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Here is a poem I wrote about my middle school experience. I was not a superb scholar. I could not bring myself to learn geography. It didn’t feel right somehow. I never knew why. Then I saw it. You know the picture of earth from space. I knew then why I’d been so reluctant to divide her. It wasn’t the truth, and God knows I’m stubborn about the truth. I got a bad attitude grade in history once. The teacher said I was argumentative. I kept asking him questions about the people in the wars we studied. It wasn’t enough to memorize events and dates. He was angry. I used to think he was angry with me but now, I wonder if there wasn’t a deeper anger. I’m sorry he disliked me so. If he’d been more aware he would have noticed I was the only one really paying attention. Everyone else was just robotically recording and regurgitating. If he’d only known that I really cared about what happened in history. If he’d only known that I was paying attention with all of myself. If he’d only known we might have enjoyed the class together. We might have felt like explorers on an adventure. If he’d only known.

I recently got angry at my hospice chorus director for trying to fine tune a song we sing. I felt it was good enough and I was so frustrated with her for interrupting the flow of the song to make corrections. I came to realize that I was looking at our rehearsal as my therapy because I was spending more energy I had taking care of some friends in crisis. It was a wake up call for me to get more time for myself.