Shifting Focus

I won’t always have a lot of time to write, not like when I was in college the first time.

It’s spring break. Much to my family’s terror, the long buried artist has returned to make the claim on time and writing.

For so many years, I’ve pushed down my first love, writing, so I could do what it took for my family to make it.

I’m a teacher now, and I’m gradually getting settled into a demanding, but fulfilling career. It took me six years to work my way up and get the degree because experience didn’t seem to count for much as it did in journalism.

I always valued work experience, and I love working.  It also finds its way into my writing, too.

This week, I decided to shift the focus of my first memoir-in-verse, with poems written in the style of prose poetry, from the end of my first marriage when I was expecting to earlier in time. I wanted to cover some of the experiences from when I was a small town journalist.

The economy, beginning  back in 2008, played a major part in my coverage and in my writing.  I never forgot the lines at the unemployment offices. I never forgot the amount of accountants I met who took jobs waiting tables.  I never forgot that the recession didn’t end at some imaginary point in time. It’s ten years later, and the people who suffered with the loss of money, jobs, and housing are still out there.

I thought I would be betraying what I saw people go through, something beyond my story, if I sacrificed that story. With it, there is a broken down love story broken from the start.

I often mention how spoiled I was growing up, and I had a narrow view of the world. Journalism woke me up, and the realities of my first marriage woke me up see things in a new light.

The poem Rapunzel’s Understanding takes place one year before I started working as a journalist.