(no subject)
As much as the intense person was a little hard to deal with, the other day, on accounta how I'm one of those cranky free school folks** who shouldn't be poked without a very long stick, it was also apparently just what I was waiting for. I told her that A2 and I occasionally get in touch with each other, saying "I saw this space the other day and thought about calling you to see if you wanted to try starting a school again" (A2 is not A. who was the director before me. A2 tried starting his own free school with different but similar problems to the ones we encountered.). Her response made it clear that she thought *I* thought I was joking, but I really wasn't. I just didn't think we were ready to have the serious version of that conversation yet.
But the lists I've been making steadily since last night suggest I may have been wrong about that.
I like partnership, collaboration. I like having a partner in crime for my schemes. Mmm, no -- I don't just like it, I *thrive* in the context of a really good collaboration, when you're feeding off each other's energy, balancing each other's quirks, driving each other to greater efforts, more ambitious endeavors. I'd hoped A. would be that partner, with the school, but he was so overwhelmed and heartbroken at everything that had gone on the year before that he was in no position to be that person for me. A2 is a little earnest -- I worked well with A.'s wicked sense of humor and willingness to laugh at *anything* (no topic was off-limits), and I'm likely to respond to A2's sort of deep earnestness with my own more-earnest side, which isn't as much fun nor as efficient as my more smart-ass side -- but I think I can work with that. I think maybe I'm ready to. I have a really good 3 year plan that's been sitting in my back pocket for the last 15 months.
**A. often commented on how grumpy and forbidding the established free school folks were, nowhere near as welcome-to-the-fold has he'd hoped, but one of the many things we agreed on by the end of our respective terms at the school was how totally sympathetic with that POV we'd become -- because, really, after the 163rd time you've had to justify yourself in a week, you're really just *done* with that crap. I can make a school run (and I thank God that I'm finally back there, back at a place of faith in myself, even if I'd never try to do it alone again), but let me tell you, I'mma be putting someone else out front to talk to the mundanes. 'Cause I do not have the patience for it.
But the lists I've been making steadily since last night suggest I may have been wrong about that.
I like partnership, collaboration. I like having a partner in crime for my schemes. Mmm, no -- I don't just like it, I *thrive* in the context of a really good collaboration, when you're feeding off each other's energy, balancing each other's quirks, driving each other to greater efforts, more ambitious endeavors. I'd hoped A. would be that partner, with the school, but he was so overwhelmed and heartbroken at everything that had gone on the year before that he was in no position to be that person for me. A2 is a little earnest -- I worked well with A.'s wicked sense of humor and willingness to laugh at *anything* (no topic was off-limits), and I'm likely to respond to A2's sort of deep earnestness with my own more-earnest side, which isn't as much fun nor as efficient as my more smart-ass side -- but I think I can work with that. I think maybe I'm ready to. I have a really good 3 year plan that's been sitting in my back pocket for the last 15 months.
**A. often commented on how grumpy and forbidding the established free school folks were, nowhere near as welcome-to-the-fold has he'd hoped, but one of the many things we agreed on by the end of our respective terms at the school was how totally sympathetic with that POV we'd become -- because, really, after the 163rd time you've had to justify yourself in a week, you're really just *done* with that crap. I can make a school run (and I thank God that I'm finally back there, back at a place of faith in myself, even if I'd never try to do it alone again), but let me tell you, I'mma be putting someone else out front to talk to the mundanes. 'Cause I do not have the patience for it.