I was lazy today and waited for the B75 to take me downtown. I could have walked it in the amount of time I waited along with another woman who looked like life had smacked her around a bit, poor health, bad teeth, too much extra weight, and unflattering clothes. We both grumbled over the as usual tardiness of the B75 driver of the day when about five to seven kids from the local school came stumbling upon us. They were loud and obnoxious.
These kids must have been in the fifth grade, higher or lower, I have no ability to gauge that. They were all black except for one white kid. I'd been reading, "Mommy, What Does 'Nigger' Mean?" by Gloria Naylor with my students and race was a billboard in my mind. I almost felt sainthood worthy after a few sessions of intense dialogue in class.
I stood watching this one black kid bully the smaller white kid who wore glasses. After a few minutes of razzing I heard the white kid say to him, "Okay, let's fight."
I thought it was so odd that I was going to watch a fight instead of grabbing all these kids by the collar and moving them on their way. But we were waiting for the bus and nothing about these students seemed threatening or menacing. They were just a blog of silly students. As they circled each other, I noticed the black kid wasn't advancing and so I said to the white boy, 'take off your glasses.' And he did.
I wanted to tell him to punch the bully square in the nose. I tried to remember what my grandfather's friend had told my father when he was about the same age and getting bloodied by white gangs in Houston. "Ask for the leader" my Dad had been told. "Beat up the leader and the others will leave you alone."
"You're a chicken," said the white kid when the other kid would not throw a blow. The bus came.
"Finally," said the weary woman.
When I got off at my stop, the students were clogged up at the exit door. Going past them, I leaned into the bully and caused him to stumble and reach for the railing.
I stepped quickly off the stairs, expecting to hear him yell or come after me. But I heard nothing. Nothing but the panicked beating of my own heart and the sound of the bus pulling away.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Saturday, March 24, 2007
"Are You Alright?" - Lucinda Williams
Good Lawd, must make coffee. Got Lucinda Williams playing and looking at one more class for the week, posting for the online classes and then a blessed day and half is MINE. Tired. I wanted to go out tonight with some friends but looks like it will be just Eileen and me grabbing a beer before rushing away from downtown Brooklyn or simply none of it will happen. That's what you get when you are a recluse year in, year out. For some reason I simply loathe coming home alone tonight. Probably means I have something powerful to write, and of course, I'm avoiding it. Damn mind. Hush up and get still!
I read or heard Sylvia Browne say that those who have gone on before us can send little signals to us such as dropping coins like pennies or in my case as of late, dimes. Sarah made this adorable oversized ladybug pottery piece that serves as a bank and I have been dropping pennies and dimes in there for about six months. It's filling up. I find these two types of coins at the strangest times. Yesterday I was standing inside one of NY's Mexican/Chinese eateries where you can get a bean taco for a buck and I thought a gentleman behind me had accidentally brushed the metal button of my jean jacket in the back. I turned around to see who was so close up on me and there was no one. No one, and not any one even moving. I looked down and there was a dime.
I tend to think it's Ed. He plays with Sarah all the time. Leila dreams of him and her renditions are spellbinding. I get pennies and dimes. When I find them on the street, I just smile. That's a toss up but I choose to take it.
Maybe it's my buddy, Dennis. Or Dad. Or Grandma Hastings. Or Grandpa Powell. Or Violet. Or Aunt Shirley. Aunt Helen. But I sense it's Ed. It happens most when I am doing the dishes, especially back when the girls were in high school, and I'd be at the sink scrubbing something and I'd sense the words, "You're doing a good job," come to me. I used to hear that a lot in raising the beautiful young women Ed and I produced. Lugging a heavy bag of laundry up five flights. Juggling the bills. Crying softly when it all got to be too much. I'd hear those words.
The dime was such a surprise. I was placing a call to two dear friends and colleagues, asking for reprieve on Saturday night. A whopper Martini and good conversation. I need it.
For now, it's coffee, a bath, grade 30 written responses for today's class, and hit the streets for downtown Brooklyn. Then at 6 pm, the night is mine. It is mine.
I read or heard Sylvia Browne say that those who have gone on before us can send little signals to us such as dropping coins like pennies or in my case as of late, dimes. Sarah made this adorable oversized ladybug pottery piece that serves as a bank and I have been dropping pennies and dimes in there for about six months. It's filling up. I find these two types of coins at the strangest times. Yesterday I was standing inside one of NY's Mexican/Chinese eateries where you can get a bean taco for a buck and I thought a gentleman behind me had accidentally brushed the metal button of my jean jacket in the back. I turned around to see who was so close up on me and there was no one. No one, and not any one even moving. I looked down and there was a dime.
I tend to think it's Ed. He plays with Sarah all the time. Leila dreams of him and her renditions are spellbinding. I get pennies and dimes. When I find them on the street, I just smile. That's a toss up but I choose to take it.
Maybe it's my buddy, Dennis. Or Dad. Or Grandma Hastings. Or Grandpa Powell. Or Violet. Or Aunt Shirley. Aunt Helen. But I sense it's Ed. It happens most when I am doing the dishes, especially back when the girls were in high school, and I'd be at the sink scrubbing something and I'd sense the words, "You're doing a good job," come to me. I used to hear that a lot in raising the beautiful young women Ed and I produced. Lugging a heavy bag of laundry up five flights. Juggling the bills. Crying softly when it all got to be too much. I'd hear those words.
The dime was such a surprise. I was placing a call to two dear friends and colleagues, asking for reprieve on Saturday night. A whopper Martini and good conversation. I need it.
For now, it's coffee, a bath, grade 30 written responses for today's class, and hit the streets for downtown Brooklyn. Then at 6 pm, the night is mine. It is mine.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Spring Forward with Pen in Hand
Yesterday was awesome. I had to slip out of the apartment to put money into Sarah's account and then - with notebook on hand - went to The Fall Cafe, a great little place where the coffee is overpriced, the guys smell a little schmarmy or it's a dishrag gone bad, but they leave you alone and let you write all day and into the night if you want. I love it. I slid my way through another three chapters of the novel. I will go back and plump them up once the rough draft is finished, but those babies already can hold their own. I am loving this.
So I realized yesterday that I must plan all chores in the morning so as to get my bum out of the building and to write out in the great unknown. When I'm at home, other things distract me especially that good looking Judge Alex. He's not that lovely and this book is what excites me! So I am brushing through my newly washed hair and headed out.
I wrote an essay I'm quite proud of and sent it off to my hometown paper and Texas Monthly since it's regionally related. If I don't hear from them, I'm going to send it to NY papers and try my hand as it is talking about both places.
My girl's birthday is one month from today. Happy Pre-Birthday, Leila Sandra Wolford. Thank you for bringing life to your father and me. Thank you for - on our worst days - realizing - as with the birth of your sister - we have created and passed on the best we have to offer. You represent that. Every day with Leila is sweeter than the day before.
Spring!
So I realized yesterday that I must plan all chores in the morning so as to get my bum out of the building and to write out in the great unknown. When I'm at home, other things distract me especially that good looking Judge Alex. He's not that lovely and this book is what excites me! So I am brushing through my newly washed hair and headed out.
I wrote an essay I'm quite proud of and sent it off to my hometown paper and Texas Monthly since it's regionally related. If I don't hear from them, I'm going to send it to NY papers and try my hand as it is talking about both places.
My girl's birthday is one month from today. Happy Pre-Birthday, Leila Sandra Wolford. Thank you for bringing life to your father and me. Thank you for - on our worst days - realizing - as with the birth of your sister - we have created and passed on the best we have to offer. You represent that. Every day with Leila is sweeter than the day before.
Spring!
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
On a Tuesday Morning Sidewalk
It's gorgeous here this morning. The cats got me up. I have to start setting my phone (alarm) or quit staying up so late. Need to do the dishes, put a little cash into Sarah's account, and friggin' write. Had a good session yesterday at school but something is firing wrong in me. I love the students, but my passion is waning. I need a break. Or I have done what is in me. I am, to be quite honest, tired of being at service. I realized yesterday that I've been in jobs that deal with helping or being available to big clusters of people whether it's an organization or students. I'm blown. Oh great universe, hear my plea! One sabbatical. I wanted to write to my mother last night and beg for my inheritance early. This is my window for completing the novel and the other works backing up like an assembly line on The Lucy Show. Now that my girls are grown, I am rediscovering me. Like this morning while still in a stupor I realized I could take a nice long walk after depositing money into Sarah's account and then I realized I was walking with flat running shoes and I really needed some cushion in my arch. So on payday, I'll purchase some new shoes. Things like that. Learning to be one person and one person first.
A student asked me last night if I ever thought of being with a woman. We got into a conversation about being gay and lesbian. I told her at this point in my life I really don't see myself with anyone. I'm not feeling it because I am in love with this pen. That is all I'm thinking about besides my daughters. But to be a lesbian? I'm not feeling it. My friend Annie says you can't change teams and I know what she means. I'm not interested in playing, I guess is where I am. There's one guy I'm interested in, but he's taken, so that's that. Oh and the delicious man interviewed by Deborah Soloman in the NY Times Sunday Magazine this past Sunday. I don't even care that he's a billionaire (well, er). But what a sweet deal. I'd be Laurie from The Real Housewives of Orange County. If I could wear jeans for the rest of my days and write and be left alone, that'd be great, but all that comes with a price and I'm not willing to pay it. I am alone and quite tediously always conscious that I am the sole provider for Sheela, and somewhere in my misery I know I am my own person. But as Suze Orman says, money supports you, and so I want to earn my money or get an investor who believes in me and allows me to do my craft, but I think the former is my true way of life.
And now this rich mama is going to Dunkin Donuts for a coffee since it's next door to the bank. And I'm going to take that walk and then come back to the stack of dishes that I do not know how a single woman can accumulate, but just as surely as my passion to write one day into the next, there they are.
Cheers.
A student asked me last night if I ever thought of being with a woman. We got into a conversation about being gay and lesbian. I told her at this point in my life I really don't see myself with anyone. I'm not feeling it because I am in love with this pen. That is all I'm thinking about besides my daughters. But to be a lesbian? I'm not feeling it. My friend Annie says you can't change teams and I know what she means. I'm not interested in playing, I guess is where I am. There's one guy I'm interested in, but he's taken, so that's that. Oh and the delicious man interviewed by Deborah Soloman in the NY Times Sunday Magazine this past Sunday. I don't even care that he's a billionaire (well, er). But what a sweet deal. I'd be Laurie from The Real Housewives of Orange County. If I could wear jeans for the rest of my days and write and be left alone, that'd be great, but all that comes with a price and I'm not willing to pay it. I am alone and quite tediously always conscious that I am the sole provider for Sheela, and somewhere in my misery I know I am my own person. But as Suze Orman says, money supports you, and so I want to earn my money or get an investor who believes in me and allows me to do my craft, but I think the former is my true way of life.
And now this rich mama is going to Dunkin Donuts for a coffee since it's next door to the bank. And I'm going to take that walk and then come back to the stack of dishes that I do not know how a single woman can accumulate, but just as surely as my passion to write one day into the next, there they are.
Cheers.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Roseanne Cash singing...what could be better?
Woke up this morning, er, afternoon, and felt so much better! It's true. We need sleep. This crazy American society that thinks moving every minute is the only way to go is wrong. Deep sleep, quick nurturing naps, that's what gives life! and I plan to live mine out until my number is up.
I've spent two hours reading my good friend, Anna's blog (on my list as Warrior Pen). She's moving, making her way and she inspires me. Then I did about half an hour putzing around on Idealist.org updating my profile, searching for telecommuting jobs (none) and even posting myself as a speaker. I would love to do that. Speak and go. Workshop and go. I love that part of communicating. I think I am better suited for that, being an Air Force brat and all. I'm used to giving and going.
Then I read my favorte parts of the NYT's Sunday Magazine: Lives and the one on one interview with Deborah Soloman. She's a sharpshooter and I like the interviewees' responses. Gotta keep up. In Lives was a stunning essay by Ambar Past http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/magazine/18Lives.t.html. Well, that did it. I'm writing the rest of the day.
Made Split Pea Soup and it smells good gurgling on the stove. I'll make some cornbread and schmear it with Apricot preserves and simply live.
That old Kenny Loggins' song, "This is It" still haunts me. I'm going no further. "This is it."
Oh yes, I wrote an essay and shipped it to The El Paso Times. To Charles Edgren, a journalist I have always respected. He's in charge of the editorial copy. It was written late Friday night after a rough week of classes. I had hit my darkest spot and it was then I realized, "write." Something broke free. I wrote another essay last night and now I bid you adieu and go to write my next entry on my latest project (the novel is still there, I'm just cheating a bit) on my daughters.
Happy Sunday. As my friend Anna says on her voice mail. "Make it your best."
Peace.
I've spent two hours reading my good friend, Anna's blog (on my list as Warrior Pen). She's moving, making her way and she inspires me. Then I did about half an hour putzing around on Idealist.org updating my profile, searching for telecommuting jobs (none) and even posting myself as a speaker. I would love to do that. Speak and go. Workshop and go. I love that part of communicating. I think I am better suited for that, being an Air Force brat and all. I'm used to giving and going.
Then I read my favorte parts of the NYT's Sunday Magazine: Lives and the one on one interview with Deborah Soloman. She's a sharpshooter and I like the interviewees' responses. Gotta keep up. In Lives was a stunning essay by Ambar Past http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/magazine/18Lives.t.html. Well, that did it. I'm writing the rest of the day.
Made Split Pea Soup and it smells good gurgling on the stove. I'll make some cornbread and schmear it with Apricot preserves and simply live.
That old Kenny Loggins' song, "This is It" still haunts me. I'm going no further. "This is it."
Oh yes, I wrote an essay and shipped it to The El Paso Times. To Charles Edgren, a journalist I have always respected. He's in charge of the editorial copy. It was written late Friday night after a rough week of classes. I had hit my darkest spot and it was then I realized, "write." Something broke free. I wrote another essay last night and now I bid you adieu and go to write my next entry on my latest project (the novel is still there, I'm just cheating a bit) on my daughters.
Happy Sunday. As my friend Anna says on her voice mail. "Make it your best."
Peace.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
The Winds of March and Madness - MINE
NYC and the area - wide area - was hit by a Nor'easter yesterday and now it's gone, the sun's out, but man, oh man is it cold! To think just a few days ago I was wearing my jean jacket and walking to work. Soon. Spring surely is ready to enter now. I stayed up all last night working on an essay that came to me and when I finished dawn was throwing soft light through the windows of each window. I couldn't sleep and was glad I had used my time wisely. I've been out of sorts since school started, no since one of my classes has become rowdy. Another teacher told me her approach yesterday and I will do it. When they are talking I stop until the room notices. Gawd, I'm sick of teaching. This is not my dharma! I know now that I have said that there is a chance I will walk into that class and have a transcending experience. But I am so over it all. I guess last night I had to tell myself that. You're over it? Then take your action into finding the "hole in the net" and getting through to your "own reality" as Deepak Chopra says.
I have two hours before going into my Saturday class. The energy in there is magnificent. But I will not lie, I am bone tired. I am going to finish two more essays on another project I have and start looking for grant money and a publisher. I will manifest my summer sabbatical and the rest as I will figure and trust as I go along.
I have two hours before going into my Saturday class. The energy in there is magnificent. But I will not lie, I am bone tired. I am going to finish two more essays on another project I have and start looking for grant money and a publisher. I will manifest my summer sabbatical and the rest as I will figure and trust as I go along.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
"His Eye is on the Sparrow, and I know He Watches Me"
Been sleeping in too late after staying up even later once coming home from classes. Last night was my first explosion for this semester. There's always, well not always, but sometimes, a student who talks, talks, talks, can't stop and disrupts the entire session. That happened to me last night. Arggh. It's frustrating, but part of the job. I spent a huge chunk of my late evening mulling over how to regain order. That's the part of the work I do not like. I remember my brother, James, telling me that we run from pain, we humans that is, all of us. I want to run. So I'm up this morning (there's 50 minutes left of it) and trying still to figure out what to do. My dreams were filled with it, only I am so muddled right now I can't remember.
I have a couple of chores to do and it is just compounding my frustration when all I want to do is sit here or go to the Fall Cafe and write. I know now I will have to do it anyway. Spoke to my Mom yesterday and she made mention that novels often take years to write. That's code for 'Do it on your own time. In the crannies of your World.'
So I'm sitting here just in a weird and unhappy place. I have to go make magic with my bank account, return a purchase at Target (such a long walk, okay I need the exercise), grade some student responses, and swiffer the floors. Okay, that last line made me smile. I needed that. Poor, poor Sheela, she has to swiffer the floors! When will I remember how lucky I am to have floors. How precious was my student last night who has been through Hell and it is just spilling out of her. How necessary it is for me to charge up my voice and spread love.
Codepink wants us to call Pelosi and ask her to stand up and do the right thing. Seems like she's buckling. Politics. There's a compromise I'll never understand. To be a politician is to be the heart of the problem. How do you work your way out of that?
I'm a writer. I teach to pay the rent. But I will teach on a grander scale. I will not run from the pain, but embrace it and its hurtful hold on my students. I will find a channel of communication. And I will tell everyone around me to do it now. Several years is too long.
I have a couple of chores to do and it is just compounding my frustration when all I want to do is sit here or go to the Fall Cafe and write. I know now I will have to do it anyway. Spoke to my Mom yesterday and she made mention that novels often take years to write. That's code for 'Do it on your own time. In the crannies of your World.'
So I'm sitting here just in a weird and unhappy place. I have to go make magic with my bank account, return a purchase at Target (such a long walk, okay I need the exercise), grade some student responses, and swiffer the floors. Okay, that last line made me smile. I needed that. Poor, poor Sheela, she has to swiffer the floors! When will I remember how lucky I am to have floors. How precious was my student last night who has been through Hell and it is just spilling out of her. How necessary it is for me to charge up my voice and spread love.
Codepink wants us to call Pelosi and ask her to stand up and do the right thing. Seems like she's buckling. Politics. There's a compromise I'll never understand. To be a politician is to be the heart of the problem. How do you work your way out of that?
I'm a writer. I teach to pay the rent. But I will teach on a grander scale. I will not run from the pain, but embrace it and its hurtful hold on my students. I will find a channel of communication. And I will tell everyone around me to do it now. Several years is too long.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
While My Grading Pen Gently Weeps
Well, survived two of the coldest days of the winter. Good-bye winter, hello spring. I was moaning about not having enough winter and then came Tuesday and Wednesday. Done. Now I'm ready to seek out bulbs and geraniums and start fighting with the squirrels who dine on my fire escape, now for ten spring and summers. Buggers.
Have been horribly NOT writing for the past two weeks. Hmmm...let's see, school started up. I must find a routine. I will not lie. I have been depressed since school started up. I am scouring the Internet for grants. I have enough of my novel written to put it out there. Hell, who am I kidding? I am a workhorse who can't seem to find the hole in the net in order to swim out to my own reality. I will not give up. I'm a good Mom. I've provided and I will provide for this latest baby: this novel. I will. And I know the universe and forces are working to fulfill this wish. I see it coming.
I watch my daughters' careers develop and I am so proud of them, and I'm also proud of me, I have been there, rooting, supporting, and trying my best to give them a clear runway to whatever they want to pursue. Money's always been an issue. Hell, my credit sucks, but I will fix these things, and still we progress.
The haters try to pull us down, but we go on. For me, it's just to keep going. Keep paying rent, the bills, make sure my college gal has everything she needs to keep on, and my fashion stylist, to stay out of her way, so she can fly!
Fly everyone.
Fly!
Have been horribly NOT writing for the past two weeks. Hmmm...let's see, school started up. I must find a routine. I will not lie. I have been depressed since school started up. I am scouring the Internet for grants. I have enough of my novel written to put it out there. Hell, who am I kidding? I am a workhorse who can't seem to find the hole in the net in order to swim out to my own reality. I will not give up. I'm a good Mom. I've provided and I will provide for this latest baby: this novel. I will. And I know the universe and forces are working to fulfill this wish. I see it coming.
I watch my daughters' careers develop and I am so proud of them, and I'm also proud of me, I have been there, rooting, supporting, and trying my best to give them a clear runway to whatever they want to pursue. Money's always been an issue. Hell, my credit sucks, but I will fix these things, and still we progress.
The haters try to pull us down, but we go on. For me, it's just to keep going. Keep paying rent, the bills, make sure my college gal has everything she needs to keep on, and my fashion stylist, to stay out of her way, so she can fly!
Fly everyone.
Fly!
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Gray
Greetings to anyone reading this,
You are my morning pages today. It is Sunday, March 4th and the sky is ribboned with grays and white. The puffy clouds on the top are glorious. I can see my two-year old clear lights dangling, the plastic casings twinkling on the fire escape which is turning a rustic metal brown from years of rain and snow. There is a big wagon wheel of ironwork in the middle and I smile everytime I see it. I can never get away from the West. Not that I want to.
Being homesick for the desert is non-stop, even on the good days. When I flew out of El Paso on June 3, 1997, I looked down from the plane's window and saw the vanishing griese bushes and dunes of my beloved sand and desert and I said to my brother, "I will never see this again." He paused and now I know he was thinking perhaps back to the first time he left the Southwest for New York. "Yes, you will," he said, in a rare compassionate voice.
He knew.
Now he mourns New York the way I mourn the desert. We both know the ecstacy of both regions. As I sit here on a windy, quiet Sunday morning in Brooklyn, I can tell you that I love living in this vibrant city. I love getting on the subway train and riding it. I love walking the Brooklyn Bridge. I love Columbus Circle. The BQE. The Verrazano Bridge. The architecture. The food! And what I love about the Southwest is the landscape, the enormous sky (which as I lay down my tenth year in NYC is causing me to now miss the skyscrapers with all that vacant sky), border food, quiet, driving, and less need to make more money to do the same thing I am doing right now - writing.
I stay in New York for the energy and for my daughters. And I'm just not ready to leave, yet, not with my tail between my legs. Everything outside of this region is dull. Sorry.
I teach at a school where inside any classroom, simply by asking the students to voice the country they originated from, I realize I am truly in the center of the World. And even though my heart pants to be alone to write and to get things out of me, to explain, at this age of 51, for those moments of sitting in the middle of the World, I am grateful, and I pray I have given a bit to them, compared to the flood of knowledge they have given to me.
But I am tired. I want to stand rooted in my purpose as are the trees from across the park waving to me on this fifth floor walkup. I spent my two-hour break at school on Friday, scouring the grants available for hungry, unknown writers like me. I found enough to give me a charge and to try, try again, for a sabbatical. I have only been teaching for two weeks this semester and already am bone tired. This is not my passion. I know this now. This is not my dharma. I have done well. But it is not my purpose.
So I will work, work, work to get to my purpose. I will fill out every grant proposal I can find. I will write - as I am doing today - on my off day. I will plan out decent lessons for my good students and do them proper for these next 13 weeks. I'll not complain (any more than I just have to you, gentle reader), and I'll not discuss it with the other teachers. I will hold these truths in me and manifest my outcome.
Rain is coming today and there is much rain inside me. Finally the inside and outside match. That is enough to begin.
You are my morning pages today. It is Sunday, March 4th and the sky is ribboned with grays and white. The puffy clouds on the top are glorious. I can see my two-year old clear lights dangling, the plastic casings twinkling on the fire escape which is turning a rustic metal brown from years of rain and snow. There is a big wagon wheel of ironwork in the middle and I smile everytime I see it. I can never get away from the West. Not that I want to.
Being homesick for the desert is non-stop, even on the good days. When I flew out of El Paso on June 3, 1997, I looked down from the plane's window and saw the vanishing griese bushes and dunes of my beloved sand and desert and I said to my brother, "I will never see this again." He paused and now I know he was thinking perhaps back to the first time he left the Southwest for New York. "Yes, you will," he said, in a rare compassionate voice.
He knew.
Now he mourns New York the way I mourn the desert. We both know the ecstacy of both regions. As I sit here on a windy, quiet Sunday morning in Brooklyn, I can tell you that I love living in this vibrant city. I love getting on the subway train and riding it. I love walking the Brooklyn Bridge. I love Columbus Circle. The BQE. The Verrazano Bridge. The architecture. The food! And what I love about the Southwest is the landscape, the enormous sky (which as I lay down my tenth year in NYC is causing me to now miss the skyscrapers with all that vacant sky), border food, quiet, driving, and less need to make more money to do the same thing I am doing right now - writing.
I stay in New York for the energy and for my daughters. And I'm just not ready to leave, yet, not with my tail between my legs. Everything outside of this region is dull. Sorry.
I teach at a school where inside any classroom, simply by asking the students to voice the country they originated from, I realize I am truly in the center of the World. And even though my heart pants to be alone to write and to get things out of me, to explain, at this age of 51, for those moments of sitting in the middle of the World, I am grateful, and I pray I have given a bit to them, compared to the flood of knowledge they have given to me.
But I am tired. I want to stand rooted in my purpose as are the trees from across the park waving to me on this fifth floor walkup. I spent my two-hour break at school on Friday, scouring the grants available for hungry, unknown writers like me. I found enough to give me a charge and to try, try again, for a sabbatical. I have only been teaching for two weeks this semester and already am bone tired. This is not my passion. I know this now. This is not my dharma. I have done well. But it is not my purpose.
So I will work, work, work to get to my purpose. I will fill out every grant proposal I can find. I will write - as I am doing today - on my off day. I will plan out decent lessons for my good students and do them proper for these next 13 weeks. I'll not complain (any more than I just have to you, gentle reader), and I'll not discuss it with the other teachers. I will hold these truths in me and manifest my outcome.
Rain is coming today and there is much rain inside me. Finally the inside and outside match. That is enough to begin.
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