Writing or Yoga?

I’ve been writing since I was twelve.  I wrote my feelings about the holocaust and other atrocities out as a sad (and bad) song, as a descriptive depressing poem.  There was also a diary.  A Barbie Diary with a lock and key. I wrote about how I liked a boy and he liked me.  Then I wrote about how the boy didn’t like me anymore.  I’ve been writing down the guts and glory of who I am for thirty years. 

Now, I am done. I don’t like it anymore.  I am giving up writing in a way.  I thought I’d be writing for television by now, or have my plays produced across the country but I guess that is not my fate. 

I’ve been struggling with what to put my energy into for a decade.  Writing or Yoga? Guruji Rev. Jaganath Carrera has always said go where the energy is growing.  I told myself I’d focus on writing for a year and it looked hopeful for a little while but suddenly I feel as if I’m in the zone, reading aloud one of my plays standing in the middle of Giant Stadium (yes I know it’s gone but that’s my image) and I look up and there is no one in the seats.  No one.  Cue the crickets.

Ah, my Ego.  For years I’ve been saying to myself that I just didn’t put enough effort into it.  I should send out more plays.  Meet more people in the “biz,” and network, network, network.  But things got real this year.  Maybe it was the death of a college friend who was my age.  Maybe it is my desire to buy a house and make roots serious roots in suburbia that is making me taking stock of my life, where I live, how I live and with whom I associate.  It’s all making me realize that I’ve been living just around the corner from La La land.  I don’t think making a living off my writing is my path anymore.

It’s a hard thing to admit to myself.  But if I am really honest, I have to admit; I’m really a teacher.  Yes, that’s who I am.  Wow, I don’t know why it’s hard for me to say I’m a teacher without a little bit of downward sliding of an inflection, as if embarrassed.  Maybe it’s the saying, “Those who can-- do; those who can’t-- teach.”  Who started that?  It’s really detrimental to the egos of those of us who do teach.  Maybe it’s time to tell myself that I’m really good at the job of sharing knowledge and my excitement about a subject with others.  What’s wrong with that?

Maybe it’s not as sexy as creator of imaginary worlds, (Of which I love to partake in—streaming online hours and months of my life away with episodes of Lost, The West Wing, Orange is the New Black, Top of the Lake and currently Frasier.)

I can see now how I’ve always been a teacher.  You can tell by my posts on Facebook—they are always about health or the environment, hoping that the provocative picture or scary informational chart will encourage others to save themselves and the world. 

This admission to myself is so freeing.  I am a teacher.  I feel like Nick Nolte at the end of Teachers the 1984 movie starring Ralph Macchio.  (Who I thought was so cool in this movie—but now I see as a troubled kid who really should take a shower and wash his hair.)  Nick Nolte runs out of the school and admits as the camera zooms in for a close up, “I’m a teacher.”  Then the credits role.  Okay, so I admit it.  But I’m not yet ready for my credits to roll.  I still have creative projects to do. 

Just finished editing a film for an artist in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the radio broadcast of War of the Worlds. http://www.BattleAtGroversMill.com/

Promoting Swami Cat books at Wellness Festivals and workshops.  Next one is on December 29th at the Yoga Life Society’s Kids Yoga program at the Yoga Loft.

And Save Feb. 27^th or 28^th evenings for a really thrilling production of the Churchill Jr. High’s Night of Thrills and Chills – Two One Act Plays, The Hitch Hiker (Was also a Twilight Zone episode) and The Real Margo, a modern suspense play. 

So it’s not like I won’t be busy.  Imagine me in this video eating lunch at my desk, updating lesson plans, adding to the drama club calendar and planning a new Swami Cat song all at the same time.