Lost Causes and Other Defects of Character

Another semester of pushing the river has begun. This time I have the nice problem to have of teaching a class on prison writing. Now that should be a wonderful thing, and it is. But it's not coming together like it might. I want it to be too many things: reading about issues related to mass incarceration, creating community projects to address the situation, convening workshops to practice what it is we do in the prison workshops, getting guest speakers, making it fun, and on and on. I just can't see how to make it all work for one thing. And the actual workshops are floundering for lack of bodies. People like the idea of going into a prison on Saturdays to work on writing, but don't so much actually want to give up weekends. I can't blame them for that. Point here is that all of this may fizzle because I can't get the program or the class together is a way that works. There is this giant gap between the way I want things to be and the way they are. I don't organize well enough or have the leadership chops to inspire people. Just sayin'. This shooting for the hardest job with the lowest pay, the one that will likely never work out, is just another in the long line of defects that have plagued this crazy life. As that begins to wind down I am left with not much to show for a circuitous mess of trying to make a diff. My head hurts from so much banging against the wall.