Saturday, July 6, 2013

It's Kate Morton's Fault

In the Biblical parable about talents, where talents are a monetary unit, people are questioned and assessed as to how they used the talents they had been given.  Did they invest well?  Did they increase their original bestowal?  Or did they bury their gifts in the ground fearful of losing what they had?

In most modern interpretations, talents become actual talents and we are expected to increase and illuminate our gifts.  So, for the record, here's my future answer to the assigned assessor concerning how I did.

           "What were your talents, Pamela?"
       
           "Working with kids and writing."

           "That's it?"

           "Hey, we were told it didn't matter how many we were given."

           "Oh, yes, that's right.  So, what did you do with them?"

           Sensing how this discussion is going to end, I begin strong, "I started teaching developmentally delayed preschoolers when I was in high school, graduated with a degree in Child Development in college, gave birth and did my best rearing four lovely children and  later did my best at grandmothering (which I know won't count because it was so much fun, but I went for it anyway), opened a private preschool, went back to school and received a teaching certificate, and then taught school, mostly middle-schoolers, I will add, hoping for extra credit, until  yesterday when I died."

           "Okay, not too bad."

           Great, I think, a former English teacher is my assessor.

           "How about the writing?"

            I know immediately that none of my paltry successes are going to impress this person, since they don't particularly impress me, so I go with the decision I made back in 2013.  "After reading one Kate Morton book and listening to a second, I decided I would rather read and reread her books than make any attempt to write again."

            "Oh, I completely understand.  Was The Forgotten Garden your first one?"

            "Yes, and then The Distant Hour."

            We then spend a lovely afternoon talking about how absolutely awesome Kate Morton's books are.