Studio 4109

I got to do something fun last night. Epically fun by my weekend standards (see also: will I rearrange the pantry? Or will it be my sock drawer again?). I got to host an SNL-type show on campus. With a bunch of sweet, talented little cupcakes, who are also full-time college students.

Ah, 'twas so good to my soul.

Something about being back with the thespian-types. Goofy and spontaneous-like. I love the camaraderie, the encouragement, where the only competition is who gets to make the biggest blooper in front of the biggest audience.

I used to think all those things that people think about people who do theatre: how they're all shallow narcissists who can't connect with their own identity so they have to borrow ones that someone else wrote.

But the business of theater, the actual getting-down-to-the-studs exercise of performing live on stage with a bunch of other flawed humans, is one of the most edifying experiences. Rather than putting on someone else for a little while, one grows more into himself and herself. Certain unexpecteds emerge, certain trills in voices, certain resistances to making ugly faces, and one learns and grows and trusts a great deal.

I hearted last night a whole bunch.

photocredit Studio 4109

A really sparkly reason to major in journalism

I teach college journalism. It's my passion (see also: the job doing yoga and making handicrafts wasn't full-time). As our industry has evolved, the revenue base has suffered. But the need for well-trained reporters is still critical. Our need for skilled truth-tellers who ask the hard questions abides. When I have the privilege of seeing a student's talent for storytelling align with a desire to shine a bright light in dark corners--it's fantastic. Not only because our passion and paths are similar, but because the world has gained another accountability keeper. The stream of such students is unsurprisingly not busting down my door. But I teach wonderful, curious young people and it's a privilege.

And sometimes it's deliciously life-changing.

In fact, just today, I've had my first student do something pretty remarkable as a result of an assignment she completed in our Advanced Reporting class.

At the time, this student, whom I'll call Lulu, was in a long-term relationship. For her trend story, she wanted to explore local attitudes toward cohabitation before marriage. She isolated her interview pool to twentysomethings, which included a fellow who worked at a local establishment she frequented. We'll call him D.

She sat down with D. and she said the interview lasted four hours. She learned so much about this person; he became that clutch source that helped to shape her story. His candor gave her the direction and courage she needed to interview others.

Later in the semester, I asked Lulu how her relationship was going. She said things were complicated. And also, that she was mad at me. That it was all my fault, because I had assigned her a story that had made her open her eyes to the fact that D. was everything she had prayed about and hoped for.

Today, D. asked Lulu to marry him. And she said yes.

If that isn't reason to major in journalism, I don't know what is :)

Congrazzles, Lulu and D.

photocredit to Lauren's crew

The Wonder Years

The wisdom of the sitcom series "The Wonder Years," now streaming on Netflix for my procrastination enjoyment, is the parallel between the main character Kevin Arnold's coming-of-age and the U.S. as a young nation navigating some tumultuous times. If this were a literary essay, I would generously bandy about the words bildungsroman and juxtapose so that I sound very proffy indeed.

But this is not for a grade.

[showmyads]

As I rewatch Kevin Arnold fumble as an adolescent, scored by his retrospective as an adult, I see how the opposite is mostly true for me. I was not a young person who stammered or who minced words. I look back at my younger life and I regret more the things I said than the things left unspoken. As Jane Austen writes in Sense and Sensibility (This is not a literary essay? Surrrre, Kennndra.), I didn't know how to govern my tongue. I was blunt and often biting. I thought sarcasm was a high shelf brand of humor, rather than the lowest form.

There was one time in high school, in particular, when there was a boy who was interested in me, and let's be honest, I think he was interested in getting some action, which--c'mon. Barking up the wrong tree, bro.

He dropped me off after taking me to a horror film (1-800-CLICHE) and I think he was expecting something from me. So, I said. "Yeah, I think I'm gonna go inside because I just put flannel sheets on my bed."

Which to him probably meant, Oh, you guys, I can't even imagine.

But I was just over here, YAAAY, I'll be warm and toasty in my flannels all night long!

That relationship sort of fizzled a couple weeks later. What I congratulate myself for that time was a resolve to just be true to myself.

This has not been the problem, however. Being true to who I am has not been my struggle. It is more the words that I have used to convey the truths that have been so troubling. There are so many words I wish I could catch with a butterfly net and cast back into the ocean. I trust that my God can do the work I am not able to do....

Take a wild guess --who am I? ***

Yesterday Baby Girl and I were talking to one of the high schoolers who works at the gym. After the high school gal passed, Baby Girl implored, "Mama? I notice some spots on her face. Why are they still there?" I asked if she meant freckles. "No, they're red." Ah. Those are called zits, I explained, and I said that sometimes people's skin gets them but then they go away.

That was probably a poor explanation. Seriously, it was all I could do not to say, OH honey. Mommy's skin is still an oilspill in her twirties. Do you SEE this? But one thing struck me. My girl asked me privately as to the blemishes of another. There was so much wisdom in that moment and I wanted to place my girl on a conveyer belt headed toward adulthood and say, Just stay on this track of judicious and well-timed words, my sweet one. And just step to the right if others need to get by.

But she's still has a few wonder years ahead of her to figure all that out. I just pray that those who stand in front of her continue to keep her on track. And I pray that she'll allow herself to look back every now and again from whence she came.