So, I don't know if you've noticed, but I actually write a lot about this place where I volunteer. I'm starting to feel like the hours spent writing about it outnumber the hours spent there. It makes me question my own motives. Why do I really go there, and who do I go for? I know it's always been an essentially selfish enterprise; it's always been about purchasing, for the price of a few hours and a few packs of beads, some moral assurance for the week, some proof that I am a Good Person. It's what allows me to pass right by the rest of the homeless people on the street, or to read about atrocities in other countries, and to think, "Well, I'm doing all I can."
But it's got to be more than that -- there was a real desire to go back, after I took a few months off to deal with Samantha's illness. First I didn't want to go back at all, and then suddenly I felt like, You know what, I miss it. And since then, I haven't had a single bad shift there; they've all been mellow and fruitful, they've all made me feel calmer and saner by the end of the night than when I walked in.
Which is still a selfish motive.
The worst problem is the feeling that I'm being exploitative by writing about my experiences. Because they're not just my experiences, they're the experiences of the girls. The stories are all about me -- because I think we've established by now that everything is about me, at least to myself -- but I feel like I'm stealing something, almost, or getting away with something. I hear about a girl whose mother was killed by a stalker in their neighborhood, another who's been in fourteen foster homes; I hear someone say something, like, I don't want everybody knowing my government, or I thought I loved her until she stabbed me in the arm, and I think, I've got to write that down.
Maybe it's the aspect of cultural appropriation that makes me uneasy. I once did a reading in front of 60 well-dressed white people and one black man, who told me afterwards he felt uncomfortable with the way the audience tittered when I spoke dialogue in the girls' voices. He made it clear that he didn't think I was being disrespectful or derogatory to the girls, and he felt both my motives and message were sound. But he wanted to make me more sensitive to people's reactions to the way the girls speak. I feel like I might have played it for laughs in the past, with the post I wrote called "Where the pee comes from" -- that always got big laughs from audiences. Now it is officially retired.
But I'm still always cooing over all the residents' "delighftul street argot," aren't I? I can't fucking help it. I am a word geek. As a writer, to hear new words spoken, most of them so poetic and apt -- I could sit and listen all night. I tell myself I'm preserving it, I'm celebrating it, and I am. But I'm also profiting off of it, creatively, if not financially.
It seems clear that I should donate to the shelter a portion of the proceeds of any book or article based on my experiences volunteering there. Your thoughts?
My novel (chapter 10 is done) is dedicated to:
the couple who inspired it--my friend and her cheating husband
the couple who helped me experience it--the married man and his wife
and another couple who taught me to believe that marriage is not impossible and love truly does exist.
I am almost positive the dedication is meant to appease me in whatever guilt I feel for raping the lives of everyone I know.
Posted by: satia | Feb 10, 2006 at 05:59 AM
What plans do you have for the girls' stories besides putting them here or entertaining people with them at readings? How much can you afford to donate from the book to the shelter? Can you use the book cash to buy more beads?
I think the best thing you do is go to the shelter and talk to the girls. For however long you're there, you distract them from the truly awful things they have to deal with. You also exist as someone who has been where they are now and got themselves out.
Your actions are not exploitative if you use what you get from them for the common (yours and the girls') good.
Don't be Leo Tolstoy and give away your fortune to the beggars in the streets. Remain the presence you have been, maybe start a writing program at the shelter?
Posted by: Jennifer Glick | Feb 10, 2006 at 10:15 AM
>> -- because I think we've established by now that everything is about me,
I am so glad someone else thinks that way.
Posted by: GeeNetZie | Feb 10, 2006 at 01:09 PM
have you seen the movie capote? see it. you're not him. but all writers "use". it's a matter of degree and intention. and it seems you are in the safety zone in that regard. i second the idea of starting a writing program for those girls. let them write about you! imagine.
Posted by: aisha | Feb 10, 2006 at 02:37 PM
okay a writing program and perhaps a blog? where you publish their writing online for them (since i assume this is something many of them are not in a position to do for themselves)?
and you could bring them back the comments?
Posted by: glowlita | Feb 10, 2006 at 06:19 PM
Well, you all give such keen, generous, and helpful advice, as usual, and I am thinking very hard about how I want my work and my volunteering to co-exist and support each other. I love the idea of facilitating the girls' own expression. The shelter isn't too keen on the internet, as it's notoriously hard to monitor, and all these at-risk kids are more vulnerable than most to online predators, but that doesn't mean we couldn't put out a zine...
Hmmmmmm...
Posted by: girlbomb | Feb 11, 2006 at 02:50 PM
Good idea, that.
Posted by: Éireann | Feb 12, 2006 at 03:21 PM
VERY good idea, I think, the 'zine.
Posted by: Sarah L Fisch | Feb 13, 2006 at 05:23 AM
i guess i was thinking you could take their stuff and post it for them. they don't have the internet, but you do. you could even papercast it so you don't have to retype.
the benefits of digital are that you save trees & postage & enable comments. plus instant gratification. :)
papercasting: http://papercasting.dendro.com/?page_id=49
Posted by: glowlita | Feb 14, 2006 at 02:41 PM
Glow, those are definitely benefits -- the disadvantage would be that most of the girls wouldn't be able to see their own work, and I love th "permanence" of paper. But we could do a paper zine and papercast it...
I'll be bummed out if things get so hectic that I have to take another break from volunteering, but I could see it happening in March.
Posted by: girlbomb | Feb 14, 2006 at 09:57 PM
yheah yheah! do that.
i wasn't thinking about them not being able to see it.
you smaht.
:)
Posted by: glowlita | Feb 15, 2006 at 02:50 PM