Looking up my past

 I realized that my tenure as a member of an advisory board for Berkeley was perhaps too soon.  I let myself ease out of the position after a year.  I really didn’t want to be overly connected to safehouses anymore.  As I was finishing my book, I became enamored of a new topic:  Writing letters back to my young self about my situation in Fiji. My editor was crazy about it, but later, I learned she had told her partner and the next two books her partner wrote encouraged my plan, and my idea was made irrelevant.  That’s how my editor paid me back. 

I threw myself into more parental roles as a friend of the libraries and helping the School Board with art.  As a result, they encouraged me to apply for the role as art teacher for Jessi’s kindergarten class.  The next year, Emerson Elementary School made me the art teacher for the entire school.   I was supposed to teach for two years, develop curriculum and products, and then let the teachers take over.  It was hard work, but I loved it.  I wrote a newsletter each week, developed a curriculum, and loved teaching.  Unfortunately, I was unable to continue after the two years, because each spring I developed a bronchitis that forced me to take antibiotics, and after the second year, I could no longer teach, despite the principal’s wanting to pay me and even offer an assistant.  I was tired, and too old to do 13 classes a week in art.  So many little hands everywhere.  I Turned towards junior college teaching and put my degrees towards college teaching.  Amazingly, I got a call from Santa Rosa Community College to teach for them, and I began the next fall, teaching 2-3 courses a semester.  The drive wasn’t that long in those days.  Later, I switched to Berkeley City College, when the drive became more difficult. 

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