Sunday, October 12, 2008


It took me a long time to post that last thing, even though negative is easier than positive. I can type furiously in my mouse- and MRSA-infested office about a bad day much more easily than a good day. After a good day, I float out of work, buoyed by co-workers and children, and the beautiful facets of human suffering and healing. I sit on the bus and imagine I'm glowing. If I wrote about poetry group, or the children who look at me with sad and loving eyes, well: that hurts more, and would take a better writer. I'm trying, yo. You never want to brag, right? You never want to take credit for something that should be as easy as breathing. Like, 'I showed someone respect and compassion, and it moved them'. This should happen all the time. Blogs should be chock-a-block with kindness and respect. The fabric of my life, what with the work and the empathy, should be as mundane as tollbooth operation appears to be. Alas, alas. It seems to stick out. And so I say: I can write about Ponytail, and this bitch yesterday that tried to hurt me, but really? What I am not equiped to write about are the amazing times, the group last week in which I was crying, when D. reached out to K. and offered pure and loving support, in jail. In kid jail. I can't write about how the younger boys gather round, how they can still receive loving praise and you watch it fortify their bones like milk. I still don't know how to talk about D. and what she gave me, when she sat in my lap and screamed about everyone that had left her. Why is it so much easier to trade my crazy kid stories for kind looks and free beers when what I actually want to talk about is how much it hurts when someone loves and trusts you and you don't know why; it's like they handed you an egg made of gold, and you are a trampoline artist. Take care of this, they are saying. You think: what the fuck? I'm honored, but I fucking jump on things for a living.