December 23, 2010

cook, write, dance

Two years ago September I sat in an acres-wide concrete bunker of a hurricane shelter, thinking to myself. It was cabin fever of a sort, since the previous chaos of serving three thousand plus clients had been replaced by... nothing but space. They were going home, to whatever Louisiana parish they'd been bussed from, but we were still on deployment, and I had the overnight shift.

With my headphones plugged away to music, I thought about what moved me, besides the on-again off-again that was disaster relief. Writing, I knew, ever since I started my own website almost a decade ago. Dance, also, having dabbled in college. Cooking too, as I was discovering.

These things made me happy, and as hobbies they helped define me, giving me an identity separate and unsubsumed by the humanitarian world. I continued dabbling, on-again off-again as it were. But more and more I wondered why these things that moved me, that made me happy, that I was passionate about - why couldn't these be my full-time pursuits?

Money, always money. But thankfully I discovered City College of San Francisco and its Culinary Arts Program. Plugging away at a non-profit allowed me to save enough for tuition, so now I can finally go. And cook. And write about it. And take dance classes, since CCSF offers those, and many other subjects besides.

So I am blessed. And I can do nothing but make these next two years my best yet.

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