I’m burnt right now. I really can’t seem to put words together today. Maybe it’s this blogging thing. And when I’m not blogging I’m writing emails to people who I want to love me-- love my work--buy my work. Yes, buy my work.
I have been in love with the idea of being a writer since I was a very young girl. All it took was my third grade teacher putting my four, or maybe it was three, line poem, “Why I love Christmas” in the P.S 71-Rose E Scala year book to sucker me into a life of wanting an audience. Yes, I wanted fame. I dreamed of fame, yearned for it. Stayed up nights tossing and turning for it, but fortune was never on my radar. Hence, a checking account that is in overdraft most months.
Thirty-Seven years later and I still want the fame. Yes, I want people to hear my name and say, “Patricia Dunn! Your work, your words, changed my life. I can’t look into a mirror without thinking of you. [Reference to my YA novel] Your words got me off antidepressants. Your words helped me to open my heart. I have found the love of my life because of you. Your words made all of my dreams come true.” Delusional? Oh, I don’t think so.
Why can’t I have what I want? If I’m going to want, I’m going to want BIG and NOW!
Only now I don’t just want the fame. I want the fortune too.
This is where the self-help books tell me to envision what I want—
I see myself in a beautiful and big house on the beach where all of my friends, and on occasional holidays my family, come and visit me, and the sound of the waves breaking against the rocks bring us peace, and, love, and fill us with joy. “Happy and peppy and bursting with love, ” I sing the words of Felix Unger. Yes, I can feel it. I can feel the peppy popping out of my pores, and I can see the unlimited amount of cash filling my pockets. I can see myself sending FedEx envelopes filled with cash to strangers whose names I picked out of a phone book. Yes, I can be a patron of the arts, a patron saint, my own patron. And all this will be possible because of those words. Those words that my third grade teacher loved enough to publish—“Why I love Christmas”… I don’t remember the rest of that poem, but if I were to write it now, it would go something like this—
“Why I love Christmas?
I love Christmas because it’s a day
when I can give it all away,
and know that the next day there still will be plenty in reserve.”
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Those Who Can't Do Teach
The first time I heard this cliché' was in my tenth grade journalism class. I can't even remember the teacher's name. She was sweet, but she was also a self-identified woman who couldn't write, and so she taught. So she said.
On any given day, if you were to look around her classroom, you’d see students (those who bothered to show up) sitting on desks, their backs facing Ms… what was her name?, talking to each other, or singing “I Will Survive,” or dancing the YMCA dance in the aisles (1979 was the most popular year for disco.) These kids were doing anything but paying attention. The only students who seemed to ever be listening were the inseparable threesome: my best friend Maria who was only taking the class because I begged her, and that's what best friends did they backed you up; our guy-friend Jimmy who wasn't even enrolled in the class, but preferred hanging out with us to geometry; and there was me. I was the girl with the dream of being a famous investigative reporter for the NY Times. (That dream was crushed after a summer in post-revolutionary Nicaragua when I saw how mainstream media was more about seeking profit than truth.)
Still, all I remember about that class were the words, “those who can’t do teach.”
In fairness to the one whose name can’t be remembered, my high school wasn't the most inspiring environment for teacher or student. We had a principal who stayed in his office and watched cartoons. Occasionally, he’d come out into the hallway shouting, "why aren’t these students in class,” until his assistant shuffled him back to his office explaining, once again, that the bell had just rung. It was rumored that he had had a nervous breakdown, which was pretty obvious, but no one cared enough to even bother to gossip about why or how it happened.
Apathy was strong in the days when Disco reigned and school administrations where on planet Looney-Tunes, and my high school’s dropout rate was probably higher than its graduation-rate. At least it felt that way. But in a first-generation-Italian-immigrant community education wasn’t always a high priority. Not as high as keeping your kids virgins (the girls anyway), off drugs, and working above-minimum-wage jobs. And if you could get a job, why bother to graduate from high school, never mind college?
So when you walked into the-sky-is-falling college guidance counselor’s office, you didn’t question why she spent more time talking you out of going to college than giving you any real advice on how to get into college. Yes, my high school was a tough place to teach and to learn, but things got better when a new principal made a lot of positive changes and students got the support they needed to get their diplomas, and many went on to college and graduate school.
As for me, I graduated from high school and after spending more time in the streets protesting than I had in the college classrooms, I got my BA and eventually my MFA. Along the way I met amazing teachers: teachers who not only taught, but did.
Still, the words “those who can’t do teach” banged up against the walls of my brain for years, and until I was thirty-four I swore I would never teach, never ever.
Well, be careful what you don’t wish for. Over the past eleven years I’ve been teaching creative writing to motivated students who want to learn, want to write, and, like me, need to write, and over the past several years I’ve co-taught with a woman who continues to inspire me as a writer, teacher, and friend. Finally, I’ve come to realize that I CAN write, and I can teach too.
Teaching forces me to sit down to write even on those days when just looking at my computer makes me cry. If I tell my students they can do it, then don’t I have to tell myself I can do it? And then, don’t I have to do it too? I don’t teach because I can’t write. I teach because teaching makes me makes me a better writer.
“Those who can’t do teach” may have been my tenth grade journalism teacher’s truth, but it’s not mine. Mrs. Roberts! That’s her name… wait a minute that was the name of the Phys. Ed teacher who hated my guts. Or was it? Well, that’s a topic for another day. Keep writing. Keep teaching. Never stop learning.
On any given day, if you were to look around her classroom, you’d see students (those who bothered to show up) sitting on desks, their backs facing Ms… what was her name?, talking to each other, or singing “I Will Survive,” or dancing the YMCA dance in the aisles (1979 was the most popular year for disco.) These kids were doing anything but paying attention. The only students who seemed to ever be listening were the inseparable threesome: my best friend Maria who was only taking the class because I begged her, and that's what best friends did they backed you up; our guy-friend Jimmy who wasn't even enrolled in the class, but preferred hanging out with us to geometry; and there was me. I was the girl with the dream of being a famous investigative reporter for the NY Times. (That dream was crushed after a summer in post-revolutionary Nicaragua when I saw how mainstream media was more about seeking profit than truth.)
Still, all I remember about that class were the words, “those who can’t do teach.”
In fairness to the one whose name can’t be remembered, my high school wasn't the most inspiring environment for teacher or student. We had a principal who stayed in his office and watched cartoons. Occasionally, he’d come out into the hallway shouting, "why aren’t these students in class,” until his assistant shuffled him back to his office explaining, once again, that the bell had just rung. It was rumored that he had had a nervous breakdown, which was pretty obvious, but no one cared enough to even bother to gossip about why or how it happened.
Apathy was strong in the days when Disco reigned and school administrations where on planet Looney-Tunes, and my high school’s dropout rate was probably higher than its graduation-rate. At least it felt that way. But in a first-generation-Italian-immigrant community education wasn’t always a high priority. Not as high as keeping your kids virgins (the girls anyway), off drugs, and working above-minimum-wage jobs. And if you could get a job, why bother to graduate from high school, never mind college?
So when you walked into the-sky-is-falling college guidance counselor’s office, you didn’t question why she spent more time talking you out of going to college than giving you any real advice on how to get into college. Yes, my high school was a tough place to teach and to learn, but things got better when a new principal made a lot of positive changes and students got the support they needed to get their diplomas, and many went on to college and graduate school.
As for me, I graduated from high school and after spending more time in the streets protesting than I had in the college classrooms, I got my BA and eventually my MFA. Along the way I met amazing teachers: teachers who not only taught, but did.
Still, the words “those who can’t do teach” banged up against the walls of my brain for years, and until I was thirty-four I swore I would never teach, never ever.
Well, be careful what you don’t wish for. Over the past eleven years I’ve been teaching creative writing to motivated students who want to learn, want to write, and, like me, need to write, and over the past several years I’ve co-taught with a woman who continues to inspire me as a writer, teacher, and friend. Finally, I’ve come to realize that I CAN write, and I can teach too.
Teaching forces me to sit down to write even on those days when just looking at my computer makes me cry. If I tell my students they can do it, then don’t I have to tell myself I can do it? And then, don’t I have to do it too? I don’t teach because I can’t write. I teach because teaching makes me makes me a better writer.
“Those who can’t do teach” may have been my tenth grade journalism teacher’s truth, but it’s not mine. Mrs. Roberts! That’s her name… wait a minute that was the name of the Phys. Ed teacher who hated my guts. Or was it? Well, that’s a topic for another day. Keep writing. Keep teaching. Never stop learning.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Writing about Love
Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day...It's a hard one for a writer. I mean, how do you write about love without sounding sentimental or cliché'? Still, we are all writing about love in some ways. So I'm told. Don't "they" say we are all writing the same story? Stories about love. Stories about death. Stories about love and death.
So, I'm celebrating V-day for the first time in years with my BF. At 45 I just can't bring myself to use the label "boy friend." But what are the alternatives? Lover? Partner? Fuck-buddy? So, I use BF. Okay, it makes me sound like a teenager. But, then again, who knows more about love than a teenager? Don't you remember those days when that's what it was all about? Falling in love. That's what mattered. All that mattered, all you wanted. Oh, and when you did, WOW! What a feeling! How many records, tapes, CDs, did you wear out? Can you wear out an Ipod?
Love was all consuming and you weren't called obsessive or accused of being a stalker if you tracked every breathing movement the object of your desire made. You were just called a teenager, a normal teenager.
Yes, teenage love. First loves, even second loves, the reasons gothic romances and romcoms even exist. Without love we wouldn't, couldn't, be a nation obsessed with vampires. The creature that wants nothing more than to take his or her love drain him or her of their life force and make them live eternal. I mean, you really have to love someone to want to live out eternity with them. Right?
When you were a teenager you knew that loving someone and having that someone love you back was all that mattered. Mattered more than a perfect SAT score or an A in physics. You were willing to risk the F on your trig exam to talk to your sweetie for hours on the phone, now it would be chat or Skype, instead of studying.
How old were we when that day came and we decided that college or career or whatever else was more important than being in love? Was it after the first, second, third heart break?
By the way, I never had my heart broken. When I've been crushed by the person of my desire it was never my heart that broke. It was always my stomach. I love to eat. And can usually eat under any and all circumstance. After all, I am the daughter of a former exterminator who talked shop at the dinner table. Nothing stopped me from getting my daily bread down, not rat nor roach talk. Nothing but the love of my life telling me, "It's quits." That's when the sight, the thought, of any food, even chocolate ice cream, made me nauseous.
So, there I went ahead and did it. I got all-sentimental on my ass....I guess, I just couldn't figure out any other way on the day that florists and chocolate manufacturers make their fortunes-- Happy Valentine's Day.
So, I'm celebrating V-day for the first time in years with my BF. At 45 I just can't bring myself to use the label "boy friend." But what are the alternatives? Lover? Partner? Fuck-buddy? So, I use BF. Okay, it makes me sound like a teenager. But, then again, who knows more about love than a teenager? Don't you remember those days when that's what it was all about? Falling in love. That's what mattered. All that mattered, all you wanted. Oh, and when you did, WOW! What a feeling! How many records, tapes, CDs, did you wear out? Can you wear out an Ipod?
Love was all consuming and you weren't called obsessive or accused of being a stalker if you tracked every breathing movement the object of your desire made. You were just called a teenager, a normal teenager.
Yes, teenage love. First loves, even second loves, the reasons gothic romances and romcoms even exist. Without love we wouldn't, couldn't, be a nation obsessed with vampires. The creature that wants nothing more than to take his or her love drain him or her of their life force and make them live eternal. I mean, you really have to love someone to want to live out eternity with them. Right?
When you were a teenager you knew that loving someone and having that someone love you back was all that mattered. Mattered more than a perfect SAT score or an A in physics. You were willing to risk the F on your trig exam to talk to your sweetie for hours on the phone, now it would be chat or Skype, instead of studying.
How old were we when that day came and we decided that college or career or whatever else was more important than being in love? Was it after the first, second, third heart break?
By the way, I never had my heart broken. When I've been crushed by the person of my desire it was never my heart that broke. It was always my stomach. I love to eat. And can usually eat under any and all circumstance. After all, I am the daughter of a former exterminator who talked shop at the dinner table. Nothing stopped me from getting my daily bread down, not rat nor roach talk. Nothing but the love of my life telling me, "It's quits." That's when the sight, the thought, of any food, even chocolate ice cream, made me nauseous.
So, there I went ahead and did it. I got all-sentimental on my ass....I guess, I just couldn't figure out any other way on the day that florists and chocolate manufacturers make their fortunes-- Happy Valentine's Day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)