Magickal Realism

Peeve:
Rather than blurts, I’m listing a peeve: I don’t like it when other artists/individuals try to shut down an idea before it even takes off because “it might fail.” The possibility of failure is the price of attempted change. Suck it up, and quit taking out your fears on other people.

Three Champions of My Creative Self-Worth
This was both an easier and a more difficult job - naming only 3. Interestingly, it brought home to me how very opposed most of my teachers were to both me and my creativity in elementary school. Combine the usual narrow-mindedness of those who have lived with unchallenged lives with my ethnic/class difference, and add in some sick competition that most of my teachers had with my parents because my father was a teacher, and there are great mudslides of piling bullshit appearing before a fat little Polish girl who was prone to daydreaming and who never ran fast enough.¹

Still, there were those who were willing to put aside the politics I never should have been presented with and treat me like/take me for a kid. I was stunned, in college, how easily I was given recognition just for the absence of community politics.

Naomi Owens
She was my music teacher for five years, and neither she nor I bore any illusions about my musical talent. I didn’t really have any. What got her attention was that I managed to get Brad Hodis to behave in class for two years running right before she retired. Because of this, she stood up to a community of teachers who had a tack up their collective ass about my family and sent a message to them that I had real worth, and that I was an individual, not just a product of two teachers who the idiots with teaching licenses tried to compete with through me.

Deb Ciocina
Her homework assignments were eccentric and large. She talked to much about how her husband drove her crazy. But she let me know that my writing really was ahead of all of the “smarter” kids in the class with me, and her emphasis was on creativity over correctness. She also was the only teacher to discipline a student for getting verbally abusive with me. Lime green outfits may be offensive, but there was no reason to shout at me. It sent a message that I had the same rights as everyone else, something most people at my high school didn’t believe until she took action.

March Schott, Ellen Mrja, Chuck Lewis
They all recognized something beyond an ordinary college student in me - and told me about it. It’s still idling potential, but I’m getting at it - really.

1. I don’t run. I hate running. [↩]