(no subject)
It's been a long week at a child abuse conference. Imagine a week of classes filled with all the horrible ways that people can hurt children. It's awful, but probably one of the conferences I most look forward to every year. It's always amazing to me how much I still have to learn after doing this for such a long time. And it's nice to have a week where I can see that there are literally hundreds of people who speak my language, have the same nightmares, the same frustrations....
The only disappointment I had was overhearing a DFPS worker (from another state, thankfully) talking about the families she deals with as "those" people. She was talking about the kids too. "Those" kids. It was a jarring reminder of how marginalized these poor wee things are, how fucked from the very beginning, and how there are still bureaucratic creeps in the world who truly believe that these kids should be able to just get their shit together. Never mind all the issues of poverty, class, race, etc. I really wanted to punch her right in her puckered, self-righteous face. Instead I just politely asked her name and where she worked. Heartfelt and disappointed letter to her supervisor to follow shortly.
It's when I spend weeks like this that I realize why my writing tends to be sappy and focused, perhaps overly so, on love and loyalty...on every corny beautiful thing in the world. It's because I tend to write as a counterbalance to what I see that is heartbreaking and monstrous. It is my soul's cure for all the muck.
So please forgive my sometimes annoyingly keen eye for the loveliness in all of you. It truly is what keeps me breathing most days.
The only disappointment I had was overhearing a DFPS worker (from another state, thankfully) talking about the families she deals with as "those" people. She was talking about the kids too. "Those" kids. It was a jarring reminder of how marginalized these poor wee things are, how fucked from the very beginning, and how there are still bureaucratic creeps in the world who truly believe that these kids should be able to just get their shit together. Never mind all the issues of poverty, class, race, etc. I really wanted to punch her right in her puckered, self-righteous face. Instead I just politely asked her name and where she worked. Heartfelt and disappointed letter to her supervisor to follow shortly.
It's when I spend weeks like this that I realize why my writing tends to be sappy and focused, perhaps overly so, on love and loyalty...on every corny beautiful thing in the world. It's because I tend to write as a counterbalance to what I see that is heartbreaking and monstrous. It is my soul's cure for all the muck.
So please forgive my sometimes annoyingly keen eye for the loveliness in all of you. It truly is what keeps me breathing most days.