I am a writer. It is my calling and who I am.
That is NOT however, currently my profession.
Currently I am teacher. (I would appreciate any and no one stopping off at the cliche wheel for the “those who can’t..” metaphor.)
So here I am, with a perfectly good STRING of writing credits, heaps of experience, two and and change unpublished novels and an upside-down mortgage. And I’m suddenly overtaken with panic. I am not working as a writer. I am not working as a writer!
I have to say, though it isn’t fair: I am starting to relate to the guy, David, who has now found himself living in the tent city in Sacramento:
“Trying to get back on my feet, you know. Daily, I still go out looking for a job. But the thing I’m running into is when I put the application in they ask me, ‘Where do you live at?’ And I go, ‘Actually, I don’t have a place to live. I’m homeless.’ That’s it. They don’t hire me.” –– David Cutch, quoted on NPR
I wake up everyday to the words of NPR reporters: “downturn” “recession” “struggles” “losses” “foreclosures.” There are “Ponzi”s and “bailouts” with “disgraced” financiers and “outraged” people worrying over whether we’ve been “tricked” by AIG, or “duped” by GM or “wiped out” by Citigroup.
Hey, I can tell you something– I am a writer and I know what words do to you. They take from being a welder, like David Cutch, and living the American Dream (“owning” his own home), working hard and paying his bills, to being NOTHING — a throw-back “Hooverville-ite,” reduced to the status of dog by the sorry term “homeless.”
In case you are worried you’ll miss the apocalyptic bankers leaping out the windows–the way we all read about from the 1929 Black Tuesday– don’t worry. We’ll have plenty of warning. Our newscrews will be poised, with Newschoppers above and all manner of HD and stop-action recording devices below, to ensure we don’t miss the sound of bones cracking and brains smearing on the pavement.
Meanwhile, I can’t imagine why my writing is sputtering through camera-shutter stops. Or why no one is reading the papers. And we don’t want to know what is in the news. And why the world wishes its writers would just shut the hell up, anyhow.
In a rapid and strategic move to tamp down the fallout, Obama also announced Monday that he has instructed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to “pursue every legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole.” Geithner last week had already confronted AIG chief Edward Liddy about the payouts.” –quoted from NPR
It’s a long way to tent city from there.
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