Workshop with the Seniors

Poets & Writers contracted me to teach an 8 week creative writing workshop to senior citizens, starting today! The last time they asked me to teach a senior workshop was 4 years ago, when I first moved to NYC. I adored that experience, and it will forever leave a sweet place in my memory, especially when I think of Bobbi Lynn, a woman with cerebral palsey and the heart of a warrior. Man, her pen was fierce! Bobbi Lynn went on to publish a memoir, which she had originally started in my class.

Needless to say, I was thrilled when P&W called me up again after all this time to offer another such experience. When I walked into the center, the director of senior services informed me that my workshop was going to have stiff competition--bingo. I couldn't help but smile at that. She then pointed me to a room at the end of the long vibrant hallway; she called it the therapy room. Another smile spread across my face. How fitting.

There, in the therapy room, I was greeted by a handful of people twice my age with shiny eyes, their notebooks open and ready. We fell right into lively, stimulating discussion. In a matter of minutes we traveled from Catholicism to health care to the Korean war, thanks to our veteran in the room. By the vibrations I felt like we were on our fifth week of workshop, not the first.

They had been craving this workshop ever since December, when the last one ended. Needless to say, the exchange of gratitude was the sweetest currency. Immediately I felt their trust, their trust of my expertise. They are just so open, so generous, and so game, ready to have fun with language. They brought the world to the table; everything, that got them to that point is game. Intoxicating it was to be in their presence.

I have always had an affinity for older people. I think its partly because by the time I reached 10, all four of my grandparents were dead; two of them died before I was even born. It is a void I have always walked with. What I also admire is their understanding of who they are, what they are made of and generally they could give two shits about what other people think.

We had a fun lesson today, and composed six word memoirs. Here are a few I wrote:

"Left Trinidad age seven. Returned American."

and along the same theme:

"Returned home after 20 years. Myself."

and another:

"Using the pen as a microphone."


The two hours flew. I left there smiling so hard, I thought my face was going to crack in two. I look forward to next week, and all of the wonderful writing that will emerge into the world as a result of this divine time. God knows we need it.