Your Difference (written 11/26/07)

Hello Peoples! It's been several weeks since I've written JEN NEWS and I thought I'd catch you all up. I hope these last weeks have been good ones for you. Here's what I've been brooding over: Taking a Trip, Emotionality, and Being Different. Let's see where this all goes. . . .


One thing that happened over these last weeks that threw me off my schedule w as that I made a trip back East to Rhode Island on an honorarium from The Gordon School (my old elementary/middle/junior high). They asked me to come and speak about writing and attend their BOOK FAIR. It was a whirlwind trip - a day of travel, two days there, another day of travel. The librarians and staff, and all the people at Gordon made me feel incredibly welcome. Gordon was my original Safe Place. I went there part way into my third grade year after having a very rough time making the transition to a new (public) school. I was very frightened then and trying to hide a lot. Following a series of stressful events, I actually jumped out of the family car (while it was moving)one day as it approached my school, and ran the other direction. So, when I arrived at Gordon, I was in a very skittish state. I remember hiding from gym class for a while, until I sort of got the hang of it. But once I did, that school proved to be a kind of haven for me and I stayed there through eighth grade.

When I arrived, everything felt the same as it had when I was a child; it was the same comforting, soothing, easy environment I remember. I spent the full day on Tuesday talking to many classrooms and giving presentations to Kindergartners, third graders, and fourth graders. I was shuffled from room to room, plunked in the middle of active classrooms and left to talk about writing. I found the kids engaging, interested, and wonderful. By the end of the first day, I had a sore throat from continuum of talking I'd done. The second day, I went to the book-fair and signed books and talked some more (visited with the first graders) and then traveled to my sister-in-law's school to give a presentation to the second graders there. She had read VIOlET to her classroom and they'd all written me letters and were very excited . She pre-sold forty books and so I had the opportunity to sign them all.

The next day, at six am, my flight took off.
I couldn't NOT go on that trip and it was important to me, and it has left me asking, "What next?" "What do I want next?"

Over these last weeks, I also had occasion to witness Max go into a kind of spin in which he returned from school one day obviously upset. When I asked him if something particular had happened, he said, "No". Eventually, he told me he couldn't tell me because he was hurting over something that could not be changed and I would just tell him it could be changed. When I promised to just LISTEN, he laid himself down on this large leather ottoman of ours, closed his eyes and started to whisper, "I am a very emotional person and I cannot handle the school environment." Tears streamed down his cheeks.

Now, I had agreed to just LISTEN, so I was not free to tell him that he can learn how to work with his emotions; that he can gain control and command of his emotional life, by tuning in and working with his thoughts and how they're making him feel. I did, however, feel at liberty to tell him that I understand because I too am a very emotional person. To which he replied that he does not perceive me as such. I couldn't believe this as my mind trailed back over an image of myself (that has persisted) born during a few months in third grade when I also felt I could not handle the school environment, but also, being in the WORLD, in general.

What to do? What to say to those large brown eyes filled with tears staring back at me, wanting to feel better, but not yet able to believe he can change his experience and his view of himself?

One of the things I found myself saying to the kids back at Gordon, about writing, is that it is important to write from the Inside-Out - meaning, to know what YOU want to write, to know what YOU think is funny or smart or interesting or compelling, and to allow yourself to write your own story from that inside place, rather than from a place of guessing what other people might like or think is good. And the same goes for creating our lives. It is hard sometimes to take our eyes off the OUTSIDE, how we are seen, what others think of us, what others are doing, accomplishing, or what some outside standard is for success - in any area. But it's all distraction from our true job - to be and express who we are and what we most want and love, and what matters to us.

Max doesn't need to wipe out his emotionality, he needs to listen to it and respect himself in all his uniqueness and this alone with calm the reactive part of his emotional responses. He was the one that told me (sorrowfully), when he was five, that he was different from the other children. And I told him that he had just realized he was different much before all the other kids had (it might take well into adult-hood for some) and that it is a gift. Because the sooner you see how you're different and embrace the the diversity YOU bring to the world stage, the sooner you shine your unique light. And your light helps illuminate us all.

So to Max I'll say (on a day when I have not promised to remain silent and he is feeling better and might be able to hear it): ask yourself "What's Next? What do I want next?" From the place you are right now, from This Moment(it's all we ever have), and then instead of fighting against yourself, and your perceived deficits, work with yourself. I think, then, the tears just have to dry up; I cannot see how they can remain if you are validating yourself, the way in which you are different, and therefore, the difference you are here to make in the WORLD.

And when you've owned your place in the world, there no longer feels like a need to hide from it, in any way.
I hope to offer this to Max sometime soon.

Lots of love to you.
All is Well,
Jen