While Waiting for Class

I write this while sitting at a table in Northampton Community College cafeteria. I’ve just finished my supper – turkey sandwich and carrot cake (well it WAS carrot….).
I watch the next generation walk around me, chattering or listening to iPods and feel the “odd woman out”.
I’ve been an on again, off again NCC student for nearly forty years. I originally “went back to school” after getting my RN, a couple of years before Heather was born. After that blessed event I continued, sporadically.
I really didn’t want a BSN. I wanted to be in academia. I wanted to be around people who wanted to learn. Okay, I know….a community college? Well, that was what I could afford all those years ago – before my growing pregnancy kept me from fitting into the small desks.
Life eventually intruded and I never got the degree – but I continued to darken NCC’s doors.
Almost twenty years ago I was back at NCC taking an adult ed class on “writing your first novel”. (Note: Twenty years and three novels later – still unpublished). Juilene McKnight was the instructor and she became a friend. Google her or look her up on Amazon – she’s published.
Tonight I’m back again – this time for a CSI course – something different – something I thought might help my mystery writing – but mainly I wanted something different.
Juilene used to say that everything was “grist for the mill” – every experience, every emotion are all things that can be mined for one’s writing.
I’m taking two other classes: How to be an eBay Powerseller and How to Start Your Own Pet-sitting Business. Heck – I’m not going to be an RN forever.
But I will be a writer forever and most writers need a second income.
Selling on eBay or scooping kitty poo – don’t care. As long as I have time to write.
And maybe take another class – history, I think, or English Lit…..