Big moments in freelance: I realize it's okay (1) to say no when school employees I don't know ask me to teach a class for free; (2) to say no when I've gone out of my way to explain to a client that the way in which they're producing their journal means that it will inevitably be filled with errors, and then that client offers me a job proofing the next issue, which they have continued to produce in exactly the same error-filled way; (3) to be amazed when, after I've been hemming and hawing and wondering if I'm charging too much for a service, people say Yay! and pay me exactly what I hemmed and hawed over.

Issue 1 may seem like the smallest one, but over the years it's been by far the most difficult to negotiate. When I first began working in classrooms, I was grateful for any chance to practice and learn, though I also did this at a time when my children were young and I would have been volunteering in their classrooms in any case. Occasionally other schools and organizations would ask me to do something poetry-related, and mostly I said yes. It seemed impossible to get paid in central Maine to do that work, and I needed the practice. I was flattered at being noticed, and also nervous and humble about my skills. Flash-forward 15 years, and I find myself continuing to struggle with the right and wrong of the matter. Is it right for me to spend several hours working in a local school for free, when I don't know the kids at all and the school system has a budget for visiting artists? Maybe yes, maybe no. In any case, I have to talk myself through saying no.

Of course I always think: Maybe there was a kid in the room who needed a poet. Most likely there was; there almost always is. So I continue to be guilty, even though I always feel a strong wave of relief at having had the wherewithal to politely decline. It is hard to think of oneself as a professional when people don't want to pay you for the work you do . . . or maybe don't want to pay you is the wrong construction. It's often more like if you love your art, of course you'll give it to us for free. That's the rub. The kids don't know one way or the other about whether I'm being paid. But the schools do, and the teachers are often embarrassed and regretful about the matter. And that puts me in the position of having to make them feel better because their employers are taking advantage of both of us. It's a mess.