understanding (n.)

Is anybody else partnered to a Gemini?

2012-01-29T11:49:00.000-08:00

Can anyone else explain the mysterious workings of the twin mind?

Of course, I don't believe that we are who the stars say we are. Most days.

Shoes and I are grappling with some Very Big Decisions right now. Decisions and choices I am aching to tell you about, but can't. At least for several more days. The past month has left us quizzical, exhilarated, dumbfounded, frustrated, joyful.

It has left me cursing the Stars that made my Shoes a Gemini.

I'm a planner. I hate the not knowing - the time directly before a big decision is made. The change, the transition, the upheaval that comes right after the decision is made ... I'm completely ok with that.

I'm good at that.

Shoes, however, doesn't mind the time right before the decision is made. He is careful and analytic. But o, the careful weighing and measuring of every option we have is agonizing. And the yes, no, yes, no, yes, no.

Stars, a pox upon your household. (Or, as Shakespeare originally wrote, and it seems to fit this twin mind phenomenon perfectly, a plague o' both your households...)

I'm sure getting some good use out of this year's resolution to just be and concentrate on who I can be during times of crazy.

Five more months of being a family therapist intern.

2012-01-26T06:00:00.000-08:00

Arizona (of Grey's Anatomy): "This is not general surgery on a miniature scale. These are tiny humans. These are children. They believe in magic. They play pretend. There is fairy dust in their IV bags. They hope, and they cross their fingers, and they make wishes, and that makes them more resilient than adults. They recover faster, survive worse. They believe."

My current clients are tiny. They are victims of physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect. They come from families with multiple stressors: poverty, racism, violence. They have PTSD. Many of them do not come from homes where they are told how wonderful they are or how much they are loved. They soil their pants and we call it "sneaky poo"* . They have severe separation anxiety and we spy on the "scary feelings." Their stuffed animals talk to them and give them strength and magical powers to overcome fear.

Sometimes they play in weird ways with dollhouses.

Something always comes out of dollhouse play.

And little bit by little bit, we work on the things that are big and scary and bad. Because those things, it turns out, aren't really a match for the fierceness of my shortest clientele.

And we end sessions like this:

My 6 year old client: "Lisa! The big hand is on the 11 and you said when it got on the 11 it was time to put away our toys! Can we play with the paint next time? I got goldfish crackers today for snack. I love goldfish crackers. I love cheddar! I'm so glad I'm not allergic to cheddar 'cause then I couldn't eat CHEESE!! And next time, can we talk about our feelings some more, too? AND play Connect Four?"

My friend, I also love cheese and Connect Four.
But I do kind of dread dollhouse play ...

(* Freeman, J., Epston, D. & Lobovits, D. (1997). Playful Approaches To Serious Problems. Norton & Company: New York.)

Monday. Portland Image 2.

2012-01-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

Portland Aerial Tram, mentioned last week.
Coming up.

when there are a few assaults on campus ...

2012-01-19T06:00:00.000-08:00

... a girl, like me, who walks by herself across campus at 9:30 pm several times a week, starts to get a little concerned about her safety. And a girl, like me, who is a social worker, knows what kind of crazy trouble people find themselves in. And a girl, like me, has no, NONE, excuse not to safety plan a little. And a girl, like me, who has a deputy prosecuting attorney for a partner, hears irritated words from partner because partner is genuinely concerned for my safety. And a girl, like me, who has many good social work student friends, hears many admonishments about safety every time we have class.

So this week, I swallowed my pride and called Campus Safety when I got off the bus for an escort across campus. These nasty little nagging voices kept saying, "Soft! You're soft! You know how to hurt people and take people down using a side arm bar takedown and now you're all city soft!" And to make things worse?

The security officer was female.

But the true icing on the cake?

Apparently, it's common practice for PSU Public Safety (oooh, I hope that shows up in a search engine now) to put a girl like me, who just needs an escort, in the back of the Campus PD car and drive alllll the way around campus to where I need to be.

A little mini parade! For all to see! In the BACK of the PD CAR Behind the gate. On the plastic seat. With no handle inside because you can't get out until they let you out.

And then maybe it's common practice (or maybe it was just my lucky day) for the driver of the car (2 officers!) to go as fast as possible around corners. Turns out they're a little bored at night. I can hear you say it now: "Isn't a little humiliation worth your safety?"

NO.

I'm going to the running supply store tomorrow to buy pepper spray, and if I can't find any, I'll buy the bear mace at REI the employee did his best to persuade me NOT to buy. I don't need to be the central figure in any more Campus PD parades.

(Shoes isn't pleased with my re-found independence.)

Monday. Portland Image 1

2012-01-16T07:00:00.000-08:00

When I have my uncomplicated little camera with me, I tend to look at things differently. Hence, my new Monday posts. {In the land of diagnosing mental illness and treating very hurt children, it is right and fitting and good to look at something different. And. I love this city, for all of its strange, idiosyncratic, hipster-as-religion quirks.}

Downtown.
From the Tram.
A usual part of my Saturday commute.

once, when i worked in juvenile lock up ...

2012-01-13T20:15:00.000-08:00

... and all of the detainees had come out of their cells and were waiting by their doors for rec to begin, i looked around in the early morning stillness and saw each of them for their vulnerability and their potential. all of the past offenses (the whining, the misbehaving, the arguing) melted away and it was a sacred time of being able to see their genuine selves. i wondered if they knew how beautiful they were.

then rec started and the whining resumed.

they were still beautiful,

this week i started leading my first parent group and it was a big group - 16 parents in all. their backgrounds were remarkably different, their goals were different, their perspectives were different. some parents had elected to be there; some had been ordered by child welfare to be there. in those two hours of group, however, they were vulnerable and scared and optimistic and looking for things to change. it was a sacred time of being able to see their genuine selves.

i wondered if they knew how beautiful they were.

Oh, lovely "10 on 10" ...

2012-01-11T10:06:00.000-08:00

I have been taking pictures for the past few days in hopes of constructing some sort of semblance of a 10 on 10 post.

Notice it's the 11th.

Do I get an "E" for "Effort?"

Difficult to take hourly pictures when I switch from client to client.

Or class to class.

Or bus to bus.

Or class to bus.

Or ...

Well ...

You get the picture.

But here are the first few images I have.

A working, graduate student's Portland life.

Sunny days in Portland are happy days.

First thing, it's out the door to run.

(I had to laugh [like, snort water out out my nose laughing and choking] at the last episode of Portlandia.

The SUN ... is BLINDING me!!)

And then this therapist gets ready to work with families.

Jeans are my general rule when providing kid therapy.

No more court dress and high heels for this social worker.

(At least for right now.)

I get to prepare food for the day!

The entire day.

The entire 15 hour day.

And like any good worker, this therapist has her reading material good to go.

"Intern area" is code speak for "dump anything you don't know what to do with here."

We also randomly had dog poop on the carpet near our desks a few days ago.

No idea where that came from.

And a quick reminder how therapy sometimes works ..

... because it's easy to forget that it does ...

I have more images.
Research hospital images.
Waiting for Shoes at the South Waterfront images.
They'll come.
They might bore you to tears,
but it's my own personal project.

Gives me something else to think about than Bowenian Theory.
And there will be a lot of Bowenian Theory ...

And then the sun went down and the moon came out. Turns out it was just another day.

2012-01-08T19:50:00.000-08:00

It's Sunday. It's Sunday and I'm sitting here in my little kitchen. I've just cleaned my tiny apartment and I'm about ready to get my things ready for school tomorrow.

I'm sulking, I think. After what was a very lovely lunch with my amazing goddaughter and her amazing parents, Shoes left early because he has legitimate, serious things to take care of at home. After three years, I would think that the leaving and the distance and the schedules would get easier. It's never gotten easier. But what am I complaining about? That I have an amazing, loving partner who's entirely supportive of my graduate school endeavors, despite the fact that I moved four hours away?

Some complaint.

Shoes and I spent the weekend working on wedding things. Finalizing attendant lists, working on the website, looking for invitations. Doing some precursory thinking about our registry. (Shoes would like to register for a house. And a puppy.)

Tomorrow marks day 1 of my last Winter term. In total, there are 20 weeks left of school for me. Tomorrow, the chaos that is school, research, my job and my internship starts over again. I'm determined, however, to not let it own me like it owned me last time. With a term of this "final year" business under my belt, maybe I'll succeed in taking back control and Occupy Graduate School.

The year looms large, and although I can't see it's actual form, it's shadow precedes it everywhere....

I hope it's a friendly sort of giant.

I mark my glee about 2012 by jubilantly celebrating its arrival.

2012-01-02T21:21:00.000-08:00

Welcome, 2012!

To usher this year of amazing in, I dealt with a lot of the above. It's a mighty odd thing when the Garmin shows no other roads.

And I passed by a lot of this.

But then I got to my destination.

And it was time to celebrate.

Our dear friend Chris is the most marvelous head chef at his new restaurant in the Vineyard Town.

And this is the cutest quail I've ever seen.

Cute ... and delicious.

It is stinking cold in the Vineyard Town on New Years Eve.

But the street was so prettily dressed up in its Christmas Best.

Tiffany, middle, my old roommate.

Lacey, right, a true co-partner in crime.

I miss these girls like you wouldn't believe.

Would. Not. Believe.

New Years Glee increases exponentially with every noisemaker.

In case you were curious.

I am attempting to show how tough I am in Chris' kitchen.

But I think I'll leave the cooking to the professional.

(See who's really holding the knife?)

Shoes was not really smiling when I asked him to don his party hat for this photo.

He has had to listen to me describe how epic this year is going to be no less than 50, 217 times.

I'm still celebrating.

With noisemakers.

Dear 2012 ...

2011-12-31T08:00:00.000-08:00

... first, please don't end abruptly. i surely do hope that the Mayan's stone was just not big enough to write the entire future of the universe on. and i hope that nothing catastrophic happens with the switching of the earth's poles.

also, this is going to be a huge year of writing my theoretical foundations paper, finishing up my internship, graduating from graduate school and getting married; i was going to write some specific, amazing goals for you, but then realized how busy you're going to keep me.

so i'm not writing goals. or resolutions. instead, i'm going to concentrate on the things i know you already contain and focus instead on how to be and rest within the tasks i need to accomplish. as in, i will be focused on being peaceful, being compassionate, and maintaining a good sense of humor. shoes and i have many unanswered questions about this year: no clue where we're going to live, who is going to move, what jobs we're going to have, but i trust that you contain only good things. (we have some creative ideas, but i'm bound by small town politics to avoid talking about them prematurely.)

with all that you have revealed, you are still the year of the unknown.

i trust you anyway.

(but seriously, no abrupt, cataclysmic ending of the world, ok? i'm pretty serious about that.)

the culmination of merry and bright.

2011-12-28T18:34:00.000-08:00

this mini break from my adult life is doing wonders for my soul. taking this week off from counseling has had exponential benefits, and the fact that i hardly have anything to do at the hospital for my paid job isn't hurting too much either.

shoes and i had a superb Christmas. sister Cheryl came over for Christmas Eve and the next morning we all drove out to sister Lizz' house for a tiny bit. came back and enjoyed Christmas Dinner and then dessert with our dear friends B. and her Mr. we drank deeply and laughed heartily and talked about all of the things we wanted for this year.

i'm asking a lot out of 2012 (to be shared later).

i used to be a better picture taker, but this year i just have one to share. after shoes finished his dinner he laid down and said, "stair plank!"

that is code for "food coma."

sister Cheryl wonders if this is amusing or sad.

stair plank. sheesh.

It was a good run.

2011-12-23T18:56:00.000-08:00

Of concentrating on merry and bright. But in the world that Shoes and I work in, there is always a balance. My concentration on loveliness was tempered by a family experiencing shocking darkness. Shoes' loveliness was tempered by an autopsy he was required to attend.

How much time do we spend at work? About 8 hours? (I'm bad at work / life balance and often do paperwork well beyond that.) We all have things we specialize in. Editing. Retail. Community Protection. Food Service. Auto repair. Nursing. Marketing. Shoes and I just happen to specialize in "whatever goes the most wrong in society". I wouldn't be anywhere else, but on days like today, I get home, and I am so grateful for all of the little, tiny, most insignificant things that are going well.

Turns out those things aren't so insignificant after all.

On Facebook today, my friend Candace asked, "What does the Incarnation mean to you?" Some believe. Some don't. But on today, the day before Christmas Eve, when I am waiting for my Shoes to arrive and it is almost Christmas and we have so many lovely things to look forward to and I have spent an afternoon grieving with people whose Christmases aren't going to go well, I'm deeply absorbed in this question.

I offer two bits:

One: Without the Incarnation, I do not know how to offer hope to children who are physically, mentally and sexually abused. I do not talk about it in session; I just personally do not know how to offer hope and light without the Incarnation. There's a little verse about truly knowing what hope and faith mean .... after you've seen the darkness.

Two: With the Incarnation, I believe there are good things in this world for us. I live in the land of the living. I need to see the good now. The whole world changes for me with the Incarnation.

And so, while all Merry and Bright has not been lost, I find myself thoughtful and pensive.

And sending out good thoughts to the families who will be searching (and may just be finding) Merry and Bright in the midst of impossible situations. (Send them out with me?)

Oooooooh.

2011-12-21T12:51:00.000-08:00

(That was supposed to be a ghost noise.)

Shoes has a thing for soft, frosted sugar cookies. A big thing. Like, on our first Valentines Day, he made dinner reservations at a lovely restaurant and on the way over to my house to pick me up, stopped by the grocery store to pick up some simple flowers. But, on the way to flowers, he passed by the circles of deliciousness, forgot about the flowers, bought the cookies instead and showed up at my doorstep with a dozen sugar cookies.

The first Christmas we were together, I made a ton of Christmas sugar cookies, and they were a major pain in my rear. I cut them out, frosted them, destroyed my kitchen and came up with maybe 10 that were passable. The snowmen were the worst. The lines blurred together as the cookies cooked and they looked like big blobs of nothing. Sister Cheryl helped me that year and we tried again the two years after that. This year, when discussing our holiday baking day, she ever so sweetly said, "Do you think maybe we could do something this year that doesn't require frosting?" Amen, sister. Amen.

Still, I wrapped those cookies up and took them with me to the Vineyard Town a couple days before Christmas.

Upon seeing the plate, Shoes became EXTREMELY excited and said, "Circles of Deliciousness? You made me circles of deliciousnes?!" He ripped the wrapping off those cookies and then froze in silence when he saw them.

"Why did you make me Christmas ghosts?" he asked in a small voice.

I almost threw those sugar cookies outside.

When texting today about Christmas dinner, Shoes wrote, "Sounds good. With potatoes, and Christmas ghosts??"

I initially told him we would make Christmas ghosts together on Christmas Eve day, picturing this lovely day of baking and laughter and love and light.

I revise history in the most interesting ways.

Probably better just pick them up from Fred Meyer when I pick up the prime rib. Better to hold on to the merry and bright in the ways I know will work.

more shiny, happy, bright.

2011-12-18T19:17:00.000-08:00

so many lovely little bits to add to my own advent season of beautiful things:

* the holiday giving tree at the mall. merry christmas, precious 6 - 8 year old girl.

* super fantastic holiday parties for my internship site. you never know what's going to happen when you get a bunch of therapists in the room! raucous laughter, darling babies to pass around, delicious wine. things that help remind us that the world is really a gorgeous place to be.

* picking the absolute, 1,000% perfect recipe for stuffed mushrooms and watching them fly off the plate at said party.

* a walk down Portland's amazing Peacock Lane with my love.

* watching a darling young man propose to his gorgeous young girlfriend on Peacock Lane and joining with the strangers on the street in cheering in jubilation when she said yes. (truly, truly a magical christmas moment -- there is nothing sweeter than proposals at christmas! [unless, of course, you're proposed to at the japanese garden on july 27th.])

* and speaking of, my dear friend becca getting engaged just today!

* finding the perfect christmas gift (possibly ever) for sister cheryl.

* dinners with my sweet friend stacey and her amazing husband josh. sharing my hamburger with their daughter liberty and having liberty ask me, "what's he saying??" as i cuddle liberty's infant brother, jaxon.

* writing letters "from" santa claus and receiving letters "to" santa claus. how sweet is it that my dear nephew Finn wants to know if santa likes green or brown cookies, or that little miss molly wants to know if santa is warm and what he eats for dinner? getting these letters and writing back is no small joy.

* the mischievous little imp of a girl who stole all of our hearts at the ADHD lab when she said asked santa for a poodle puppy for christmas ... one she wants to name ... snoodle.

* new years eve plans for the vineyard town at a fancy pants, name-on-the-list-only cool kid party ... and time to get all caught up with my old roommate and her daughter. giddy with excitement.

* dancing with shoes in my kitchen to potential first dance songs. out of breath laughter when we tried, "baby, don't forget my number ..."

* knowing that very soon i will be able to say that shoes and i are getting married ... "this year." (ditto for graduating ... "this year!")

not quite sure where the last two weeks of winter break have gone ... the busy-ness really never let up ... but still grateful for all that's here. still excited about all that's going to come.

portlanders love their dogs.

2011-12-12T19:33:00.000-08:00

ever watch Portlandia? not such an exaggeration.

i myself have stepped in dog poop at night twice in one week. when dog poop gets in the cracks and crevices of your shoes, it is almost impossible to get out.

i realized this during weekly formal supervision at internship. when i could smell my shoe. 7 clorox wipes later ... my shoes still smelled like dog poop.

which is why, while on the floor building a train track with a 6 year old client, 6 year old client said, "something is stinky."

what to do? tell him it was my shoe? ask him how he felt about that?

i said, "i wonder what that could be." he looked at me suspiciously and said, "it stinks like that when my teacher farts." i said, "does your teacher fart a lot?" (great. now kid thought i was farting and ducking responsibility.) kid said, "yeah, sometimes. oh you know what? i farted on santa's lap on saturday."

i said, "you did?"

kid said, "yeah. i hope he still brings me toys."

me too, kid.

my shoes are still outside.

stupid portland dogs.

You can just visit, but I plan to stay. I'm going to go back there someday.

2011-12-11T21:50:00.000-08:00

I know I just posted about this. Maybe I'm perseverating. Maybe the more I work with kids who have been emotionally hurt, the more I long to share a childhood of games and play and love and safety.

This hat on my head? The head of mine that was four years old? It's a Kermit birthday hat.

I so wish I had that hat today.
I do not think there is a name for a Muppet fan.
If there was a name for a Muppet fan, I would be he. Or she, if we're bucking gender normative language.
This isn't the only picture we have of me loving on the Muppets when I was little. Somewhere in the archives are pictures of my darling stuffed Cookie Monster, long since passed on, and my beloved Muppet Show poster.

I watched the Muppet Show. Weekly. I wasn't born when the Muppets appeared on the first season of Saturday Night Live. Sesame Street. Often. The Muppet Movies. All but two. Fraggle Rock. Not my favorite, but still lovable. In high school I somehow managed to convince my best friend to see Muppet Treasure Island with me. Every year at Christmas I watch the Muppet Christmas Carol. The Labyrinth. Not a Muppet movie, but Jim Henson puppets, indeed.

What is it about them? I don't know. But something about them whispers back to me about innocence and imagination and childhood.

Shoes doesn't understand. Last night he said, "I never got what it was all about. It just felt like a bunch of Puppets shouting at me. Why where they shouting at me? And why didn't Oscar the Grouch ever tell those kids to quit bothering him. Didn't they know he was homeless and hungry and didn't want to count to 5 every day?"

I'm trying super hard to not make that a deal breaker.

Moving right along ... (footloose and fancy free ...)

This has been the longest introduction ever to simply let you know that Sister Cheryl and I saw the Muppet Movie on Friday and it was not fantastic. No. It was not fantastic, and am I just crazy, or were Fozzie's eyebrows graying just a touch? It was not the magic I remembered from my childhood, but at 33 years old, sitting in theater, watching it on the big screen, I had a flashback to the very exciting day when my mom took me to see The Great Muppet Caper in the theater when I was 6. (We're going to catch those crooks red-handed ... What color are their hands now?) (Just for posterity's sake, the Great Muppet Caper was released in 1981. I was 3. I lived on a military base, which sometimes show movies at weird times. Hence, I was 6.)

My own darling, accepting Muppet puppet friends, bigger than life. And with that memory came a slew of its warm memory friends, reminding me of a time where I believed in imagination and good. It reminded me of a time when I had no reason to not believe that childhood was a time of growth and love and happiness. And because of that, of that in and of itself, the movie, though not fantastic, was pure magic.

Sister Cheryl later said she did get choked up when they sang The Rainbow Connection. I outright cried. This did not surprise Shoes at all, who reminded me I cry at everything.

I do indeed.

But try to remember the first time you saw this and see if there's not something there for you ...

because i love them.

2011-12-07T12:40:00.000-08:00

is it sacrilegious to include them in my own shiny, happy and bright advent season?

of all the school breaks ...

2011-12-05T18:33:00.000-08:00

i have always loved Christmas break the best.

i have always worked, so it has never been a complete time of do nothing, but the absence of school makes a huge difference.

this term i turned in approximately 80 pages of written work.
completed approximately 1200 pages of assigned reading.
completed additional optional reading, research and intervention finding.
provided counseling to 4 precious families.
participated in 20 hours of supervision / evaluation.
worked approximately 200 hours at my job at the hospital.

but now it is Christmas. now i am getting home a tad earlier. going in to my internship a tad later. picking up takeout. sleeping (significantly) more.

it's not without its difficulty. shoes and i are finding this year to be the hardest year yet to be separated and living in 2 different states. we put up the Christmas "decorations" yesterday:

i realized i have been stringing Christmas lights around the perimeter of a room and hanging ornaments off of them (no room for a tree!) since i was 19 years old. next year .... dreams of a house i share with shoes and a real tree and Christmas cards and Christmas cookies ...

this is also a very, very, very favorite part of my holiday season:

holiday giving trees!! it is one of my great privileges to be able to buy toys for local kids, and as a social worker, i can absolutely, 100% assure you that your contributions do make a difference. the need is so great. greater than i could ever fully explain.

but, i prefer to think of it not as work or labor or a chore or an obligation. i like to think of the kids i work with and how super happy they are when they get to play with new toys. that happy kid innocence gets me far.

this holiday season i will continue my holiday shopping. i will attend the brightest holiday parties. i will bake my most favorite holiday goodies. i will hold on to this time of happy and shiny and bright before the madness that is my last Winter term starts 1/9/12. that's a little bit of a d-day ...

... but i have 4 glorious weeks until then ...

Thankful Thursday, Part 4

2011-11-25T12:54:00.000-08:00

So this is late. Yesterday was spent laughing with Shoes' family. Celebrating a sister who felt well enough after Stage 4 Cancer Treatment to come out for dinner. Celebrating a family gracious enough to cook the entire meal. Celebrating two little boys (ages 7 and 5) who are starting to play together beautifully and entertain themselves. (This year, they discovered they loved yams. And couldn't figure out why we were giving them "candy potatoes".) Celebrating that I have an extended family so supremely loving that we talked about wedding planning and chaos for the perfect amount of time yesterday. (Thankful I am "drowning" in their support and well wishes.)

So today, this is my message of gratitude:

"I thank my God always on your behalf." -- 1 Corinthians 1:4.

So thankful for those closest to me right now.

And today, I am working feverishly on a term paper in (a partially sunny??) Seattle while Shoes naps blissfully. I am surrounded by articles, books and handouts. I am about to head to the coffee shop for my 2nd cup of coffee. I will also complete my internship self-evaluation by the end of the day and will think carefully about my performance with my clients, my clinician co workers, and my learning experiences on the mezzo and macro levels. (I didn't tell you this, but through internship I attended a very interesting roundtable discussion on my agency's finances with the Chief Financial Officer. I was thoroughly intimidated. And in a move completely foreign to my nature, I talked up a storm. And then I received an email from the head of HR asking me to consider sticking around after graduation.)

I can't shake the busy-ness. That's not going to change for a good long while.
And I am beginning to fill my cup back up again. Beginning to remember my skills as a therapist and social advocate. Remembering my 4.0 graduate GPA has not come without good cause. Remembering that I know how to sit and be with human beings. Remembering that people can only know how to support as far as I have the gumption and wisdom to tell them.

That was a scary four weeks of extreme exhaustion empty, lonely, tapped out.

Glad to be back on the loving side of things.

Thankful Thursday, Part Three

2011-11-17T11:19:00.000-08:00

Part Three Already!

* Thankful for my amazing peppermint mocha this morning and the fact that I'm finally getting a start on my narrative therapy paper. This is huge! Apologies for my use of violent language, but I'm gonna' knock this sucker out. It'll probably take 5 days, but it's finally getting started!

* Thankful for the fact that I have internship tomorrow and I get to be "in session" with clients for most of the afternoon. "In Session." How awesome is that. (That means the kids and I talk and play and draw and laugh and the parents and I grab every success that happened during the week we can. I wish everybody could have the humbling experience of working with families. I. Love. It.)

* Thankful I get to see the nephews NEXT WEEK. That's a whole lotta' little boy ferociousness coming my way.

* Thankful that Eliz' Swanky Holiday Party is coming up! Which reminds me, I should RSVP. I love holiday parties. More than what is probably normal.

* Lastly, I'm thankful that my mom still calls me "sugar britches." Um, I don't really know how to describe that, but she says it, and it's just the most ridiculous, endearing, I'd only let HER get away with it term. Love my mom.

why i won't be joining the student walk out and other sordid secrets of this GSSW student.

2011-11-16T11:37:00.000-08:00

the alternate title of this post was a very lengthy list:

why i won't be joining the student walk out
why i did not stop by the Occupy Portland camps
why i used direct praise in session on Monday
why i don't own an I Phone

all things that would be expected of me right now.

i won't be joining the student walk out that's set to happen in 50 minutes. i will still be at this cafe, eating my lunch. instead of joining the subsequent march through the park blocks downtown, i will be headed to class and will be turning in my paper. i might be the only one. i might not. my professor will probably be there and she might be disappointed that i am there. i will not be joining the walk out because i don't understand the goal. as far as i can see,the purpose of the march is to voice extreme frustration for the out of control tuition hikes and the fact that you cannot get a good paying job without a college degree (some would argue at least a Master's), but it's getting harder and harder (almost impossible) to pay for said degree. i agree with all of these points. it's the part where somebody connects a walk out and march to effectively sending a message to our lawmakers that i myself am not connecting with. this walk out and march are passionate and involved and i fully, 10,000% support the students' right to do this. i certainly connect with their fury over the cost of a decent education. but we, who are adults and in graduate school, and are counselors and attorneys (those came first to mind b/c that is the position that Shoes and I are in) and holding a fair amount of social capital, WE are the ones who should be changing the laws. WE should be breaking down the doors of our congressmen, demanding change, withholding our votes. WE are at about the age where WE ourselves should be running for city, county and state positions. maybe that makes me a bad social advocate. or maybe i just choose to advocate differently. (this, of course, would be countered by those who state we have to re-claim power, shake up the system and not do things the way we have always been doing them. i respect that.)

i did not stop by the Occupy Portland camp. i did not attend, as a support/spectator, the deadline of 12:01 Sunday morning for the Occupiers to leave camp. i fully respect their passion and their willingness to camp for 5 weeks in the damp, Portland rain. my heart aches for the homeless and mentally ill that settled in so naturally, finally having a community and a (relatively) safe place to stay. but, again, i'm having problems connecting how a large group of people camping downtown is something Wall Street cares about. and i am so very open to hearing more about the connection, if anybody can shed some light on it.

i used direct praise in session on Monday. after externalizing the problem, eliciting strengths and feedback, and looking into the eyes of a still very bewildered, very exhausted parent, I said, "You're trying as hard as you can and doing the best that you can. Good job." i don't have the right to tell parents if they're doing a good job or not. only they can decide that for themselves. but in a moment where i saw total and utter confusion, i stood in the gap and told a parent (metaphorically), "now is the time to trust yourself." conventional / theoretical wisdom gave way to being in the moment with a human being.

i do not own an I Phone. in a time where every professional i know has one, i do not. i think i would very much like to, but i do not because i cannot afford one and am unwilling to pay for something outside of my financial means. the phone i do have is sad, but because i can afford it, i choose to love it. it's the underdog. the little engine that could. i have dropped it several times (including once in the toilet) and it still keeps on keeping on. it's loyal.

all this to say, there are things that are expected of us.
as a woman with christian beliefs, i am expected to hold conservative political beliefs and traditional family values. i don't.
as a gssw student at a liberal university, it is expected that i jump on board with this walk out. i'm not jumping on board.
as a 33 year old, short of the middle class woman in contemporary culture, it is expected that i use something other than a horribly beat up samsung phone. i'm not. and i'm also driving an old toyota hand me down that's not even mine.
all this to say, i am happy with myself for being able to see what's expected of me and still be able to make a choice about what i'm going to do.

is there something you're struggling with? something you're expected to do? how will you make your decision? what do you trust most?

Thankful Thursday, Part Two

2011-11-10T09:38:00.000-08:00

In the crazy that is my life, I'm finding that this process of slowing down and purposefully looking for things that I am truly grateful for is helping create a new narrative in my life ... one that is most decidedly outside the "stressed, tired, overwhelmed graduate student" narrative.

And if that sounded counsel-y ... it was. ;)

1. Grateful for my crazy, extended, very, very, very large family, that stretches me and grows me and, truthfully guys, although sometimes I think you're crazy (and sometimes I think I'M crazy), when all is said and done, there's a lot of love and a LOT of, "We might not know exactly what we're doing, but we've sure got a lot of stick to it-ness in us."

2. Grateful for my soon to be new family through Shoes. What a loving, accepting, wild lot they are. Especially thankful for the young nieces and nephews, with their crashing, wild abandon love and positive energy.

3. I'm thankful for the kids I'm working professionally with right now and all they are teaching me about Bravery and Forgiveness.

4. Thankful for difficult conversations I'm having with clients right now about racism and oppression with my clients. Thankful that I am figuring out (it'll be a long process) how to identify in session that Portland can be a racist city and figuring out how to invite open and honest feedback on the therapeutic relationship (especially if I do or say something, as a Caucasian therapist, that feels racist or demeaning). Thankful that the response so far from clients has been overwhelmingly positive. I might make a longer post out of this for a later time.

5. Thankful for the support of so many during the crazy that is planning a traditional wedding. Thankful that so many big details have already been worked out. Thankful I get to take my hoped-for break from the planning until Winter Break.

6. I am especially thankful for the deliciousness that is Pirate's Booty. O, little puffs, how I love to love you.

Every Night.

2011-11-09T11:23:00.000-08:00

Me: "I think about it all the time and it makes me so nervous. The private sector is hiring slowly now, but the public sector is still getting hit. BIG TIME."

Shoes: "Didn't you tell me all of your friends who graduated in the Spring have found jobs?"

Me: "Yeah, but, we'll have one more year of yucky economy by the time I graduate and the cuts are coming fast and hard."

Shoes: " 'Yucky economy?' Technical term? I know you love the public sector, babe."

Me: "Yeah, and I have to pay my student loans back or I'll go to PRISON."

Shoes: "Uhhh ... "

Me: "Will you stay married to me if I go to PRISON?"

Shoes: "Yeah, I think so. But you should probably concentrate first on, you know, eating dinner. Then maybe some sleep would be good ... "

Whining?

2011-11-03T13:36:00.000-07:00

I can be a master. Most of the time I can be an adult and suck it up, but sometimes, as you can clearly read in my last post!, I lose it.

My dear friend has invited all to take part in Thankful Thursdays. I know you've seen just about every variation of this there is (30 days of thankfulness, etc.). It's just simply one of those. I have no lofty ideas that I'll be able to get to 30 things I'm thankful for (because, as I told her, I'm scattered, sleepy and random -- not because I don't have 30 things to be thankful for), but I figured ...

... I can at least be thankful for one thing on a Thursday. And Thursdays just happen to be my only non 14 hour day during the week.

There's a principle, as well, of specificity here. We owe it to ourselves to be specific with ourselves and with others: with what we want, what we need, what we dream for, what we hope for. So as hard as things are right now for me, it's a good thing for me to get specific about the things that are going well. Or not going well, but I see the bigger lesson.

So, here's today's:

1. I'm thankful that it IS Thursday and I had a chance to breathe deeply on a semi Sunny, beautifully fall Portland afternoon.

2. So thankful for my Shoes. So, so thankful for this incredible human being who challenges me and loves unconditionally and knows, without asking any questions, exactly what type of emotion I'm feeling (he can even differentiate between different types of tears now, since I cry at everything).

3. Afternoon texts from my friend Elizabeth. Almost without fail, she sends me something about her day that grounds me and brings me back to the real world. (Also thankful she's not offended if I don't text back. She gets it.)

4. My divorce 4 years ago. That's kind of a funny one, right? That was a terrible time, but I think about how much I've grown as a person and how much more I know about myself and the nature of God ... and it's a little hard for me to imagine this exponential growth happening in any other context. I'm also thankful to be Biblically free of such a toxic relationship, and I'm thankful that I'm at the place now where I actually consciously wish good things for the former spouse.

5. My goddaughter, Rebekah, and all of the ridiculous and funny and loving faces she makes and things she does. Oh, how deeply I love this little girl.

And that is all I've got for right now, and I'm thankful I'm ok with that.

do people do stupid things when they're tired?

2011-11-01T15:53:00.000-07:00

I just googled it.

They do. http://www.experienceproject.com/groups/Do-Stupid-Things-When-Im-Tired/139677.

I'm doing things like leaving the milk out. Not remembering where I put the pistachios. Starting the Keurig without the cup underneath it. Washing the same clothes twice. Losing my keys when they're in my hand. Reading an article and the next day be unable to discuss it in class because I don't remember a thing in it.

I said an internal cuss word when somebody laughed and said, "You don't know tired until you've had kids" but thankfully managed to not respond otherwise.

You don't know I don't like invalidating statements like that.

My 14 hour days and little sleep at night (because I wake up multiple times already in the process of thinking about how I can change a paper, a new intervention to try with one of my clients, an email I forgot to send ...

... and suicidal grade school children ....)

.... these things guarantee that I do truly know what being tired is.

Yesterday my co-intern looked at me, bewildered, and said, "Why do I feel like graduate school is causing me to approach everything in my life with half the effort I would normally put forth?"

Because it is, darling. And we are doing the best we can. Because there is not enough in any one person to approach their partners, families, jobs, internships, classes, research (we all have these) with 100% effort. All those things don't add up to 100%.

So I don't return phone calls. Or texts. Or emails. I do homework on a sidewalk on my HP Mini if given any 15 minute time frame. If given 10 minutes to myself, I disappear into an other-worldly zone where I stare off into space. Taking care of myself is missing right now somewhere in the tornado of school, no sleep, work, Easy Mac and Starbuck's Coffee.

I take deep breaths. And am thankful for the things I can control. (Like what shoes I am going to wear that day. Good thing my shoes don't need to be washed.) I send gratitude out for the smallest of successes and rejoice in the loveliness that is a healing kid. I send funny texts to Shoes about almost stepping in the pee of a urinating homeless man on the street (he was hiding the process with a blanket, for which I am thankful). I gather support from anywhere I can take it.

I'm a bit of a support addict right now. I went through a phase where I was bitterly disappointed that people I am close to don't ask how it's going or how school is, but then realized how much energy that was costing me and gathered my supportive people to me all the more closely (they're probably feeling suffocated right now.) Somebody once told me that that's one of the costs of being a high performing overachiever. You do so well people don't think you need the tender love messages that are concerns for your well being.

But listen to me ramble. That's also part of the exhaustion. And now, there's no more time to ramble. I had 15 minutes; I chose to use it on this post that probably makes no sense. Now, it is off to the ADHD lab to conduct clinical interviews with families.

Cause it doesn't stop.

It's all lovely, but it doesn't stop.

Correction: the homeless guy's pee was not so lovely.

and the busy continues.

2011-10-30T21:50:00.000-07:00

It is week 6 of the term ... 10 weeks total.

But this post is about the weekend The Moms came to help me look for a dress. And because I may or may not be watching videos on Collaborative Problem Solving with children at the same time I'm drafting this, it will be mostly images.

It is fall. We are happy in NW Portland. And we three look exactly alike, you are correct. I am not including any pictures of Shoes' mom in this post. Maybe later.

I tried to talk about the use of puppets in children's therapy, but they were just too much fun to ... play with.

I don't know why Cheryl is hiding behind the pink monster.

I will have my blue monster ask.

Cheryl is a super hero in an action shot! This, unfortunately, is not an option for the girls.

Not available in the right color.

Not the dress. But it was a serious contender.

The real dress?

It was found.

And I am a happy, happy girl because of it.

Good weekend. Silly. Loving. Joyful.

More of that would be good in my life.

i have this very tender post ...

2011-10-26T11:56:00.000-07:00

... planned. Of last weekend, when my mom and Shoes' mom both came to Portland to look at wedding dresses. With pictures of happy and love and joy and silly.

But I don't have time to download the pictures on my computer. I don't have time to sleep or grocery shop either. My bills were late this month because I forgot it was time to pay them.

I have never, never been so busy in my life. I'm confused most of the time due to lack of sleep or time to plan things out.

If you know a graduate student in your life (especially of the class/internship/work variety), do me a favor and give them a huge hug. Or a care package. Or a little love note. And always ... give them lots of grace if they do not return phone calls/emails/text messages.

In all of its loveliness, this is still one of the hardest things I've ever done.

halloween is in two weeks?

2011-10-19T17:42:00.000-07:00

Where the cuss words is the year going? Halloween already??

I spent quite a few years purposefully not observing Halloween at all, and I was ok with that. As an adult, however, who is not purposefully not "celebrating" Halloween, I'm beginning to notice all of the fabulous costume options being marketed to me.

It's like a whole new world. I can be a witch ... or even better, I can be a sexy witch! I could be a nurse ... or even better, a sexy nurse! Or a sexy policewoman! Or a sexy pirate!

Or, I could also be .... a sexy Tootsie Roll! What! Nobody ever told me about this before!

This will be so attractive on me. You have no idea. Totally appropriate for a children's therapist to wear (I might even wear it to the outpatient clinic on Monday!) and Oh. So. Comfortable.

And these silly people at the Huffington Post? So uninformed. Take a look at this crazy article. I mean, whatever. Just because so many costumes sold in stores are hypersexualized does not mean, in any way, that women are objectified in our society. I mean, if I want a non sexy costume, I'll probably have to make it myself, but the absence of tamer costume options in stores doesn't mean that society thinks women should act or look a certain way. (But who wants a non sexy costume? I know I'm a little new to the Halloween game, but I can tell from print images how I'm supposed to look!)

And the image below? This lady is totally NOT supposed to look like a sexualized girl scout. No. It is so stinking normal for the little darlings who sell you Thin Mints outside of Safeway to look like sex kittens. That's not a confusing message at all. And I'm sure the little darlings who are selling Thin Mints outside of Safeway aren't confused about it either!! Silly. They're SAVING their girl scout money so they can wear these costumes when they grow up! (Or when they're in high school - either way!)

I sure am glad that I get to partake in Halloween this year. Now, if I could only figure out how to make a sexy Gollum costume, I will be all set.....

... because you can make anything sexy!!

from one Sunday to another ...

2011-10-16T19:27:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday whirled Elizabeth and I to the bridal show at the Convention Center in N Portland. I had incredible company, the free cake was delicious, but the vendors? Predatory like a T Rex. And the vendor that scared me the most? The ladies who asked me if I had considered a little color before my big day.

Hard to take the question seriously from somebody resembling an Oompa Loompa.

I declined politely.

And oh, the week that followed. 20 hours at the Lab. 19 hours at my internship and getting assigned my first two families. 6 hours of classes. Reading. Writing. Research.

Trying to find time to set up a meeting with potential wedding photographers.

Getting my business in order so I can fully spend time with the moms next weekend to look for a wedding dress. Their first meeting, and I could not be more excited for them to get to know each other this far in advance of the wedding. It's one of my biggest hopes that the two (or in our blended case, four) families truly feel like family the day of.

I don't know where I'm finding time to pin things to Pinterest, but would you like to take a miniature sneak peek at what I'm thinking for our big day? (Or is that, a very expensive little party?) ...

All these delicious little ideas and details that get to be tucked away with joy. Good thing I don't have to worry about how to translate theory into practice until next summer ... I'd have absolutely no idea what to do with myself! For now, Shoes chuckles gently and says, "All right, love. If you want to think about it now, that's fine. Just don't stress yourself out."

This wedding? The least of my worries. I have the partner. We have a venue and the food. Everything else is just gravy.

I'll save my real worry for my paper on non directive play therapy that's due soon ....

a letter in two parts

2011-10-12T22:49:00.000-07:00

two organizational parts to this post.
a million little parts of my being.

i have two extremely important children entering and leaving my life right now. at the end of the month, the child for whom i've been advocating as a guardian ad litem will be finally leaving the foster care system ... 4 years later.

in a week, i will be meeting with my first child client in therapy.

a going. a coming.

to my g.a.l. child,

when i first met you four years ago, i had no idea where your case was going. i had no idea if you would be returned back home or if you would find a separate forever family. i did not know if you would fall into that oh-so-scary netherworld of not going back home and not having a forever family to go to. you were 10 when we first started visiting. you are 14 now. there is a lot that goes on developmentally there. you are not the same child i first met, but you are the same person. you were a fantastic 10 year old. you are a fantastic 14 year old. you know so many things now that you did not know before. unfortunately, you now know how slow the system is and how heart breakingly long closure (if it comes) takes. and now you know what it's like to have adults listen to you. you know how to use your voice. you know that you are worth believing.

you are so worth believing.

you have a long journey in front of you. 14 is old than 10, but so much younger than anything older than 15. my hopes are for you now. and also for your 15 year old self ... your 18 year old self ... your 30 your old self ... your retired self. my hope is that you find out which stories mean the most to you in your life and to pursue those whole heartedly.

again, because you are so worth it.

good luck, kid.

to my incoming therapy child,

i do not know anything about you besides the fact that you are 6. 6 is supposed to be a fun age - imaginative, sassy, figuring things out, figuring you out. but the simple fact that somebody thinks you need to come speak to me says that something might not be going exactly well somewhere.

i am terrified of you.

i have worked with families and teens and kids and mommies and babies for 11 years, and i am terrified of our time together. will you think that coming to see me will be helpful? is it more your mommy or daddy's idea? will you run out of the room screaming because you are scared or mad or tired or don't know how you feel?

i want you to know that all of those things are ok and that whatever journey we need to take together, i'm in. i'm all in. i hope you like playing and coloring and making art because i'm learning a lot about those things and am excited to do those things with you ... if you want to.

because even if you are "just" 6, you know what? we're going to be working on who you want to be and what kind of feelings you're feeling. your six year old self is awesome. you might not be able to tell me, at least at first, but trust me, kiddo.

i'm going to be listening very, very, very hard to all the different ways you might tell me those things.

***

these days i'm unable to separate out the hope and anticipation and concern i hold for the people i work with. some days, many days, i just hold the fact that i hold all of these feelings simultaneously. and, especially now in the middle of school/work/internship/wedding/reading/writing/research, that is a lot to hold.

15 is divisible by 1, 3, 5 and 15, which is entirely irrelevant to anything in this post.

2011-10-09T20:34:00.000-07:00

1. I have ants in my kitchen. Little, tiny, disgusting ants crawling everywhere. My kitchen is spotless. I've bleached the counters several times. I'll have nightmares about them tonight, but that might be better than the zombie nightmare I had last week. Still ... gross.

2. I've my hands full with theories and weekly papers including: child centered play therapy, filial play therapy, therapy with families experiencing multi stressors, attachment, abuse and trauma, child suicide ideation (that's not a fun thing to post about, but it does give you a realistic description of what I think about on a weekly basis) ...

3. I have multiple stressors ...

4. I am behind on all of my wedding benchmarks.

5. Is it Saturday or Sunday? I think it's Sunday.

6. I forgot to wash my hair this morning, but did put deodorant on before my shower.

7. That wasn't exactly helpful.

8. I have not, and will not, see Shoes for a total of 4 or 5 weeks. That's the way we roll with our schedules sometimes.

9. I get my first client this week at my internship. I've worked with kids for 11 years and ... I. Am. Terrified.

10. That's normal.

11. I wrapped up my 4 year Guardian Ad Litem case yesterday. All of my heart's good wishes to you, young man.

12. I have no less than 6 phone calls to return to family and close friends. Love you guys.

13. This could rank as the most boring post ever. EVER.

14. We will return to your regularly scheduled, non boring programming at some point in the very near future.

15. I hope # 14 wasn't a lie.

I did not come up with this by myself.

2011-10-05T19:52:00.000-07:00

In fact, I got it here.

In a rare moment of quiet I watched this very short, very cheesy, YouTube movie trailer and I thought, Yep. This is what we do with orphaned kids. Somebody just has to step up and say, "I'll be your big person, half pint."

(Please don't mistake this as maternal stirrings. We'll cross that bridge when we get there and that bridge is several hundred miles down the road.)

Gosh I sure do love this chimp.

their monsters may not be imaginary, but we still figure out how to turn on the light and make them go away.

2011-10-02T06:30:00.000-07:00

Didn't I just post that classes were beginning and internship starting?

Now it is week two of classes with 10 weeks left in the term.

With class, internship, work at the psych lab, grad school reading/writing/research, planning the wedding and making the best attempt I can to stay in touch with family and friends, I'm beyond exhausted. My poor little black planner is beat up, bruised, bent, and consulted nearly 15 times a day.

I have no idea where I'm supposed to be at any given moment.

And there is so, so much to love. Like my Social Work with children, adolescents and families instructor (who is also my advanced practice instructor) who is so genuine and so authentic and so encouraging that I don't want to leave class when class is over. Like my internship (more on that to come), where my colleague team of therapists is so loving and validating and committed to the children we serve. Like the fact that I've found a way to snake my way from SW Portland to my internship in NE Portland completely avoiding I-5 and I-84 and saving at least 10 minutes by doing so. Like my job in Psychiatry Research, interviewing parents and children with ADHD. Like my friend B. in Psych, who started when I did, who is in my same graduate program, and who has quickly become my touch point when she's at the lab.

Last year you read about the ins and outs of geriatric psychotherapy and how profoundly and fundamentally changing it was for me as a counselor and human being.

This year we're going to return back to the minds and hearts of children. And the minds and hearts of children can be a foreign landscape, for which you might need your passport. And if you don't think you have time enough to get a passport, it's ok. Because these are kids ... and they would tell you to get out a piece of construction paper, scissors, glitter, and stickers; grab the best picture of you ever (even if it's bigger than 1" x 1") (or a picture of anything you want [mine would be of a sea turtle]) and get to work. This landscape can also be a little heartbreaking, but that's ok. Even in the story of big heartbreak in little bodies, there's this amazing story of resilience you can't even imagine exists.

And just as a reminder, my tiny body clients have the same rights and privileges to confidentiality and privacy as my larger bodied clients (check out legal issues above - I'm not messin' around here). So we talk about themes. And we use conglomerations. And more than anything, we talk about how their stories change me.

Their stories always change me.

Home: (N) The place in which one's domestic affections are centered. (dictionary.com)

2011-09-30T19:14:00.000-07:00

I know they say you can’t go home again

I just had to come back one last time

Ma’am I know you don’t know me from Adam

But these handprints on the front steps are mine

I was just a few months old when my parents moved to Germany. I remember a brief visit back to the States when I was 3? 4? Fleeting images of staying on the second house on my grandparent's farm. Chasing my cousin Kara through the hay fields of my other grandparents' farm. Eating strawberries from the garden. I don't think we went back to the States until I was 9. I'm a military kid. We moved. All of us moved. Every peer I had moved. Every friend I had moved and I moved away from every friend. We switched houses. Jobs. Neighborhoods. Schools. Day care centers. Sledding hills. Bike riding paths. It all changed. Every two years, it was a new set of everything.

Up those stairs in that little back bedroom
Is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar
I bet you didn’t know under that live oak
My favorite dog is buried in the yard

England once. Texas once. The Philippines once. Germany twice. The only friend I kept in touch with from my childhood is because of Facebook, of all things. I'd look for my other childhood friends, but I don't remember their last names. I barely remember their faces. I remember some things about each place we lived, but I don't know what it's like to know the place where you live. Every nook, every cranny, your neighborhood ... I don't get it. So I continue to move. Graduate undergrad school and get married? Move to the Vineyard town. No big deal. I missed the former friends, but I had lived in one place for an astonishing 8 years. Past time to move on. Bad divorce, time for graduate school? Move to Portland. The healing came from somewhere else than home.

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself

If I could just come in I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me

I don't know where my father lives. Nevada, I hear, but anything after that's a mystery. My mom and step-dad live in Central Oregon, in a town I think is charming, but also a town I visit rarely and have no real ties to. When it gets bad, I don't go home. What's home? Sometimes I wonder, sure, what it would be like to be from somewhere. But I'm not from somewhere. When people ask me where I'm from, I name the last place I live. Right now? I moved from the Vineyard town two years ago. What built me? The process of moving built me. The absence of home built me. I'm doing ok, by the way. Built a little differently, maybe.

Mama cut out pictures of houses for years
From Better Homes and Gardens magazine
Plans were drawn and concrete poured
Nail by nail and board by board
Daddy gave life to mama’s dream

But Shoes is from somewhere. Shoes was born in a town nearby to where his parents lived in rural Eastern Washington because the town they lived in didn't have a hospital at the time. He's known his oldest friends since the 1st grade. They grew up together. Went to high school together. Went to college together in that same town ... and were roommates while attending college. I don't think they know it yet, but Shoes will be asking them to be groomsmen in the wedding. We drive around and Shoes says, "This is where we ...." and "Chris and I rafted down this drainage ditch in January" and "I went to elementary school here and it's where I got burned by the firecracker" and "Alex's parents owned this McDonalds" and "before there were those 5 subdivisions behind my parents house, it was just wheat fields rolling out into forever." It's like a foreign language. It is the mighty Palouse, and the might Palouse is having a love affair with Shoes. I have a feeling we'll move there ... one day ... at some point. I hope I'm ready at that point, but there's a piece of me that doesn't know if I can do it. You just stay in one place? What if you don't like it? What if you feel stifled? What if the PTA hates you? What if I can't find a big enough client base to build my counseling practice? What if I get snowed in for a month?

You leave home and you move on and you do the best you can
I got lost in this old world and forgot who I am

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself

But then again, maybe it's time to create a place to return back to time after time. Maybe it's time to create an epicenter pin on my map. Maybe, at 33, it's time for me to be open to creating space that's for settling down, digging deep and growing some roots. Maybe there's a fulfillment there I'm missing. Maybe there's a part of me I don't know yet exists.

Maybe I won't know until it happens.

Maybe Shoes is worth all of those questions.

Maybe that's definitely true. Like I said before, I take the chance because I trust the person.

(Miranda Lambert, The House That Built Me, 2010).

last first day

2011-09-25T19:26:00.000-07:00

of school tomorrow ... at least for this go round. i haven't necessarily ruled out a Ph.D., but that, dear hearts, is a journey in and of itself. i haven't started this school year yet, and i know, because i often rule my personal life with clarity, that i love it already.

and i will love being done.

next june will be the culmination of three years of some of my best social work work so far. i can say with confidence i've put my whole heart and entire being into this masters degree. but it is just the best social work so far. i can't even imagine the amazing things to come once i step back into the field. i can't wait to add to my ten years of bachelor's level experience.

my school bag is ready.
my alarm clock is set.
i have my first training at my internship tomorrow (while last year was a journey into geriatric psychotherapy, this year marks a journey back into the world and hearts of children and their families).
my first class (social work with children, adolescents and families) tomorrow evening.
i may not sleep tonight. (i get that worked up.)

it was a good, long last weekend of summer. shoes and i successfully booked our first choice of a wedding venue -- one that we are entirely thrilled about (even shoes, even though he tries not to be). we have a date. the moms and i will be looking for a dress at the end of october. the attendant list has almost been fully confirmed ... just a few more people to talk to. my dear friend molly offered the use of her own wedding arch, and molly and i are both so, so stoked that we will both have been married under it. much to do in the upcoming year.

it does my soul well to know shoes and i are getting married in his hometown. maybe because i do not have a hometown. we'll make that the topic of the next post. hometown. roots. where we come from and where we're going. for now, here's (yet another blurry one due to my amazingly slow shutter release) a picture of me in shoes' hometown. the gorgeous wheat? very much a part of the scenery of the venue.

makes me excited all over again.

this post was coming at some point ...

2011-09-18T21:50:00.000-07:00

and why not tonight? we're all adults. all ready for this.

seven years ago today, (September 18th, 2004) i got married. married. i don't even know how many people we invited, but it was a ton. all of our family. both of my work offices. his education cohort at the university. our entire church. my friends from undergraduate school. i had a stunning white gown; he looked dashing in his very formal, traditional tuxedo. we were jubilant and ready and in love and we laughed and loved and our church came together to put it all together. we had the happiest of ceremonies - performed with abandon and enthusiasm.

people would tell me later they had never been to a wedding that was so ... happy.

as young marrieds, we were in charge of 1st through 6th grade children's ministries. we lead a church mission to Mexico. we moved to the vineyard town so he could take his first job teaching english as a second language to elementary school children.

he was young and vibrant and impulsively impish. the life of the party -- the one you could count on to be just a little bit naughty. or a lot naughty. you just never knew what that crazy boy was going to do next.

maybe that is why three years after we married, we were divorced. that quick impulsiveness never went away, but morphed into something terribly and horribly heart breaking. no thinking about consequences. living for the here and now. wrecked a marriage. maybe two, but i couldn't keep track of the other marriage for too long for fear that doing so would stir up a sense of revenge within me. it wrecked my faith in jesus for a long time. (i remember clearly the moment when i felt i could start walking back to jesus. it was when my counselor asked me what i thought god thought about my divorce and i blurted out, without thinking, immediately, "god HATES divorce! and i did it anyway!" and promptly started sobbing. [nevermind that i had a biblical out. nevermind i had consulted two pastors and my closest, most reliable friends.] my counselor handed me the tissue box and said quietly, "god doesn't hate divorce in the context that you did something bad and you will now be punished. god hates the effects of divorce on his children; he hates to see you hurt like this. you didn't do anything wrong. you're not being punished." oh, how i wish i could tell that to all of the darling daughters who are in that same spot. something really very ugly broke off of me at that point, and i was able to start standing up to people who looked down on me and said, "love hurts. you have to love through the hurt.")

seven years later, on september 18th, i am planning a new wedding. a new marriage. a new life.

it's more than a bit scary.

i know now, really know, really, really know, what marriage is like. i know how hard it is. i know the exact, unmistakable, ear splitting sound of a heart breaking when marriage doesn't work out. (such the understated euphemism "doesn't work out" is). it is a risk. it didn't feel like a risk seven years ago. it feels like a risk right now.

and i know how amazing it is when it really works out. when you have a partner you adore. when you have a partner who is your true ... partner. at its best, marriage is, perhaps, one of the greatest gifts in the world.

i tell shoes all the time that i do not think i would be doing this again if it wasn't him i was marrying. i don't want just another marriage. married just for the sake of being married? no thank you. i certainly don't want just another wedding.

it's shoes. i want shoes in my daily life. i want to come home and talk about work with him and walk the dog with him and adopt children with him. i want him to forever poke gentle fun at the way i worry incessantly. i want to forever turn around and see him standing there calmly. i want to forever hear him chuckling the chuckle he has when he thinks he's being a little bit evil.

and so, ironically, i think i have something to thank my first husband for after all ... seven years after the wedding date and four years after the divorce. if he and i hadn't shared at least some genuine love, at some point, i think i would write marriage as an institution off ... forever. but i remember some good times. i remember that the experience of marriage can be amazing. and that, in conjunction with same amazing healing from a good god, and the man that shoes is, has lead to some serious hope and possibility.

shoes know this. he knows this because i've told him. save nothing else, it's what i want him to know in the midst of all the wedding crazy. i'm in it because he's in it. and i'm all in. despite the risk.

it feels right to finally be able to say that. funny, the places you find yourself getting to seven years later.

and it was a wedding.

2011-09-12T22:15:00.000-07:00

complete with hugs and catching up with all of the old social welfare / criminal justice crowd ... a judge officiant who showed up exactly 30 minutes late and ate a little bit of humble pie ... he always threatens to fine those who are late to his courtroom ... and none of us have ever been late to his courtroom ...

and they are a lovely couple. all of us were juvenile detention officers at one point. it's where they met. it's where Shoes and i met. who would have known?

blurry picture ... (very slow shutter release on the camera) ... but here we are. i do hate being the tallest girl because it truly does make me look bigger in every sense of the word (the PROOF is in the PICTURES) :-)... i left detention to run the guardian ad litem program ... the bride left detention to work at the local domestic violence victim's shelter ... and tiff (my roommate from the Vineyard Town) is still holding it down in detention...

and the baby tiff had while we were living together? no longer a baby, but a boisterous, mischievous, live wire 2 and a half year old.

... who ate about a pound and a half of wedding favor m&m's, but we love her anyway.

happy wedding, happy weekend.

right now

2011-09-09T10:48:00.000-07:00

I am on my way out the door to the Vineyard town for the most lovely backyard wedding of the best kind. For the next day or two, I will think only about snuggling in next to Shoes, drinking red wine, staying cool in the Eastern Washington heat and laughing with old friends.

I will not think about the fact that I have two days left at Research Administration in which I have to put together a meeting for Research's heaviest of heavy hitters (30 emails later and we're into late October / early November).

I will not think about the fact that a new Psychiatry mandatory bi monthly meeting has been added to my schedule that I have to work in. Somehow.

I will not think about the fact that the university's classified employees have a very high likelihood of striking the first week of classes ... and that going to class will be considered crossing the picket line ... and that some have suggested that going to field placement will also be crossing the picket line ... I will not think about the implications this has for graduation / financial aid / me and Shoe's ultimate plan and I will try not to think about how, at the same time, they have the absolute right to strike for their rights.

I will not think about the fact that Shoes and I are struggling (but not arguing) to get our wedding guest list down to 150. Some brutal, brutal cuts are being made. Shoes has asked me not to think about the wedding until after I am at least done with Research Administration (next Thursday) and only have one job (Psychiatry) to worry about. But we meet with the wedding venue on the 23rd, so time is tight ... but again, I'm not worrying about it this weekend.

Right now I'm choosing to be grateful. That I have a Shoes to go to. That I have a wedding of the most epic proportions to celebrate. That my problem is I have two jobs. That I'm almost done with graduate school (oh please, oh please, oh please let my grad. date stay intact ...).

Pictures of the K. Wedding to come ... this is the best, most fun group ... you never know what's going to happen when the social workers, police, prosecuting attorneys, probation officers get together ... outside of multi-disciplinary meetings ... (but some of you know all too well) ...

long day's journey into night.

2011-09-06T07:00:00.000-07:00

Or something.

I don't mean to be melodramatic, but this man is back, this time riding the bus late, late at night after I get off my late shift in Psychiatry up at the hospital. What's he doing there so late? Riding the Line 8 around in the middle of the night, nowhere to go, nobody to visit with (except the folks in the ER and the friendly Vet Guards at the V.A.). Seeing him makes me cranky, but only in the sense that I know things aren't getting any better for him

Only in the sense that I want more than anything for things to be better for him.

It's not the first time time we've been re-introduced, and he has no idea who I am any time we meet (which doesn't deter him from sitting next to me every time [not that I mind]). His eyes are fully jaundiced (is that the correct medical way to describe that?), he smells fully pickled, sometimes he makes sense and sometimes it's word salad.

It's getting worse, whatever he has ... the alcoholism, depression, I don't know. I'm not his doctor; not his counselor. He brightens when we talk and I guess that's enough. I think he's slowly dying, in the way that untreated, getting older alcoholics always feel like they're dying. This is not the light-hearted bus humor I usually like to share.

It's just the other thing that happens to me, with regularity, on Public Transit. I hope he still has his apartment, hope he still has his case manager and I still hope (against hope) that something Super Big happens and he makes it.

Really makes it.

And I hope I continue to ask about his well-being with sincerity, void condescending paternalism. But in all honesty, I feel like I'm nearing that line ... that there's a little too much sympathy and too much clucking in my voice ... that I'm losing the ability to be genuinely concerned and gaining the ability to front with him.

As if I'm the one who has it bad.

I hope the road turns for you, Randy. Even just a little bit. Even just slightly. Ever so slightly.

Either way, I'll see you on the 8.

I hope you have some new jokes for me next time.

You usually do.

It's September 2nd.

2011-09-02T19:08:00.000-07:00

I had my first Pumpkin Spice Latte today (because Starbucks is how I mark my seasons) and waited at the Car Dealership Service Center for no less than 5 hours for them to replace a sensor.

Good thing I had that latte.

And also, Shoes and I went to Mt. Hood last weekend. O, it was a funny weekend. I wanted to ride the zip line, not realizing it was all of 500 feet and more suitable for 9 year olds. I wanted to ride the alpine slides, before we knew that Oregon State Police was holding a fundraiser there.

So we skipped all of that, went on a gorgeous hike and lunched at Timberline Lodge instead.

Shoes' ice cream cone has a naturally occurring hole at the base of the ice cream. Double sadness. Holy ice cream and no zip line.

We do love this place a lot.

So close, Shoes is telling you.

I'm trying to think of the last summer things we have on our list to do, but truly, I think this is it. Cougars have their season opener tomorrow, one Labor Day lunch with Elizabeth and family on Labor Day, we have one amazing wedding of a Stacey and Adam to attend to in the Vineyard town, and then it's full steam ahead into Fall.

Summer, you just started. Why do you have to be such a punk and leave now?

lentil: (noun) edible member of the legume family.

2011-08-25T19:50:00.000-07:00

Lentil Festival: (noun) Pullman, Washington event that effectively succeeded in prohibiting Shoes and I meeting with our first choice of ceremony/reception venue. On the phone, the venue secretary said, "Oh, I don't know now. That's lentil festival. We'll be really busy that weekend."

Right.

I, for one, ALWAYS flock to the nearest party that honors legumes. We really didn't get to meet with the venue rep, but I drove to Pullman anyway last weekend. I hadn't had a chance to see Shoes' mother or his father (and family) since the engagement.

And you know what?

Lentil festival is HUGE. Blocks worth of lentil party. Who knew? And Shoes mocked me for my 5 minute screeching tirade about how busy I am and how I have very few chances to get to Pullman before school starts and how NOBODY will be at lentil festival.

Everybody was at lentil festival.

A picture, but not my picture - it's hyperlinked, of the big, giant huge vat of free lentil chili they cook up and serve. I passed. But we had fun walking around with old friends and enjoying the young energy that a university hums with right before classes start.

Also. We were inadvertently in the Lentil Festival parade on Sunday. Shoes marched, as a 3rd grader (I think?) in the very first Lentil Festival Parade. They made him dress up like a packet of lentil seeds; he says he is still scarred from that experience but I doubt it. We were trying to get up to the University, the road merged, there was regular traffic in our lane and the parade in the lane next to us. Enter panicked noises from Shoes and "we gotta get out of this thing."

Also, I told Shoes that I wanted to see the Pullman lady cop from the show "Campus PD." As in, the Campus PD series that's on G4. This lady in this clip (I apologize for the title on the clip, but I can assure you nobody talks about dropping panties. Well, kind of he does, I guess. It's a drink.):

Shoes said, "I bet I can deliver that." And what do you know? He did. She was right there at Lentil Festival.

Oh Lentil Festival. I want to be so mad at you.

But you, in all of your small town glory, won't let me.

You know what else?, Shoes' step-mom and step-sisters squealed with excitement when they saw the engagement ring. And the "Congratulations!" and "We're SO HAPPY for you's" melted my heart just a little more.

Like my heart needs to be any more gooey with this family.

We also made out pilgrimage out to the Washington State University Bear Center.
Bears.
In fences.
Free to see.

The very first time Shoes took me home (and I spent the entire time feeling like I was going to toss my cookies I was so nervous), we talked, in the car, about how I had never seen a live bear not in a zoo. When we got into town, Shoes said, "I've something to show you."

And he drove me out to the Bear Center.

And he grinned.

And he said, "See, babe? Bears. Not bears in the wild, but still bears. Look at what I deliver."

Photo not mine. Click and see. These are not the bear cubs that are out there now. The cubs out there now are much bigger, but still young. And I seriously adore them. I have no idea why. I'm such a dork, but I love to sit there and watch them play, wrestle with each other, splash into their tubs, nap.

Shoes always has to tell me it's time to leave and I always say, "Just a couple more minutes ..."

We have a meeting the Friday before school starts to talk to the wedding venue. Shoes was the one who ended up setting it up. Apparently, he can create magical things in the town he hails from. And I cannot. I wonder how long it takes for the Pullman magic to rub off ....

faster than you can say "Ebenezer Scrooge"

2011-08-23T09:19:00.000-07:00

My good, good friend from my program, C., interned last year at a men's residential drug and alcohol treatment center. She still floats there, sometimes, because she is patient and good and levelheaded and smartsmartsmart and the facility figured out in .009 seconds they could not let her go and that they should pay her to be patient and good and levelheaded and smartsmartsmart.

That was a good decision.

Last night as I was switching buses, C. told me on the phone how she had to take the center's cat in to get its shots. The men, you see, had kidnapped the cat from the streets and lavished it with love and given it a place to call home.

And they threaten to kick each other's .... rear ends .... if one of them hurts it.

They named the cat Relapse. C. and I dissolved into giggles, and then she asked me how the wedding planning was going and if I was getting excited.

And me, for all of my pratical, no nonsense, bluff of "I don't want a formal, big wedding" (and truly, I don't want those things exactly) and "we have to execute this well", did get excited. I did. I let myself get excited. I let myself dream about all of our closest friends together in one place, laughing, eating, drinking, laughing, laughing, laughing. I had a vision of the golf course in Pullman lit up by white lights in the early dusk of a warm, late summer Eastern Washington evening. I let myself think about beautiful bridesmaids twirling around on the dance floor and handsome groomsmen lined up at the altar. I let myself think about coming home to Shoes at the end of the day, together in one place, enjoying normal life, the (thus far nonexistant) dog between us.

And I bubbled over like a young girl.

Sometimes I forget about all of the joy and lightheartedness and free spirit that's in me. Sometimes I forget that these Good Things are really for me. That I can partake. Maybe that's the real work of this upcoming busy year: to partake in the good and to enjoy the rambunctious love and glee that's waiting.

(I never know where my posts are going to end up.)

it's not as helpful as you might think.

2011-08-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

I am getting married.

Married!

I am marrying an amazing human being and we are so very confident in who we are as individuals and the entity that is our relationship. As Jose Saramago says, the relationship is the third being in our marriage; one must be a respecter of this 3rd entity.

With our specific marriage comes a wedding. A wedding of traditional sorts.

With a wedding of traditional sorts, comes free advice.

Advice makes me want to puke.

On the Lisa Irate-O-Meter, it falls just below "you'll know when you have children" but somewhere above countless daily Facebook status updates from non-writer types. Advice is different than sharing personal experience. I like to hear personal experience, sure. Advice, as in, "you should" .... can be ... bad. Just bad.

And ignorant.

People have been asking about the wedding. That is awesome. And natural. And I am happy to answer questions. I'm fairly open, so when there's something that's not working out as well as I'd like it to, I name it. Naming it, however, doesn't mean I want other people's answers. With this wedding comes very, very, very complicated family dynamics. And if I have to hear one more person try to boil it down simplistically (as in, "well, you just have to talk to that person" -- like I haven't been dealing with these people for years or haven't gone over every angle in my head over and over and over and over again), I'm going to ... I"m going to .... I'm going to .... look at that person very meanly.

Well. Obviously, there's not a lot I can do (that's legal or diplomatic). Other than just cheerfully say everything is going swimmingly and perfectly. Which I probably will start doing.

Ok, this next part comes from my professional side. Ready?

It is largely inappropriate to give any sort of advice after talking to casual acquaintances for 10 minutes. Not only is the relationship quite simply not there, but there is no possible way that one can fully understand the rich dynamics of the situation at hand in 10 minutes. Even professional counselors must be able to sit with the truth that they will never fully understand their consumers, because people are dynamic and changing. There is always something more to be learned.

Boiling it down to, "You just need to ..." is poop. I wish I would never have to hear that ever again in my life. (All right, that was obviously less than professional. I don't say "poop" in session ..... unless I'm working with kids.)

Unless the person one is addressing is on Heroin. Then one might say, "You really need to ... stop the heroin." But even then, one shouldn't assume one understands all of the reasons WHY somebody is doing heroin or boil it down to, "You just have to stop." But I digress. This post is about advice giving, not Opioids.

Just LISTEN for heaven's sake. Commiserate. Say, "Oh my word, that's absurd!" Say, "Oh good night. What did you say then?" Laugh (if appropriate!). Ask, "What do you think you'll do?"

If people want advice, they will let others know with small, subtle hints like, "I don't know what to do. What do you think I should do?" I know, I know. This can be easily missed, but listen carefully.

Similarly, it drives me absolute batty when I hear somebody say, "I'd be a GREAT counselor ... I give GREAT advice." Or the person who says, "I'd be a GREAT counselor" never takes a breath when talking. I once had a hair dresser who continually told me she'd be a GREAT counselor. I didn't think so. Mainly because I couldn't even catch a minute to say, "Hey, wait, not so much blond this time, ok? How 'bout those low lights?" Oy, oy, oy. Good counselors listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, ask open ended questions and then listen some more. If anybody's ever curious about how the helping process works, ask me. I'll expound. Spoiler alert: It's not through empty advice giving.

We listen to understand. The understanding doesn't come flooding through an open mouth. Those channels aren't connected.

Ok, I think that's enough of the Lisa Irate-O-Meter.

Time to go make zucchini apple cake and watch, "Texas Women."

Well. We all get down time somewhere, right?

several days a week ...

2011-08-17T08:35:00.000-07:00

... I work 14-15 hours a day.

It's temporary, I assure you. I'm no stranger to working two jobs. ;) It's tiring, yes, but also helping me get to my goals. I trace my amazing work ethic back directly to my madre y padre not letting me slack when I was a kid. No getting out of chores for us. (Thanks, Ma!)

Shoes says I'm getting "strung out." He's probably right, but in for a penny with me, in for a pound ... right, love?

I LOVE LOVE LOVE my new job in Psychiatry. You'd have to wrestle it away from me. So I'll take the crazy crazy until 9/16, which is my last day in Research Administration.

You know what else is crazy? Riding an 11:00 pm bus line out to the Park & Ride that's closest to my house after I'm done in Psychiatry. There's all kinds of awesome that happens that late.

Like the bus being so crowded there's no more standing room ....
... primarily because two homeless people have 6 suitcases between them in the disabled seating area ...
... and the guy who was dressed for jousting and kept accidentally bashing people with his foam sword
... and the cat that got loose
... and the lady who coughed on my shoulder and then let me know she had a Thai Wrap for lunch
... and the woman who told me the rainbow around me was majestic.

Darling, we're all majestic. Especially at 11:00 at night on a bus bound for home.

"I'll tell you how the sun rose /

2011-08-10T20:50:00.000-07:00

" ... a ribbon at a time"
-- Emily Dickinson

O, summer. This time you're slipping away much, much too quickly. You laugh too boisterously. You charge ahead too quickly. You shock me with your zeal. I can barely keep up.

But I do.

This is the last true summer vacation for the rest of my life.

In the midst of the "yays" and "congratulations" and the "have you set the dates" and my mysterious foray into becoming left handed, things still surge forward.

I've started a second job at the Very Large Hospital as a clinical interviewer with a Very Large, multivariate, longitudinal ADHD study. It's amazing. I'm challenged. And I get to conduct psychosocial assessments with parents as well as assess for DSM symptomology. It couldn't be any more up my little social worker alley and I adore working with the parents and their children. In the afternoons I work at Research Administration (as I have been for almost 2 years) and then in the evenings I head over to Psychiatry. And because I'm new and slow and still figuring out how to score assessments and keep parents on track and focused, I haven't been getting OUT of the hospital until 10:30 at night. And then taking a bus downtown. And then waiting for another bus downtown to get home. Right. Still thinking about the best, safest way to do that.

Long hours. I'm pretty exhausted. But fascinated. This is a good move. In the fall, I'll juggle classes, internship, research / reading / writing, and this new job (and will not work in Research Administration). And I will plan me and Shoes' epic coupledom ceremony.

Or, actually, maybe his mom will do that. I've a GPA to uphold and a Shoes to love on.

But, in the midst of this craziness and full speed ahead-ness, we've done some Summer stuff. And I'm pretty proud of myself for taking some time to have fun. See? The proof is in the pudding ....

Like taking summer drives through the Gorge, wishing we had the time to learn how to this ...

And spending time in Old Town with the friendly neighbors ...

We went on a houseboat party! Notice everything Shoes wears has a Washington State University logo on it.

Shoes loved the house boat party so much he back flipped off the roof.

And we watched the Mariners lose while freezing our tookuses (tookusi?) off in Seattle. (There sure are a lot of people smiling for the camera in this photo ... people we don't know at all.) But we were also there with people we love dearly, so it all balances out.

And we have more! Weddings and parties and shindigs, oh my.

I can already feel fall in the air ... and while I'm excited to see it (and my last year of school!) come, I'm going to miss this little bit of summer joy that's happened.

Who am I kidding? This is an avalanche of summer joy.

this time, shoes has a story he'd like to tell.

2011-07-24T18:28:00.000-07:00

From the horse himself ...

It's true!

I said yes! I get to marry this amazingly kind, witty, scarily smart, gentle, loving man and I could not be more humbled, grateful or thrilled.

On Saturday, Shoes and I went to Bread and Ink Cafe on Hawthorne for Breakfast. I normally LOVE Bread and Ink, but on that morning, it was truly terrible in the most awful of ways. (Terrible, guys, terrible. I expect free Mimosas next time.) I think after that we both just wanted to sleep for the rest of the day and start over again on Sunday. Or, I did. Shoes, however, was formulating a plan of his own.

It was the first gorgeously sunny day in Portland for weeks (sorry, rest of the country. We have been freezing our buns off over here), so like every other Portlander (hello, 580,000 neighbors!), we headed out to Washington Park / the Japanese Gardens / The Portland Rose Gardens. You can't waste days like that around here.

So, in a setting like this:

In a rare moment of solitude (all 580,000 Portlanders were taking guided tours of the Garden that day, I'm pretty sure), on a bench outside of the Teahouse:

My dear, sweet Shoes pulled the ring out of his pocket and told me there was nothing else on earth he'd rather do than marry me.

And I, who had had so, so many sweet and loving things to tell Shoes on the day he proposed, (heart felt, tender, important things) said, "WOW Y'ALL - LOOK AT THAT TEAHOUSE! THINK THEY GOT A GEE-SHA IN HERE SOMEWHERE?"

Well, technically, a guy in the tour group that had just come around the corner said that. In the absence of privacy, I cried lots of happy tears instead and whispered all of those wonderfully sweet things while we finished walking around the Garden. I'm glossing over a bunch. I have a lot to say about my own personal redemption of marriage as an institution, which I will surely do in a later, separate posting.

Suffice it to say, this is more than I could have asked for.

Shoes is more than I could have asked for. I can't believe I'm lucky enough to have a marriage and a life with this man. (We'll also talk about the gravity of what it's like to be entering into a second marriage in a later post!).

But for now, just know this.

I surely do love him.

And this next picture, and the little message, is especially for Stacey A.

Sparkle Code to Jesus!

We're getting hitched!!!

stories? we have lots of stories.

2011-07-18T16:48:00.000-07:00

Shoes and I.

Lots of stories. Mostly ridiculous tales of things that should have never in a million years worked out.

But did.

Like the story of our first date. In the Vineyard Town, I had been working at the Juvenile Justice Center supervising a Guardian Ad Litem program, which is all dependency / foster care / civil law. Shoes took over the criminal juvenile caseload a few months after I started my GAL responsibilities.

And from the moment he stepped on to the JJC field, two very strong willed co-workers / friends were convinced Shoes and I should go on a date. Never mind we had never uttered a word to each other. So I drug my feet like only I can drag my feet. And resisted. And went out with somebody else. Because good looking, ambitious, young men in the Vineyard Town just aren't single (with a few exceptions, of course). The Vineyard Town is a family town.

By December of 2008, I wore down and agreed to go on a double date with Shoes and one of my co-workers, who had begun to date one of Shoes' co workers. I have no idea why I thought this was a good idea, but we went on this double date ... to our Juvenile Justice Center's Office Christmas Party at the home of the Detention Manager.

Really? Seriously? Who in their right mind thinks this is a good idea? I would never do that again: put your first date on display for all of your professional colleagues to gawk at. And the date?

Terrible. Absolutely terrible.

Awful.

Shoes spent most of the night outside talking to his co worker and I spent most of the night inside talking to my old Detention friends. The rest of the night included: extremely icy streets and a car accident because of it; a very heated argument between Shoes and HIS co worker about Catholicism; and the icing on the cake?

It took Shoes a year to tell me he initially thought he was agreeing to go on a date with someone else.

Really. Truly.

Of course, the flip side of that story is that once I walked in the door, according to Shoes, the entire game changed and he was paralyzed with intimidation.

If he didn't say that, I might have to step on his foot.

I walked myself home that evening thinking, "Well. He's a good looking guy. And one who ignored me for the entire night. So that's that."

And then a few days later we went out on a different double date, which went a little better. He actually took my phone number at that date.

And then a few days later we went out on a different double date. And then again. (We went out on a ridiculous number of double dates.) And then, miracle of miracles, we met at a cellar downtown for a glass of wine. By ourselves. We took things casually and slowly for a couple of months, and then at the end of January / beginning of February, we went to the Judge's retirement dinner together.

And that retirement dinner was the official beginning of Shoes and Lisa, the Couple. Not the casually dating couple, but the official couple.

And the things I love about Shoes are amazing and wonderful and quirky and largely private in the way that they would only make sense to us. But I'll give you the Readers Digest Version. Sure. Shoes is: gentle, kind, supremely loving, only 30 times more intelligent than I am, witty, hilarious, humble, giving to a fault, the same type of political ideology that I am (and for us, who have made our entire lives about people, this is a very big thing which is inherently tied up in my religious beliefs). That's probably the biggest thing. I know that Shoes and I partner together, as a couple, to fight social injustice. (And don't get all caught up in the fact that he's a deputy prosecuting attorney. This guy gets kids and family interactions better than I do sometimes. I enjoy telling that part of the story.)

I love the fact that I have these stories to tell. And I love hearing other people's stories about how they met their significant others. If you'd like to share, I'd love to hear it ...

Turns out the end of the world is androgynous.

2011-07-09T10:22:00.001-07:00

Me to Shoes: Are you full up with books to read right now?

Shoes: Yeah, but what do you have?

Me: "Year of the Flood" by Margaret Atwood.

Shoes: That sounds like a chick book.

Me: It's dystopian. I don't think of dystopian novels as chick lit.

Shoes: It's a dystopian chick novel.

Me: The end of the world is a literature that appeals to the feminine?

Shoes: In the, "Oh my god, there's no more "O Network" or "Real Housewives of New Jersey" and the world doesn't have anymore yogurt covered raisins" type of dystopia.

Pause.

Shoes: Ok. Give me the book.

Next wave.

2011-07-03T09:53:00.000-07:00

I've worked at OHSU for a year and a half now, and while I love my co workers, it's been a labor of love for many other reasons. I am so very grateful to be employed, but this rural social worker was completely unprepared for the cold, cold world of being at the top of the Very Large Hospital's research bureaucracy and politics. (Key word: research. I have no frame of reference for Healthcare).
I'm sure it's no different than what happens in any other large corporation / bureaucracy and I have tons of respect for the PIs, Researchers, Administration and for the excellent, excellent research that's being generated from this top notch hospital.

I'm an office assistant. In the truest I-make-coffee-make-mail-runs-if-you'd-like-to-speak-to-the-Vice-President-you-gotta'-get-through-me-first type way. It's not bad work. It's just largely uninspiring. And it's a student position: the pay is decent and they've been extremely understanding and flexible with my graduate student schedule. I've made some amazing friendships through the office.

And. (Because just like most things, it's usually "and" and not "either / or"). It hasn't always been good. In fact, my first official functions had me in tears almost every day (for many complex and intersecting reasons) and during our nightly conversations, Shoes begged me to quit. But what do you do when you only have so many hours during the week you can work and the pay is decent? What you have to. Earlier this Spring I found out that they really needed me to be there consistently in the afternoons, which I absolutely cannot do, as I'll be counseling kids when they get out of school.

In the afternoons. And that is when I knew my time with the hospital was probably coming to a close. And for all the flexibility and genuine well wishes of my co-workers, I knew it was time. It was relieving. But I also knew I needed to work, and my schedule next year is going to be out of control. Very few employers are that patient with my limited availability to show up at a job. It's been a tough Spring of job searching and worry, in the midst of everything going on.

I'm sure you've figured out where all this is going by now, but I've just accepted a position with Psychiatry as a Research Assistant. Still with the hospital, but pretty far removed from what I've been doing. Nights and some Saturdays, doing kid and family assessments. It couldn't be more up my alley. I'm excited to put it on my resume. I'm excited to do the work.

And. Like I told Shoes in December of 2009, there's a reason you stick through things and work it out. Sure, there comes a time when sometimes you have to just move on from certain things, but I had a hunch it would work out if I plugged through. I'll work both jobs until September, save a little money for the event that will legalize my Coupledom with Shoes, and then transition out. A little more plugging through, but a little hard work never hurt anybody, right?

Right. ;)

the good news comes in waves. there's more after this.

2011-06-30T08:11:00.000-07:00

I came home this afternoon and pulled a slim letter from Portland State University out of my mailbox, kind of pay-your-library-fees-already sized. Only, I knew I had paid my library fees because I had viewed my grades just fine two weeks ago, please and thank you.

This, however, was not a library fine letter. (This won't surprise you: I don't get library fines. Too compulsive for that sort of thing.)

No, instead, this was the letter,

"Dear Lisa,

Congratulations! We are pleased to announce that you have been selected as the first student to receive the Astrid Schlaps Scholarship ..."

And I was thrilled beyond measure. Any bit helps. Any. And then in the next breath, I grieved.

Astrid Schlaps was a professor at the GSSW until early this year, when she was killed at her home in an apparent murder-suicide in Manzanita. Although I had never met Astrid, she was well loved by previous graduates as well as her professional colleagues.

The scholarship is geared toward students wishing to continue in careers working with victims of abuse and trauma. I read the letter, I rejoice. I read the letter, I grieve. Quite suddenly, I come into full realization that I am receiving assistance towards my education because a woman's life has been lost. And when I think about Astrid, I think about my very first shelter client. And the second. And the 5th. And the 55th. Because you never really forget any of them. And I think about the first abused child I advocated for. And the children who followed. Because you never forget any of them, either. And I think about the children I'll be working with this year at my internship.

I'm still a Courtesy Guardian Ad Litem for the Vineyard County because one of the first kids on my caseload was transferred here right as I was moving here. I visited with him last night, his case is almost closed, and I said softly, "My God, (kid). Look at how much you've come through in the past four years."

And that kid? He grinned. Because he knows. He knows how much he's gone through and he's seen that things can get so much better.

Better in a way that nobody (maybe not even me) could have expected. It doesn't happen every time. But it happens enough to know it's worth the work. This is a strange career. Very strange. We're certainly not in it for the (imaginary) money and I spent a lot of time wishing I didn't have a job -- that these issues and inequalities would level out to put me right out of work.

Then again, I have no idea what else I'd do.

This is where it's always been for me.

So once again it is summer.

2011-06-27T20:49:00.000-07:00

And once again I am bored.

I'm positive the DSM V will have a diagnosis for me, once it's released. The boredom isn't for lack of things to do. I'm busy morning until night. But it's uninspired time at a relatively uninspired job. More on that in a future posting, maybe.

I have a few pictures to share. A few summer happenings. Things like ... It was my birthday on Saturday. I turned 27.

For the 7th time, but whatever, who's counting? (O, right. Me.)

But for now I'm too lazy to download those pictures so, for now, Book Club catchings up because I have been very errant in doing so. (By the way, I can't write about literature worth beans, hence the ever present "blurb from the back").

Time Before Last: The Help, Kathryn Stockett.

Blurb From the Back: There is no blurb from the back. There is a rather long jacket description, so here's a snippet, "Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss ... Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child ... Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi... Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times."

Verdict: 100 stars out of a possible 5 from everybody. Ok, we don't use stars. But we all gobbled this book up and appreciated the complex motivation of each character. It'll get read again by the summer's end. What can I say? We all loved it. Go read it.

Last time: Night, Elie Wiesel.

Blurb From the Back: "Born in the town of Sighet, Transylvania, Elie Wiesel was a teenager when he and his family were taken from their home in 1944 to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and then to Buchenwald. Night is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel's memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man."

Verdict: This is an extremely difficult book to get through, said Captain Obvious. The events Wiesel describes are humanity at its absolute worst and I repeatedly had to slow down and make myself read every sentence, every word. I kept speeding up, as if by doing so, I could make the darkness less real. We would all recommend it ... or, rather, when you are ready, you should read it.

Next time: Zazen, Vanessa Vaselka.

And I also finished: The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami. Mr. Murakami is too smart for me. I only started to catch on at the very end, and then I felt foolish. And embarrassed. And a little cheesed. It takes some brain power, but if you like books that feel like acid trips (which I actually have no frame of reference for), it's the book for you.

And I just ordered: Counseling Treatment for Children and Adolescents With DSM IV TR Disorders, 2nd Edition. Holy Soybeans, that was an expensive book.

I probably won't recommend that one. Heard the ending's a little ambiguous.

So ... I have a little bit of free time this summer.

Any recommendations?

the universe is supremely balanced.

2011-06-19T12:53:00.000-07:00

Or so I always tell Shoes.

Friday morning I headed to campus to stash my car, pick up my final papers and catch the bus up to the hospital for a job interview. In true Lisa form, I was incredibly early and stopped in at a coffee shop to kill some time.

A middle aged man approached my table and asked if he could sit with me. Of course, and I went back to reading my book.

He was holding his mocha with both hands, drinking very carefully, absolutely beaming, and kept repeating to himself, "This is so good. So good. So so good."

After he had drained it, he stood up carefully, sat down, stood up carefully, sat down, wiped the table a little with his napkin, and stood up. Still beaming, he said, "Thank you for letting me sit with you. Have a nice day. Have a nice day. Thank you. Have a nice day." I couldn't help but smile at his authenticity and pureness of spirit.

Then he took the napkin and blew his nose.

And then he thoroughly and carefully wiped the table again with it.

And it reminded me of why I love people. And why I carry anti-bacterial wipes in my purse.

Blessed be.

"Life is too short to be small." - Benjamin Disraeli

2011-06-10T08:43:00.000-07:00

In all of the end of the school year-final papers-ending at internship-trying to find a new job insanity that has been the last month, I completed neglected to wish this blog a Happy 5th Birthday (as of May).

In human years, 5 year olds are at a sort of transitional part in their lives. Not really preschoolers and not like the older kids in the middle childhood cohort, they like unicorns and batman and swimming and mommy and daddy's attention.

5 year olds are figuring out life's greatest mysteries. How to tie their shoes. Figuring out what's real and what's imaginary. Figuring out why. (5 year olds are not so great yet at figuring out intent - why somebody said what s/he did.)

My blog still doesn't know how to tie its shoes. :(

But. This blog has seen the following developmental milestones:

* A job with incarcerated youth I loved. (I loved the job and I loved the youth)
* Best of MSN in 2006. Good job, blog!
* The amazing bloggers I've met (virtually, but in real life, too) through the blog. (I have amazing amounts of super massive tender feelings for these guys).
* A great plan to get a Master's to teach High School English and the joy of taking state licensure tests
* Acceptance into a Masters of Teaching Education Program!
* The devastating, sudden disintegration of a church marriage
* The healing that came with said dissolution
* The difficult decision to forgo the MTE
* A job promotion to supervise a Guardian Ad Litem Program
* A time period where not a lot happened. (That's not a milestone, but that is life).
* The decision to apply to an MSW program.
* The beginning of a courtship with a handsome deputy prosecuting attorney
* Acceptance into the MSW program!
* A move to Portland!
* A DPA who concluded our relationship was paramount to him and said he was all in, despite the distance
* LEARNING HOW TO RIDE THE BUS ALL BY MYSELF (now, if that doesn't say 5 year old, I don't know what does ...)
* Ups and downs of school. Mostly ups.
* Amazing new social worker friends
* A challenging and tender and difficult and beautiful internship counseling the elderly
* Acceptance into my internship of first choice for next year

Happy 5th Birthday, Blog. I started you on a whim while working graveyards at the juvenile detention center, but you've become an outlet and a concrete way to keep my anecdotal (non research related) writing skills sharp. You're a reminder of the not so good and the absolutely fantastic. We're still figuring out together what's real and what's imaginary and what peoples' intent are.

And I am also so very, very grateful to the amazing people I've met through the blogging community. The brief notes, the check ins, the witty remarks, the "you can do its"... I have neighborhood people who tell me this, too, but there's something to be said about the kindness of relative strangers. Bless you guys.

To birthdays!

Etc.

2011-06-08T21:48:00.000-07:00

It was a rough public transit morning this morning. People high, people not showering, people asking me what time it is every 5 minutes and a man who shouted (literally - shouted) to me, "I'M COMPLIMENTING YOU ON YOUR PERFUME. YOU SMELL NICE."

Coursework is done for the term. Two more days of internship, a truckload of small details to take care of, and by 3:00 pm Friday I'll be done with this school year. One year left. I have no idea where the last two years have gone, but I think quite a bit of my energy has been sopped up trying to keep myself safe and sane on the 17, 8, 44 and 1. The 64 always treats me well, but it's basically an express bus for OHSU workers. No major worries there.

End of the year MSW shindig Friday night; MSW graduation on Saturday; and Elizabeth and I are getting together on Sunday to eat cookies and covertly talk about secret ops event details (the event that will legalize me and Shoes' coupledom).

Also, we will be celebrating the fact that it has been 10 years since we graduated from undergraduate school.
10! I don't know where that 10 years has gone either, but, go Mountaineers!

In light of my promise of a cheerier post ...

2011-06-01T11:50:00.000-07:00

I will tell you that Shoes and I have somehow managed to jump from cheery, unmarried, breezy coupledom to me saying, "Darling, if we are planning to legalize our coupledom and collect a tax break, we should probably decide by August or September how that's going to look as many venues require reservations a year in advance."

Shoes says, "Definitely by August we'll decide. September is the start of college football."

That's true. It cannot be interfered with. I knew this before Shoes and I started dating. Cougar Football will probably make its way into the wedding vows.

Gretchen (Shoes' mom) says, "He took me ring shopping! But then he wanted to make the final decision by himself." She's so super, endearingly excited about these nuptials and says, "This family needs a happy event." Indeed, the family has been faced with untold challenges since March. But there are good things happening, too ... the birth of a baby in July, the loveliness of three grandsons, the celebration of an acceptance into Pharmacy school, the collective rush of healing thoughts for a family member experiencing a complicated health issue ...

I said, "Maybe we should just go to Vegas."

Gretchen said, "That's absolutely fine!"

My mom said ... well, my mom wasn't there. But I know she'd support anything I decided. She's crazy unconditional that way. I'm sure she'd be the first person to arrive in Vegas with her motor home and mother of the bride dress.

Shoes said, "Nah. Let's not go to Vegas. Let's do this:"

{Actual venue site; photo not hyperlinked.}

I said, "Really?"

Shoes said, "Absolutely. That's just fine with me."

At the beginning of graduate school, my advisor told us that the one thing we absolutely should not do is plan a wedding before graduation.

And plagiarize. We definitely shouldn't plagiarize. (Like I did when I posted the venue site without crediting the source.)

The thought is overwhelming for me ... especially right now as I finish up this term, think about the intensity of my final year, look for another job as I will lose my current position at the end of the summer ...

But then I think, "Wedding Schmedding. I just want to have a happy party with the people closest to us in the fantastic Palouse surrounded by green rolling hills" (Read: Very Small).

And more than anything, I just want to come home at the end of my day at the same time Shoes does ... No four hour drives, no nightly marathon phone calls, just regular, normal, everyday, boring, fantastic life. With two dogs. And town chickens. And raised garden beds. And weekly trips to the Farmer's Market. And gratitude.

Supreme gratitude.

Shoes is surprising in the most surprisingest of ways. I'm keeping the "how we met" post until the formal proposal. Suffice it to say he's not who I thought I would have chosen. And I don't know why he picked me. But he did. I did. We did.

We will. Eventually.

I like tax breaks.

Did you glimpse in first light

2011-05-26T20:24:00.000-07:00

Did you glimpse in first light the world as you loved it

and see that, now, it was not wrong to die

and that, on dying, you would leave

your beloved in a day like paradise?

-- Galway Kinnell

My last few posts have been a little heavy in the way that a ton of bricks is a little heavy. I promise I will work in some lighter posts soon.

But.

I have had a client since the very first week of internship back in September -- Mary seems as good a name as any other. Over the past 9 months, Mary and I have met weekly for life review therapy and we have formed a very, very close professional relationship. She is an amazing woman, old-old, who has lead a full life of discovery, adventure, family and reconciliation.

She is the client I have that is the most ready to pass away. And by that, I mean just that. She is ready. She has spoken often about how she is ready to go and how she is humbled and profoundly grateful for the life she has lead. For her, dying is part of living. She is not fearful. She is just old. And ready.

The past few weeks we have been going through her scrapbooks and her stories have made me tear up a little. In fact, when I have my field supervision, both my field supervisor and I have cried openly when speaking about this incredible woman and her passion, fire and spirit. We have also cried openly about the incredible teaching experience working with Mary has been for me as a graduate counseling student.

I'm tearing now.

I asked my field supervisor last week if she had any ideas about how I should structure our last sessions. I stated that it would be difficult for me, but that I had had a profoundly enriching student experience, for which I was grateful. My field supervisor pointed out I was talking about the worker/client relationship, but that I wasn't talking, necessarily, about how I was feeling about the relationship ending. She was right. I am grateful, and. And Mary and I have grown close. I don't have a desire to continue visiting with her, really. She's met all of her goals and I'm confident she would have had the tools necessary to face the relatively brief time she has left. And I know, based on her feedback, that she would have been able to look back on this therapeutic relationship and be able to pull out how strongly I believe in her and how competent I believe she is. It's been such a positive experience. But it's been one filled with so much meaning. I feel overwhelmed at how moving it has been. And that is a difficult thing to process through emotionally. I have a feeling. I have many feelings. I'm still sorting through them.

I'm past tearing now.

Why am I telling you all of these personal things about this client?

Mary and I, technically, have two more sessions on the books. We have started to wrap. She is physically tired, has worked hard to ensure her children know she loves them, has several health issues, and she's at the point where she will welcome death in the most positive, peaceful way imaginable.

I arrived at internship today to find out that Mary was in the skilled nursing facility after being discharged from the hospital yesterday, and, she is now on Hospice. (Seems fast, but sometimes these things move fast.) When my field supervisor first told me this, I immediately smiled broadly, laughed, and said, "Blessed Be. This is exactly what she wanted."

I went to visit Mary this afternoon in skilled and it is clear that she doesn't have much time left. When I woke her up gently, she smiled and said softly, "Oh, it's Lisa. You came to visit me!" And she laughed.

Then she said quietly, but joyfully, and this is almost ver batim -- as close as it's going to get -- I've been thinking about it all afternoon -- "Lisa, you've been a dear, dear friend to me. I've so enjoyed you and your visits. Thank you. Thank you for coming to visit me. I think I'm on my way out and I'm too tired to visit now. So tired. But thank you for coming to say goodbye. Now you kiss me on my forehead, dear."

I willingly obliged and that's when my tears started flowing. I told her, "Mary, you have taught me so much about living and aging and dying." (And then I mentioned some specific things we talked about in session I won't mention here). "And I'm crying right now because I'm so happy for you."

To which she closed her eyes, sleepily responded, "I know, dear! Isn't it wonderful!" and fell back asleep.

I told her to enjoy this journey, watched her sleeping form for a minute, and then walked to my field supervisor's office, tears streaming. I asked her if this ever went away -- the tearing and how emotional I felt -- and she said, "Not if you form this kind of bond. I've kissed many foreheads in my years here, and if you're comfortable enough to do that, you celebrate the journey and grieve the loss."

Mary, I don't think I'm going to have a chance to give you the closure letter I've written to you. And that's more than ok. Part of your generativity has been talking about my school and my role as a student, so you must know how grateful, how truly, truly, truly grateful, I am to have worked with you. My professional and personal selves have been fundamentally changed by the person you are and time we spent together and I will look back at this time in my life with incredible tenderness and fond memories.

Rest well, dear heart. This is a life well lived.

"All the people like us are we, and everyone else is They".

2011-05-19T15:35:00.000-07:00

-- Rudyard Kipling

Two nights ago, my dear, usually unflappable, impeccably professional Shoes called me, quite audibly agitated, to tell me that there had been a gang homicide in the Vineyard Town (the town in which he still lives). It is, unbelievably, the first gang related homicide (the numbers of assaults and riots number much higher) in the small community of 31,000 people.

We both knew the 20 year old victim (also a gang member) and had worked with him professionally (it's public record). In fact, almost all of my closest friends from the Vineyard Town are kid workers (addictions counselors, mentors, therapists, juvenile detention officers, juvenile probation officers and, of course, my own dear Juvenile Deputy Prosecuting Attorney) and we had all worked with him professionally. In all honesty, this was a tough kid. Challenging. Defiant. Angry. And we cared about him deeply. It's a situation in which all are true.

And we mourn his loss deeply. More deeply than I know how to tell you. We work as hard as we can. We give as much as we can give (or as much as our resources allow us to). And in the end, even though it's quite obviously nobody's fault, we all ask the same question:

Could I have done something differently?

We are all asking that question. And we are all holding our breath to hear who the pd will arrest. We want to believe it's not another juvenile. We want to believe it's not somebody we've worked with. And we know it's not a realistic expectation.

These kids - these "bad kids" - you wouldn't believe the challenges they face. You wouldn't believe what's happened in their lives. You wouldn't believe the community, contextual factors that contribute to their delinquency. There are so many intersecting factors of race, class, privilege, and oppression that it is absolutely ludicrous to approach the issue from an "errant individual", middle class, Caucasian perspective and question why these kids aren't more pro-social, contributing members of society. The public doesn't understand and it is ridiculously easy to demonize. These kids did not wake up at 12 years old and make an informed decision to become gang members.

One thing I do regularly (that I should not do at all because it certainly doesn't contribute to my own mental well being) is read the public's comments on online news stories. The following was posted yesterday from the Vineyard's Town paper (copied and pasted in full, including spelling errors - no edits):

@football stud: He did make a choice, and when you play with fire, you're going to get burnt. I just can't help but think that somewhere along the lines, someone realized that he was headed down the wrong path, and decided to turn a blind eye. Not all of us would do that, but I feel like many of these young kids are failed by their parents, teachers, neighbors, anyone that knows them and could see the red flags. Ulitmately, I hold the parents responsible for making sure that they don't get wrapped up in gangs, but we all know that many people that have children don't have them for the right reasons and don't take care of them.

Red flags? Dear heart, this was not an at-risk youth. This was a youth drowning in more structural inequality, racism and delinquency than I care to address in a single posting. Did we turn a blind eye to him? Ask my juvenile detention officer friends who spent multiple nights with him, working with him on calming him down and listening from a place of non-judgmental inquiry. Ask the probation officers who worked every angle they could to get him appropriate services. This isn't blind. This is doing as much as you can.

But it may have been doing as much as we can too late. As in, we need to build healthy communities sooner, because by the time the kids reach us, we're addressing some pretty deeply ingrained thoughts and beliefs.

For the first time in four years, I wish I was back in the Vineyard Town. For the first time in four years, I feel something other than contempt for the community. I'm not sure what it is, but I think it borders on tenderness and passion.

I may have been exaggerating when I said I would never return.

Who knew?

"didn't I ramble ..."

2011-05-15T12:39:00.000-07:00

"... I rambled."
- Galway Kinnell, 1980

It's the time of the term when the sequestering is total, the rambling rampant. This picture is largely ceremonial, because, well, really. Whose workspace looks like this? You should see the pile of peer reviewed articles I've got going in the next room. I'm nose-deep in contextual family therapy, community forums, agency assessment ... But what can I say?

I love what I do.
I love where I'm at.

(Even though it makes me wistful of other people's places in life, as I so eloquently and maturely described in the previous post.)

This is the time of the term when there is no extra time and Shoes and I will next see each other on Memorial Day. You didn't hear it from me, but a little bird (Ie: his mom) called me to drop hints they may be ring shopping. (They may kill each other in the process, but I can't help but find it incredibly endearing that my love is taking his mom to look at rings.)

Now, onward. Forward. Upward.

so it was Spider Man instead of Pokemon.

2011-05-10T19:03:00.000-07:00

I am told that when Shoes walked through the door of his brother's house last Friday night, the boys (6 and 3) came running up, took one look at Shoes, look past Shoes and said, "Where's Lisa?"

Lisa was stuck in a little bit of traffic North of Tacoma due to a MegaAccident, but got there an hour after Shoes. And it was worth it. Long hugs from the boys, discussions about Willy Wonka and Spiderman, and an offer from the oldest to unplant his mom's mother's day present so he could show me the roots. He assured me they were super amazing. I told him I'd take his word for it.

And that's what we did. We visited. We ate. We passed around the babies at the Birthday Party. Shoes and I lounged lots on Sunday and had conversations like:

Shoes, "Lady Gaga's a dude."
Me,"Huh?"
Shoes, "Lady Gaga. It's a dude."
Me, "I don't think she's a man."
Shoes, "He is. He's a man."

And conversations like:

Shoes, "I HATE the University of Washington!"
Me, "But you're an alumn."
Shoes, "I'm an alumn of Washington State!"
Me, "And UW."
Shoes, "Not UW."
Me, "You went to law school there."
Shoes, "I. Am. A. Washington. State. Alumn."
Me, "And a Husky. And it was a top 25 law school when you went there."
Shoes, "I HATE the University of Washington!"

And conversations like,

Shoes, "Bear and I are going to Boulder this fall for a Pac 12 game."
Me, "Huh? What? You're going to Boulder for a Packer's game? I don't think that's right."
Shoes, "No. We're going to a Pac 12 game. You're not invited."
Me, "No surprise. It's like the Adam Karl Poker Game. I get it. It's the next big thing."
Shoes, "There's one other Next Big Thing that's going to happen this summer before that."
Me, "Promises, promises."
Shoes, "Let's go camping this summer, too. Camping would be fun." Pause. "I'm pretty sure Lady Gaga's a dude."

You know. The kind of conversations that go nowhere and say nothing but you have them repeatedly anyway.

It was a good weekend.
Shoes knows lots of lovely people.
It was truly my pleasure to be with them.
Anybody want to solve the Lady Gaga debate?

2011-05-06T10:42:00.000-07:00

This is mean. And it's mean because I'm jealous. I'm going to be mean right now because some days I would like to be at home all day getting caught up on all the things that pile up at a house if you're single or married or have kids: laundry, dishes, floors, vacuuming, grocery shopping, windows, bills, switching out pictures in picture frames, organizing papers, emptying out mice traps (right. probably will call someone to come do that one.)

But I can't do any of those things right now because I'm swamped in macro level community based projects (love, love, love raising $500.00 in 3 weeks. That's a lie. I don't at all. PTSD from Church Fundraisers) and gerontology theory and dueling gracefully with the GSSW over my registration rights as a 3 year student (long story). I'm just tired and cranky and ready for the summer.

And mean. And jealous of those who have already figured out their adult life and don't wake up at 3 in the morning randomly worrying about how to get 3 cases of bottled water to the GSSW when my entire macro project team works at least 3/4 time and there is no extra time.

(I'm about to be transparent about my meanness. Hold on.)

There is no extra time. None.

So I get jealous when I see what people are doing on Facebook all day long and it sounds so much better than what I'm doing (which makes no sense because I do love what I'm doing on many levels) and that manifests itself in thoughts such as, "What? How are people on Facebook that much? And why are they telling me about every little thing they're doing?" Which REALLY doesn't make sense because I am the one READING it. And I know lots of people who have writing careers where they're at the computers all day and the FB is part of being on the computer. Not really thinking about that here. I have often harbored mean, terrible thoughts about parodying these constant FB updates, but in a super special, SW way. Using lots of exclamation points, because, of course, using exclamation points is super appropriate when working with the dying. Such as:

8:00 am: OMG! Another day at internship! LOVE THESE OLD PEOPLE!
9:00 am: FELLOW GSSW's: Any ideas where I can get a free DSM??
10:00 am: Just had supervision - can't believe this year is almost over!
11:00 am: Lisa likes "God" and "Humanistic Politics" and "Don't show the pictures of Bin Laden"
12:00: Lunch - I am SO hungry! Choices, choices. Do I eat the food from the retirement cafe or the free food the facility gives us?
1:00: Lisa is attending "May 1st Worker's Right March in the Park Blocks"!!
2:00: Lisa started playing Sim Social Work Services. Build your own service agencies and clients -- see which clients thrive!
3:00: OMG. Group today went soooooo good!
4:00: So tired. Yawn. Almost done with this day. 2 more individual sessions left and then I'm outta here!
6:00: Lisa started playing Public Policy Trivia with a score of 5000! Create an account and play with her!
7:00: Just went for a 4 mile run and I'm STARVING! What to eat for dinner??
8:00: Decided on the chicken and salad - can't be too healthy, LOL!!
9:00: Another long night of reading, writing and research ahead - Socioemotional Selectivity Theory and Gerotranscendance, here I come!
12:00: Sooooo tired. Goodnight everybody!!!

This weekend I'm going taking a day to drive with Shoes up to Seattle for one year olds' birthday party (we committed to this awhile ago and I have been purposefully structuring my coursework for the past few weeks to be gone for an entire day and a half). I will not think about how mean I am. I will not think about theory. I will worry only slightly about the cases of water that need to get to the school next Friday. I will play with Shoes' nephews and will enthusiastically listen to fantastic stories about dinosaurs and Pokemon. I will pretend that that is my real life and I have already graduated. I am thankful for school. And. I am ready for 2012.

I left the ending ambiguous...

2011-05-02T18:30:00.000-07:00

... because that is the way life is.
Bernardo Bertolucci

We started talking about endings with clients at the beginning of Spring Term in class. All of us graduate students see the end of our first internship year coming, and all of us have people we're working with it will be difficult to say goodbye to.

On the flip side, in all honesty, we all have people it will be less difficult to say goodbye to.

I brought this up with my on-going clients Week One of Spring Term (the last week in March). Primarily, I started the ending phase that early (11 weeks before it happens) because of the mild, age related cognitive impairment my on-going clients happen to share. Forgetfulness is common. My youngest is 87 years old.

There was another reason, though. Erik Erikson characterized the last part of a human being's life - the last part of lifespan development -- as one in which the elderly person ideally reaches ego integrity -- "a fundamental acceptance of his or her own life, regardless of how good or bad it has been, and looks back and feels satisfied with the past" (Tornstam, 1999, p. 11). Part of this acceptance, then, is generativity. As I come to terms with my life and I examine it now, what am I giving back? What are my contributions now? What mark am I leaving?

I started the ending process so early to ensure that my on-going clients understand that while I have been providing counseling to them, they have been enriching my life beyond measure. This is part of their generativity. It will take me years to sort this out - what exactly this year with them has meant and how it has changed me.

It will take longer than the time they have left to live.

Here are some of the bigger lessons:

From my field supervisor:
"You stop doubting yourself. You see people and you understand people and it's time for you to stop being so timid when you present your assessments. Next year you'll be an advanced clinical student, so say what you have to say with the grace I know you already have. That time is now."

From On-going Client One:
"You go on and you tell them that being old is something they need to think about now. You tell people what it's like because people need to come to terms with that before it surprises them. Old age isn't what it used to be, but old age isn't something to be afraid of."

"Stay out of the pool hall."

"Cause enough mischief to keep things interesting."

From On-going Client Two:
"When you get as old as I am, you should reach the point where you're able to live harmoniously with your family. That's the only thing that matters." (Research has, indeed, shown this to be a primary goal of the aging population [Carstensen, Fung, & Charles, 2003]).

"Only marry your boyfriend if you know you can handle the aging process with him."

From On-going Client Three:
"I have told my story about my WWII battalion to as many people as I could have. Soon, my story is only going to live in the people who have heard it. Tell it. Tell them about the 442nd. Tell them how we're just now being recognized for our work." (Obviously, I only tell you now as it is his wish for me to do so.)

"You listen too good. I tell you too many things, but that's ok. When you leave here, you be sure to listen to people just like you're listening to me now."

From On-going Client Four:
{and this is difficult for me, personally, to write; on-going client four is dying. there is little talking now. there is just companionship.}

"That boyfriend of yours? You tell him that he has a good woman and that he would be foolish for him to not marry you. You tell him that."

This is the advice for newly married couples: "Be careful! No getting pregnant right away and she should keep her trim figure!"

"Don't dye your hair back to brunette. Stay blond. Stay fun."

(Why so much talk about my boyfriend? Because that was the first question they all asked me: are you married? All they really know is that he exists, and anybody working with the elderly understands there's a teensy bit more self disclosure than when you work with other demographics.

It was how they were taking care of me. It was part of what they wanted to teach me. And they did. And they are.)

References

Carstesen, L., Fung, H., & Charles, S. (2003). Socioemotional selectivity theory and the regulation of emotion in the second half of life. Motivation and Emotion, 27(2), 103-123.

Tornstam, L. (1999). Transcendence in later life. Generations, 23, 10-14.

I am a posting fool.

2011-04-28T18:57:00.000-07:00

Warning: Slightly melodramatic post ahead.

You guys know what a Presbytery service is?

A presbytery is a governing body of church leaders; however, in the church, a "presbytery service" is (can be) one in which church elders have a time of formal prophecy for you. I know. It sounds odd. Despite your faith backgrounds, you'll just have to take my word that it can be an entirely validating experience.

I took part in my last one in 2002. Pastor Bob McGregor from City Harvest in Vancouver, WA killed it - right on the money. I'd never met Bob before, but he quietly informed me I worked with people in crisis (at the time I was working with DV victims) and that I had known a lot of pain. According to Bob, I would know a lot of pain in the future (enter 2007), but I would go back to graduate school and I would counsel families.

I've held on to that for 9 years, which, at times, has sucked. And that's my clinical term. Definite low spots since early 2007.

But let's revisit where I'm at:

I went through a terrible two years, but
now I'm in grad school and
I've just been offered an internship position at my first choice.

I got the phone call this afternoon, right before I was set to lead a group on "Americans' Relationship with the Muslim Community." The lady who interviewed me last week said, "So, I haven't had a chance to check your references, but I can't leave you hanging. Pending a good reference check, we'd love to have you here. I really like you and you'll fit well with the agency."

Next year I'll be providing individual counseling (to kids) and family counseling (to kids and families) in NE Portland. This is what I came to school to do -- I've waited 9 years to do this. It's strange to remember a time when I couldn't think past the end of the week when, now, I can't wait to see what next year holds.

(Hopefully it also holds a mouse free apartment, an improved golf game, and a little bit of icing for one of my ring fingers, but we'll start with this internship. Enter sigh of relief and a well of gratitude here.)

So here's the deal with mice.

2011-04-27T14:26:00.000-07:00

They terrify me.

Simple as that.

When I was in high school we lived on a farm in Eastern Oregon, and every time they cut the fields, the mice would flee to our basement in droves. In my head, it was like watching a 1950s horror movie. Now that I'm 32, I realize logically that there weren't that many. Emotionally, however ...

Two nights ago I was sitting in my small, graduate student apartment, making some desperately needed updates to this blog, when I looked casually over my right shoulder to see a gopher sized rodent lazily trundle across my kitchen floor. I did what any mature, grown up 30 something woman living on her own would do: I shrieked and tore out of the apartment, wearing only socks, raced through the rain to pound furiously on my landlord's door.

My landlord, who is a spunky, confident woman in her early 60s, grabbed a broom, set her jaw and said, "Let's go get it."

She broke through the front door of my apartment while I hopped around outside, freezing with soaked socks. Two seconds later she hollered, "I see it!!"

And then,

"Lisa? This thing is so tiny. And fast. I don't know that I'll be able to get it out. Squirrels are easier."

Turns out my imagination may have blown the size of the little guy out of proportion. We chased that thing for 2.5 hours. Tore up my apartment. Emptied out closets. Went and got my landlord's cats from upstairs, who casually sat, twitched their tails and, without moving, watched the thing run in front of them. We never got it. What could I do? I thanked my landlord profusely for trying to help and then got in my car to go buy mouse traps.

And I called Shoes (because what other logical thing is there to do than to call your partner who lives 4 hours away and has a district court docket first thing the next morning?). Shoes was less than helpful. Not unsympathetic, but unhelpful in the, "Well. We could name him Gary" type of way.

I arrived home, gingerly (somewhat nauseously) baited the traps and put them down. I sat on the bed. And waited. And waited. And when 45 minutes had gone by and nothing had happened, I cautiously started to clean up my torn apart apartment. But. When I put my coat away in the hall closet, there was a furious scurrying at the back. I slammed the door, threw down a blanket in front of it to stop the gap underneath and raced back upstairs to pound on my landlord's door again.

She couldn't find it.

With nothing left to do, I shoved towels in all of the door cracks, left all the lights on, and went to bed. I laid in bed, cowering, my heart racing. The last time I looked at the clock, it was 12:30 and I know I woke up 5 times before my alarm goes off at 5:45.
Left all of the lights on.
Heard one of the traps snap shut in the middle of the night.
Pulled the blanket over my head.

I haven't seen one since then, but the cats upstairs have since killed 2.

They're there.

I know they're there.

Wet paint.

2011-04-26T07:15:00.000-07:00

We're undergoing a bit of construction here at this blog. Looks a little sloppy and redundant in places. Apologies and it will look better soon. What can I say? I wanted to get it all out in one big push, and still have time for socioemotional selectivity theory, but then a 4 legged, long tailed creature appeared in my kitchen and my remodel was quickly abandoned to show this little guy (who scares the poop out of me) who's the real sheriff.

(I'm pretending the real sheriff is me).

Remodel abandoned & I'm behind on my research. What a carefully constructed life I have.

I'll post soon about the mouse Shoes has named Gary. The mouse doesn't deserve a name. Shoes deserves a time out.

while i wait to hear back from the interview ...

2011-04-23T16:36:00.000-07:00

... and I am not a patient waiter by any stretch of the imagination ...

I will tell you that it was my full sister's Birthday this week and the night we had out was filled with twists, turns, a fancy dinner, an Irish pub with Irish music, and a club with dueling pianos and pianists willing to take any song request imaginable.

Kudos to the waitress who sang Snoop Dogg; I'm still amazed.

We never do fancy downtown because we are very serious students who never go out.

But since it was a special occasion ...

Happy Birthday, Cheryl. Welcome to this side of 30. While my 20s were fabulous, the 30s have been even better. To you!

20 hours of homework this week = no poem title for this either.

2011-04-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

Last year at about this time I was interviewing for my first year of internship. Your first year you go where they tell you. Your first year they put you with a client population you haven't worked with before and you're not supposed to ask for a specific placement. That is the What.

But I did. I did ask. Because I'm a good student with 9 years of bachelor level social work experience. A 4.0 graduate student in the only program of its kind in Oregon (it's a little hubris-y in here). And the worst they could tell me was no. But they didn't tell me no -- they told me yes and arranged for an interview with a Hospice and Bereavement Placement.

The interview went terribly.

Ter.ri.bly.

Something was just off, you know? That's the worst ... when you can feel it slipping away and you're not sure why and you don't really know how to get it back on track. Not surprisingly, the phone call I received a week later informed me that they had chosen someone else for their internship.

I was crushed. I told them I was glad they had found somebody right for their position and asked them if they had any feedback for me (knowing I would have to interview again). Their answer could not have surprised me more. They said, "Oh, nothing, actually. You said everything right. We just aren't looking for someone with as much work experience as you have. We really want a younger intern we can mold."

A younger intern?
Too much work experience?
Dear hearts, this has an -ism attached to it! Ageism!

Knowing that bringing that up wasn't going to get me anywhere, I thanked her politely, hung up, and then called the Field Placement Team with my tail between my legs. They had been so gracious in setting this up for a first year student and I so felt as though I had let them down. Lucky for me, they were equally as baffled and a little unhappy with this agency (turns out for more than one reason). Then they set me up with the internship I have now and it's been a love-love relationship. One of the best experiences in my professional life. Heck, my personal life, too.

So why am I telling you all of this?

Because later today I will be interviewing for my 2nd year Advanced Internship. And I am stinking scared ... mostly because of how terribly the first interview went last year. This internship is the big one. This is the one for which my student profile went before a Graduate committee (and I was discussed in detail) to see if I was social worker worthy enough to be placed with my first internship choice. (Your 2nd year, you do ask.) So far, yes.

Interview's at 1:00 with my first choice.

Fingers crossed.

How can I set this up in a way that makes sense?

2011-04-18T18:52:00.000-07:00

A spunky co worker decided to throw a murder mystery cocktail party set at a women's college in 1960. That part you already know from the previous post.

We had all received a few lines on who our characters would be. I was "Mary" - quiet, bookish, nerdy. Shoes was "Lawrence", dating me, conservative, son of a preacher. A group of about 15 of us or so showed up at the party and were given extra information. Reveal this, deflect this, try not to admit to this.

And then from there, the process is far too complicated to try to explain here. Not even the character who did it knew she did it until the very end.

Good to know!

None of us figured it out, but as the night wore on and we got more and more into it, voices started to raise and laughter started to take over. A good time, no doubt.

One of my most favorite parts was when gentlemanly Lawrence stood up suddenly, pointed at the "football captain" of Lone Pine College and shouted, "You, sir, are a pig!" Which was met with a chorus of "Indeed!"

I have to start with the accessories for my costume first; the other pictures don't show them well.

So fun. Shoes found them when I drug him to 5 antique stores one morning looking for them.

He was very relieved to find them.

It meant we were done antique shopping.

Fabulous little non matching hat.

My character was booky and nerdish, though.

Nerdish people don't have to match.

I know this because this is art imitating life.

Little black cocktail dress.

Clicking on the image should make it a little larger.

I am slouching because my heels are very high.
I am very tall.
Shoes is not very tall.
And I should know that this takes a very unattractive picture because it's definitely not the first time in my life I've had this experience or dated a man who was shorter than me.
You should see my Senior Homecoming Pictures.
Hideous.

In conclusion, Shoes was well liked by the other party goers. They appreciated his commitment to the event and to his character. And once again, I am in awe of this amazingly patient man who agrees to do things like this with me.

I have a feeling there may be payback.

I'll keep you updated.

no poem today either!

2011-04-15T08:58:00.000-07:00

It is Friday and I usually post on Fridays.

But I have nothing to post today. In fact, it's a hectic, where's my brain, where's my planner, seriously I just spilled coffee on myself?, I wonder if my dress is a little too short for internship because all the extra weight I've been putting on through grad school is making things fit in funny ways, I have supervision in 6 minutes, I have to write a paper and come up with a budget for a World Cafe (look it up) event that's in 3 weeks and the school has allocated exactly $0.00 to feed 50 people on by the end of the weekend, research intergenerational counseling techniques for frail older adults and their adult children type of day.

And tomorrow night I'm taking Shoes to a 1960 Murder Mystery Cocktail Party a dear friend in N. Portland is throwing. He is less than enthusiastic. But he is also A Very Good Man, so he has agreed to go. My costume is fabulous.

I can't shake the feeling this might jeopardize any upcoming proposals.

Happy Weekend!

"beyond control they have gained /

2011-04-11T06:30:00.000-07:00

/ control"
- Phillip Booth, 1990

To B.B.,

My very first client with Advanced Alzheimer's.

If I could, I would visit you in the Afterlife and tell you what a cosmic impact you had on this graduate student's life.

I first met you when I opened the electronically locked door to the Memory Care Unit. At 5'3", thin as a reed, and as steady as two reeds poorly fastened together, you hobbled up and said something I will never forget.

"Smaa tule reen. Doh CAP!"

You were telling me something. And then you were asking me something. And in our time together you only came out of the word salad fog 2 or 3 times - one sentence, and a couple of words. I have to tell you, quite obviously, I had no idea what you were trying to tell me. But you were out of your room and you were being social and you weren't pulling another resident's hair, so, in effect, it looked like a good day.

I responded to "Do CAP!", with "I'm so glad you were able to meet me today. I was just going to take a stroll this way" (and I indicated to an arbitrary hallway). "Would you like to come?"

And you held out your hand. And I took it and placed it in the crook of my elbow. And we slowly walked around and around in the circle that is the locked memory unit. Is that a metaphor for the last part of your life? Walking the same circuitous paths over and over, seeing if there's something down this way you needed, wanted or thought you might possibly remember? It's hard to tell.

That first day, when I needed to leave, I said, "B. Thank you so much for spending time with me. I have another appointment, but I'll be back to visit with you soon." To this, you screwed up your face, stuck out your lip and angrily told me, in B. language, where I could go and what I could do with myself. Although I'd never be able to prove it, I truly believe you were asking why somebody else was more important than you at that moment. In fact, you were so angry, so inexplicably angry and snarly, that I turned to one of the CNA's, bewildered, and said softly, humbled, "I think I'm having some problems transitioning here."

And this CNA, who has shown me more patience than one should be asked to show a graduate student, smiled and said, "Just go."

So I started to walk away, and you said the only coherent thing of that day: "Where's she going?"

And the CNA said, "She'll be right back."

My task supervisor would later tell me that although it might feel disingenuous, it was better to focus your attention on a different worker and tell you just that. It seemed to work. You never remembered who I was, so you never held it over my head.

During a separate visit, you refused to wear shoes, but insisted on walking around anyway. Although it was your home, and I was always a firm believer of enforcing the idea that the common area was your living room, well. Come on, B. A locked memory unit is not the safest place to not wear shoes. You yelled at a different CNA when he put your slippers down before you. So I quietly slipped my own shoes off, walked away, came back and said, "Oh goodness, B! It's time for our walk! I need to put my shoes on for this. Hey! Here are yours! Do you want to put yours on?"

Lucky for me, you did.

We went on many strolls.
You were often so feisty it took every imaginative, calming idea to focus you otherwise (hence our many strolls).
You sometimes like to sit quietly in the common area, watching the Price Is Right, holding my hand.
You loved music.
You loved SINGING - word salad jingles. Catchy little tunes.
I learned to keep you away from your arch nemesis resident in the memory unit, but it never made sense to me how a person with no memory could single out the same resident again and again to pull her hair.
Have I mentioned how feisty you were?
Near the end you were agitated and restless
And that it when I loved you more.
As the Hospice nurse continued to increase your sedation, the more I knew your time was close.
A tiny bit of the feistiness started to give way to long, quiet looks into my eyes with a look in yours that was more meaningful than any prior.
Did you know?
I think you knew.

You were a pain.

And I miss you terribly.

Working with you was a head on collision of what I know about human nature, what I was learning in Mental Wellness and Aging, and my gut instinct -- a 3 vehicle pile up. You made me think long and hard about what it truly means to avoid infantizing somebody with advanced dementia, what it truly means to honor somebody's preferred sense of self, and how to honor the full life you had lead before this disease had ravaged your brain and the life you were living then. And you taught me about you - who you were, what you liked, what you did not like, and what mattered to you in those last days.

I always remember the firsts, B.

I always remember the firsts.

Rest well.

"If I had a hammer ..."

2011-04-08T06:30:00.000-07:00

"I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening
All over this land
I'd hammer out danger
I'd hammer out a warning
I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land"
Lee Hays, Pete Seeger

Just a couple of things for this week. Life's been pretty slow. I'm no longer taking that horrible, dreaded, no good, no use, Social Work and the Law class this term ... the absence of which has improved my attitude immensely. Immensely. Feels like an entirely new term. Er, well, technically, it is an entirely new term. A term in which I'm taking Midlife and Beyond and my year long Social Work class (it's called Generalist - which is pretty fitting). (My 86 year old client at my internship asked what I was taking this term and when I told him about Midlife and Beyond, I told him it reminded me of Toy Story and Buzz Lightyear's "To Infinity ... and beyond!" He cast a weary eye towards me and said, "There's nothing that exciting on this side of midlife.")

But that's not the point.

The point is that April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month and Child Abuse Awareness Month. The president of my university just sent out the driest, most impersonal letter about Sexual Assault Awareness Month linking the avoidance of sexual assault only to Social Sustainability. But maybe the point is that he sent it at all. Here's what I'll say about sexual assault: if you have general questions, go ask your local Domestic and Sexual Violence Advocacy Center -- they'll be so excited to talk to you. If you, yourself, have been a victim, and it's possible that you may question if you have been a victim, please call a hotline - how about 1800 656 HOPE -- or your local advocacy center. You don't have to get give your name. You get to follow up how you want to.

And April is Child Abuse Awareness Month. Oh, the stories I could tell you. Of hurt, of trauma, but even more incredibly, of hope, healing, redemption and restoration.
Some of the images that agencies use for this month are really and truly terrible. They're true, and attention must be paid to this intensely impacting trauma, but I'm of the mindset that people don't need to see pictures of bruised babies more than what's necessary.

Image by HandsOn Network

So Child Abuse. Soooooo many things you could do. You could donate clothes, cribs, baby clothes, etc. to your local Child Welfare office. Times are tough and these agencies are experiencing cutbacks like you wouldn't believe. You could do more on the risk prevention end and volunteer for Big Brothers, Big Sisters. You could help with Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA)! You could contact your local Child Welfare office to see about Foster Parenting. If you're really ambitious, you could contact your local Child Welfare office to see about adopting a foster child. Now here's the thing about adopting foster kids, I must tell you. These amazing kids have a range of experiences and some of them are still healing. So ... they may act like kids who have been abused. If you have questions about this, drop me a note and we'll chat. If you can't do any of these things, you could devote some time during the week towards prayer / sending positive thoughts. I love these kids. I love these kids more than I can say.

Also, next week is Volunteer Appreciation Week. Doesn't that coincide nicely with the previous paragraph? I think so!

I don't think I could begin to tell you what crucial work volunteers provide to our public sector. I've volunteered, or supervised volunteers, for the past decade. (How am I that old? I don't even know.) Volunteering is altruistic, yes, it's rewarding, it's challenging, sometimes it's frustrating, it creates community.

Image from Child of Office and Youth Protection

We're part of a human family. There are so many different ways to volunteer (one of my best friends in my graduate program has a husband who volunteers at a tool library. A tool library! People check out tools for home repairs). It's part of us taking care of each other. (I have no idea when this blog started to sound so touchy / feel-y / earthy.) I'll spend the next 30 seconds listing off the top of my head ways I can think of to volunteer:

Your church
The Public Library
CASA
Big Brothers / Big Sisters
Your local nursing home
Your local domestic violence / sexual violence advocacy agency
Your local hospital (this one should count for 15 more due to the variety of opportunities)
Your local refugee advocacy agency (do you speak a foreign language? Are you bi cultural?)
Habitat for Humanity
Your local animal Shelter
Highway cleanup
Tutor at a local school
The Zoo
The Children's Museum
Hospice

Ok, that was 30 seconds. The point is not the list. The point is to be inspired to help in a way that is good for you, doing work that matters to you. Somebody will always receive.

I was first a volunteer with my church. Then I volunteered at a Domestic Violence Hotline. Then I volunteered as part of a Sexual Assault Response Team. Then more church volunteering. Now I volunteer my time as a courtesy CASA for a local foster youth and I conduct mock job interviews at a local high school for teens with learning disabilities.

My sister used to volunteer for the Emergency Room and the animal shelter. My mother and father are Red Cross volunteers. Red Cross! I should have remembered that for the list! And your local Juvenile Detention Center - I should have remembered that one, too! (Now I'm just cheating.)

If you have anything you'd like to add here about volunteering, please do! I know that it's not right for every person in every season ... but it's my hope that during at least one season in our lives volunteering will play a significant role. I'm also curious as to what other volunteering opportunities my 30 second list missed ...

" ... it will always be like this ...

2011-04-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

each of us going on
in our own inexplicable ways
building the universe"
-- Mary Oliver, 2004

I just don't know how to start this post (but I've tried about 12 times -- it's been in draft form for weeks). I certainly don't wish to offend anybody, and I think my dearest friends know my heart and know where I'm coming from. And it's long. Kudos to you if you read all the way through; I certainly can't blame you if you don't.

I'll start with a list of disclaimers - which, in and of itself is an interesting choice, as women use far more qualifiers in conversation than men.

Disclaimer One: I. Love. Children. Ask anybody. I seriously love children. If I come to your house, your kids will not want me to leave, and I probably won't want to leave either. Dress up, hide and seek, tag, baseball, Transformers ... I love it all. I'll be the one asking to take your kids outside in the yard.

Disclaimer Two: I'm a kid pro. No really, I mean that literally. I am a professional, soon to be licensed, mental health worker specializing in children with nine years of field experience. No arrogance intended, but I know my stuff. See Disclaimer One as to why I'm a kid pro.

Disclaimer Three: You wouldn't believe how family oriented I am. I gush with excitement when I find out there's about to be a new addition to the family (including friends so dear and so old they might as well be blood related). Mamas, Papas, Baby Bears, the whole works. Families are amazingly dear to my heart.

Disclaimer Four: The gender normative and heteronormative language in this post is phenomenal. I thought about it, but just decided to keep it as simple as possible. But in case you're curious, yes, I realize.

So here's where I'm at, now that the disclaimers have been put out there (and they are all so, so true). I'm struggling right now and bristling a little and wrestling over the expectations that have been put on me over the past few years.

This is one of the most fascinating things about my life: I am nearing the point where it may begin to be difficult for me to have children. By the time I'm finished with graduate school, I will be 34 and, if it's the direction we choose to go, Shoes and I will have just started our life together. That would probably mean the delay of any future children by yet another couple of years (I'm also working towards a very specific type of licensure that requires a state exam at the end of two years of supervised clinical work [post MSW graduation]). (I know that women have children well, well into their 40s, but a woman's peak fertility time is not then.) My feminine role in society is quickly changing from one in which I am a viable womb to one where I am becoming more and more and more the cherished "auntie" .... and I'm ok with that. I haven't ruled motherhood out. Those of you who followed the blog in 2007 / 2008 knew that former husband and I went to great lengths to try to have one of the little lovelies ... and it didn't work. I absolutely haven't ruled motherhood out. So God and I talk about it sometimes and I'm beginning to experience this great peace that it might not happen for me.

Despite my own personal peace, however, it is still very odd to be a woman of my age in a society which still greatly values women for their ability to parent. People are beginning to know less and less what to do with me. Members of my family are beginning to know less and less what to do with me. I understand that I'm beginning to defy some very tightly held notions of traditional feminine roles. But even within that understanding, I'm beginning to bristle a little, too. There is so much to my life -- outside my ability or desire to have children.

But most people don't ask about the other parts of my life. Most people ask about Shoes. When we'll be tying the knot. When we'll be ready to have kids. I saw my father for the first time in two years several days ago (first time we had spoken in six months) and his only question for me was, "What are Shoes' intentions towards your relationship?". (He does not know what I am getting my Masters in. It's troubling.) (And please don't read any fatherly concern into his question; you'll just have to trust me when I tell you that's not the place from which the question was asked.)

I am more than Shoes' partner or the children we may or may not have. But this seems inexplicably lost. I am Shoes' partner - happily, happily so. I am also getting a 4.0 G.P.A. (in my second year) while I obtain a graduate education at a highly ranked university. I provide geriatric psychotherapy to a host of amazing clients. I follow current events to the letter. I read voraciously. I fret over politics and policy. I ask people questions about the things they state matter most to them. I have lots to talk about. That includes kids. But it does not preclude everything else.

It is so very tempting for our womanhood and our femininity to be defined by the presence of children in our lives. I am becoming more and more convinced we have to find a place in our society, in our churches, in the blocks in our neighborhoods, for the women who cannot, or do not want to, have children.

I begin to cherish more and more the time I spend with the ladies in my program at school. Ladies who do and do not have kids, but ladies who have a lot to say about everything.

And a couple of things that are starting to grieve me just a little?

1) Phone conversations with women who allow their children to scream into the phone receiver and continue to speak as though nothing is wrong (forgive me, but I just cannot hear when there is an unhappy kiddo). I've had phone conversations with women who pause our conversations to have lengthy (and I mean *lengthy* - this isn't a break to answer a question) conversations with their children. At this season in my life, when I think about work, school, homework, research, internship research that I could be doing, I despair a little when I lose precious, precious minutes from my day listening to women have a ten minute phone conversation with the little one. I know that kids are awesome and random and cute. I like to talk to them too. But I would so much rather that these moms just called me back at a time that's more convenient for them. I'd be so perfectly ok with that.

2) Comments such as, ""There is no harder job than that of being a mother." I appreciate how exhausting and difficult it is. I appreciate how extremely rewarding it is. I appreciate that it truly is a life-long commitment. It is, no doubt, incredibly hard. But let's put hyperboles aside. It's a little insulting to work with someone in their dying days, helping them navigate through impossible questions about what their lives have meant and if they're ready to pass on, to come home exhausted and spent, only to be told that there is no harder job than that of being a mother. I get sassy when I feel that the work I do is demeaned because it does not include parenting. It's all relative and it's all hard. Today I helped somebody get ready to die. That's no walk in the park.

3) Comments such as, "You'll know when you're a mother." Well, loves, we have already established I might not, so maybe it's ok to accept my feminine, sans children experience as perfectly valid and perfectly whole. I have no doubt I am pouring myself out to my community, my neighborhood, my society. There is an experience I will miss by not being a mother - absolutely, no questions asked. But maybe it would be more appropriate to speak about the life altering, mysterious experience of being a mother with other mothers. I'm just not sure how productive it is to say this to a non mother.

I'm just about ready to wrap this post.

I have no doubt that I've, quite unwillingly, offended somebody. I receive that and I hear that. It doesn't change my personal experience, but I do appreciate that viewpoint.

As I finish, I'm reminded, in my own life, of one of the most powerful, veritable forces of nature non mothers I have ever met. When I was in undergraduate school, one of the professors I knew best was a sociology professor, unmarried, no children woman. She was an ex Catholic Nun who was, and is, a never ending, never tiring advocate for social justice. A woman who has room for all narratives. A woman who once was arrested, during her days as a nun, for protesting nuclear weapons on a military base. A woman who once answered a student who asked her, "Are you still Catholic?" with, "Although I am uncomfortable with many of the church's stances, I will never lose that desire to believe." A woman so ferociously loving and gentle, I can think of no student, co worker or community member that did not love her back ... despite fundamental ideological differences. Her feminine life made seismic waves in my own feminine life, and when I realized that, I realized that mothering, in all of its majestic, mysterious, loving glory, was not the only way to profoundly shape the lives of others.

To those of you who are mothers, bless you and may you have all the wisdom, experience, love and grace that you need every day to do your job with excellence (er ... add a sense of humor to that as well!).

To those of you who are not mothers, my feminine heart and yours are one. I see your creativity, your love, your contribution to society and I affirm that you are whole.

For all of us, in an effort to bridge the polarized gap between those that do and those that do not, grab a bottle of wine and come on over to my house. We'll talk about books. We'll talk about Ghadafi. We'll talk about green energy. We'll talk about your kids. Let's just broaden the experience and the narrative. There's room at the table.

"I will go back to that silent evening ...

2011-03-31T21:27:00.000-07:00

/ when we lay together and talked in low, silent voices"
- Galway Kinnell, 2002

I've so wanted to get these pictures up ... but, you know ... after enjoying a full week of delicious laziness, things started to ramp up again at this amazing speed. I'm on the chocolate river in a boat with Willy Wonka watching my life whiz by so quickly it's nauseating. School, work, internship. Another death of someone close by and another memorial service. I was talking to one of my instructors about this and she started laughing and said, "My word, Lisa. AND you're in an internship where life is like walking on a banana peel!" It's true. Any one of my clients could pass at any point - my youngest is 86 years old. We're not indestructible human beings and our time does come. But that's the subject of another post. And that post will be entitled,"What these guys want you to know about growing old". And I have about 3 sentences written so it might be awhile.

My, but I'm distracted today.

Before I awesomely started randomly talking about death, I mentioned that I wanted to get these lovelies up:

Shoes and I see each other about twice a month, but we talk to each other an average of 6 hours a week. (I have to say, we really know how to talk to each other and we really know how to talk things out). And when we get away, we get to experience that part of a relationship that normal couples have: spending time in each other's presence - sometimes talking, sometimes not. We spent 3 full days down there, vising all of our favorite places (we'd both been there before without each other): the beach, 17 Mile Drive, Fisherman's Wharf, Carmel Mission, the Aquarium, The Mucky Duck and a new favorite for me: Crown & Anchor.

We drank Chardonnay on the 18th hole at Pebble Beach.

We watched this incredible aqua water roll in and out and in and out at the beach.

We laughed so hard I (quite literally) almost experienced a moment of enuresis (or: I almost peed my pants).

We took naps every day at 3:00.

And, at the end, we had to chain up - Shoes got a little greasy doing so. Good thing we chained up ... the pavement was completely bare and dry. :S A nice 3 hour addition to our already 12 hour drive home.

On our last day at the beach, Shoes admitted that it was a little crazy that he did not take the moment to ask a very serious question, and what could I do but agree? ;) I drew him a picture of the ring last July, my goodness. We agreed that, in the end, it's ok, because we have a pretty darn good idea what the future holds for us.

So, onward fellow soldier. The term awaits.

Club of the Book Readers!

2011-03-18T06:30:00.000-07:00

Woo! And a poem at the end (of this post)!

Book: "The Other Wes Moore" -- Wes Moore

Blurb From the Back: "Two kids named Wes Moore were born blocks apart within a year of each other. Both grew up fatherless in similar Baltimore neighborhoods and had difficult childhoods; both hung out on street corners with their crews; both ran into trouble with the police. How, then, did one grow to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated veteran, White House Fellow and business leader, while the other ended up a convicted murderer serving a life sentence?"

Vote: 2 Yays, 1 Nay. The Nay was mine. The undertaking is really quite noble and Mr. Moore writes poignantly of his own life, his struggles, and the moments that started to shake up his paradigm and focus his attention elsewhere. And while there's a vast amount of grace extended to the Other Wes Moore (sans judgement), it's also the other Wes Moore I felt was underdeveloped. Granted, a person can only write about another person to a certain point, but I wanted to know more. More Moore. The situations were similar, but their lives had some fault lines that diverged fairly sharply.

One of the yays was from my dear, sweet friend who took her in-patient drug and alcohol recovery clients to a talk Wes Moore gave in Portland a few weeks ago. She relayed that the talk was humbling -- the impact on the clients heartbreakingly stunning. They left uplifted. They left encouraged. They left empowered. Encouragement and empowerment can be pretty hard to come by.

So maybe I don't know everything. ;)

Next pick: "The Help", Kathryn Stockett. We've been waiting for this one to come out in paperback for a long time.

Now, The POEM!!

I've thought long and hard about sharing this, wondering about copyright laws and property rights and it's not my work ....but I've read it so obsessively and so intimately in the past few days I think I may be addicted. I repeat the lines to myself again and again ... I have no idea why I'm so enamored.

Actually, that's not true. This poem is precisely, exactly, a perfect description of the moments I realized I wasn't having any more dark days after the divorce.

Galway Kinnell, 1980

"Crying"

Crying only a little bit
is no use. You must cry
until your pillow is soaked.
Then you can get up and laugh.
Then you can jump in the shower
and splash-splash-splash!
Then you can throw open your window
and , "Ha ha! ha ha!"
And if people say, "Hey,
what's going on up there?"
"Ha ha!" sing back, "Happiness
was hiding in the last tear!
I wept it! Ha ha!"

(It's even better if you read it out loud. I promise.)

So splash-splash-splash, Mr. Kinnell. I'm asking forgiveness rather than permission - thank you for these lines and that sneaky, sneaky near rhyme. You've always been one of my favorites (despite naming your poor child Fergus).

Are there trees near you /

2011-03-11T07:30:00.000-08:00

and does your own soul need comforting?

Quick then -- open the door and fly on your heavy feet; the song

may be already drifting away.

{Oliver, 2003}

Spring break comes soon ....

Shoes and I had initially talked about going out to Boston to see his "step"-sister and family ... and then up to DC to see his dear friend from kidhood ... or maybe down to Southern Cal to see his Aunt (who raises the Weimaraners ... swimming in her pool sounded like the ticket). We talked a lot about this trip. Dreamed a lot. Wished a lot. (Seriously. We always talk a lot ...usually on the phone for 45 minutes in the evening. I just realized this. Good Lord, what do we *talk* about for that long? I don't even know. It's a little too cute-sey for us.)

We saw most of the family a few weeks ago for Jim's wake and decided maybe we would like to go somewhere a little closer and a little more private ... somewhere we could drive and not deal with airlines ...

Monterey / Carmel / Big Sur, you are the ticket and we will be so please to re-meet your acquaintance. A little break from grieving. A little break from geriatric psychotherapy (which I love ... it's just so ... existential ... all the time). A little break from practice theories. A little break from law classes I can't stand. For Shoes, a little break from the most bizarre run of gruesome juvenile cases and a little break from Eastern Washington Winter (we'll trade in the snow for fog / rain).

A little soul nurturing never hurt anybody ...

...and my chest flashed hot, a void /

2011-03-07T20:19:00.000-08:00

sucking at my guts until I was all
flamed surface
(Dove, 1989)

I.
Just.
Can't.
Take it.
ANYMORE.

GOOD NIGHT. This term I took a class to fill my advanced policy requirement. Specifically, it was Social Work 526. Specifically, it was Social Work and the Law.

Lemme tell you something about Social Work and the Law. I used to co-supervise a gosh darned Guardian Ad Litem Program and provided supervision to 15 well trained G.A.L.'s. I LIKE the intersections of social work and legal issues. Truthfully, I think they're fascinating. With that background, and Shoes available for questions, I went in with a super amazing spirit and bubbly attitude. I did that all the while ignoring the fact that I knew the course was going to be taught by one of the most disorganized, craziest, fly by the seat of the pants professors. I thought, "Surely, because I know going in this is how he'll be, I'll be able to adjust my expectations and deal with it."

Nope! Turns out I can't!

We read a ton of case law (which I read ALL of), wrote a legal brief (totally amazing use of my time with that one), sat through disjointed lectures ... He arbitrarily cancelled the reading of one our required texts because he thought, on second thought, people might be offended by the content. He made no sense last week and by the time I left class I was so super confused about what readings needed to be done, as well as when our final was due. So I emailed him. TWICE. And he didn't respond either time.

In case you're curious, our final is a take home final. It's 3 pages front and back, single spaced. I started reading the questions when he handed them out and started to get super, super irritated because I knew that half of the information he glossed over and the other half he didn't cover at all. Until I got to the last page ... and found that he had purposefully given us the answers. On an answer sheet. Verbatim.

I know, I know. I should be grateful, right? But is THIS what I'm spending my OUT OF STATE GRADUATION tuition on?

Oy Vey.
What did I learn?
Nothing. Except for, you know, the basic liability stuff. Don't sleep with clients. Don't blab their business to everybody. And the brief that has to be filed for the Supreme Court to hear your case is the Petition for Writ of Certiorari.
Am I ever taking a class from him again?
I think no.

I was the last one done with my course evaluations.

I am a flamed surface.

2011-02-26T15:49:00.000-08:00

Shoes is in between Pullman and the Vineyard Town, which will continue for awhile. The helping and the shoring up and the getting things figured out will stretch out. All of the boys and the sister will be involved, I'm sure. Shoes just happens to live the closest.

Can I share something? After this week, I am even prouder of Shoes and his character. He digs in, does the hard work and does the right thing ... patiently and kindly. It's no small thing to know that he can absolutely be counted on. And in true Shoes' fashion, in the midst of chaos, he's still able to quell my meltdowns in his teasing, witty way.

O, those wildly witty ways.

{It snowed here Wednesday night. A lot in my hilly, SW Portland neighborhood. And for the first time, the weather won. I spent years in Eastern Oregon and Washington, and I always won. It was no small assault on my pride that I could not make it out of my neighborhood and had to call in to my internship. But insult to injury, I couldn't get the car back in the driveway and left it parked next to the curb, facing headfirst down a long, long hill. And in true Lisa fashion, I started worrying massively that it was just going to start sliding down the hill, even though it was parked, e brake set. So, of course, the logical thing for me to do was to call Shoes, who is 5 hours away, crying, while he's dealing with his own grief, and even if the car DID start sliding down the hill, what was he going to do about it? And on the phone, Shoes started laughing. Because there's nothing else to do and we're ready for the Spring in every way imaginable. Meltdown quelled.}

So now. Back in Portland. Trying to keep this tiny apartment warm. Studying for my finals in two weeks {the first term I've ever had real tests for finals and not papers. Did you hear that? That was me trying to swallow the lump of epic proportions that's formed in my throat.} Gearing up for my internship evaluations. Looking over me and Shoes' Spring Break trip plans for this year {we'd been planning to get out of here, but now everything's up in the air as to whowhatwherewhen (but not why)}.

How many more weeks until the Shoes & Lisa Spring Break Adventure of 2011? Let me check.

Three.

Blessed Be.

it was Thursday.

2011-02-21T07:58:00.000-08:00

It was Thursday.
It was 4:30.
I had just wrapped up with my last session for the day.
The text from Shoes said, "I know you're busy, but please call asap. I have a huge problem."

The conversation didn't make sense. "My step dad had a heart attack. They've air lifted him to Spokane. It doesn't look good. I'm going up now." Jim has been Shoes' step dad since Shoes was four years old. There is a legacy of family there and "step", as Shoes says, is a surface level label that largely just helps others keep things straight.

It was Thursday at 4:30. I got in the car and started driving from Portland to Spokane.
It may or may not have taken the recommended 6 hours. (But probably not).

Jim has been ill for years. Shoes and I have spoken many times about what to do in this situation. There was never any other option.

It was late when I got in. Shoes was there with his mom and we all went to bed.
Which is a misnomer. There was no sleeping. Instead, we listened to Gretchen toss listlessly and painfully for four hours in the early morning. We listed to the silence in the room. We listened to our circuiting, painful thoughts.

The doctors had cooled Jim's body temperature in order to minimize the swelling in the brain. The plan was to begin warming him slowly on Friday evening with the warm up concluding early Saturday morning. That's when the doctors thought they might know what type of brain damage, if any, Jim had sustained and what the prognosis was.

Family began trickling in, driving down / around / over / up, flying immediately out. Flying standby.

And then it was Saturday.
And it was 6:30 in the morning; the warm up complete.
And Jim was having grand mal seizures.
And that was when the doctor told Gretchen that it was time to take the tubes out and let Jim go (it was in his advanced directives). His brain would not be able to regulate his bodily functions.

I would tell you about that moment. I would tell you how even though Shoes, his brothers, Gretchen and myself knew that that was probably coming, it felt like somebody had punched us in the chest. How the air felt like it was sucked out of the room. How the tears came in waves and the pain rolled over us again and again. I would tell you all about that, but the truth is, no matter what I write here, it will look, feel and sound wrong.

Jim has fought his disease processes for the past 15 years and he continued to fight until the very end.

It was a Saturday morning.
It was 10:30.
And we watched Jim take his last breaths.

Jim knew more about me as an adult than my own father did. We had many conversations about the inherent and constructed differences between social work and clinical psychology (he was a successful clinical psychologist and educator at Washington State University). He always asked me about classes. He always worried about my safety.

He had a daughter, a son, and 3 step sons, all of whom he loved fiercely. He had 3 grandchildren (and one on the way) he adored. He took care of Gretchen (Shoes' mom) with tenderness few can match. He was mischievous and wickedly smart and, in his royal, dignified air, loved a good joke. His social conscious was a force to be reckoned with and he had a heart and a passion for the ignored in our society. As a "bleeding heart liberal" (a man after my own heart), he was diligent about watching the political news, which would inevitably make him furious. His penchant for pocket knives, batteries and flashlights was prolific (we've been finding them everywhere). The sum total of his life was gigantic.

He was a big man. And this big house feels very, very small without him.

Editor's Note ...

2011-02-15T06:25:00.000-08:00

... and in my previous post the reason why Shoes had court first thing Monday on a DUI is, of course, because he is a Deputy P.A. and it is his job to go to court for DUIs.

Shoes himself is DUI free.

Just thought I should clarify.

!

before all this...

2011-02-14T21:53:00.000-08:00

... ah safer and smoother and smaller was my heart."
- Mark Halladay

Shoes and I, for "Valentines Day", had a charming dinner out at one of our favorite, laid back, Southeast Portland secret places. And after that, he said, "We should go dancing. We should go dancing downtown and live it up a little."

Only, I don't know where to go dancing. Safely. And truthfully, I was being a little bit of a girl and sulking because I had dressed for, "Let's have dinner classic SE Portland style where we can drink a beer and maybe take a dog." Not so much, "Let's put on a little black dress and live it up downtown." But Shoes gets the urge to dance maybe twice a year. What can I do? Then he said, "Watch this. I've got this."

And he called a cab. And got in. And said to the Cab Driver, "Hey man. We're travel writers from Pittsburgh writing a piece on downtown night life from Cabbie recommendations. What can you recommend?" And our Somalian cab driver excitedly told us he had just the place, but that we should definitely write the name of our hotel down before we had a cocktail in case we didn't remember it later.

Because that, according to Cab Driver, is awful.

So he dropped us off and we danced. And danced. And danced. And if you have never seen my darling Shoes dance, well. It's pretty much the most adorable, most painfully awkward, best thing I've ever seen. Women, and I'm not kidding here, eat it up.

And then he went home much earlier than usual the next day because he had court first thing Monday.

What better way to celebrate love than by district court DUI hearings?

Happy Valentines Day!

this is part of why i'm careful.

2011-02-12T07:30:00.000-08:00

in case you're wondering.

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2011/02/09/bucks-schoolteacher-suspended-over-blog-about-students/

The other part of why I'm careful is that I genuinely like my clients and have enormous respect for them.

I never blog about what happens in session with clients.
I do not blog about what happens in groups.
I do blog about light hearted, casual conversations that happen in passing or by chance in the agencies I'm working in.
But even in that, there is no identifying information.
(About half the time I change gender).
I prefer themes and patterns.

(I still find my stories about teaching kids in juvenile detention how to use toilet plungers funny.
I'm also still amused by their "Yo' Mama" battles and their terrible dance offs.)

I do not blog to degrade.
Ever.
Ever.

Granted, I have state statutes, a code of ethics, my licensure on the line and many, many examples of case law to dictate what I say and when about clients.

there will probably come a time, after graduation, depending on what type of work I find next, that I will feel more comfortable avoiding all talk about agency work and instead blabber incessantly about my rather mundane personal life
(Shoes is less than excited about this prospect)

Even at the juvenile justice center, I never blogged about take downs, restraint chairs or temper tantrums OUTSIDE the context of, "I had to take a kid down today, and it made me feel ...."

(Sometimes I feel guilty that I make it so much about me.
But better me than my vulnerable clients.)

We all get frustrated.
And burnt out.
We all disagree with administration (at least at times).

And.
(Because there usually is not a stark dichotomy, this or that, black and white juxtaposition).
And.

There is a call for professionalism. For dignity. And for one of my core beliefs: While we need emotional boundaries, there is no Other. Personally, I feel as though I gave over a little part of my first amendment when I chose this work.

And I'm ok with that.

valentine's day comes to the continuing care community

2011-02-10T11:43:00.000-08:00

{source}

And boy, do the residents know it.

In my time in assisted living, the residents continually ask me, as I walk by, who my Valentine is. If my Valentine and I have Valentine's Day plans. If they can be my Valentine. {It's very distressing for them ~ especially one in particular ~ that I am 32 and unmarried. "Do you have a fella'? He'd better not wait too long ... he'll lose you!"}

Last week I spent some time in the secure (read: locked) memory unit, casually chatting with the residents around one of the tables. The question came up, "What is the secret to true love?" All of these lovely elders have advanced Alzheimer's; all of them had very concrete and specific ideas about the meaning of true love:

Honesty. Mutual Respect. Kindness. Sweetness.

"I'll take care of you, you take care of me."

A good bed partner.

"The itch". (I'm not sure what that means, precisely, but I think I can imagine.)

A good supper on the table and clean clothes in the closet.

And my favorite:

"True love? What's true love?"

I do so love these elders. I especially love these elders with advanced Alzheimer's. I love to connect with them visually. I love to hold their hands. I love to hear what's bothering them that day (even if they happen to be using a made up language). I love their spiciness and the way they make me laugh. I love using my creative brain to help find ways to calm agitation while honoring their reality and their sense of self.

My actual Valentine's Day will be a quiet, non-event in which I work at the Very Large Hospital all day long and then go to my Social Work and the Law class for 3 hours Monday night (and get a paper back, so I'm hoping this prof is showing me the love right now as he's grading it).

Shoes and I will celebrate Valentine's Day with a dinner out Saturday evening. We've been doing long distance longer than when we dated while living in the same town, so my time with him (any time I get to spend with him) is Good. It's Good because we choose to make it good. Not Perfect, but pretty darn Good.

I hope it's still Good after I tell him about his competition in the assisted living unit .... ;)

Oh, we're halfway there ...

2011-02-02T07:00:00.000-08:00

ooooh oh! Living on a prayer
Take my hand and we'll make it I swear
ooooh oh! Living on a prayer

Last post I shared that I am halfway through this MSW program. Halfway! It's been a long haul! And while I would like to take credit for using Bon Jovi's lyrics to mark this momentous milestone, I have to give credit to Shoe's brother, the Artist, and his sister in law, the Gardener, for the spontaneous, simultaneous serenade they belted out for me last time I was up visiting them in West Seattle.

Love them, too, in case you're wondering.

Not that the last year and a half have been easy, but now the real work begins. Now I have to choose which internships I want to apply for next year and that process is far more intense than I thought it was. See ... we do our homework about all of the internships available and we submit our top three choices (in rank order) to the Placement Team. Then, Placement Team sits down with our Generalist Professors (our How To Be a Social Worker Class professors) in committee and they discuss each of us (all 150 of us) in detail.

THEN we're given the green light to contact a field placement. Hopefully it's one of the ones off our list. And for some of them, depending on where we've chosen, it's just the green light to formally apply. (It's been suggested to me by my Advisor that, if I choose to apply for one of the competitive internships, I'd be a very, very strong candidate. So I'm not worried. Only. I'm completely worried.)

Now, I'm not suggesting it's anything like Medical Residency, but the inside of my head feels like it's being pummeled from the inside out. I've been extremely, singly focused on my goal of providing counseling to children from low income families. Now I have these options in front of me and I have no idea which one I need to put in the Number One Spot. Which one will give me the best clinical experience. Which one will give me the most exposure to counseling with kids. Which one has the best chance of employment after grad school. If the placement working with kids who exhibit sexually deviant behaviors is too sexually focused to do me much good after I graduate. If the placement that involves visiting schools to counsel kids is too school-based. It goes on and on and on.

(Which explains why I've been doing quiet, meditative yoga lately -- too many thoughts marching through my head. It's getting awfully noisy in there.)

Decisions, decisions.

At the very least, for right now, I'll just focus on that Biopsychosocial I still haven't finished and I'll focus on the fact that I can say, "I graduate next year."

Because I do!

Introducing my new business partner ...

2011-01-30T07:30:00.000-08:00

... my consultant, Miss Rebekah!

(Sorry ... I just realized that the first line could have been mistaken for the Big Fat News I've been waiting on since last July ... but I still wait!).

A few days ago I had posted on Facebook that I was terribly and horribly grumpy. Really, though, it's just that time of the term - Week Five - exactly halfway through.

(Insert tangent here: WEEK FIVE OF THIS TERM IS ALSO THE HALFWAY POINT THROUGH MY ENTIRE GRADUATE PROGRAM! I REALIZE THAT ALL CAPS IMPLIES I'M YELLING .... BUT GUESS WHAT? I AM!! With wild, abandoned glee while I leap up and down.)

In any case ... the grumpiness comes from this Biopsychosocial Assessment I'm writing on one of my clients for school. This client does not make me grumpy, but the lack of options I'm finding for him resource wise does. It's complicated. And I'm stuck.

I'm almost never stuck with clients. Not completely.

Enter my friend Elizabeth, who said Rebekah could make me feel better. I asked Elizabeth if she could please ask Rebekah, in terms that would make sense to her, what Rebekah would recommend for somebody who's having a sad day. (Sooo planning on using my own future children's crazy antics for blog fodder one day ....)

Elizabeth asked Rebekah would Rebekah would do for her daddy if her daddy was sick.

Rebekah, being the great humanist that she is (mind you - she's 2), was very concerned with the fact that Daddy was sick and wanted to know why.

After that hurdle was passed, however, Rebekah recommended the following:

1. Give him medicine.
2. Make faces at him.
3. Give him a blue face and a green face (this is certainly a new, innovative counseling technique - look for it in the peer reviewed journals!)
4. Give him food - specifically, cereal.

Then Rebekah turned her chair into a pulpit and started telling the story about God.

Rebekah, I just love your sunny, lovely little face.

Let's hang out soon!

cliches that turned out to be true ...

2011-01-26T07:30:00.000-08:00

(1) Counselors really do go around saying, "And how does that make you feel?" Only, this counselor, knowing that stereotype, goes around saying, "Mm hmmm. What were you feeling when that happened?" Really different, right? (I'm not as clever as I pretend to be).

(2) Mom was right: bullies are mean to you because they don't like / are scared of / are insecure about / themselves.

(3) It takes one to know one. Ouch! But it's true! Often the things that just drive us up the wall about other people are the very things we're noticing in ourselves. (This is also what I use to put people at ease when they're concerned I'm analyzing them. "What? Are you serious? I'm in mental health because I RECOGNIZE! ;)). And just as my emoticon suggests, sometimes I do wink.

(4) This, too, shall pass.
It (probably) will (if we work at letting go).

(5) The journey of a thousand miles begins with a step / You'll never know unless you try. Well, we have to start somewhere, and starting somewhere means shelving fear. Easier said than done (another one!), right?

There are more, of course. And there are some that I find horribly untrue. And there are idioms that just drive me bat crazy (E.g.: "I'm not gonna' lie." Really? Somebody suggests in the normal course of events they would, in fact, lie?). Shoes shares in my distaste of junk language. His least favorites are "whatnot" and the misuse of "Literally" (E.g.: "I literally died!" Shoes says, "No you didn't.").

Your language peeves? Favorite or least favorite cliches? Things you find yourself saying that your parents said?

Book Club is also about rural social work.

2011-01-19T17:38:00.000-08:00

Kiiiiiiind of.

Last pick of last year: Winter's Bone.

Blurb From the Back: "Ree Dolly's father has skipped bail on charges that he ran a crystal meth lab, and the Dolly family will lose their house if he doesn't show up for his next court date. With her two young brothers depending on her, sixteen-year-old Ree knows she has to bring her father back, dead or alive. Stalking him through the blighted wintry hollows of the Ozarks, Ree discovers unforeseen depths in herself and in the Dolly clan -- a family network that protects its own at any cost."

General consensus: it's a go.

Also: it reminds me of when I was doing rural, rural social work. Somewhere in the early years of my social work, I spent my mornings working with a Child Protective Services Unit (on a contract) in the wilds of Eastern Oregon (think: mountains and desert and few people instead of the Gorge and waterfalls and the coast).

Main character Ree Dolly is part of an extended family network that is stricken by poverty and the use of crystal meth and crime .... but is, in part, strengthened by their relationships with each other.

About an hour outside of the town I lived in in isolated Eastern Oregon was an even more isolated commune of a very close, very cloistered "neighborhood" of people looking out for each other. The "founder" of this community had come from rural Arkansas about 60 years prior (best guess?) for reasons we rumored about.

Think Annie Oakley and Billy the Kid.

And this founder had attracted to himself people on the down and outs with society. We had quite a few domestic violence arrests, child welfare referrals, etc., come out of the community -- a community where a few of the homes had running water and electricity ... and a few did not. One house made entirely out of straw. (I know that many environmentally conscious contractors are experimenting with straw as an insulator, but trust me, this is different). Somebody made an independent movie about the founder - if you're curious, let me know and I'll figure out a way to get the movie title to you.

When we did have to go out on a CPS referral to this community, we would have to take the Deputy, Roger, with us. Roger knew the founder and knew the community and they knew him. Seeing that he was part of "The Law" they probably didn't like him, but I don't think they were entirely distrustful of him. Roger was a likable guy, even if he did drive a county car and carry a rifle. The first time I went out there with Roger and the CPS worker, the founder of the community was waiting outside the straw bale / horse gate entrance to the compound with a couple of cars, a couple of young men, and a couple of guns.

Turns out they knew we were coming.

Turns out the founder was now in his 70s (best guess), tiny, and missing all of his teeth. But the pistol on his hip told a story that argued against any of his apparent physical frailty.

This is also a story about bending the rules to support the client, in case I forget to tell you later.

Roger pulled up first and got out of the car, greeting the founder with a "Founder" and a spit of tobacco. Turns out the CPS worker I was with had also never been to the community. But the CPS worker I was with knew what she was doing. She also got out of the car and slowly walked up to the founder,smiling brilliantly, showing lots of teeth and said, "Founder? I'm Worker. It's so nice to meet you. I saw the movie about you! I've never met a movie star before!"

Toothless, tiny founder with the pistol on his hip broke out into the biggest, toothless grin I've ever seen. I'd tell you what he said next, but truthfully, I couldn't understand a word he was saying. It was enough for the2 young men (who were not tiny) to relax their grip on their rifles. Building on this movie star theme, Worker held up the evidence camera and said, "Do you mind if we take a picture with you?" Another engulfing toothless grin. Roger looked over at us and shook his head (I think I can imagine what he was saying to himself). Still shaking his head, he lumbered over to us, gave us A Look and took the camera. Founder in the middle and Worker and I on either side, the picture was taken.

Turns out social workers aren't the only ones who bend the rules for the good of the order.

I still have that picture.

I don't think the Supervisors at Child Welfare were all that pleased when they heard the story, but what I know is that the Worker managed to explain where we needed to go on the compound and that the Founder cheerfully let us pass.

For better or worse, this community was close and attempted to take care of each other in the ways they knew how. Oppressed by poverty, generations of drug use and generations of violence, they succeeded in creating a place (value judgments aside) where they felt accepted by each other. (The flip side of that argument is that,oppressed by poverty, they had nowhere else to go.)

So. If you happen to pick up Winter's Bone, I'll be curious to know what themes you pick up on. What buoyed you. What depressed you. What challenged you. It was a good pick.

Next pick: We're joining in the rest of Multnomah county in reading "The Other Wes Moore." Follow the link and join us! I found my copy at Powell's, discounted, for $10.00. I'm a book klepto, but this one is getting some press, so I'm confident your library will have some ideas on how to track one down.

Read well!

(Elizabeth, I hope this was a little more engaging than the hoarding post! :D)

it's never that easy.

2011-01-11T21:06:00.000-08:00

from (what i hope to be) a forthcoming marriage proposal to hoarding. it's how i am. how i think. what my days are filled with.

it's not so bad. but, fair warning, this is kind of a random post. well, ok. they all are.

i was reading an article several weeks ago about an American man whose home was being torn down by any american city due to severe (read: *severe*) and chronic hoarding. as is the case with every news article i read, i became more immersed in the comments than the article. the news article shows the viewpoint of just the author; what's interesting to me are the opinions of the masses. over and over and over again i read well thought out, articulate, well informed and gracious comments like,

"Nasty. They should have torn it down and kicked him out a long time ago. Obviously he has a serious mental illness!"

so let's think about that - hoarding as a mental illness. of course it is.

only. it's not.

television shows like TLC's "Hoarding: Buried Alive" and Animal Planet's "Animal Hoarding" are very good at creating very good, dramatic, shocking tv. it's enthralling, really. i don't mind sharing i watch shows like that all the time. but let's be careful, loved ones. these people are, in fact, people.

when need to be careful when we talk about categorizing people who hoard as having a diagnosis. hoarding is not included in the DSM IV as a diagnosis, and the work group for the DSM V is just now recommending it be included in the new manual. (this should be a testament to how fluid the DSM is and, while it can be a very good tool, it is just that: a tool. as a side note, the DSM is the same manual that removed homosexuality as a mental illness in 1973. it is also inherently American. and some would argue white American. in short, it is a tool. read again: it is only a tool.)

in addition to that, the work group is still considering whether to recommend it for inclusion in the manual or in the appendix as an issue for further research (by the way, i lifted that wording almost verbatim from the link above - check it out - i'm not passing it off as my own.)

hoarding? it's kind of scary, depending on how dangerous the clutter is. as a social worker, i've been in some homes that were very much affected by hoarding. we won't go into detail (watch TLC like i do if you're curious!). but who is the clutter and collecting scary for? the home owner? or family members? what's the line between bizarre collections and dangerous clutter? see, now i have you thinking about your aunt martha, who just can't seem to throw anything away.

the question for aunt martha should be, is she safe? can she safely exit her home in the case of a fire? is her kitchen sanitary (and i mean sanitary, not just it rubs up against orthodox notions of cleanliness)? if the clutter is a nuisance, consider who it's a nuisance for. and don't take my word for it - i'm not really trying to do a safety assessment on your aunt martha. get a counselor who's not a grad student writing a rambling blog post half asleep for a professional opinion ...

so let's say that aunt martha's china doll collection is overtaking every room in her house. but let's also say that she so are her belongings from every family member since said family members were children. and let's also say that garbage is also piling up in her home because she can't stand to throw things away. now what?

consult a professional. chances are you're pretty emotional. a little scared. beyond frustrated.

which is 1/100th of what aunt martha is feeling.

and you're probably also asking why, which is a question only aunt martha can answer. it's also a question that might be better asked by somebody outside your family, because i'm pretty sure aunt martha knows how you feel about her collecting and may not answer from a place of trust or honesty. lots of potential reasons: being emotionally attached to objects, the items feel a void, not wanting to be without, the items give her a sense of control ....

and while hoarding doesn't, right now, exist in the DSM IV, interestingly, it often occurs with other diagnoses that do: Depression, OCD, Autism, Anorexia, Personality Disorders (the list goes on for awhile ...). but this is just correlation, which, i don't have to remind you dear hearts, is certainly not causation.

it's complicated. just like everything in our lives, there's not an easy answer.

i'll leave you with some web resources in case you're concerned about aunt martha (or you are aunt martha) and you would like some additional reading.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/hoarding/DS00966
http://childrenofhoarders.com/bindex.php
http://www.cluttersanonymous.net/

also, if you would like some help tracking down additional resources, please let me know and we'll look together.

i have now have this strange, overwhelming urge to clean out my own hall closet ... ;)

so i've just got to come out with it.

2011-01-04T20:32:00.000-08:00

this holiday season, this year, wrapped up beautifully well, with the last of 2010 spent playing charades (o, i play a mean game of charades ....), raising glasses and ushering in 2011.

however.

it is no small surprise that i had fully been expecting something super big, super amazing, super life changing to happen. (*cough* - this is because shoes intimated in OCTOBER that something super life changing would be happening before the holidays).

it didn't. no news.

i did, however, have a slightly frantic man on New Years Day pestering me to know if i had heard him and his brother talking about "things" in the next room the night before long after i had gone to bed. "this is something," shoes says, "you cannot control and something in which there has to be a fair amount of spontaneity."

also, shoes says, "i know what i said. don't be disappointed. it's stunning. but let me handle it."

sure. dance, promise boy, dance. ;)

i'll keep you posted.

(i am a little bit controlling ...)

brady bunch has nothing on us.

2010-12-29T09:21:00.000-08:00

my big, loving, chaotic, blended family.

this is just a fraction of this side of the family - it's really not even too extended. every person is important.  just a few key players: blockhead on the far right is Shoes. he just does not want his picture on the web. in fact, he's asked me to put a slowdown on the facebook pictures. my answer is to not tag them. eh. that's probably not enough. he is working in a town that has absolutely no courtroom security for his district court docket (not even a metal detector ... so professional and comforting ...)

facing the picture, i'm to the left of shoes. my full sister cheryl is to the left of me. my mom is to the left of her. my step dad is to the left of her. my brother, Gregg, is kneeling in front of Cheryl and I. my sister, Lizz, is kneeling dead center in the striped shirt. our host, my niece Chantea, is on the left wearing a green shirt and glasses. of course, in that, there are spouses, nieces, nephews, parents of partners and more family goodness.

christmas eve was 22 person, one turkey, one ham, 2 jello salads, 5 bottles of wine, one big gift exchange full.   christmas day was one smaller family visit, replete with one raucous game of "Apples to Apples". i'm not sure i want to play with my sister Lizz anymore. she's either a genius or has amazing luck with her cards. my cards? not so lucky. they included "my love life" and "my parents house."

that's just trouble in the making .... i didn't put those suckers down at all.

i haven't seen some of these guys in years (i haven't seen my parents since last Christmas).   so good to see their faces and get caught up. so glad to be able to include Shoes this year.

and because this is just how i am, so excited to move forward to the new year ...

it hasn't gone away ...

2010-12-24T08:00:00.001-08:00

... and I haven't stopped believing. I will always be a Believer. That's a little difficult for some to accept considering:

* my 2007 divorce
* my political stances (don't worry ~ we'll skip a detailed discussion and stop at saying it's separate from what many conservative churches ascribe to)
* my work in secular agencies.

It's ok. It's ok, because in the end, I know I'm kept close to the heart of a supremely loving, supremely forgiving, supremely big God.

Hence, this time of year is heart wrenchingly poignant for me. The birth of Jesus, yes, (well, kind of. december is as good a time as any to celebrate the birth, even though Jesus probably made his manager appearance sometime near the end of September), but more than that, the heart of God. The heart of God in that people choose this time of year to open up to others. To serve at soup kitchens. To give to toy drives. To donate coats. (I call it the heart of God. You may call it decency, good will, responsibility, love ... and I respect that you see it differently.)

Trust me, I also see the commercialism. But I choose to focus elsewhere. I also see a year long need for people to open themselves up to the needs of other human-beings, and not just at Christmas, but I choose to focus on the good that comes out of people during this season. Is it enough?

Dear hearts, trust me. It's never enough. There's an entire, shocking world of people out there who are hungry, who are homeless, who are hurting, who are confused, who are amazing, who are real and who are no different from me. It won't be enough until we all take each other seriously, but until then, it is appreciated in ways that are inherently humbling.

My very liberal Master's program often references the early church as an outstanding model of social work. Caring for the poor, the widowed, the orphaned are themes peppered throughout the Old Testament. Jesus quite literally told his followers to sell their possessions and give to the poor (Luke 12:33). (May we be forgiven for trying amongst ourselves to determine who are the worthy poor.) If Jesus said that when we take care of the widow and prisoner, we also take care of Him, why do we think these people are so different than us? We're one. I'm getting a graduate degree so I can help people on very human, interrelated levels.

I choose to celebrate that this holiday season - how we are connected and how we are extensions of each other and how we are wholly separate all at the same time. Me. You. Us.

The heart of God is this infinite universe of discovery, acceptance and love. I choose to celebrate that this holiday season.

And despite all of the very serious hurt I see daily, I choose to celebrate the resilience that lies deep within us.

May this New Year bring you peace and deep insight. May you feel it in the very core of who you are. May you breath deeply. Truly.

The best and purest of this Season's greetings to you, Dear Hearts. Merry Christmas.

my best plans are always just plans.

2010-12-19T21:26:00.000-08:00

{source}

It's Sunday.

Last Tuesday I was about to begin my first full week of school vacation. Wednesday through today loomed large. I had planned to sneak away to the Vineyard Town, tell almost nobody, hide out, sleep, rest, watch Shoes' giant T.V. and check my email on his giant Mac. I so needed a rest.

Super enthralling, I know.

Instead ... instead I spent time with all of my old Juvenile Justice buddies. I'm still not sure how that happened, and it's not at all what I had planned. It was, however, better than I had planned. Probation officers, juvenile detention officers, my kindred spirits at CASA. Time well spent laughing, commiserating, drinking wine.

Telling war stories.

Shoes was a trooper during the entire week. He sees these guys all the time, but he patiently listened to my incessant chatter and escorted me to the office Christmas party. These times in the Vineyard Town help me remember that good things happened there too. Shoes is one of those good things.

We had to run up to Pullman to help Shoes' parents with a few things, and after that, we slept on the couches like the dead. 13 hours of sleep. And then I drove home. And drove through some insanely crazy snow in the dark through Hood River. And now am ready for this coming week. No slow down expected, but despite the pace, it's looming lovely and full.

The very best part of this last week, hands down, was my time with my old roommate, Tiffany, and her now 2 year old daughter, Madelyn. This was my roommate before I moved to Portland to go to grad school; Madelyn was just 7 months old when I left. She is smart and social and talkative and mischievous. And I miss her dearly. Her mom, too.

Lovely and full. This entire fall and holiday season has been lovely and full. Christmas next week and I'm hoping to have big, big, big news for you by the end of the year. Maybe it will happen. Maybe it won't. I have a few hints and a few clues and so much family support I think I could burst. What will be, will be ... but I have a feeling this season will continue to be lovely and full ...

A Little Holiday Randomness ...

2010-12-14T21:13:00.000-08:00

This IS a holiday picture - see the snowflakes hanging from the ceiling of my office? So nice of him to stop by the Very Large Hospital I work at in Metro Portland. I'm sure he's listening with bated breath to all of my ideas on the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the abused ...

Trust me, I'm FULL of ideas.

Shoes and I had a little pre-holiday dinner with these guys. Surely you recognize my goddaughter, Rebekah. She shows up here all the time. And I may I just say that she is hilarious. And talks a mile a minute. And, though she tries to play coy, she is madly in love with Shoes.

Other pre holiday bonuses: a GSSW Swanky Holiday Party (thanks, Eliz!) of which I have no blog worthy pictures. Lots of holiday shopping. A trip to the Vineyard town soon to hide out and rest.

Another holiday bonus: another semester of straight As. Thanks, Santa!

happy holidays, dear hearts.

2010-12-10T14:53:00.000-08:00

{source}

Last day of Internship for fall term today! I love all of the elderly people here at the continuing care community (yes, even the ones who definitely do not love me back), but I'm a little pooped.  A little worn.  A little looking forward to a couple of weeks off.

But today was Big Adventure Day here at the home. Today, Mr. Smith (right, you guessed it - not his real name) and I had big plans to find every Christmas Tree in this place. And this is a big, 27 acre place. Mr. Smith is frail - exemplifying the frailest of the frail, "old-old" that we have.  With his tiny little head, his wispy white hair, and his big brown eyes, it wasn't hard - no, not at all - for him to convince me on this slow Friday that we needed to go (and he whispers this conspiratorially) "cause some trouble." Sometimes I think if I breathe too forcefully I will knock him right out of his chair. What he loses in mass, however, he makes up with wit.

And this social worker said, "Lead the way."

Which is all the permission Mr. Smith needed, if he needed any permission at all.  Off he zoomed (literally - I literally cannot keep up with him when he's in the mood to cause mischief) to the elevators. "Down to 2!" he commanded, his finger held high in the air. "Up to 4!"

And find the trees, we did. As we rolled up to the first, Mr. Smith craned his head carefully towards me and said, "The first thing we do, is look to see if Santa has been here yet ...."

"And if he hasn't," I countered slowly .... "does that mean we're too early ... or that we've been a little naughty?"

"It's a combination of both!" Mr. Smith explained wisely.

On the 3rd floor, we encountered a tree decorated exclusively with blue decorations and blue lights and Mr. Smith very purposefully puckered his lips and shook his head. "Gaudy," he declared. "Just awful."

But we aren't just professional Christmas Tree critics. No. We're also employee appreciation event crashers. We passed by the open banquet room that was set with trays and trays of food and I said, "Mr. Smith? What's going on in here? Should we infiltrate?"

And I was almost knocked over by the wind force of his chair rushing by. As we were leaving, cookies in hand, several of his friends passed by and he casually, coolly told them, "We're party crashers."   As in, no biggie - We do this all the time - It's not even a party until we crash it.

We also encountered a children's choir in a separate building and crashed that too. "That energy," Mr. Smith said. "If we could only bottle it up."

By the time we had seen 5 trees and crashed 2 parties, Mr. Smith was starting to feel a little winded. "Better head back," he said. "Need to get in my comfy chair." So we did. And on the way, almost took out a lady with a walker, a large, plastic Rubbermaid garbage can, and a mop bucket and a custodian. I think Mr. Smith's depth perception is a little off. Or maybe the trouble happens because his chair is set so fast it shakes when he goes top speed. I might need to talk to him about "turtling" it down a little.

On the last elevator on the way back to his room, this social worker said, "Mr. Smith, how did you get so very good at causing so much good natured mischief?"

"The key," he said, raising those big brown eyes to me, "is to find a good partner in crime. It's your free pass."

Happy Holidays, Mr. Smith.   May they be filled with all the non-blue holiday merriment you can muster.

{This encounter did not take place during session and the client's name and identifying information have been changed. However, I cannot guarantee that it did not have some therapeutic benefit. O, wait.  The therapeutic benefit was mine... ;) }

i don't even know what i'm doing.

2010-12-02T20:49:00.000-08:00

because it is that time of year again.

It is.

the end.

of fall term.

Praise God.

5 terms left. In a few weeks, I'll be halfway through the program. It's more chaotic than normal this year -- I went over the river and through the woods (literally) (and snow) to Shoes' hometown for Thanksgiving.

A Very Full weekend completed by a fierce shopping trip with Shoes' mom (she is a Champion), lots and lots of niece and nephew play time, and saxaphone playing.

You thought maybe I was kidding?

Shoes and I had a down night and I made him get out his saxaphone from the 8th grade and his high school year books. Why he humors me, I'll never know. Why we almost died laughing, I'll also never know. You should have heard my Lisa Simpson solo. These times when it's just us - away from work, away from school, away from stress - are amazing. So thankful for this boy who's so, so good at long distance.

Now. This is how these next few weeks will wrap up. Flying out tomorrow to go to Apple Cup (I've packed my ski clothes!!). Finish my last 2 projects. Complete my last 3 days of internship. Dinner with Shoes and the Magees. A fancy schmancy Graduate School of Social Work party. Preparing to have Christmas with my entire family (maternal) for the first time in 8 years.

Hopefully these sparse posts will pick up winter break ....

DEFENSE!

2010-11-16T16:45:00.000-08:00

That would be Washington State University Defense above. (I can't say the name of the other team because it's something of an expletive around here {BCS polls be darned}). And to think, I knew nothing about football two years ago. Come to think of it, I still don't. But college football is coming to a close for this year, and I have seen Shoes pace and cuss and high five his father and have watched his phone blow up so that his core group of friends {spread across a nation} can still experience the game together. {Who am I kidding? I love being a part of it.}

Actually, this post isn't anything about Cougar Football. But Apple Cup (the iconic yearly Washington battle between the Huskies and the Cougars) is quickly approaching and so it's on my mind. We're still not entirely sure where we'll be for Thanksgiving, but my plane ticket to Spokane has already been purchased so that the holiday that is Apple Cup is properly observed. (Apple Cup is the weekend after Thanksgiving. It is the 3rd Holiday of the Holidays.) Don't ask me how I'm going to fit a trip in to Pullman with the close of this insanely busy term. I'm not quite sure.

The "Defense" I'm talking about is my own defense. This term has been filled with learning about attending, tuning in, the clinician response, empathic responses. I have never, not even when in "divorce recovery", had to think so much about my own feelings and processes. It's ex.haust.ing. And I have to tell you, I think I'm a little neurotic.

And defensive. (A ha!) I've learned I do not like to be questioned.

In the past 3 months, I have started to realize that I feel like I have to offer an explanation for every decision I make. Sometimes, like when I'm in field supervision and my supervisor needs to talk about my sessions with clients, that's entirely appropriate. Sometimes, like with my friends, nobody cares. This came to a head with my doctor last week, who had asked me to remind him why I had chosen one medical decision over another. In true Lisa fashion, I took it too far and yammered on and on about WHY I made the decision that I did, and when his eyes started to glaze over and he started to tilt his head, I realized I was trying to JUSTIFY my decision. I stopped, grinned and said, "You don't really care though, do you?" And my Portland doctor who's really from Eastern Oregon said, "Nope."

How liberating. And almost embarrassing, all at the same time. So. If you've ever had to sit on the other side of my blah blah blah while I tried to explain something all the while trying to hide insecurity and hoped you would see me as a competent individual, apologies.

Let me know. I'll buy you a glass of wine and we'll chat about something much more pleasant.

Or, we'll get a beer and a plate of french fries and we can talk about the Pac10 prospects for next year. I think I'm almost ready to competently have that conversation.

Maybe. ;)

this is not just about procrastinating my homework.

2010-11-09T19:25:00.000-08:00

what is it about fall - this fall - that is so deeply, wholly and fully satisfying?

I drove to work today {I usually take the bus to the Very Large Hospital} and when it was time to leave, it was dark {of course} -- sidewalks lit by dim streetlight. And foggy. Lightly raining. The most perfect deciduous tree leaves falling at regularly timed intervals.

For the first time in a long, long time, I dawdled on my way to the car. Stopped on the sky bridge to overlook the campus and breathed the cold air in deeply. Experienced a tidal wave of contentment. Of peace.

For the first time in years, I feel completely and totally at rest. There is no other way to put it. I'm sitting in my very, very small studio apartment and am getting ready to start {more} {never-ending} homework. I'm completely graduate student poor. Busy out of my mind, most days.

But centered in a way that has eluded me for years. Whatever is at the core of me is being fed daily. I still don't really know what's at the core of me. Not really. But right now? Whatever it is, it's strong.

On Sunday I went to a children's musical with my sister, Lizz. We didn't truly know that it was a children's musical, put on by children, for children. But it didn't really matter. As I was sitting there, quietly, watching this rather well performed, decently funded production, I fought tears several times. Because, I'm a dork. And also, because I was sitting in an utterly charming, historic theater, watching the mystical play of children on a perfect, absolutely perfect, fall day.

So completely at peace.

I've done a perfectly inadequate job explaining any of this. But this contentment, this quiet peace, this resting at your core ... If I could give this away, I would.

It feels terribly selfish to keep it to myself.

fall is good to us.

2010-11-04T21:00:00.000-07:00

just to be clear, this ethics test was not so good.

in the way that it was so tryingly detailed.

you'll be happy to know the school thinks i'm an ethical worker.

i think.

technically, we haven't received it back.

but i knew all the answers.

because i am a compulsive student.

seriously compulsive.

as in, i lost my first points ever, marring my 100% average, near the end of winter term.

last year.

i was disappointed.

i may have issues.

but i am never disappointed with the view from my house.

especially right now.

so looking forward to seeing it dusted with snow.

we'll worry about inexperienced city snow drivers later.

and i am delighted in this pumpkiny gift from this lady's father.

extended family by adoption.

it is probably time to take it down.

but i'm not ready.

so in a few weeks, it will still be halloween.

but will also be thanksgiving.

on its way to christmas.

shortly before new years.

i plan on drawing all of this out.

this boy.

in December, it will be 2 years since our first date.

he is the best part of fall.

college football obsession included.

we have now been doing "long distance"

longer than when we had lived in the same town.

he is still shockingly good at long distance.

visiting, calling, all of it.

we do not get the luxury of having a normal relationship.

time is sacred.

phone calls are sacred.

{we watched the election coverage together ... on the phone}

so looking forward to our second set of holidays together.

so grateful that we are automatically included in each other's plans.

when you get one like this, you hold on.

Happy Fall.

because it takes one to know one. or. confessions of a graduate intern.

2010-10-29T08:23:00.000-07:00

Confession: I'm still trying to figure out what in the heck I'm doing at my internship.

It's the 5th week of the term. I've read buckets full of articles on aging. Alzheimer's. Continuing Care Communities. Person Centered Models. Mental Wellness & Aging. Falls. Incontinence. Frailty.

I make so many "friendly visits" during the two days I'm there that I begin to lose track of who I've seen. (But this is where my obsessive need to write these things down actually appears somewhat functional ...).

These guys? They continually surprise me. Wisdom, insight,vulnerability, stubbornness, all of it.

Cheekiness. Oh, Lord. The cheekiness. I've been told, "You're just my type"; "I use my dog to meet women - is it working?"; (to my field supervisor): "That's some girl you sent me the other day. You gonna do that every time?". Who knew that sexuality would be such a major theme in aging? Shame on me for being so close minded. Lesson duly learned.

Yesterday I had a spontaneous hallway social chat with one of the residents, who asked me about my previous work experience. Fair enough. If I had a (relatively) young intern sitting in front of me at his age, I'd want to know too. So we chatted about the kids in detention, about my foster kids, about working at the women's shelter. He quietly peered up at me and said, "That's quite an assortment."

Yes, I thought. It is. I could see him processing something and then he asked, "Why would you want to do something like that?"

I laughed.

Whos' counseling whom?

{post script: i take the confidentiality of my clients extremely seriously and will never post anything that's mentioned in session with them [individual or group]. as i did with the juveniles, i often change identifying information and post mainly about themes or how i've been affected by my interactions with clients. some postings are composite postings that join together several conversations. all posts involving my professional work are meant to: illustrate the unity of people; highlight the vulnerability in all of us; bridge the differences between us; relay how social work changes me as an individual; never to shame any person.}