Make the Fist-Fights Count

Several years ago, when I was juggling part-time teaching jobs, I found myself at a loose end over summer.  In need of cash, I agreed to help out at a nursery for kids.  I'd never worked with two-year-olds before, but took to it easily -- when you've sorted out fist-fights between raucous teens, you can pretty much bring the peace with folks of any age.  It was the cleaning up of vomit, the setting toddlers down to rest that really made me learn!  Often, I'd find myself asking, "Why am I doing this?  Why not take a simpler job?  Why not temp?"

Yet strangely enough, that job has given me loads of material.  I only did it for three months, yet I come back to it, in my writing, again and again.  An understanding of small kids has prompted many stories, and the cleaning jobs, in retrospect, were grim to the point of being intriguing. 

I have a rule, as an artist, and it's served me well.  Any time I get the urge to really take note of something -- no matter how banal -- I know I must do so.  It's following intuition, I guess, and it never fails me.  Often, months after I've learnt about cleaning out the penguin pen at the Boston Aquarium, or what it takes to tune a piano or check the lifts in our condo, I suddenly find a moment when these details become vital -- and it's usually when I'm writing a piece.

One of the many privileges of being a writer is they way each moment is packed with potential.  Everything we go through, everything we learn, can bring creative juice.  I love that.  What a great way to live a life?  Knowing it can all be made to count.

Postscript:  Case in point:  While I was working at that nursery, I was responsible for getting the kids to sit down for lunch, and, with thirty two- to three-year-olds, this was quite a challenge.  At one point, little J. was roaming around, staring through the windows, when he should have been seated.  "Hey J," I said.  "What you doing?"  He shot me a guilty look.  Then he puffed out his chest, like an adult might, and said, "Just checking the coat is clear."

Now how's that for a quirky little yarn? ;)