So there’s this brain, you see ...

Mark Kolke — Sat, 20 Apr 2024 20:38:24 GMT

So there’s this brain, you see, kind of like a little general in its own right, camped out in the bony fortress of my twentieth-century skull, all the while marooned in this mind-bending epoch that folks call the twenty-first century.

But here’s the kicker - this brain (or maybe it’s my personality believing it’s my brain) with its sights set on the twenty-second century.

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Just call me Sally ...

Mark Kolke — Sat, 09 Sep 2023 14:47:05 GMT

I set up this section, for lack of a better description coming to me just yet, to host pieces - new ones and ones I republish this is writing which doesn’t fit my sections, my daily Musing columns, or weekly newsletters - but stand along pieces that don’t fit anywhere else; pieces and issues which is near and dear to me for some reason. I intend (subject to the possibility I’ll change my mind or it won’t seem appropriate to do so) to preface these pieces with some back story of what I’m writing about, when and why I wrote the piece and why I feel it is important to post it here.

The backstory: A few years ago I wrote the piece you see below was written for the Canadian Cancer Society for publication in their BELIEVE magazine. I can’t provide a link. Recent experiences with ‘yet another friend dealing with Cancer’ have brought this back to my mind in a powerful way.

My writing for BELIEVE magazine - as a volunteer, they had me interview a driver volunteer about his experiences picking up patients, driving them to the Baker Cancer Center for treatment and driving them home again. They wanted to celebrate him for the great work he was doing. I wrote the piece which they published (I intend to also post it on this site if/when I find it in a drawer …), and I recall the power of his story - how he started, from the loss of someone dear to him, and it almost seemed to write itself. Then, one day, an email from my contact saying we had to talk. I was worried someone might have been unhappy with my work, that I might be getting fired from my ‘volunteer job’, so I anxiously called …

It seems they had a problem - and need for an outside volunteer - because none of their staff wanted to take on a story, one they were being pressed by a senior executive to publish because it involved the mother of that senior executive. My anxiety was calmed as I learned, this wasn’t an exceptional circumstance, but the intimidation factor was there and none of the staff writers wanted to risk pissing off the boss, because I was told and soon learned, the executive in question was a demanding person with a very forceful personality. Nobody wanted to cross her. When I met her I immediately clear - and in some respects, she seemed a lot like me (yikes!) - I didn’t agree to do the story as she directed me to and I declined to provide my DRAFT to her. I told her that I’d been warned of her strong desire to have her mother’s story told, and I think after that discussion it was clear she wanted the family story told too. I clarified that ‘my way’ was to interview the person, see how their story unfolds and try to tell it in a way that readers would see a word picture of what I experienced - no more, no less, I’d write it with care and I had too much regard for people dealing with cancer want to dictate to them how their story should be retold.

The interview story ran without edits - as I submitted it, but given that was the last assignment I got from BELIEVE magazine, I suspect the staff were nervous for good reason because I was never asked to write another …

Musings+ : Essay-ish

So there’s this brain, you see ...

Just call me Sally ...