Audre Lorde is too idealistic, one of my young writers sighed with dispassion this past Saturday. The assignment had been to read poetry and essay. They like neither form, generally. However, Ferlinghetti's anti-war excerpt from 'Americus I' went over better than the obscure poetics taken from Lorde's 'New York Headshop and Museum.' And agreement was universal that Lorde's 1979 essay, The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House, is still relevant today, 34 or 44 (depending on which youth is doing the math) years later, however, and perhaps because of this immortal relevance of needing to cherish our differences and women needing to support other women, the youth of today were less inspired than I was when the essay was merely 22 years old. And perhaps, the youth see me as too idealistic, too.
Our Saturday sessions are generally broken up into two segments. First we write and discuss the readings - the literary and critical thinking part of the day. Second there is a project meeting. In between the theory and practical there is always a brief break. Meditation and yoga is something I have wanted to incorporate into the project since its inception, however, real world situations don't necessarily permit our ideas to be perfect from the start. So this week I dove on in. I sent the team an email informing them of their meditative and silent break and when it came up they were down. No objections, no giggles. Just open minds.
Because I was unprepared and didn't know how to set the timer on my phone I had to open my eyes to glance at the clock a couple of times during the five minute meditation session. They were all sitting silent and upright and all sets of eyes were closed. Upon time I told them not to speak for another five minutes, to gather their thoughts and think about the meeting, or think about nothing, or go to the bathroom, just don't speak. When I suggested we start one of them objected and said, It hasn't been five minutes, yet. Gosh darn, I love it when they speak up and I love it when they're making choices toward the betterment of their souls. Hehe, yeah, I totally talk about the artist's soul as something that needs to be nurtured.
And after that I asked their permission to bounce. My best friend is in town for her boyfriend's birthday and I need to get home and change and feed and walk my dog before running off to play. And they were fine with it. And they emailed me their meeting notes and their website looks fabulous and the call for submissions is final and in their voice and image and oh I'm just so thrilled.
Plus I got to bounce on the meeting and have dinner in Bay Ridge at a Moroccan restaurant called Casablanca and then saw Isabelle Adjani in a Luc Besson film from 1985 that was about people living in the Paris Metro and it made me want to live underground off the grid dirty and free.
The End. For Now.
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