4/10: The Fruits of Light and Darkness

The idea of light and darkness as being symbolic of good and evil, right and wrong, virtuous and corrupting is one that I’ve been struggling with lately. Yes, in the dark there is the sometimes disconcerting unknown of not being able to see into each corner. There could be spiders in those corners! But in the dark is also when we mostly sleep. In the dark is where tasty things like kimchi and miso ferment. In the dark is where little amazing eyeless fish live in subterranean caves. In short, lots of amazing things happen in the dark. There is also the reality that dark is also black and black is also a racial construct applied to a whole lot of people.

In pre-colonial Europe darkness and the color black had already been defined in literature and by the church as “deeply stained with dirt, soiled, dirty, foul. Having dark or deadly purposes, malignant; pertaining to or involving death, deadly; baneful, disastrous, sinister. Foul, iniquitous, atrocious, horribly wicked.  Indicating disgrace, censure, liability to punishment, etc.” (Zinn, 1980).  Light or white likewise had been ascribed the meaning of being related to virtuousness and beauty.

On Work and the the Life Therein

I am consistently inspired by the hope, tenacity and compassion of the people I work with, all of whom are living with HIV or AIDS. Each time I feel the wax and wane of my motivation to keep working, to wrap my life around a job I am drawn back by those who are called my clients. In reality we are like partners. In implicit and explicit ways we learn from one another and support one another.

Just the other day I was reminded by someone who comes into my work about a very true part of human nature: it is easier to learn to live in crisis management mode and uncertainty then to live a life in progress. Sometimes the hardest parts in our journeys to heal and transform our lives are the moments when we are faced with taking action on necessary change.

When I’ m working with someone who is struggling with housing, addiction, and any manner of mental and emotional trauma, the work becomes most intense when we are the cusp of a stride forward. The greater the stride forward the great the emotional upheaval. I’ve come to notice that a lot o time the this resistance is rooted in self doubt, shame, and pure fear over becoming what we want to be rather then what we are.

I know how to doubt myself, I know how to make excuses, I know how to engage in the same old, same old no matter how destructive it may be. I know how to do it and that is safe, that is practiced, that is where I am known. Outside of that, in the world of my minds eye, my visions for my potential and dreams or my future I am lost. The motions to get there are not practiced but instead are every changing and evolving. That is, on most days, terrifying.

On the brink of getting into a safe, sober housing situation a client will sometimes relapse in a hard, hard way.  The immovable object that is us, stuck in moments of our deepest self-loathing, is a crutch when we we fear that tomorrow won’t be the same, nor will any day after.

This week I lost a client who was also a friend. The death was sudden and unexpected. This person lived a life love for friends and family. But as with so many people I come to know in my work, this person also struggled mightily to overcome addiction, to separate from a violent partner and to stay positive and connected. There are few at my work who did not become close to this person and none who didn’t believe in there potential. But in the end it takes just one bad night or picking up just one too many times to push a body to the breaking point.   There is a quote we often use at work during group sessions: “It is never too late to become the person you were meant to be”.  Not one person at my work  believed that this person couldn’t overcome. I’m hurt and angry of course. But I am also frustrated. I once decided for myself that in the long road ahead working for justice there would still be those left behind, or those who fall under the trundling wheels of the system, those we can not gather up around us and keep safe or help to heal. Those for whom justice will come to late. But damn! if I don’t want to believe that right now. I want this person back. I want to walk into work and see them in the lunch room or in the art room. I want more time. More time to keep them safe and surrounded by love and to once more tell them how very much they mean to me. I want to see the day they become who they were always meant to be. That person you could catch glimpses of during any conversation.

As of late I have been engaged in a lot of very thoughtful conversations with friends about inertia and the fear of embracing the things we truly want to be and do in this world. One friend calls it a coat, another calls it a mask. Both are good descriptors of what I feel hinders me from embracing those things that I feel would complete my self image. Those things that would set me in a constant motion of transformation and growth. I think now, if I can’t do this for myself, how could I have possibly done it for my dear friend at work who is now gone? In these moments I of course have self doubt about what I do and wonder aloud if its the right thing to do.

Well the truth is of course that we are all in process together. We use our good forces to do what we can to give a leg up to others when they need it, to give a little more of ourselves to someone who needs our support and love. I have seen the joy the accompanies the fear of taking a great stride forward and embracing the hope someone has for them self. This I learn from the people I work with each day and in truth this is what I try and replicate. Not just something I learn in class. Rather something I learn from them about  the act of keep on keeping for that day when hope overcomes fear.

30 Ruminations on Turning 30

The carnage of three birthday desserts for my thirtieth b-day party

April 29th was my thirtieth birthday. Never one to put much stock in age I didn’t do much preparing. But on the eve of my birthday, as I lay in bed I began to think more about the act of turning thirty. I don’t think thirty is terribly old, but it does somehow feel different than other birthdays. The past 30 years of my life involved being  born, an enormous amount of cognitive development, learning to walk, run, read, write, talk, schooling, college, jobs….the list goes on and on. So much of the last thirty years involved growing up – from a baby to an adult. That is a hell of a lot of activity! Now I’m thirty, I’m not done grown and changing, but now I’m me, making my own choices and really living my life. I’m not bothered by having to learn to walk and talk and read – I’ve got all those things down (most of the time). So I view turning thirty as reaching a moment where I can harness all the powers I’ve gained in the past thirty years for adventures untold.

Here is a list of thoughts I made about turning 30:

1. I thought I would have learned to put my clothes away by now
   

   My chair is always draped in an assortment of clothes...

2. Thought I’d learned to make my bed by now
3. Thought I would actually be able to wake up when my alarm clock goes off
4. Thought I wouldn’t care about what happens on 90210
5. Thought I’d know how to manage my time better
6. Oh how I thought I would have been able to keep my room clean by now
7. Thought I’d not be as jealous person
8. thought I’d be able to let go of grudges from high school
   

   My bed continues to be a depository for disgarded items

9. Totally thought I’d be able to spell “necessary” and “unfortunately” without spell check
10. learned the lyrics to every song in Les Miserables
11. I would have thought I could finally have concurred the banjo and fiddle
12. I definitely thought I would have managed a short story by now instead of finishing 2/3’s of 100 short stories
13. It would have been nice to have been able to actually finished Watership Down
14. By now, I thought I would have been able to admit to myself that I’m the worlds worst vegetarian
15. I’d always thought that I’d still be a rock climber
16. No seriously, I really thought I’d have stopped caring about what happens on 90210
17. I’m flummoxed as to why I am not a wildly popular internet star by now…
18. Well I was sure that by now I’d own a sequined dress damn it!
19. seems like I should have outgrown jelly bracelets by now
20. When I was young I thought I’d have five kids by now…
21. Honestly I’d hoped that by age thirty I’d have figured out how to drive a stick shift
22. Thirty is an age at which I think I need to stop eating so much sugar and up my fiber intake…or is that age 40?
23. Now that I’m thirty I plan to start wearing mascara…that’s right. Don’t judge.
24. By thirty I thought I’d have been able to break myself of my nail-biting habit
25. One thing I’ve done by age thirty is managed to read the Lord of the Rings once a year for about 15 years.
26. My thirtieth birthday marks 23 years of Harry Potter books as a part of my life. I’d have thought their importance to me would have faded by now, but quite the opposite has been true.
27. Oh how I wish that I had a cat. By age thirty it seems that I should have my very own cat – an orange tabby cat named Carl or Frank.
28. Oh and by age thirty I would have thought I wouldn’t still own clothes I owned in high school. Ha!
29. I’ll admit it, by age thirty I thought I’d be living back in my hometown of Spokane
30. I think that by age thirty I would feel more like I’ve got it all figured out…

Why is this so Hard?

A few days I ago I announced I would be blogging. After enduring several cleverly worded jibes from people who seem to be laboring under the impression that I have given up blogging, I set to work. I did this however in long hand. Shutting the lid on my laptop, silencing its little whirling fan I propped myself up with some pillows beneath my open window. A fine, warm, early spring breeze came in through the window. The sky was cloudless and the sun hot as it poured in through the window. All conditions pointed to perfect for writing. My pen hovered over the paper of my notebook, poised to scribble away for hours.

But despite the idyllic conditions, the words would not come. They just danced around in my head, a jumble of adjectives, nouns, verbs and so on comprising the six or so stories, articles and essays I’ve been dreaming up. Some filter was broken in my mind, inhibiting the words from sorting themselves out into proper sentences all from the same story.

For hours I just sat beneath the window, pen hovering centimeters from paper. After some time I gave it up and went outside to meet friends for trivia night. But my heart wasn’t in it. I never quite settled into answering obscure trivia questions pertaining to obscure facts about movies, music and history. I was preoccupied with my failure to write but even one sentence.

Its been this way for a while. While the ideas exist in my head, the words are all mashed up together forming a clog that prevents the transfer of ideas from mind to pen to paper. I’ve heard this called writers block. I’ve even researched writers block. Mostly I find a lot of people who are apparently quite prolific at writing about writers block while being unable to write about much else. I understand its an affliction that many face, but I’m not interested in reading long and plaintive stories of triumph over writers block. Nor am I interested in buying the full story for $19.95. I have hope that it will pass, I’m just troubled. Troubled by the fact that its not just that I can’t write but that I can’t even distinguish the ideas for stories and essays that are floating about in my mind.

I blame school. The vast amount of academic literature I have to read, the studies I have to understand, the statistical analyzing required of me, the study designed I have to come up with, the briefs I have to write…its like a creativity killer. Gone are my colored pencils, sketch books and journal. Replaced by a highlighter, red pen and a keyboard. My brain, or at least that part of my brain I’m required to use for school, has bullied the other part of my brain, the creative dreamer part, to the foreground. Here it mopes about  growing fat and frumpy with lack of use. I suppose I need to have a discussion with this part of my brain. Tell it to buck up! Get its act together and assert itself a little more. “Get out here and make something creative happen damn it!”

Sometimes I wonder if I haven’t made a horrible mistake in using my one shot at advanced education studying something other then creative writing or comparative literature. Useless the degree would be, but the training, the discipline, would be priceless. Oh, I know that no matter how you look at it higher education is a drag and infuriating. It loves to suck the life out of free spirits, but it does offer training and structure – two things I would very much appreciate at this moment that I struggle so mightily with my writing.

As for blogging – well school has ruined this by sucking up all my time with visits to the library for days of writing and researching. This has left very little time for adventures and spontaneous happenings that make for excellent fodder for blogging.

In the interest of keeping things on the Daily Boston Adventure interesting, I would welcome guests posts and stories and as always, post ideas.