Words of Honey

Today I taught two drama classes of about 40 kids each.

AAAAAH!

I don't ever remember being so unfocused and rowdy. I remember going to drama class at age 8 (these were 3rd and 4th graders) and studying my lines when I played Watson in Crucible of Blood while doing "Kids On Stage." And I remember taking notes, and focusing on my breath, and making clever and imaginative choices. And most of all, listening to the teacher. I handled these rambuctous(spelling?) kids just fine, though I threw out all my deeper theater stuff early on and did the "Banana" exercise with them which they kept wanting to do. At times, I wished they were high schoolers and really comitted to making the sounds I asked them to make, and making a proper circle (why can't kids stand in a proper circle?).

I always though I was good with kids, I've taught them many times....Mission Possible....Youth Camp....Afterschool Program I helped create with American Leadership Forum....etc, but I doubted myself so much on the way home. Maybe I come off too agressive now. Maybe I expect too much. Have I grown out of my ability to teach children?

The wierd thing is they somehow get attached to me (sort of how cats come how love me though I am TERRIBLY allergic to them.) They walked out of the room asking me to come back next week(I was just a substitute teacher) and having them try to teach me to whistle and offer me their snacks.

Who knows. I particularly feel agressive today because last night a friend tried to make me accept a judgment he had of me, and I just wouldn't take it. This has happened twice now:

In conversation I say something like: See, I believe that once a show opens its no longer the directors play, it's the actors andthey arent necessarily doing what the director told them to, because in the end he/she can only do so much, they take it from there.

FRIEND: See, there you go...you always have a way fo putting words into my mouth when we're arguing.

ME: What do you mean?

FRIEND: I never said otherwise about directors.

ME: I never said you did, I was just telling you what I thought.

FRIEND: But you twist it so you put it in my mouth, when we're arguing.

ME: Uh, I wasn't arguing, I know you didn't say that, I was just telling you what I though.

FRIEND: But you're talking to me, which means that whatever you say was a reaction to what I say and I never said that.

MEL Uh, that's not always true, quit taking it personally.

FRIEND: I'm not taking it personally, you just need to realize what you always do in arguments and how you're not aware of how you manipulate things.

ME: We weren't arguing! I know you didn't say that! I was talking about my beliefs without it having to do with yoU! So if you take it personally it's not about me it's about you and Ihave NOTHING to do with that.

FRIEND: You just can't accept your part in this.

ME: I have no part.

FRIEND: I amjust trying to suggest something to you-

ME: That was not a suggestion, it was a judgment.

FRIEND: No, I was just giving you advice about what you should do-

ME: You? Because you're so wonderful? I have to go....

CLICK

I have no patience for irrational victim situations. But I drove home thinking, am I that agressive in my speak that someone can take something sooo personally without me having the intention?

It reminded me of the time with my ex boyfriend. We're sitting in a coffee shop and he's looking at a magazine and there are orchids on the cover. I say: Oh! I love orchids. How their pollinators match the specific flowers they pollinate, and how theyve evolved to even look and smell like the animals that pollinate them...and how.... BOYFRIEND SAYS DEFENSIVELY: Yeah I know. Okay. ME: Are you upset? BOYFRIEND: You don't have to talk to me like I don't know, I know that about orchids. ME: But I was just telling you I loved orchids.....(from them on I stopped talking about things I was passionate about because I was afraid he'd take it personal, that ended soon after.)

Apparently the kids dealt with it better than the adults. I'd say Be Quiet!! and they wouldn't. But then I would say, see this is what I think about theater....and a kid would say, but what about this and that....not omigod youre putting words into my mouth and treating me like an idiot.

There's an old testament verse, or maybe new, about making all your words like honey. Years ago I wrote that in a journal as one of my goals.....I still want to have soothing words of honey, a way of speak that is natural, sweet, thick, fluid, soothing, coating...But I can't control the taste buds that are tasting it.