I graduated from college in 2010. It was the second time in my life the first being with my BFA in creative and professional writing. I hopped on down to Wichita because that was where I was going to get my MFA in Poetry and I was going to graduate and teach college. Open up students like myself to the "dark side" like my professor and friend of many years Susan Carol Hauser did. Unlike Dorthy, Kansas wasn't for me and like the game of monopoly I went back to start and returned to my village.
Because really was jail even an option.
I never did finish my MFA in Poetry and I don't know if I ever will. I was back in the village with no job, no money, a Discover card with my moving costs sitting on the balance, and no home-thank god my mom let me move back home.
I was a writer or at least I thought I did. I also thought I was a teacher or had the makings of one. I just didn't have the license. Unfortunately coming back to Minnesota when I did- I didn't have much time to think about hopping into Spring Semester. I lingered in the village and waited my time to start in the fall.
My family felt sorry and donated to my life to allow me to survive. My grandpa was still a fur buyer at the time and I earned money by combing coyote pelts everyday for a week. In the fur shed I would pop my earbuds in and with a big metal comb you would use on horses I would remove the blood and burrs from the coyotes my grandpa would purchase from the Northern MN trappers. It wasn't a get rich kind of job but it allowed me to get a little scratch in my pocket and I was able to meet lots of characters. Some of those "dirty minded-good ole boys club," trappers didn't have the nicest things about me in the fur shed but I just kept my head down and didn't let them know I could hear over def poetry tracks I had playing on my iPod shuffle.
When summer rolled around my grandma was experiencing pain in her back and hip so I was promoted to lawn mowing landscaper. Once a week I would walk over to the farm which was less than a mile from my house and have lunch with the farmers and visit with my grandma and then out to the lean-to to unearth the john deer lawn mower. I would pop in my ear buds turn the lawn mower to rabbit and time would fly.
My evening would be occupied by talking to my friend from eHarmony(who later becomes my husband) and playing yahoo literati which was the yahoo version of scrabble. I always loved the word games.
Now fast forward to 2016. I am village adjacent by 45 minutes. I work everyday between 8-14 hours a day. I am a sub and I wear an orange apron to get me through life. I have been offered different positions in my retail life and I would go backwards. I am a sub because it allows me to be adjacent to my teaching passion that the degree on the wall says.
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