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you may see lots of different images staring back. |
Artist, psychologist, cop, writer...
which career is the real you?
By
GINA GALLO
of TheColumnists.com
This
place must surely be haunted. How else to explain the spirits
that linger in these hallways? Like most apparitions, they're
trapped in a space where time doesn't exist. I recognize these
ghosts. One of them is me.
I'm right over there, suspended mid-air in the victory leap of
a varsity cheerleader. A perfect airborne split executed, as
I recall, immediately after the winning touchdown - the one that
nailed our Division Championship. Our team was hot, that November
Sunday crisp with a sky as impossibly bright as my pennant of
auburn hair. These ghosts from senior year, 1970, are here to
greet me in this first month of 2001. Their pictures are plastered,
poster-sized, all over the walls.
It's Career Day at my old high school where I've been invited
to be a guest speaker. An invitation that gave me pause, since
nobody mentioned which career I should talk about. As a former
citizen of Woodstock Nation, I've had a few: Artist, surgical
tech, psychologist....and that little excursion behind the badge
that lasted nearly two decades.
Disparate occupations, some might think, but all of them provided
a ringside seat for the Theater of the Human Condition, gave
me a wealth of experiences to feed the writing that began in
grade school. Writing was always what mattered most. Everything
else I considered side jobs to work out the minor details, like
rent and food.
Today, I'll speak to an auditorium packed with kids and adolescent
dreams, all straining for release into 'the real world.' Because
they're a captive audience, resigned to this event planned by
well-meaning guidance counselors, they'll listen, mostly polite,
probably bored, definitely restless. What I--or any of the speakers--say
to them has no impact on them or their dreams. At this age, they're
certain that life will unfold exactly as they expect. It's easy,
isn't it? Love or success or career fantasies of the most exotic
types will happen as long as you believe, right?
So, when I walk in that auditorium, I won't mention the crimes
or the victims, the lost kids or the lost souls who've forfeited
dreams and diginity and belief in anything--even themselves.
Today's guests are expected to motivate and inspire, so instead,
I'll talk about writing.
It probably won't be what anyone's expecting. In fact, so certain
are the school counselors that I'll be delivering a rousing Law
Enforcement testimony, they've even arranged for some music (Inner
Circle's "Bad Boys"...the theme music from 'C.O.P.S.')
to precede my stage entrance. It'll set the tone, they tell me.
Get the kids in the mood. But if they're expecting a boastful
rant from an ass-kicking, name-taking Jane Wayne copette with
a .357 mag, they're in for a surprise.
I'm going to talk about courage. I don't mean the kind it takes
to walk up some dark stairs in the projects, or the paralyzing
fear when you stare at a crazed speed freak and the bore of his
gun. In those instances, it has less to do with balls of steel
than learned behavior. Cops are trained to do a job and they
do it, shelving emotions and anything else that might interfere
with surviving a critical incident. The emotions kick in later,
after it's over.... providing you're not rushing off to another
incident.
The courage I'll speak of today is the kind required to free
yourself--and your emotions--to be able to write. The kind exhibited
by writers--good writers--in every story they create. I'll tell
these kids that the act of writing is like the act of love. The
only way to reach true intimacy is a willingness to be completely
vulnerable--secrets, dreams, deepest emotions--all stripped bare
and presented for another's scrutiny. It's tough, and it's risky.
Forget the polite phrases or the formulaic lines that sound good
but ring hollow.
What's important is to dig down into that roiling gut or your
aching heart and pull out the real goods. Dreams shattered? Festered
heartbreak? Tragedy or loss or fear of failure--all the things
you wouldn't tell some stranger on a bus. But your lover would
know. When you share your heart, you share your world, however
imperfect.
In writing, the work becomes a lover that you romance with words.
Whisper confidences, speak of dreams, suffer and bleed--all on
paper. The courage comes in allowing others to read it. You're
exposed now with your heart on the line. Once those guards are
stripped away there's no protection and no turning back. All
you can hope for is that your words bring recognition and understanding.
In the best writing, authors regularly tap their jugulars, bleeding
freely for their readership. With that metaphoric blood comes
a power that passes from writer to reader, an intimacy that strengthens
their bond. This willingness to stand exposed is rewarded with
trust and acknowledgment of the very best kind: an audience of
readers who claim that the author knows them, has felt their
feelings, lived their lives, chronicled their journeys on this
path of life. Can any accolade be sweeter?
And just in case these high school kids don't get it, I've got
a back-up plan. I'll read them an excerpt from one of my books,
a story about my first shooting as a cop. It's not a tale about
guts or glory....only the courage it took to write it.
I was a green rookie, just four days out of the Police Academy, alone and confronted with a man intent on killing me. My decision to act was complicated by fear, inexperience and a number of other things no seasoned cop would ever admit.
Ultimately,
I shot the guy and lived to see another day.
When I read this story, I'll get close to the end and start to
cry, as I always do, but it doesn't matter, because this is about
courage in writing, and putting it all out there. And sometimes,
yanking the reader right in there with you, the only way you
can make it an interactive experience. I'll make them feel my
fear, hear the gunshots, see the wasted life ended by my hands--the
ones now smeared with cordite.
And while the audience watches this former cop and crying woman,
I'll read the story's last line: "...tonight my little boys
will ask me what exciting Police things Mommy did today. I'll
tell them, 'Tonight, I got to come home to you.'"
© 2001 by Gina Gallo. The illustration is © 2001 by Jim Hummel.
You can comment on this column or contact Gina Gallo with an email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
 BLUE MURDER |
 Gina Gallo was a regular police officer with the Chicago PD who now writes for a number of publications, including TheColumnists.com. Her next book, "Armed & Dangerous," is due out in March. You can visit her website at: GALLOSTORIES |
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