I am so coming back next year.
The course itself was really interesting. In my group, there was an actress (who has been ALL over TV for the last 20 years, and is lovely and charming and smart and funny in person), a PhD who is the child of Holocaust survivors, a filmmaker, a poet who happens to be the daughter of one of the Munchkins in the Wizard of Oz, an officer in the US Army who served in Vietnam and spoke about the My Lai massacre, a senior exec at a NY based insurance company, and an ER doctor.
Oh yeah. And little old me. Me who writes about nail polish, ring around the penis, the crazy shit my kid says, and bribing my kid with Shamrock Shakes around the organic police.
I had some learning to do. And I'm learning.
The essays written by my classmates covered the following topics:
1. Education in desegregated schools in the South pre Brown vs. Board of Ed.
2. The experiences and the treatment of returning Vietnam Vets.
3. The death of parents and the powerlessness that surrounds it.
4. The experience of Post-Aucshwicz survivors in post WWII Montreal.
Yeah, I wrote about pedicures with my daughter and her acquisition of a boyfriend (I still want to destroy that little f'er, btw).
Reading the beautifully written and compelling essays compiled by these people makes me feel all of the following:
1. Girl, your life is a candy-coated bullshit kingdom.
2. You are unbelievably lucky that your life is a candy-coated bullshit kingdom.
3. Just because you're lucky and don't have compelling stories, doesn't mean that you don't have an entertaining voice and one that should continue to give this writing thing a whirl.
Off to glorious Cedar Rapids Airport.
Literarily yours,
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