Sunday Shine { Looking Forward }
Ever since the little meet-up at Pam's last summer, I've been itching to get back to my craft. I know I did not go through all those undergrad writer's workshops & seminars, and rack up 20 grand in student loans just to let the writing and access it granted me go to waste. I can do better.
I want to be an artist-in-residence at a school. The photo essay project I'm doing post-ELA exams will be the starting point. My stint as a classroom teacher has shown me time and time again that I am capable of working out very tough situations, capable of adapting to curricula (and creating it), but I feel there's not enough room for the creativity and autonomy that I possess and want to bring into my classroom. I am fully capable of teaching another four months of test prep again next school year, but I definitely do not want to. Hurts the soul.
I don't want to come to hate this job before I even have my Masters. So the question now is: What do I need to do to make this happen?
I met a woman last night at a birthday party. I didn't get the greatest vibes from her, but I have to say that I admire her accomplishments. She's done several national one-woman shows, she's published, and now she works as an artist-in-residence at a school. She's where I want to be, career-wise. Maybe I won't be able to sit down and have a conversation with her about all that, but... maybe I will. Either way, I'm deciding to turn the negative (the tension between us over something trite) into a positive.
I start therapy again tomorrow. I like the woman that I'll be seeing. It's good that we've already met, in a different context. She's really trying to revitalize her neighborhood, opening up tutoring & mentoring programs for them. She's very much the EarthMotherAfrikanHealer type, and there isn't anything wrong with that. Sometimes, that community can be a bit exclusive, the folks within it can be a bit dogmatic. But she's been doing this shit longer than I've been alive. I just gotta talk & get some guidance. My worry is that I will spend too much time trying to find the right words for what I'm feeling, instead of saying whichever words come to me first.
