When I was in graduate school outside of New York City, I banded together with two other volunteers to teach a Friday afternoon writing class to middle school kids in a nearby homeless shelter. Kate, a New York Times writer and the mother of tweens, provided insight into the middle school mind. Kim, a poet, showered the kids with metaphors and unconditional love. I, the essayist, was the disciplinarian.
The kids lived behind security doors, played on concrete and often did poorly in school. But every Friday afternoon, we found them crowded by our meeting-room door. They gobbled up our exercises, taught us their vocabulary, performed raps and mined memories. There were days we painfully coaxed words out of them and days we couldn’t get them to sit down. But we always left feeling we’d done something good.
One Friday morning, I opened the Westchester Journal News to discover there had been a drug bust at their facility the night before. I recognized the surnames of several kids in our class, and realized their parents had been arrested. We didn’t expect to see those kids anytime soon. Sure enough, a good half of our class that day was in protective custody.
But the next week, they were back. They sat huddled in parkas with hoods drawn over their faces. They did not write. They did not talk. But they were there.
Their very presence taught me so much: that trust is a gift, that creativity can be a haven, that nothing can be taken for granted—which is why the fact that three ordinary women showed up every Friday afternoon, without fail, supplying love, understanding and a few good rules, was terribly important.
There is no greater teacher than life, and the stories in our “Live and Learn” issue reflect just that. Take a lesson from Connie Mettille, a Winona woman who relearned to walk and talk after a serious car accident, and who has done so with grace and gratitude. Learn the secrets of marriage from Hazel and Ortis Price, who boast 72 years of experience. See life through the eyes of a family living with autism, in which each day is a new lesson in living. Discover how to educate yourself in local classrooms, in dancing lessons, on family trips and neighborhood associations. And celebrate with us our 50th issue of Coulee Region Women as we share our own life lessons. We look forward to publishing many more!
As you do, stop to consider not only what you can learn, but what others are learning from you, often by your very presence. When it comes to living, and learning, we all have something valuable to share.
Betty Christiansen
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