Twist my arm

I saw an 'employment facilitator' today. Now, people are hired to ease one into an employable state, including resume review, interview technique critique, assessment of dress etc. According to Greg, my facilitator, my resume did not reveal my nature.

Somehow, I doubt that my employability in my chosen niche would be possible if I was truly honest about my strengths. I am attempting to be a chameleon. Obviously, my persona does not match my resume. The job counselor repeatedly asked me what I wanted. He urged me to ask for what I want, to divulge my wants; my successes must be revealed in my resume. This 'sales pitch' is supposed to reap an interview, cultivate a match between employer and me. I have doubts.

I am supposed to type. I can type, except when I have carpal tension. I type what others say; perhaps this is the reason for my growing resistance to this 'skill'. This is indeed a dilemma.


For some reason, I am becoming nostalgic.

I remember writing on top of my parents roof. I would climb the television tower erected to the east side of the house. The country village where I grew up was not within the appropriate range for a signal to allow multiple channels without this construction. I remember the excitement of climbing the metal ladder up the tower level to the middle of the roof peak. I held my notebook and pen in my mouth as I endured vertigo. I had to swing to the roof leaving one foot on the ladder, reach to the gritty shingles, and push off from the ascent with the tip of my toes of my left foot while reaching the edge of the precipice with my left, corduroyed knee. A forced roll into the hot ,sticky surface, scrunching my 'scribbler' completed this deft acrobatic technique. I loved writing from this perch, which gave me an expansive view of our acres.

I also have a vivid memory of writing on the river's edge I 'discovered' a short walk from our home.

Our street was a gravel road. Walking east to the far end near the bridge to Main Street, I veered to the dirt trail that took me to the railway crossing that transversed the Icelandic River. The village had dumped huge slabs of concrete, discarded sidewalk broken into chunks to fortify the river's edge. Beautifying the waterfront entailed ripping out all the willows that had secured the flow of the river. As a make-shift solution, these masses lined the area that held the trestles supporting the railway. I would sit in this secluded spot, dismayed at the corruption, the dissemination of the beauty that once enlivened the water's edge. Here, I wrote poetry.

Now I write using a word processor. Yet, poetry is best when writing by hand.