week 4, year 1

As 2009 comes to a close, I enter my 4th week working at North Country Shelter in Jefferson, NH. Many have asked, unsurprisingly, how my new job is going. I'm trying to avoid a pat answer or a packaged response. My experience shifts through each day and with each new day, more arises. Let me see if I can cover the good, the bad, the ugly, and the breathtaking...

the kids! some days I want to throttle them, other days I am inspired to new levels of gratitude and awe. They can pack with each other like mean dogs at times (and I generally love dogs) against any adult's attempt to connect or make sense of their craziness. They can also open and trust and put themselves so bravely into my/our care, despite how many times they have been let down and dropped. Their histories are generally heartbreaking and, for many of them, their future prospects are meek. I am accustomed to working with mostly middle to high-income families and the kids I've counseled have had many resources thrown at them. These kids have had some very tough breaks, made some not-so-wise choices, and now are looking at the major task of turning their ship around or heading into the adult legal system. I don't get to work with the parents anymore. I'm not sure it would matter -- these kids have been labeled, the parents for the most part aren't curious about how their parenting planted the seeds for the child's behaviors.

They think I'm weird. Amazingly they put up with me and my continuous requests to make eye contact with me and slow down, "take a breath." They give me space to do my thing and I put up with the ridicule they dish out. I think we're getting along just fine.

The staff. They might think I'm weird too. I sometimes get a bit bossy with my insistence that people stop speaking from the ubiquitous "we" or from the depersonalized "you" and use the always direct and potent "I" when making statements (preferably with fewer than 10 words!). They've begun to lift their eyes up from the floor during meetings and similarly made some eye contact with another human being in the room. I gotta say, the kids are more consistent -- must be something about teaching old dogs new tricks. I love how I see the hearts of my co-workers so clearly, so profoundly. The job is hard, there are few positive reinforcements, there are many thankless moments, thanksless days. And still, most of them show up the next day smiling and working hard for the kids.

The paperwork! F___ Me! I bum myself out with the possibility that it'll be the paperwork that kills me. I can't seem to get ahead. I don't get enough time supporting the staff or working with the kids. Most of my days are spent at my computer. My butt is getting flatter and wider, my skin more pasty.

The commute.... thank God for metal studded tires -- hello! it really snows here in New England. I love it even though I get a bit tensed up coming home in the dark and wind and white, wondering if the person behind me has also discovered the magic of studded tires as they ride my butt towards the next curve in the highway.

As I spent time with family and friends over the last few days (it was Christmas afterall), I did an inventory of my new working experience. Sometimes it feels like this direction makes no logical sense -- I make half of my wages in Colorado, I work more, I am inside almost all the time, I get insulted, disrespected, and ridiculed, etc... But there continues to be an inner knowing about where I am, that everything is just as it needs to be even when I can't see the intelligence of the Universe at play. Some mornings I feel lost. Then I remember to stop judging my experience and simply accept what is and say 'thank you.'

The circumstances of my counseling work at NCS are such that there is little opportunity for me to be a therapist in the usual way I think of myself as one; I don't get to employ tools and tricks from my tickle trunk of skills (Canadian reference to Mr. Dress Up, fyi). I am continuing to relinquish my habitual way of trying to be helpful. I never know if or when I will get to connect with a resident at the shelter, maybe once and never again. At first I was putting an inordinate amount of stress on myself to try and be perfect and efficient with this limitation, stress being the key word -- I was setting myself up for burnout and discouragement -- dis-courage-ment, less heart, less bravery, de-coeur-ager ("courage" coming from the French word for "heart"). With this self-created stress I was going more into my head, more emphasis on diagnosis and assessment and intervention than simply showing up in this moment with only my courage. These folks don't need a therapist, maybe they just want connection during this confusing, chaotic, and crazy time.

From John O'Donohue's "Eternal Echoes":

We need a new psychology to encourage us and liberate us to become full participants in our lives, one that will replace self-watch with self-awakening. We need a rebirth of the self as the sacred temple of mystery and possibility, this demands a new language which is poetic, mystical, and impervious to the radiation of psychologese. We need to rediscover the wise graciousness of spontaneity. The absence of spontaneity unleashes us negatively on ourselves. (p.235)

The photos for this entry -- the first shot is the sunset from my office window as the day wraps up in northern New Hampshire. The beautiful brunette is my office mate, Lynne; she's the Family Service Worker at NCS and, for 16 years, she's trained and supported every staff member and loved every kid. A couple of other shots were taken while I visited my mom and sister over the holiday weekend in Ontario. I particularly liked the red and green buoys which popped up from the water and caught hold of my sense of sight during our Christmas day stroll by the river. This last photo I took driving east on Hwy. 401 from Peterborough towards Montreal on Sunday morning as the sun was rising and shining through the fog and the trees. I like light shining through fog and trees.

be well, my love to you

martha