Filed under: Uncategorized
Prior to the Plouf-garlic-mussel attempted homicide encounter, I was actually having a fantastic day soaking up the wit & wisdom of writers in a daylong course.
Pretty sweet deal, I volunteer to unlock and close the facility, check people in, and then be a sponge for nifty classes:
This is also how I managed to finagle my way into some incredible training opportunities & conferences throughout graduate school. It always puzzled me why more people did not take advantage of these frugal ways to pick the brains of the brightest. Sure, it was never required coursework-but who wants to do the bare minimum? Not I. If I committ, then I’m in. And I want to know EVERYTHING. (This, despite the fact that knowledge has a tendecy to enslave at the same time as it enlightens. Surely I’d be a cheerier gal if I swam in the average North American cesspool of celebrity tabloid ignorance.) Despite my moaning about the expenses of lifelong continued education…it’s one of the best things about my job/licensure. I am required to keep learning what I want to be learning…
I had spent the day with writer Sheerly Avni, and we discovered we both have connections to youth in and out of juvenile hall, a rabble rousing bent, and a home base in Oakland. She showered us with leads and info including the fact that some of the best personal essay writing should be read in The Best American Sportswriting anthologies. That had never occurred to me as I pick up a sports section of the paper or a magazine approximately 0.5 times annually (well, unless you count Runbner’s world/Triathelete/Women’s health/HerSports/Adventure…). She made a great point that in sportswriting one would be spared the tendencey for personal writing to slip into the navel-gazing, violins-soundtrack mode.
The class also featured two former attorneys in recovery, another therapist, and several other fascinating writers. They, were all more in the realm of "real" writers. Real in the sense of having been paid for their work, as opposed to my stuff which is the real deal of life but has no aquaintance whatsoever with dinero which interestingly seems to be the story of my life…how come everything I fall in love with is not-for-profit?!
(Must be atoning for some kind of past life wastefullness…)
Here’s my freewrite the morning with Sheerly. Be kind as you read-remember this was done in under 15 minutes with instruction to "write, no editing, no penmanship, just speed write."
01/27/07 10:50 a.m. I left school based clinical services in Oakland, despite my ardent unchanged belief that school based services are what most kids need and would benefit from most.. Like giving life saving measures with an eyedropper in the middle of a ghetto that needed H2O like a desert, saw the most beautiful, sassy, scary youth up close intimate-not caricatures,not always colored (but usually) laughed and was charmed;was witness and repository for tears and pain, played mentor/guide/surrogate/50 minute parent for kids who burned for, needed, and DESERVE a real parent. Perhaps it’s part of why I now do not long to be a parent-I’ve given so much to so many hungry hearts of babes and am teetering near total burn out, and I’ve seen the incredible damages a parent/guardian/"the adults" can inflict upon these little people we ostensibly love-I know too clearly the horrors that can befall children-I can’t imagine I’ve got the emotional stamina it takes to parent well, yet even I have wanted time and time again to take some of these kids home: I of the impatience and ineptitude and lack of maternal drive-but I know how to love and be gentle with people’s emotions, yet boundaries, I’m firm…but there were many, and then a select few-who nest in my heart, haunt and inspire me, burn a hole in my head-don’t judge it just share it-the admiration for these "flowers who will grow the stones away" and how it feels to be forced to bear witness as many are plucked and crushed.
I had enough.
No Comments so far
Leave a comment
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
