A Robot is Not a Robot I am
April 9, 2020
A woman who doesn’t run with the wolves
but instead lives large with Wolfhounds
I’m the first root that can become a stem
and a stem that can become a root, with all
my plant tissues twisted deep into
the soil or up into the sky
Honed in the crucible of life to be strong
enough to also be gentle, loving and kind
I am a teacher, poet, and dancer
Wife, mother, karate instructor and
dreamer of dreams, scaling mountains unseen
A bike-riding girl with books in her head
who grew into the matriarch who tries
to turn everything into a poem
Inland empire punk rock girl turned
punk rock deputy public defender
Lackadaisically ambitious. Carefully
high strung. Shrewdly kind. Impatiently polite.
Seriously comical. I am a walking
cliche and I am ashamed to be proud of it.
Most unlikely to teach teaches. Invisible
man writes. Watch the chubby kid run.
My experiences as a preschool
and K sub teacher would make the movie
Kindergarten Cop look like a wimp!
Writing in retirement replaced teaching
which replaced college which replaced high school
baton twirling which replaced pathetic
piano playing in my early years.
Creative writer, with grammar problems.
Loves to use, too many commas, too.
Chameleon in her smart way, relaxed in her
easily organized way, I guess, a scale
carrying so many in a well-balanced way!
I played Antipholus of Syracuse
in A Comedy of Errors while in
college at UCR, and this one line
still resonates with me today:
I to the world am like a drop of water
That in the ocean seeks another drop,
Who, falling there to find his fellow forth,
Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself.
Painfully self-aware, seemingly born
misfit/weirdo who struggles to connect
with others due to past and present
physical and psychological traumas,
keeps getting dealt bad hands but deals with it
with dark humor, brutal honesty and
observations, and trying (and seemingly
failing) to come into/reach a state of grace.
I was born in dysfunction but crawled
out with a story that is a useful
how not to be guidebook.
I am the one who feeds the cats.
A, I . . . am not a robot; not a robot; a robot
Original post: Write a one line autobiography: Who are you?
by Nan Friedley, Gudelia Vaden, Stevie Taken, Natalie Champion, Rick Champion, James Luna, Juanita Mantz, Burcu Misirli Chatham, Janine Pourroy Gamblin, Raine Lefaivre-Naggi, Robert Merrill, Dar Stone, Frances Borella, Debby Johnson, Cindi Neisinger, Ai Miyamoto Kelley, Barbara Berg, Pat Murkland
Inlandia: A Literary Journey 