My dear friend Katelyn came up for a couple day visit. Upon recommendation, we visited this little hole in the wall donut shop. Katelyn is eating the voodoo donut. Cheryl chose the Fruit Loop. I chose the Oreo.
I can't believe I ate that. That was NOT a good decision.
And we've made several trips to Powell's City of Books, because I think I could live there. A little mat in a corner, maybe. Truly, that would be fine.
Funny thing, too, if I drive just a half hour, I find myself in {somewhat} rural Western Oregon, so I drove and found. And visited with Elizabeth, her husband Aaron, and their adorable little one Rebekah. Oktoberfest, where it is normal to sample microbrews at 10 in the morning. I like microbrews, but 10's a little early for me.
Did you know Cheryl and I lived in Europe until I was 9? True. And Oktoberfest was a type of homecoming, almost. Maybe no substitute for the real thing, but it definitely pulled on strings of familiarity.
And now ... on to school ... which starts tomorrow ...
... having a few issues with computer/email usage. Sister Cheryl's computer LOVES Comcast. My computer does not. :(
Still here, still have all of these postings rambling through my head ... especially at 4:30 in the morning.
Portland is my best friend and my worst enemy. I love it here and I miss ... certain things ... not everything ... about the vineyard town. Spending a lot of time on campus, getting those boring details into order ... student ID card, student account, term bus pass, figuring out where, exactly, my graduate student mailbox is.
All the nuts and bolts information that just has not been included in orientation or new student welcoming. Although my advisor did give me the helpful advice during my first meeting with her to, "not drink the water" in the School of Social Work (SSW) building. First thing she said. Second thing she said was, "please, please, if you absolutely can manage it, please do not bring your car to campus. Even I ride the train." Third thing was, "You will absolutely not be able to do all of the reading that will be assigned to you. Figure out how to triage it." This was after long conversation in my advisor group re: the intersections of social work and social justice.
So. I'm just waiting to begin classes - 9/28. I'm looking at at least $300 in textbooks this year, but, I did get a temporary cashier position during "rush" and will get 20% off. Social Work and Social Policy Monday afternoons; Social Work and Social Diversity Wednesday mornings. 4 hour blocks.
Still looking for a job, but something will pop up. I had a plan for this year and that plan included working "in the field". However, I think God has a different idea, and I don't think I'm going to be going at the pace I've been going at for the past, I don't know ... 8 years? I've done more than my fair share of 50/60 hour weeks (and all the medical students in the crowd said, "so what?!"); crisis work, holiday work, weekend work ... And now, I see a period of somewhat limited financial means for the next few years ...
... but I also see a period of grace and rest.
Next posting: images and lovely thoughts about this city.
{Footnote: I have not forgotten that today is 9/18, and it has now been 5 years since the date of marriage to my former husband and over 2 years since the date of separation. Grief is a funny thing, and I do not know if I can even call it "grief" anymore. I remembered it today as in the vague thought I would have as if I remembered that I was almost out of milk.}
As in, here in Portland and here in body and here in mind and here in spirit. So present in so many ways. In many ways, completely overwhelmed.
But, surprisingly, coming out on top.
The move happened last Saturday with military precision ... all of the boxes were packed, ready to go and just had to be loaded and transported. The shadow boy from a couple of posts ago (I think I will call him "Shoes", as in, that is all he will permit me to post of him) busted a move and at the end of a very busy week for him, moved two of his friends. Including me. But mine was worse. As in, five and a half hours of driving. But a complainer, he is not.
We've stuffed this 3rd floor apartment to the gills and have weeded through most of the boxes.
{Where did all this stuff come from?!}
Cheryl and I have been settling in, decorating, organizing (one of my favorite things to do!!), and have been on a quest for the perfect cup of coffee. So far, the top contender is Stumptown Coffee.
Lots of trips across the Willamette River to downtown to campus to finish (how many "to's" can I put in a sentence?) the last minute school details.
Would love to post my own images, but the camera is broken. This might just be the push I need to buy a "real" one. (Coincidentally, I believe I've read Flickr's Creative Commons Terms of Use correctly and BELIEVE I have been giving credit where credit is due ... but if somebody has any thoughts on this or sees I am doing it incorrectly, please, o please, let me know ....)
The randomness? Hard to believe, but this is not a dirty house. I've pulled children from dirty houses. Trust me. This is not That. This is me pulling things out in order to pack strategically. But 8 rolls of wrapping paper? How does a single-ish girl even COLLECT 8 rolls of wrapping paper? And how does a single-ish girl PACK 8 rolls of wrapping paper?
and wanting to kiss
these cheeks so badly.
Her mommy's too.
Many blessings coming in this move ....
... I won't ever *really* be able to tell you how my little girl from my last post turns out. We did, however, wrap up our camera project and oh, how I wish I could really, really tell you the joy she captured on film.
What else?
A 3 day trip to the Olympic Peninsula. One last, stolen getaway before the chaos of the move and the beginning of graduate school. Lots of time in the car. Lots of time discussing, sharing, relating, discovering.
Falling?
Crescent Lake. A long, clear, beautiful expanse I wanted to jump completely in and let it swallow me. Fear of hypothermia, however, is a dream killer ...
Places on maps exist in real life. I need to remember that more ...
An hour or so here at Rialto Beach does a soul good and makes a girl happy. {Pick me, marketers! I can do soooo much better for your tourist advertising than capitalizing on Forks ~ which is a sad, sorrowful place coincidentally ...}
I'm not so readily armed with details, but hints are my forte. Piano forte!! It was a lovely weekend. I am a lucky girl.
And sooooooo popular with new four year old friends named Michael:
I am not the mermaid, but I am the face immediately to the left of the mermaid. Lifelike, right? Thanks, Michael!!
And now, on to finishing my last {4} days of employment with the County. Time to assimilate and process and develop some closure.
... at my current position, I've found I have an issue. I have a little girl on my caseload who has no childhood.
Specifically, I have a little girl who, in her current foster home, has a shoebox of belongings, an envelope of letters and one drawer full of clothing.
That's it.
That is the totality of what she owns.
What she is missing is not just the material goods to call her own, however. She is missing a family. She is missing her future family, her past family and is blessed to have found a gem of a "right now" family ... but. But.
She knows This is not It.
It's not the lack of material goods that break my heart. It's seeing her lay all of what she owns side by side on her bed and listening to her tell the same story over and over again.
That's what breaks my heart. It's listening to her talk about her "real" family vs. the family she hopes one day will want her. It's having her remember her birth family and having nothing to hold, nothing to look at, nothing to validate that she has this entire history that was very Real, and she has a family she misses wholly.
Hole-y.
So she compartmentalizes.
Don't we all?
This hurts, so I deal with This here, but I don't deal with It here, because when I'm there, I need to feel / think / focus / BE / somebody else. At a foster home, no fault of the foster home, she's part of the temporary, in and out, loved but not a birth child flow. Her items are in a shoebox under the bed. It is not her bed. Her clothes fill a drawer. It's a dresser shared by multiple children.
She can love her birth family once a week for two hours.
She can be at school and learn.
She can be a giggly part of her foster home.
They are all separate. Those worlds do not collide. She does not talk about the other parts of her life during the Other Parts of Her Life.
I understand this about her. I was very much like this right after my divorce. I talked about it with These people, but not Those people and Work was Work and Church was Church and I was fragmented and not connected and it helped.
Sure.
For a season. But not that long. Truly ... honestly ... it was exhausting. And people are not straight lines. They are circles. We are connected to ourselves, every bit of ourselves; ourselves are connected to every part of our lives and we are so very connected with each other. Totality. {The heart of God.}
Today I dropped off several disposable cameras to many people in Little Girl's life. They will take pictures. She will take pictures. I will develop the film.
And when we are done, there will not be gaps. There will be pictures to hold. She chooses to compartmentalize or not ~ that decision is hers.
But in that shoebox under her bed will be mounds of pictures of the people she loves. And no matter what happens in the next few years, there will not be a missing gap of information (as is so often the case with foster children. They are ghosts in family pictures for the amount of time they spend in foster care). This is her reality, no matter how much we wish it could be different.
We need to help her choose to face it in love. In the end, we cannot give her her childhood back. But what we can give her is the sense that what this is, Is, and that what her life is, is what she chooses to make it. It's real. I'll give her the tools to help make it real. She can look at the pictures. Or not. She can live in her fragmented life. Or not. It is so entirely up to her.
I hope she chooses a gentle path for herself.
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