I hate it when people I hate are right... and I'm wrong.

Part 2 of my precious fantasy, interrupted.  

So, I started a creative writing program at the Foster School campus.  I was TB tested, fingerprinted and interviewed, but not nearly as much as I expected to be. I guess if you aren't yet a hardened, fingerprinted criminal you can work with troubled children until you become one.  I did everything cheerily, knowing it was a 'good thing to do' and until the night before the first class the good thing feeling sustained me until I realized I had nothing to teach. No games, no ideas, no clues whatsoever.  

So I got a stomach ache and decided to cancel the whole thing. It was a terrible idea. I'm no teacher, especially of heavily medicated children who look 9, speak like they are 5 and are in fact 14... I stayed up all night and scoured the internet for writing exercises for children- that was a bust. Most writing exercises were created for children with the basic luxuries of parents, homes, bedrooms, and annoying siblings to write about. So, my partner (an equally over achieving, guilt ridden enabler) made up writing games that avoided the landmines of parents and home. 

We drove there, terrified that some random word like 'rain cloud' would set off a kid into a horrific abuse shame spiral. The most cheerful negative person in the world- the Librarian greeted us like a gallows vulture. She was smiling as she showed us where some kid had busted a window in the library. She beamed at us while relating that it was a good thing no one was hit by flying glass, but I could tell she almost wished more mayhem had been caused. She was aching for stitches and I was kinda itching to help her out with that.

As the kids filed in Librarian grinned at us to not say "no" to the kids as that was most likely to set them off. Soon we were outnumbered with the equivalent of 8th graders. I was stunned that no one sat there with arms crossed, sullenly hating our assumed authority. And then I realized- these kids are hungry for whatever they can get. They don't have the luxury of parents to complain about or teachers to bitch about- anyone who wants to give them a moment's time is okay by them. They all jumped in the big artsy mud puddle as best they could. Until we realized one big thing. They didn't know how to make stuff up. They had no imaginations to speak of.

Foster kids don't have regulars kids' imaginations. They haven't had the time, safety, comfort or well-ordered stability that brings on the sheer boredom which lulls "normal" kids into making crap up so that time passes faster. Of course, as I was to discover- some foster kids lie pathologically, which is a form of imaginative creativity, and an attempt to control their lives, and it's scary.

So, our biggest task was goading the kids into tap into their imaginations. And they really did respond and write. And some weeks we left there sobbing, other times we left ebullient. My Precious  blew us away with her soulful words, her neat rows of self inflicted scars, and her occasional bouts with sickle cell anemia. 

She asked my partner to adopt her- which made my partner and I both have to take long naps after class. The collected heartbreak of 16 injured children is exhausting. Sure, it felt like we were playing Simon Says on the Titanic... what will happen to these kids when they inevitably age out of the foster system? We didn't know and we knew we couldn't take them all home- "Mom, this 5 foot 11 inch two hundred pound African American 14 year old followed me home. Can I keep her?" But we couldn't stop. 

The cheerful negative Librarian kept encouraging us with warnings like "You think you know these kids just because you spend one hour a week with them."  But kept inviting us back week after week. We even made books with the kids. They were so proud of their hand made books. Cheerful Negative Librarian grinned as she told us to be careful to not publish anything as the kids most likely were copying ideas read elsewhere. My partner and I cackled over how horribly consistent Cheerful Negative Librarian always managed to be.

After my Precious made her gorgeous heartbreaking poetry book I  became determined to get her on Oprah- I had visions of foster kid poetry books and college scholarships and even... yes... I dreamt of making Precious my child. My fiance was very lovely as he listened to me go on and on about her- friends were either very encouraging (Adopt her! All these kids need is love!) or they told me I was a hot box of crazy for even thinking of endangering a new marriage with a seriously unwell and self-injuring teenager. "Your fiance wants a baby. You agreed to adopt a baby. Stick to the plan..."

My fiance, who really does want a baby, finally told me he wanted to meet her. As visions of My Precious Blind Side movie played in my head I met with her case worker, in order to become her special friend. I tried not to tear up as I asked how long my Precious might be expected to live with her sickle cell anemia... and was met with a silent wince. 

Now, having seen enough episodes of "Judging Amy", I was prepared for a jaded social worker who was over-worked and a tad indifferent to her clients (who can forget Mariah Carey's harrowing, mustachioed turn in "Precious"?)- but I was not prepared to hear- "She's not sick." 

I stared at the case worker's frogs- she has two mini frogs in a bowl on her desk. "They eat like once a week and I only have to change their water once a month. Easier pets ever." I stammered, "But she just showed me the injection site where she got platelets over Christmas break."  Case worker smiled sadly at me. I must have looked so crestfallen that my Precious didn't have sickle cell anemia. My stomach dropped like I was on a log flume. "She's not sick? But that's great! But she lies and hurts herself and that's not great. But she's an amazing poet. I'm determined to help her--"

Again a wince. A slow, pity-ful wince. (Pity-full, as in full of pity for me.) "Precious is... talented... but she plagiarizes. From Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul." This was now a punch to the gut. Not only is my Precious a pathological liar but her stunning poetry is hacked from one of the cheesiest book franchises ever to darken literature's door... and all I can think is... what does this say about me??? And my taste in poetry???

While I hold my head in my hands, I find out my Precious has cut herself, on her head- 5 stitches. She told everyone she fell in the shower, but that's untrue.  She's under one on one lock and key, which means she is never allowed alone- and I'm given the choice to not pursue becoming her special friend. But I do. My only warning- don't confront her lies. She will flip out.

As my Precious Blind Side child fantasy crumbles, I walk to Target. It's Precious's birthday, and that is the truth.  I buy her earrings and some silver glitter nail polish. I visit her and Darius, her shadow. She beams when she sees me and beams even brighter when regaling me with the details of her seizure, which led to her skull fracture and her stitches. She was proud of her handiwork. I just said, "Wow. Well, I want you to stop having accidents, okay? I don't want you hurt." Precious nodded solemnly. 

"Sometimes accidents happen to me. And I get hurt. It's not my fault." And sometimes love can't fix everything or everyone. I had to admit to myself I was out of my depth. This damaged young woman needs so much more than what I can give. And she may never find it. Her desperation for a family is completely mitigated by how she damages herself with lies and box-cutters.

We sat together and I looked around her 'house' at the bedrooms, the common rooms and the attempts for it to resemble a regular old home. And as Precious painted my nails silver I thought about the mini frogs that thrive on neglect.

a precious fanstasy, disrupted

Am typing this without glasses, at 4 am in Dublin. Waiting for the Advil PM to do the job the Unisom clearly wasn't up to. A sleepgel that doesn't deliver on the zzzzzs is a cruel placebo indeed. So there will be typos. Not quite as majestic a statement as there will be blood, but there might be some of that as well if I don't get some bloody sleep.  But until sleep clobbers me over the head with a felt covered hammer, i will write, without being able to see particularly clearly. Which may be fitting.

Am wandering into dangerous territory, but was already there and my bleeding heart didn't know it.  In my eternal quest for limp, hearing impaired animals to rescue, in between bouts of falling in love with damaged job-averse boy-men, I've always has a soft spot for wounded children.  I have an infallible eye of which I'm dubiously proud. I can walk into any store and immediately spot the most expensive shoe, purse or blouse. I also can walk into a room full of people and attract (and be attracted to) the most inappropriate man, woman or child in the room. And before long we will have become so intermeshed and I will be so incapable of extricating myself that I will have to change my phone number or move to another state to be free.  I'm really not proud of this quality, so forgive me if I sound like I'm bragging.It's a disease and facing it is the first step. So, consider this an over-share, those of you who live by the grace of twelve steps. And for those of you in the program, you'll sense a perverse satisfaction in revealing just how macabre I can be about my own disease- like a sober man who can longingly, lovingly recall his last sip of scotch in almost pornographic detail.

And like any addict, recovering or not so much, we addicts continually throw ourselves into the environment that most enables us to indulge our addictions. Like when I decided, during a particularly nagging bout of unemployment, to assist my mother in her Spanish Harlem Kindergarten class.  To be perfectly penitent, I walked or jogged from Chelsea to Spanish Harlem.  I strode right into her classroom and fell instantly in love with Oscar.  Now, due to overcrowding, I had a delectable choice of thirty or so gorgeous five year olds to fall for- ninety percent of them safely could have been considered at risk youth. But no- not me. I fell for the one child in the room who's mother had died of AIDS, who's father had it as well, and whom most likely had a dimming immune system himself.

He was crusty with dirt, had a cold and was breathing through his mouth. When a five year old's hair smells dirty, that is a child who needed a bath two weeks ago.  I sat beside him, my eyes and heart brimming. I would have pulled him into my lap if it was appropriate. He eyed me through a haze of mucus and unwellness, and he was not in the least reciprocating my feelings.  I was practically not even there.  To him.  Which of course only made me love him more. I went every day to that school and every day I sat beside Oscar, who was haunting my dreams. And every day I had to remind him who I was. That's how much of an impression I made on him. And him on me? This happened 20 years ago. I'm just now getting up the gumption to excorcize the memory. 

One day my mother had everyone draw pictures.  Oscar took one stubby little crayon after another and basically abused a piece of construction paper, mouth open, dirty hands smearing the colors into his shirt, pants, face, desk, chair, me.  When he had done this for some time, I praised his art to the heavens. I went on and on about his eye, his composition, his brave choice of colors and his unerring fearlessness to reveal what few other five year olds would dare to unleash on a piece of paper. Oscar stared at me, unblinking, hearing my praise as he was basically unable to escape me then he picked up a black crayon and covered his art with such determination as to leave me completely speechless.  Despite my pleas, Oscar erased his feeble art.  I left the classroom in tears. My mother gently suggested I never come back to her class.  And I never did.  I didn't have the guts for Kindergarten.

Cut to 20 years later. I'm personal assistant to a children's book author.  She gets a request to visit a foster school campus- where foster kids live and study- in Los Angeles county.  Since my manfriend and I at this point are discussing doing foster to adopt, I ask if I can accompany my boss to the school.  I think it might be edifying to meet children in the system.  It proved to be as edifying as hiring a druggie drunk with sex addiction issues to be Charlie Sheen's sober buddy on a field trip to the Playboy Mansion. 

The school and campus are lovely. Pretty trees bloom. The sun shines. Adorable, colorful kid art festoon the hallways. Teachers smile. Even the library is suspiciously normal- cheerful, full of books and the smell of printed paper.  Then the children enter. I'm done for. One after another shuffle in- we've been prepared. They are medicated or should be. They are victims of parental neglect, abuse, abandonment. Some are victims of worse. 

Some have been fostered and/or adopted and then returned to the system, for murky tragic reasons like having fetal alcohol syndrome and/or for having serious developmental delays that makes the fantasy of them becoming bright, amazing, adaptive, resilient adopted children just that. A fantasy.

So the children's book author reads her stories to the kids, who sit there, hunched, angry, withdrawn and defeated. I stand behind the author and watch the children watch her. They are all far too old to have these picture books read to them. It's soon clear this is the closest many of them have ever gotten or will ever get to having a bed time story read to them. Some never give in, but others melt. They comment on the illustrations as if the drawn moose was an actual creature making the choices the author wrote about.

The kids like the author and I like the kids. They crowd her for her autograph and tell her silly things about themselves, just like regular kids. But it's different and it's sad. They clearly have no one in their lives- they have employees and they have each other. Paid people impersonate their guardians. And other unwanted children are their de facto siblings.  The author couldn't wait to go home. 

I couldn't wait to go back. 

While the author took questions from the kids, and the ones who did speak offered up odd opinions about whether a moose might actually need to wear a cardigan, one girl quietly raised her hand. She was overweight, African-American and while her fingernails were gorgeously done, her forearms arms were covered in neatly arranged scars. She announced she was a poet. She recited a poem about having had a dream where she found her best friend. She didn't know where her best friend was but she knew she had one. She didn't know what her best friend looked like or what her best friend's name was. Then she looked in the mirror. And there was her best friend. 

The librarian, the author and me all welled up at that moment. It was tragic, gorgeous and brief. The author stood up to go, full of emotion she didn't want to have. And a warm feeling came over me. Quite similar to having an egg broken over my head.  

I had found my Precious.

Before anyone could stop me I was emailing the librarian. A week or so later I was back. I started a creative writing program with 2 groups of kids- one group of eighth graders and another group of high schoolers. I'm not writing this to be perceived as noble. I'm as noble as Roseanne Barr in a Hometown Buffet.  

The Advil PM is dimming my lights.

 More on Precious later.