Out of

   Out of group camping in Holston Heights and through confronting so much death in the AIDS epidemic grew spirits stronger than the hard stuff was hard.  People woke up to parts of themselves they hadn't known or that had been beaten down like marsh grasses run over by vehicle and boat making way to sea.

  While there was a herd mentality that was chanting a rather generic USA, USA there was also personal digging deep and team-ups around kicking our own butts.  A lot of seedwork started in the worst of times became foundational in career and lifepaths.

  There seemed no shortage of people to interview and projects to write about.  And even though communications never really pays a lot, I found place in the field for my passion for writing and my gift at observation.  Since people in general were more in a mood of at least listening (not just warring) there was encouragement.  It doesn't hurt to ask.

  Sometimes it hurt.  It can be awkward.  Prepared questions don't always form the script.  Or somebody backs out of open to talking about that.  There was also a lot of dialing down on who said so.  At a battered person's shelter, for instance, interviewees were visibly struggling with how to define "abuse" and what part each person plays in the dynamics.  An interview with wounded service people had me asking questions a little out of my reach...some others had helped me form okay-questions.  There were spots where wading through had me off my feet in the broader currents of whole nation making movement on issues and policy.  And also a younger me, not exactly able to re-anchor conversations from triggered and didn't know this was going to come up.

  I had breakaway statements and come back to common topic airspace dinghies that helped.  And like overstroking on a swim, I got better and better at pacing and the discipline of sticking with a piece through process to finish.  I reflected on rough in conversations, to try and understand how to handle the tasks the next time.

  I'd weigh ifs.  If it had been time constraints that had us rush through, or if one of us had been unwilling or unable to go there.  Fighting through tears (so much heartbreak in reality) and developing "game face" was necessary.  As was knowing my own weaknesses...like, I don't already know "truth" in this, or, the way the question was passed through me, awkward.  I got better at saying, "I'm not sure how to phrase this perfectly..." A Veteran missing body parts looked at his self and assured, "Ain't no such thing as perfect." We were going through life together, interviewer and interviewee.  "Wanted.  Wanted me to ask, something like"

  Silence.  Mind scrambling pages of writing in the actual air of life happening.  "Like, is there a sense of shame?"

  "NO!" Another Veteran got up and came towards us talking.  "Not shame, uh, um," my own voice rose in volume to defend our talking.  "Guilt, or mixed emotion, the person who sent the question, she" The other Veteran was pulling the man's chair back away from me.  It was a folding chair, the wheelchair not available yet.

  "She?"

  I couldn't reveal she was also a Veteran, a Veteran of a tour who was determined to heal up wound and hoping to re-enlist.  "She wants other, um, others to know that there's a lot to work through.  Feelings.  Feelings-wise, Sir." He motioned with a good arm for his buddy to stop.  "Quit it wouldya?!  Stop trying to hide me." He rallied his butt to move the chair closer to me, so I did the same to get closer to him.  Our heads almost touched when he said real low and serious, "I still have feelings."

  "Him say dat?" A Haitian woman taking a break from house-cleaning to eat a plain cooked sweet potato put an elbow on the kitchen's island where prep notes were in an array of order.  The woman shooed the elbow away. "Go.  Keep busy Helen."

  "Don't cawl me dat."

  "I will if you don't buzz off."

  When she had, the woman still spoke quietly but not secretively.  "That tells me something."

  "Something?"

  "I can't tell you directly."

  "What does it have to do with?"