On Stewardship

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in...

On Black Friday, holiest of holidays for many, my boyfriend's mother fell asleep at the wheel and crashed her car into a guardrail. As I write this, she is in surgery having some of her broken spinal bones fused together, while her family waits to see what's next. Because her family is sometimes my family, I guess I'm waiting, too.

We went last evening after Ryan (said boyfriend and partner) got out of work to visit her at Lehigh Hospital. Ryan's father and sister were already there, on cell phones and making themselves useful with a water-dabbing contraption. Ryan's mother was laid out on a table, head pointed up at the ceiling and braced so as to not move any precious bones around. She looked banged up and scared. Ryan told some stories and spent general time with his family. I became small controller of my immediate universe, as I am always apt to do in semi-crises, and asked for fluids and pain medications and anything else that didn't look like it was being done by the nurses, and openly judged the hospital staff. It's how I contribute.

I love this little family, and I am hyper-aware right now of how their lives are likely going to change from this event. Ryan's mother is always moving; he calls her a "busy-body" in the very literal sense of the word - she is never sitting still, and is always doing for the house or the church or the family. For the foreseeable future, that won't be happening, and I can't hep but think about how that will impact Ryan and his father, and his sister's family. When one part of a working system stops working, every other part either fails to work as well, or accommodates itself and changes too. This leaves room for learning, love, and personal development, as well as frustration and resentment. The chips will fall where they may; I have no idea where yet.

I realize the event will likely change me, too. My partner's response will elicit changes in me. My time and skills may be called upon for certain things, and I'll have to do what I think is best for the situation, including what is best for Ryan's mother and family, and what is best for me. I am aware that those things may not always be compatible with one another, and I'm interested to see what kind of person I'll be in this situation.

I know how to take care of other people very well, I've been doing it forever, I was my family's go-to helper for years. I renounced helper around age 21, when I became so sick with help that I was forced to attend to myself (this happens to unskilled helpers. I really do think Penn needs a class on self-care. Really). I've spent the past eleven years building on the art of helping myself: first, hearing my needs, then responding to them as though they were someone else's, then becoming important enough to myself that I responded to them because they were mine. I've been working on the nasty business of guilt for the past several years, and don't expect to be through with that one for at least a decade. But I'm active with it.

So this might be my first opportunity in this work on the care of self and others to see what happens when the two are brought together - what it looks like for me to give and also set boundaries, to juggle both the care of the self and the very present and constant care of someone else. I really have no idea what I'll bring to the table here. But I do feel willing, and I'm encouraged by that.

A final thought: My belief in God has morphed into something that I realized today looks more like this: I'm not much for the idea that there is someone upstairs controlling events and making thigns happen or not happen. I think all of us down here do a good job of making both terrific and terrible things happen and not happen. But when they do, I do think that God presents itself in the opportunity to respond, and to be stewards for one another, and for ourselves, and also that learning the art of this stewardship might be the whole point. I hope it is.

Hyperverbal

http://www.youtube.com/embed/h7SSMTKGO1M

So, above is a link to a performance by the Spellbound dance company. Do watch it; it's beautiful and amazing to see. I saw them this weekend, and am still affected by the experience. Haunting, powerful, and familiar. All those good things that art performances should be.

The performance I saw was described as an expression of lack of verbal connection in our culture - so many "empty words" said, with humans trying to reach one another in whatever ways they can think of, sometimes successfully, sometimes not so. This theme is highly familiar and highly relevant to me. My focus and priority over the past five years has centered in on connection, to such a point that a day without real conversation feels false and lazy. I am tireless in my efforts to be heard and be understood, amongst my people, and, in smaller ways, everywhere else. I've found that the world is very scary to me without this process, which is funny, because there was  time when intimacy and vulnerability were the scariest things around. I doggedly pursue the privilege of being vulnerable anywhere and everywhere. I don''t feel myself otherwise.

In lieu of this, I have become aware of the importance of language and dialogue in my life. This is something I wish were different. I am always feeling the need to explain myself, or tell on myself, almost. It's as though my thoughts need to be said out loud in order for them to be legitimate. I have such respect for people that can communicate in silence or choose their words carefully but still carry maximum impact. I hope to get to that place myself sometime.

However, I would argue that this profession creates a need for language. There is a pulse inside me that needs to be released to maintain personal health and not break under the sadness and hopelessness of some days. Or, a joy that demands to be shared on others. There is a need to push back vocally to avoid getting absorbed into the day-to-day mess that's witnessed in psychotherapy. In this way, too, words prove necessary. At least for me.

But seeing this performance, I felt embarrassed by all my talking. I think I assume that other people won't understand my emotional state unless I lay it out explicitly, and I wonder if maybe this is foolish. Or maybe it's more foolish to expect that anyone could "read my mind" unless I'm completely forthright. But it's worth looking into - how we are talking to each other without saying anything, and the many ways that might take shape. It certainly leaves wide open spaces for art, for dance, for music, and for silence, within the space of psychotherapy.

I Am The Cheese

I am not the most popular person right now.

I'm interning at a charter high school in center city, working with a fairly incredible group of kids in pretty impossible situations. The challenge is good, and I look forward to spending time with the kids each time I walk into the building. It's valuable work.

Having worked as a school-based mental health consultant at a high school for five years myself, I know the ropes of high school mental health well. I am confident in my abilities to do what's necessary for the kiddos, and generally I know what that is. I worked under an incredible supervisor in my position at Great Valley, and honestly have no want/need for someone to fill those shoes. My approach is somewhat arrogant, I know, but really it comes down to: just let me do the work.

Of course, this is not making me any friends. I'm winning no popularity points at my internship. The counseling director where I am placed has now requested to meet with me weekly to help guide my education; as he and I have disagreed on more than one occasion about how best to address a problem, I believe this to be a way to keep dibs on me, more than anything else.

My direct supervisors are genuinely great people, and I like them very much. But they are trying to lay low to remain in the good graces of the school staff, and any waves that I make impact them, and so they are always asking me in various ways to please just stay out of things, or please just don't say anything. And then I say something, and I know, once again, that I am NOT making friends.

This situation is hard. I'm back in school because I needed a license and wanted a more versatile degree, but I already have a Master's degree in the social sciences and I've been practicing for almost ten years - in  high schools, in nonprofits, in outpatient, in inpatient, as a crisis counselor, in  hospitals, in my own private practice...I've been PRACTICING. And I feel like someone's taking away my right to do so, because of this weird intern/student label, and I'm pissed, and I'm defensive, and I'm upset. And, I suspect, mildly to moderately unfriendly.

In this, there is learning, always learning, but less about how to do this job and more about who I am in the context of this job. I take my craft seriously, and I am good at it. I am a hard worker and a loyal advocate to my clients. But. I think I am also intimidating, and maybe a vaguely bad team player. And in being direct and resolved, I am not very gregarious or fun. I think that's a big piece of me, as practitioner. And coming to grips with that reality is, I think, the most important thing grad school has taught me so far. And that's all for now.

Community Matters

I have thought about re-committing myself to church in some way often, at least once or twice weekly, for years now. I never have particularly liked church, and as I find myself having evolved into a religion-is-generally-a-bad-idea-for-me type of human, I really couldn't reconcile going somewhere that was specifically religious. I thought maybe an Episcopal church would be a lovely experience, but my nonbelief snagged me. I tried going to a couple Unitarian churches, only to find myself accosted by flowery poems by various inspired congregation members, and even subjected to an improvised interpretational dance. So that was out.

Church appeals to me solely because of the hole it seems to fill, single-handedly, in communities. The bringing together of people trying to be the best versions of themselves, to lend a hand to one another whenever they can, and to give back to the small spaces where they live, love, and work. That this niche is filled by the church an mostly only the church baffles me - why is this idea so tied to organized religion, which can be so divisive and illogical? Why aren't all of us getting in on this idea just because it's a beautiful and inspiring thing?


Church without a church surely would include potato sack races.

I feel the need for this kind of community togetherness more and more as I age. I see people creating it however they can - mostly people creating community by making families and building babies. Since my own uterus still is in no way interested, I'm looking for the creation of something else...not a church...not a family unit...maybe an "intentional community?" In a non-hippie way. I'm bad at sharing. But just an intentional getting together of loved people, encouraging the best in each other and giving each other space to be just as they are?

But even beyond my beautiful friend base, I long for something else, something bigger. I live on the line of Powelton Village and Mantua, and many of my people live in West Philadelphia proper, and these areas all speak to me. Beautifying these areas appeals to me. Meeting and working with my neighbors appeals to me. Giving a service to the community (I'm thinking low-cost mental health services, since that's my deal) appeals to me. Church-y, community-building concepts. Minus the church-y space.

So that's what simmering inside me right now. I'm hoping it's a seed that will take shape and grow into something interesting and worthwhile. Because it seems like a need, right? For communities, for friends, for families, for neighbors, for me.


What does your community look like?