Molasses

I’m in a period of my life that feels very slow. Days seem longer than they have since I was in high school. I find myself for the first time in eleven years with six, seven, sometimes eight hours of “free time” to fill after I’ve completed my workday. I am sometimes astonished to find that I’ve gone for a walk, written half a paper, and made a homemade dinner and dessert, and it’s only 8:30pm.

Being a student is the greatest thing that’s happened to me since chocolate and cats.

I reflect on the past two years with particular interest, wondering how on earth I suffered through a two hour commute each way (read – a total of four hours of commuting daily) to a job I mostly hated, leaving home at seven AM and arriving home at seven PM. Going to bed just two hours later so I could get up at five thirty AM to maybe exercise or eat something unprocessed. Those were the unhealthiest two years of my life, a time of depression and feelings of hopelessness. I consider the two years that I get to spend in school to be a reward for those two years of total crappiness, a sharp breath of cold delicious air after a trek through a flat, hot desert (ok dramatic, but really – that’s how it feels). Aaaaaaaah. Scccchhhhhoooooolllll.

Yesterday during the break for my History of Social Work class, I spent some time talking to a classmate, Mimi. I like Mimi a lot. She is smart, and asks good questions, and seems self-possessed and motivated. We discussed settlement houses (we’d just been learning about Hull House), and what a modern settlement-type house might look like here in Philadelphia. We had the idea to talk with some other classmates and banter ideas back and forth, and maybe come up with some ideas about the needs of our city. As usual, I felt the small flicker of excitement torch in my belly when discussing potential creative outlets and the social sciences (and the combination of the two!) and promised to email Mimi. And I will.

My 25-year-old self already would have. The email would be sent, and others would be invited into the discussion, and a blueprint for the meeting would already have been made. I am historically a person who is on top of everything, two steps ahead. I get things done – I got things done.

Now it feels a lot different. Since the slowdown, my little burning idea has joined a small grocery cart of thoughts and interests floating around inside me that will be tended to in good time. While the excitement remains, the sense of urgency is muted. Rather, there is time to take a look at what I’m doing at any given moment, and just breathe it in and enjoy it, and it feels healthier than the marathon I was metaphorically running for so long, healthier by far. Life slowed down is savory, and I’m sucking it all in.

                                                   Grad school - as good as vacation.

Only Heart

I have recently found myself in the very sad predicament of feeling pretty much Godless. Not that God has abandoned me, or vice versa, but rather, that God has stopped having much relevance in my life. I've found myself afflicted with the same growing cynicism that most of my community has - the undeniable feeling that religious affiliation and practice seems silly, and oppressive, and generally counterproductive to the greater good. Rituals, traditions, and practices seem a waste of time - trite and useless, and showing a certain weakness. Prayer becomes rote, and we arrive at something that looks like I am God, and God is me, and so there it is. Or at least I have.

I was meeting with a client today, a sixteen year old girl that identifies as Muslim and keeps herself mostly covered from head to toe. I asked her when she became Muslim, and she said committed to the faith at age six, because at that age all the most beautiful people she knew were Muslim. I inquired about the reasons behind wearing the covering, which has always seen so oppressive to me  and seems to hide so many beautiful Muslim women. She explained that to her, the covering makes women more beautiful, because it allows the public "To see only our hearts. To judge us only by our hearts."

This gorgeous sentiment rang so honest and wise that tears stung my eyes.

Religion can be a weapon, of this there is no doubt. It is a weapon that can break apart buildings, crush spirits, and build walls between us. It is there in hospital rooms, preventing loving partners from being together in sickness because they are of the same sex. It is splashed on signs in city sidewalks, tearing young women apart who are making the brave and personal choice not to bear their pregnancy, whatever their reasons. It is thematically there in amateur videos posted on youtube for the world to see, prompting shame, embarrassment, ager, vengeance, death. It is there and it is there and it is there, hurting so many of us. Used to hurt eachother, it is there, everyday. One tires of this. I tire of this.

But then, someone like my client says or does something profound, and I remember how my own spiritual experience was shaped and nurtured by that foundational and simple premise of love - a love that feels so powerful that sometimes you believe your heart is showing right through your chest. A love that might convince you that a small piece of you is made of something greater, something pure. Godliness. Love. Heart. And in these moments I'm reminded of why I'm doing all this in the first place...something like a calling...a dedication, in spite of everything, that I can do no other...I find SUCH comfort, and such joy, in this.

Everybody Hates a Tourist

When I graduated from college, I had the very un-unique experience of identity diffusion - I had all sorts of feelings and ideas about myself and about the world, and wanted to transmit them in a way that demonstrated just how crucial! and important! and innovative! they were. I chose to do this by disavowing myself of every privilege I had grown up with, and committing to a "spiritual" lifestyle free of material goods and desires. I moved in to a house in Upper Darby with several close friends, gave all but a couple of shirts and pants away, stopped shaving anything and stopped wearing shoes (I don't know what prompted the no-shoe decision). This adventure lasted about 1.5 years, some of the best and worst years of my life.

But I think we all know how this story ended - eventually, my spiritual period culminated in a spectacular nervous breakdown and a slow climb back to the very vain and material-loving human I am today.

In class this week we discussed the origins of social work and learned that the majority of early "Friendly Visitors" were wealthy White women who were scratching their collective philanthropic itches by reaching out to provide moral guidance to people they considered below them - in economic class and in social propriety. I think this description turned the stomach of many of us - me included - and pushed us to ask....."is that who WE are? Is that who I am?"

                                                   A Friendly Visitor comes knocking...

Where does compassion end and condescension begin? I have long known that I have my very own place in the mental health community, being a consumer of mental health services and recognizing my own struggles with phobias, anxiety, depression, moodiness, and profound moments of self-doubt. I take solace in having my own story; there's something reassuring in knowing that if many of my clients knew my personal history, they might embrace me as their own. I am a broken and reinvented and re-broken person.

That said, there are a million ways I am unlike my clients. I am a person of extreme privilege - aside from gender, I find myself at an advantage in every way - socioeconomic status, race, education - I err on the side of privilege in all of these areas. It is undeniably part of who I am, and can be changed no more easily than turning my skin green or making my eyes blue. These are all my parts.

I am not a bored, rich woman looking to fill up my empty spaces by saving the world. I will not worry that this is the case. But I'm not a poor, marginalized person in need of a great deal of help, either (at least not right this minute). Being aware of the privileges I have but never earned keeps me honest and aware in my practice, and in my life. I will have to do this each day, every day, if I presume to have anything to offer to others.

 I could never go back to Upper Darby and pretend to belong. I don't, and another nervous breakdown would render me useless to everybody (and I'd prefer not to have another for a good long while). So I take a hot shower and I buy expensive chocolate and I wear clothes I like and I watch some television and I use the air conditioning. And I am grateful, and I don't have a nervous breakdown, and I am okay. And all of this is, mostly, just fine.

Small Matters of Great Importance

One of my oldest and best friends is a linguist. When I lived with him for a couple years in 2002, he’d excitedly talk about language the way that I guess I must talk about psychology, throwing around Chomsky the way that I reference Seligman. His love for language alluded me, but having passions for topics that bore other people to tears kept us talking late into the night, many nights.

I thought of him this week as I tried to wrap my mind around what’s been happening in a couple of my classes at Penn. I’ve felt myself become frustrated and offended in classes in ways that have surprised me. While I used to be an avid debater and loved a good argument in my teens and early twenties, I’ve quieted down considerably in my thirties, opting instead to stay silent unless the situation really calls for a clobbering, and even then trying to clobber in only the most helpful and effective ways….

I believe the issue that’s got me so disgruntled has little to do with the actual topics or debates at hand, but rather, the language surrounding those debates. A reference in class to a transgendered person as “he-she” had my jaw on the floor. Using the term “food stamp people” to refer to welfare recipients was equally as daunting. More subtly, though, are the assumptions that I’ve recognized flowing through these conversations. The assumption that prisoners are violent, for instance. The heinous assumption that all recipients of public aid are manipulative and lazy. The assumption that women who do not want to have children or who are not naturally nurturing have had some kind of early trauma that’s negated their innate drive to parent. All have been suggested in one of my classes and met with acceptance, as if these were valid differences of opinion, and not what I read them to be: reflections of stereotypes, classism, prejudice, and ignorance.  I’m angry even now, reflecting upon it.

If we don't spend the time reflecting on how we think, we run the risk of losing touch with ourselves and losing sight of the values that compel us to act as we do.  I admit that I've neglected to do so for the past couple years, when I had neither the time or energy to take good care of my mind or body. Since re-entering school and re-engaging with my thoughts, I find myself happier and less depressed, centered, and feeling more in-tune. I suspect that this is a healthier way to be, and makes me better at what I do.

Here’s the deal: How we talk about people is as important as what we are saying about them. If there is not a base level of agreed upon verbiage with which to have conversations about current social issues, then I would argue that those conversations should not be happening (certainly not within the context of a social work class, anyway). If young social workers cannot be brought to task regarding their own assumptions and ignorance, why would any client want to work with them? Why would a social worker expect respect in return for condescension?

So to my friend Josh, I concede - language is important. So important, I think, I’d suggest having a class at Penn just addressing language – how to talk about populations and current issues with respect, kindness, compassion…clearly this is lacking, and effective social work cannot exist without it.