Tomorrow, a chapter in my creative life. I begin teaching my four-week short form writing class (stories and essays) at Hubbard Hall, the beautiful old arts center/opera house in the middle of my town, Cambridge. Someone asked me why I’m teaching  a short story class and I told her this is really about singing my own song and encouraging others to sing theirs.

We are taught in our culture that we must be a slave to money and fear, that our stories are not important. That we need to be secure rather than happy, wealthy rather than fulfilled. The idea of a fulfilled and meaningful life has been shunted aside, we are asked instead to give up what we love for what we are told that we need. The first death, I think.

I believe that our stories and songs are important, and I will tell my students that we are each going to sing our own songs in my class. Usually, when people describe the writing classes they have taken, they sound like they’ve just had an enema.

I hope that will be different in my class.

More than half the class are returning students, which I take as a great compliment, others new. The class is full, Red will be there as the writing dog, I see that he has become my partner in just about everything.  I will be doing more hands on editing in this class, but as in previous classes, we will quickly become a community of encouragement and help one another.

I love teaching in this way – there is no lesson plan –  just as much as I disliked the politics and bureaucracy of teaching college (NYU) when I taught for several years. I am just not cut out for large institutions, or for other people telling me what to sing.

I have been trying to sing my song my entire life. When I was little, my parents and I were never singing the same song, they never much cared for mine, we were never headed in the right direction. My teachers never liked my song, they were always trying to get me to sing their songs and those of other people.

The idea of singing my own song is sacred to me, it is the found of creativity, of spirit, of spirituality and of a meaningful life, it was the point of my long trek on the hero journey, it is what the animals have always sung to me, what the carriage horses of New York sing to me now, what Chief Avrol Looking Horse taught me on that park bench in New York City this summer, what I strive for in my writing and my photography.

Every photo, every blog post, every  book and story is a verse in my song, I will sing my song to the last breath, and will  not again let anyone tell me that my stories are not important, that my song should not be sung.

Maria and I are committed to this idea, our life is our song, and it is a joy every day to be able to sing it. In my class, we will talk about structure and language and emotion, but more than anything else, I hope each student will leave the class believing that his or her story is important, that it deserves to be heard. I hope they will be singing their song.