What Writing Means to Me
Writing exists in my life free of neurosis or attachment. It has brought me a little fame and money but mainly it has given me purpose, a way to process what sometimes seems impossible to accept or forgive. It has also given me a way to help others. As a writing teacher and coach I have witnessed students discovering their stories whether based on fact or conjured from dreams and imagination. Writing was a way to change the realities of my childhood. While my parents were brilliant, funny and loving they were also narcissistic and self-destructive.
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Teenage Wasteland
Yesterday I was working in Starbucks rather longer than I intended. My client had cancelled and I was already there so I ended up eavesdropping on a group of sophomore students from St. Ignatius, a prestigious Chicago Catholic private school. Their faces betrayed recent childhood, one boy's cheeks still had the roundness of a child but as he said "fuck" every other word and referred to various classmates as "skanky whores" it was hard to accept that face with that vocabulary.
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Acceptance, Happiness, Letting Go
So, my wonderful friend who is a connector of people invited me to meet her friend Ava, an 84 year old survivor of the Holocaust, a poet, painter, writer and beauty. She was full of life and a sort of serenity that must come from a world she has watched turn itself inside out over and over again. She lost her family except for her mother in the camps. She was hidden with a family for four years who had little education so she had to pretend to be mute to not be detected as an outsider.
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