Crow’s Feet Writing Prompt #53

Reflections of a Life-Longer Who Loves Learning New Skills

Ain’t No Stopping Me Now!

I consider myself a life-long learner.

I’ve always loved the learning aspect of school. The teasing, cliques, and pressure to compete, not so much.

As kids, when we weren’t pretending our bunk beds were a boat, we played school. The game was to act out the mischief we never dared at real school. And to get each other to laugh so hard that tears and snot streamed down our faces. I began learning comedy at that tender age.

For my tenth birthday, I asked for a microscope. Our fifth-grade science teacher took us down to the ocean and had us fill mason jars with seawater. We took turns peering at drops of it under the microscope we had at the old army barracks our school was in.

A whole new world opened up for me.

All kinds of one-cell critters crossed the lens, some with cilia propelling them. Others just floated by. We saw through their membranes to the nuclei that substituted for brains. We saw them eat without mouths by surrounding their food and absorbing it into their bodies. While we didn’t see them have sex, we saw them reproduce by subdividing.

I was smitten

Made up my mind then and there to become a marine biologist. Loved going to aquaria every chance I got, making friends with marine invertebrates. You know, sea cucumbers, starfish, and octopi.

In 2012, I spent two weeks in Houston with my brother-in-law, while he recovered from a bone marrow transplant. It was towards the end of his three-month hitch so we got out and about. We went to the Downtown Aquarium for dinner. No, we didn’t have to do our own fishing, they had a restaurant.

While looking at their exhibits, I caught a docent discussing the Giant Pacific Octopus they had in a way too-tiny tank. Octopi are smart critters, great at opening containers and solving simple puzzles. We got to play with some of the toys this octopus seemed to enjoy.

By the way, they’re famous for figuring out how to get out of their tanks, slither over to another tank, have dinner, and slither back.

Once home, I ordered every book on Octopi I could find, including a novel, Remarkably Bright Creatures, narrated by, you guessed it, an octopus. It saddens me they’re considered good eating. I consider them one of my spirit animals.

Sadly, I never became a marine biologist

Or the special education teacher I intended to become. I went to Ohio University specifically for that program but ended up dropping out my sophomore year, before taking any education classes.

Why?

I was active in left-wing politics. Not just protesting the Vietnam War and marching for women’s rights.

One of my professors turned our sociology class into a study of Marxism. Instead of cultural norms, we discussed the dictatorship of the proletariat. Here’s the irony: If we took the teachings seriously and believed the working class was key to revolutionary change, what were we doing in college? We belonged in the unions, on the picket lines, etc.

So guess what I did?

I quit school, moved to the city, and became a nurse’s aide. Which involved six weeks of skill learning. In the classroom and on the job. Thermometers (remember those?), blood pressure cuffs, pulse-taking, bed pans, hospital corners, and the like.

I also studied the history of the U.S. labor movement and principles of organization so I could organize a union at my workplace.

All the while, I participated in a Marxist study group. The outfit that ran it encouraged me to move to the Bay Area, where I could be in a real union, and continue my studies. I did. And even met my husband in the study group.

He had a Ph.D. in biochemistry and worked at a local wastewater treatment plant as an eco-cop. A socially vital role. No one in leadership ever suggested he ditch that for a “real” working-class job. Thank God. But then again, he was one of the leaders.

He would have supported me had I gone back to school. Would that I’d taken him up on that generous offer while I had the chance.

Instead, I ended up learning about addiction the hard way. Direct experience. Which then gave me a golden opportunity to learn about recovery. Also by immersion. Great life lessons. I did take classes at the University of California Berkeley’s continuing education program, getting a certificate in Drug and Alcohol Studies.

I imagined I’d work in that field. But when I learned how poorly peer counselors were paid, I stayed in my occupational therapy aide job. We did start a support group for patients working on sobriety, allowing me to work in the field after all.

Shifting into retirement

In 2016 I retired from the county.

But did not stop learning. Just shifted gears.

I had my eye on an outfit called Stagebridge–the country’s premier performing arts school for adults 50 and over. Since their classes take place during the day, I couldn’t start till I retired.

And start I did.

I took improv, acting, directing, clowning, playwriting, and stand-up comedy. Improv was hard at first, but I’d been taking a class on Saturdays. I was used to thinking on my feet or saying the first thing that came to my mind before having a chance to think. And I loved physical comedy–you know, silly stuff like pratfalls.

Clown class taught us tons of ways to fall on our asses and make folks laugh. We held showcases so friends got to meet and greet yours truly as Duddles, my sad and silly clown persona.

Improv got easier and easier the more I did it. Clowning and puppetry were tons of fun.

Stand-up comedy was hard. So hard that I almost quit. If my teacher, storyteller, and Moth Radio Hour host, Corey Rosen hadn’t reached out to me personally, I would have. But thanks to his support, I hung in there, crafted my four-minute routine, learned it more or less, and performed it on Zoom for an audience of — gasp — 70.

Normally I love to perform. I read poetry at open mics all the time. But this required memorization. Or, in my case, cheat sheets, which I pulled off only because we were on Zoom. Now I appreciate the talents of Whoopi, Billy, Robin, and other masters all the more.

My biggest recent investment in learning has been in writing and blogging. For that, I have to thank Shaunta Grimes and her Ninja Writers Club. She’s the reason I’m here on this platform. Not only that, she’s a first-class fiction writer and editor. She understands the characters in my novel in progress, Man Pregnant! almost better than I do. And the blessing is, she’s teaching me what she knows.

How to enhance dialogue, create suspense, and develop the emotional interiority of a character. She’s also taught me and others how to turn blog posts into ebooks. And get them out into the world.

Not only have I written two guides for her Ninja Writers Press series, but I’ve done two books on my own. Bucket Listers: Get Your Brave On, and Developing Characters: Fun Ways to Cast Your Fiction.

I’m seventy years old now.

And I don’t plan to stop learning any time soon.

In fact, I have some skills on my bucket list I still need to learn:

~ How to clean my room and keep it clean. ~ How to say no and make it stick. ~ And how to age gracefully.

Fortunately, my comrades at Crow’s Feet are showing me how to do that.

Many thanks, Robin James, for asking this question promptly:

Marilyn Flower’s a sacred fool who writes fiction, poetry, and blogs, inspired by the practice of SoulCollage®. Her books: Developing Characters: Fun Ways to Cast Your Fiction, Creative Blogging, Bucket Listers. Follow her Sacred Foolishness or SoulCollage® for Writers, and Stay in touch!

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