank you sooooo much for all of your support. This is not easy, but if I wanted that I wouldn't be here.

Love you all tons and miss you like crazy! - Tricia (aka: Ms. Cerqueira)

This is just the beginning ...

Creativating

Creativating /krēˈātəˌvāt ING/: 
verb 
1. Apply oneself or dedicate one's energies to bringing something into existence. 
2. Intentionally preparing and acting towards birthing, raising, and/or growing new ideas, art forms, ways of being. 

Creation is the highest form of cognitive, affective, and sensorial ability of a human being. In Bloom's Taxonomy  (1) Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues originally had "Evaluate" as the highest order of thinking. However, "Create" has since risen to the highest ranking of our ability to think and reason. "Create" is defined as "produce new or original work" which includes design, assemble, construct, conjecture, formulate, author, investigate.

As an educator and firm believer that we learn best through experience and doing, its seems to me that "create" is indeed the highest form of thinking and being in which we could possibly engage. Having been in the classroom and an instructional specialist for over 15 years now, I often find myself wondering what would happen if every school was a design school. Not only at the high school or middle school level, but what if the United States of America decided to engage its youth in radical creating from a very young age within the public school setting?

What I am proposing is nothing new, there are countless programs, program evaluations, and research showing that children who engage in play and creative play from a very young age develop a stronger sense of self and often fare better in the academic realm in general. However, a lot of these programs are not public and if they are it is rare that they are embedded in public preschools and elementary schools across a range of communities of all social economic levels.

What I do know from my years teaching, learning, and coaching students (young and adult alike) is that at our core we long to be seen and feel like we matter so that we can exert positive influence within our community (school, classroom, neighborhood, etc). At our core, we want to know that we are seen for who we are and that we belong within the spaces where we live and learn. When we do not feel seen or like we matter, we often exert negative influence within our spaces and rupture the bridges extended to us by well-meaning albeit single-serving community members who are not able to see us or create spaces where we matter. 

This core concept of community building is at the core of my classroom community and relationship with my teachers. I realized this morning that this way of being originating from Responsive Classroom and Tribes is in and of itself a creation of spaces where people can then create positive actions which in turn allows them to exert positive influence within the classroom community. This link between community building strategies and education as a means of creation invites us to rethink school structures and curriculum. 

Our schools are complex systems and capable of housing authentic growth mindset spaces. Many teachers and administrators already support such structures. These spaces often look like studios where students are in charge of their bodies and learning. This is not to say that some do not struggle to focus nor do these spaces come without challenges. However, these spaces embody the growth mindset and flexible thinking that we want of all learners in this day and age. These spaces allow for neurodiversity to exist and thrive.

My musing today is to ponder the following: what would happen if the content that we were delivering to students was done in a way in which the end result was to demonstrate mastery through creating something? What would standards of education and proof of mastery look like in an education system that valued the growth mindset with creation at its highest rank? How can we cultivate more creation in our public schools and learning spaces?

Happy creativating!

(1)  Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching

Unfathomable

Erect a statue of Adolph Hitler, unfathomable.

Thomas Jefferson

Glorified and immortalized in marble

White Imperial marble 

In a most presidential circular colonnade 

26 Ionic columns

12 additional columns supporting the north "portico" because calling it a porch is not fancy enough

Four more columns at each of the four openings

54 white columns commemorating his greatness in the eyes of all who comfortably swallow the colonialist narrative of his greatness, still.

Erect a statue of Dolores Huerta, Tenskwatawa, Harriet Tubman, Cesar Chavez, or Malcom X around the Tidal Basin, unfathomable.

El colibrí

My brain holds a hummingbird
      Hum hum
               humming
                      humming
Hummingbird

Drinking the nectar of my deepest thoughts,
succulent desires, and fiery dreams

   Hum hum
               humming
                      humming
Hummingbird

Tasting my elaborate ideas scheming to dismantle craddle-to-prison pipelines, supremacist education systems, and the longest terrorist organization of this country with its operatives in high places from wall street to police forces, governments, and courtrooms no longer visibly in white hoods.

    Hum hum
               humming
                      humming
Hummingbird

Untangling the fly-by-poems, love letters, and policy papers I hope to write in English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Portuñol, and Spanglish sprinkled with a pinch of Chingona.

Beija beija
   flor
       flor
Beija flor

Sipping some sample words too delicious to translate into plain Jane English... saudade, futevôlei, farofa, rede, and cafuné ... Words too savory and luscious to resist saying... gostoso, xodó, chuveiro, abraço, Djavan, caju, goiabada, Bahia, doce, lua de mel, jinga, enxerga, beijo

Beija beija
   flor
       flor
Beija flor

Slowing only to taste the sting of Columbine and Sandy Hook, unlike the sweet Columbine flower it much would rather savor, each time I bare witness to yet another school shooting... loucura... madness

Colibrí
       Colibrí
            Colibrí

Fluttering around the courageous conversations and advocacy I yearn to have even when it means sitting in a pile of discomfort while people show their limitations and projections pushing me to dig deep for compasión

Humming
   Bird
      Beija
          Flor
Colibrí

AP

Assistant Principal's voice over the loud speaker signaling and directing the lockdown drills.

Assistant Principal's hand on the limp pulse of the second-grade girl who had a seizure on a scorching fun-filled field day.

Assistant Principal's heart torn to shreds by police brutality  signaling a never-ending police department hunting season.

Is it a season if there is only one?

Assistant Principal's distressed soles walking the halls after the last shots when the first responders arrive to secure the building and take the wounded and escort the traumatized youth who never thought it would be in their school that the Second Amendment would rear its assassin head in the name of a colonial white privilege.

Assistant Principal's ears ringing from a marathon of phone calls to parents, grandmothers, aunts, and mentors providing referrals that will never materialize in this vast healthcare and food desert. Calls that transmit as cries to doctors and therapists to once and for all set up practice in a school building where 2300 students share one therapist present only one day each week. Begging for a practice of routine empathy, care, and health because who can learn without it?

Assistant Principal's eyes witnessing the state's neglect of children who were never greeted with boot straps upon arriving on dry land unlike Columbus and their counterparts on the Northside of the city. Children whose parents want the same things as my parents and your parents for their children, our children. Parents relegated to the "we need them but we don't want them" cohort caught in the undercurrents of the supremacist othering of all people South of the interstate or the border. Anyone with the melanin they so much envy and emulate by all means necessary.

Assistant Principals assisting principals

Assist in principles

Assist and

Assistant