Grateful, Not Unemployable

Today is November 20, 2024, second day of the write-one-hour-a-day journey. I am going to my Wednesday night home Bible study-fellowship-worship-prayer meeting at 6:30 so I won't be able to start writing at 9 p.m., because I won't be home. I am sacrificing my after work television viewing which is, I'm sure, a good thing. Now some group is trying to message me. I don't even know who these people are. That's another thing I think we can surely live without in this virtual/digital world we have created. I am very thankful for Thanksgiving which is a week from tomorrow. My birthday is the Monday before Thanksgiving this year. I will be working that day. What else would I be doing? My birthday is always close to or on Thanksgiving, which is kind of cool. I am thankful for the fact that we have Thanksgiving. At the elementary school where I work, and, I suspect, any elementary school in the country, it seems that Halloween is acknowledged pretty much every day. Thanksgiving should be treated the same way, and it is, to some degree. We all need to look forward to something. Kids need to have something to look forward to, to stay interested in school. I think adults also need something to look forward to, to stay interested in life. We look forward to weekends, we look forward to holidays, some look forward to heaven. I look forward to the return of Dayligh Savings Time, but that is a whole 'nother subject. Now, back to Thanksgiving and gratitute. Keeping gratitude journals, drawing pictures of turkeys, watching Thanksgiving music and movement "brain breaks," discussing the first Thanksgiving and talking about what we're thankful for are all very positive ways to pass the time we occupy on Earth. I am not very structured, in that I tend not to do things every day like I should, such as keeping a gratitude journal.I am thankful for many things, but often, in a journal, the same things always show up. One of those things is tea. I made this great discovery of a place called Barnabas Cafe in the West Ridge Mall in Topeka because I was desperate to find orange pekoe tea. It seems like the "briskness" of the Lipton tea has gone away. I even called them about it. They said they would call me back, but they never did. Some of the boxes say "orange pekoe" on the package. I don't know if they all do, but the tea is not as good as I remember it, so I can now mix it with "China black flowering orange pekoe (FOP)" and it tastes as good as it used to, and I am so thankful for that. I have been drinking tea with milk and sugar since I was two. It used to be mostly milk back then, but still. I also learned to walk a cup of tea to my mother down a long hall in a ranch style house for most of my middle childhood years, without spilling, etc. Why tea with milk and sugar? Because my beautiful mother was English, that's why, one of my many aspects of differentness, and one which I coincidentally share with Anne Lamott, which I enjoy the thought of. She has written about having an English mother. I haven't, but maybe should some day. My parents were married in Southampton, England, in 1945. I was born the following year. My grandparents moved to the states when I was about a month old, if I'm not mistaken. I saw the picture of them all looking at me, my granddad, my grandmother (Nana) and my Uncle John, who was about 12. One of the things I remember about Nana, we always ate Vienna Fingers with our tea, so lately I have adopted the habit of staying stocked up on Vienna Fingers. They really go well with tea. I drink it with stevia now, but it still tastes basically the same. Funny how we like to reminisce and remember the good old days. Well, those were the good old days. My grandparents were stellar by every measure. Granddad was a carpenter and had owned and operated an aviary in England. He had also served in World War I. Nana had been a professional seamstress. I still have an outfit she made for one of my dolls. She made some of my clothes when I was really young. Both of my English grandparents were so fun and full of life. I always loved being with them. Sundays, after the divorce, we had dinner at their house after church. We went to the Episcopal Church because that's the kind of church Mom wanted to go to after she moved here from England. I don't think it mattered too much to Dad which church we went to. His parents were Methodists, his grandparents had been "Dunkards," he said. (I think that's the Church of the Brethren). His second wife didn't go to church at all, and the third wife attended the Cathedral I grew up in. The fourth wife's ancestors had helped found the Christian Church on the West Side. So, anyway, church and Sunday School were part of my childhood experience, and another thing I'm thankful for, even though going to church, I learned later, would not save my soul, but only an actual personal conversion experience. Still I'm grateful for all that. My mom said that at one point Nana changed into the joyous soul she was, whereas she had not been very nice before that. I can't imagine Nana being anything but joyous and wonderful. She was my best friend. I am thankful for her too. Granddad was also wonderful in every way, and Mom told me he was "very religious." Nobody talked about their faith back then, they just lived it. The culture was more God conscious, more church-oriented. We valued the "In God we Trust" on our coins, that some people object to nowadays. Well, I don't think writing in the afternoon is really the optimal time for me to write. If I had to write every day for a living, I suppose it wouldn't matter what time of day, I would have to set myself to writing, but I have a job all through the school year. Anne Lamott says she is "unemployable" in any way. I, of course, do not believe that. She talks about clerk-typist jobs she had, so I know it was definitely a choice on her part pursuing writing as a full time occupation, and she had the talent and the drive to keep at it until something broke through for her. I don't know where my one hour a day of writing will lead. I wrote for newspapers, I wrote a Master's thesis and a doctoral dissertation, and I have written songs. I did at some point decide I wanted to write what I wanted to write, whatever that was. I don't always know, anymore. I wrote a lot of articles for a local free community monthly paper, the Topeka Metro Voice News. Since I self-published my memoir, I get calls from these agencies that supposedly offer me the opportunity to make a movie out of my book. I am sure I am not interested in spending a lot more money for them to "help" market my book. I have heard these agencies are mostly located in the Philippines, and I believ it, judging by their accents. I hope that doesn't sound racist. It's not. I wouldn't care what kind of accent they have or what country they're in, but they should at least be able to pronounce the title of my book and my name. I don't think that's asking too much. And if that's racist, so be it. It is what it is. I am looking to snag an agent in Kansas City, if that's at all possible. Anyway, the fact is I am not unemployable. Someone once told me if I could speak Spanish I would always have a job, and that may be true. I don't feel like going into all my employment history at this moment, but I am definitely not unemployable, other than being past retirement age. I can write for the fun of it, with no pressure from anyone and nothing to prove. Maybe something will come of it and maybe not. Yesterday's one hour write did open my mind up in an interesting way. I think it helped me help a sixth grade girl with a writing assignment. I am and have been employed for 10 years as a literacy tutor. I am going to try to stay a little bit focused on writing. I want to write about the respective roles of the federal and state departments of education as a research project and something for the Metro Voice. But mostly I'd like to know what happened to my ability to write fiction that I used to have as a child and which I renewed in the late 90s when I was still teaching college in Kentucky. We go through these stages that I do not understand at all.But I know that we humans are communicators, and that we must communicate. With kids it's all about socialization. As adults social media is all about that. There is also such a thing as communion with God that can happen through writing. I have experienced that. I hate that it is getting dark before 5:00 p.m. until March. Most days I will not be doing my one hour write at this time. It's depressing. It should be completely dark and no distractions. I am not as thrilled about this write as yesterday's, but that, again, is not terribly significant. It's the process, not the product, we always say. I am accepting of my position in life as a servant. That's what I am. And that's perfectly all right. Tonight I'm looking forward to my Wednesday night group. It is the highlight of my week.