Manifesto

There's a scene in the film "Julie & Julia" where Julie, who is cooking and blogging her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, has an intense argument with her husband, Eric. He stomps out of the apartment, stopping only to turn around and yell something along the lines of "And don't put this in your blog."

Tricky, these blogs.

I spent a recent Thursday evening hanging out at the homeless shelter where I lead theatre on Mondays. While taking in the second annual talent show of poetry, dance, and song over some mouthwatering ribs and cornbread, I had a moment of Oh No.

Something about eating and talking and calling each other by our stripper names (an ongoing joke; mine is "Night Jugs") made me stop and think about the ways I reveal these women's lives in my blog.

Of course I change the names. Of course I alter sensitive circumstances. But would I write in the same way about a friend, who, say, revealed something to me over coffee?

As a writer, I go out and experience a thing, or ask a person about his or her life, then digest and articulate these findings for others. A certain degree of objectification is necessary. I try to distance myself from my own life, as well, to produce interesting observations as I write. This objectifying perhaps cushions the blow of the necessary vulnerability.

Yet I bristle when I hear homeless people objectified to the point of becoming Other. They're homeless, yes, but the final categorization is Human Being.

I've been leading theatre nearly every week since summer, and I'm getting to know these women more intimately. For the blog I must speak of them as types, but in person we are friends. Yes, I think I can safely use that term. They'd probably be flattered to know I am writing about them, and I'm waiting for the day when the cell phone videos they take of my games find their way to YouTube.

My purpose, in a nutshell, is to present a picture of homelessness and the power of art, hoping to heck I'm making a difference in the telling. In other words, I write about but not for the women themselves, and I try to balance the readers' need for details with the women's right to privacy. That's a valid cause, related yet separate from what I aim to do on Monday nights at the shelter. There I'm trying to make the world a better place, one theatre game, one homeless woman, at a time.

Writing also serves a personal need, helping me think through my experiences and better prepare for future sessions. When I wrote about our Christmas play, for example, I sat down with only the image of the teddy in mind. I had no idea what it meant or why it was significant until I started writing.

To summarize, then, I do theatre to help the women. I write to figure out what worked and why, to make me a better teacher. And I write for you, dear reader, asking you to peer with me at the fringes of society, where real people dwell.

I write because an alcoholic 57-year-old woman told me, "The incest...my sister can't believe I remember, I was three...it never goes away."

Her story is too common, as old as the hills, but you probably haven't heard it yet and that's why I need to write.