Photoessay #1310 - I will prevail!

My personal goal for this year is all about the arts.

I take seriously my mother's strong feelings that all of us must contribute to the community as we are able. And if you are retired (or similar) you have an obligation to help others. I will do that through my work at Parent Group.

I am inspired and energized by my experience taking the year long memoir writing class taught by Theo Nestor in the continuing education arm of the University of Washington. Probably my biggest lesson is that criticism of your writing can make an individual piece better. Theo teaches a slightly unorthodox triptych technique of writing about 3 aspects of a given theme and then combining them coming up with an essay. She learned it from a single workshop once and it fit her so well. Me also. I've written three, one about parent group, one about spring and one about having a large family. I can even see myself submitting some of my writing to some literary journals and collecting some rejection letters.

Just like Star, a late bloomer. Read Theo's blog about our evening and my classmate Star's piece.

I also have a personal goal (and it's harder than you think) of reading 1 hour during the day. I read in bed before I go to sleep but it's not enough. I want to pump up the reading, more of this must be accomplished.

I will continue with my blog (writing EVERY day as I have since spring of 2007) accompanied by a photo. I will improve my photo skills. I'm signed up to take a digital photography class at a local community college later this summer.

One in-class writing exercise that Theo gave us was to write about what we didn't want to write about. Especially in regards to the things we were working on. My first quarter's piece was Priscilla's death and UCSC 1970. The thing that I didn't want to write about during that period was that I felt I was a failure at UCSC. At that time, tremendously talented and eccentric faculty and students taught and studied there. The standards were extremely high. Your paper didn't have to cover the subject and show understanding, it had to compare favorably with top published papers of the time and show extraordinary insight. And, well, I couldn't do that and I didn't receive any encouragement. Now, when I go back and read my evaluations, they are not at all as bad as I remembered. But my view of myself was that I didn't have it and I couldn't be be successful in that venue.

When I wrote that out, I thought, am I really going to let that baggage hold me back? From reading and writing as much as I want? Do I feel like I have to get permission or something? What am I waiting for? I will return to the world of learning and I will be successful. I will prevail!

Picture with the "I will prevail!" theme. Picture taken from www.russandcamille.com used without permission. Not me and I've never been to Zion but it gets the point.