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I fell. I fell on my way into Whole Foods after an excellent weight class that made me feel fit and relatively young. I’m 64. My left knee hit the concrete and all my not insubstantial weight followed. I tripped over the parking thingie which is called a stanchion which I remembered right before the screen went blank because my kneecap exploded. A nice father leaned down and asked, “Are you all right?” My ears were ringing and my teeth chattering so it took me a moment to say, “I’m fine.” His wife leaned down with her hand outstretched and somehow, I stood. I went into Whole Foods, rode the escalator up and put raspberries, salad, and inexplicably rice into the basket. We have tons of rice. It occurred to me I was in physical agony and so I decided not to tell anyone but to go home and ice my knee. Only our cat would know my shameful secret, I wouldn’t waste anyone’s time. It was my fault I hurt myself. Again.

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Recently, my 85 year-old father broke his neck, which is, of course, terrible. But he survived and I was trying to say something daughterly and encouraging so I remarked that his hair was getting so long he “looked like a poet.” “Yes,” my mother added, drily, “a poet coming out of a drain.” This was in reference to the neck brace he was wearing and remarkably accurate while insensitive which is the really killer combination, cruelty combined with an eye for detail. My mother is a master at that. Upon meeting my newborn baby, my gorgeous, amazing, perfect boy who had subjected me to 72 hours of labor without any family present as he was born in London where my then husband was a reporter for an American Newspaper, she remarked, “With that much head you expect more body.”

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In 2012 I published a blog post titled “Stop Modeling Murder Instead of Literacy and Peace.” Why has so little changed in over a decade?

Yesterday I spent the day in Southwest Chicago holding writing workshops with 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students who had come to another school on a Saturday to help them get a jump on applying to selective high schools in the city. The room where I was teaching was identified as the library but the shelves were empty of books. Overall, the students were wonderful. We worked on a simple poetry exercise "I was" and "I am" to help them see themselves in the present and find strong words to describe themselves. Some of the "I was" sections were heartbreaking. "I was…" hurt, alone, afraid, angry.." They were good about getting up and reading and their poems were wonderful, full of hope and self-esteem.

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