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For a number of days now, i’ve been (somewhat anxiously) watching a certain section of my garden, the area that was seeded instead of filled up with bedding plants. Waiting, looking, even poking around to see if a tiny green sprout exists, hiding under the dirt. i’ve figured that the crops that i’ve seeded – carrots, beets, beans, and peas – are hardy enough to live into the fall, but with such a short, unpredictable growing season, every day counts.
So, it was a joyful experience to finally see a section of wee tiny little red sprouts filling out the beginnings of what will be a row of beets. i felt all puffed up with pride over these baby plants that finally took their first move towards eating up sunlight.
Encouraged by this development, i took the bold move of shoving a spade in the ground to investigate what on earth was going on with my delinquent bean and pea seeds. The verdict: wee worms eating up the tender beans. Arrggh. i eventually found two little beans that were managing to sprout, and got them nicely packed away in their dirt homes again, vowing to start sprouting some beans and peas in a more sterile environment like a nalgene bottle this week at work. Maybe that will get them the head start they need.
As i finished my snooping around underground and returned to the much more routine task of watering, i thought about what it would be like if it were only that easy to unpack some of the problems that i see the kids at work struggling with. So many times, we staff all know that there is a ton of stuff going on under the surface that is keeping a client from moving forward in a positive way. Most of the kids we see have pain and problems that run so deep, they often don’t even know themselves how to dig them up or what’s happening in the deep soil of their own life. It’s hard to watch from a removed vantage point and be unable to poke and prod and dig around, to be able to only water what is good, fertilize the positive choices made, weed a little negative behaviour out of the picture, and wait patiently, creating an environment where a sensitive issue can finally sprout up and be identified. Then sometimes, there are the lives that, beyond any caring we offer, are eaten up by the worms of negativity, pain, burdens that we never truly see, except to know that while in our care, no good living thing sprouted up because of those things unseen.
It’s been one of the hardest things that i’ve ever learned to deal with when working with people – the times when there is no growth to be seen, no living, no joy. It’s hard to step back and to know that it’s not reflective of my level of caring or my skill set. Perhaps it’s just not the right environment sometimes, perhaps there was knowledge that i don’t have, or factors beyond my control have truly overtaken my ability to help. Most of the time i’ll never really know.
Then again, from the same vantage point, it is a humbling knowledge that the only thing i can help do to bring life to the surface is to be the waterer, someone who tends to making the environment a safe and welcoming place for a sprout of goodness to surface. i didn’t make those beet sprouts grow, and i don’t make the positive (and often difficult) choices for the youth i care for, but i can live and act in such a way that it’s more likely to happen, and i thank God for that.
i’ve been thinking a lot lately about influence and choices, about how to impact the communities that i live in and around in ways that encourage joyful, fulfilling life. It’s so easy to forget this calling towards a generous and loving life sometimes, so easy to just think of myself and what would make my life easier. Like missing a morning watering just to sleep in another hour or so, it’s so easy just to escape a difficult conversation or follow a lengthy protocol at work, to leave a questions about accountability or about a friend’s dreams about life for banal chatter about the day. It’s not the sleeping in or the simple chats that are the problem, but left on their own, it’s hard to create an environment where something good and meaningful grows. It takes the same kind of commitment as early-morning garden watering to nurture life of any sort, and i’m slowly learning to take these lessons from my garden into the rest of my life. So from beet sprouts to deeper friendships and more meaningful work, i’m trying to keep the reminders from my garden close to heart.
It wasn’t so long ago that i would have laughed myself out of town at the idea of early bed-times, choosing not to go out with a group of people, or spending time washing dishes on a Saturday night. Okay. i’ll amend that. i STILL have a hard time accepting these things as good decisions and not signs that i’m going to turn into a spinster cat-lady, gah.
And yet, i’ve been lying on my couch, semi-napping, trying to psych myself up to go out for the night (for the second night in a row), and slowly realizing that i’m fighting the very things that i long for when i’m at work – rest, peace, processes that have visible results…
Attending a suicide intervention training for the last few days, i was part of a group of people that discussed the idea of self-care in the helping role/profession. A lot of similarities cropped up in people’s responses: conversations with a friend, coffee dates, baths, wine, movies, exercise, getting enough sleep. Reflecting back on the lists, it surprises me how introverted the lists seemed. Not once did i see ‘night on the town’ or ‘throw a party’ on any of the group’s self-care lists, and it makes me curious about why that was. Very possibly, it was just the certain mix of attendees, though perhaps there is something about self or soul-care that necessitates the quietness of being either peacefully alone or in meaningful or intimate relationship instead of exuberant crowds and dynamic social settings. At this moment, my bias is towards the latter.
As much as it still annoys me on some level to choose against getting some also-much-needed social time tonight, i’m going to admit that these are a few of my favorite self-care things right now:
drawing, sleeping, comfort food, making things…
Nothing so very different from the rest of life, just chosen over friends and a social life at this moment.
What do you do to rest/revive?
Someone asked me recently where i saw myself in 15 years. i responded that a long time ago, i gave up planning that far ahead. Determined, he still pressed the question.
i drew a total blank.
Then, i had to work at figuring out what 15 more years even looks like. Let’s see, i’m 27 now, plus 15……. 5 and 7 is. . 12, carry the 1… that makes it, um, forty. . . . 42? i think that’s right. (Yes, you can laugh at me. Yes, i do tell people up front to never trust my math skills)
Gawsh. Forty-two. Fifteen years.
Hell, i don’t know what i’m going to be doing next year! i do know that i want to finish up at least another year with Enviros here in Calgary, that i do want to eventually go back to school, and that i have to make at least enough money to figure out how to best deal with my rapidly dying car. i want to start selling paintings, i’d like to keep travelling, i’d like to spend another 1-2 years cooking in planting camps, and well, that’s pretty much my list of the things i’m sure of right now. So projected 15 years forward?
i’d like to arrive on the other side of my 30s relatively unscathed, somewhat wiser, better educated, perhaps in love. i’m not sure i still want to be in Calgary, but you know how life twists and turns and ends up keeping you where you say you don’t want to be (so i’m definitely not saying i don’t want to stay here!!). The old v-dub will most likely be gone, home ownership is something i’ll be more than crossing my fingers for, and i’m hoping that i make sound enough financial decisions to avoid a pile of debt while i’m at it all. It’s nice to project a family onto my future, but that’s hard to do, currently missing key players and all.
And that’s all i’ve got. Somewhere between moving to California on a greyhound bus one year, a surprise arrival at TWU, grocery deliveries via helicopter in northern BC, a concrete post-soviet dormitory, and now waking up to prairie sunrises, i lost all sense of wanting to lock down a future in my own planning. i don’t want to grasp at the small tangible things that i foresee – i’d rather open my eyes, hang on for dear life, and embrace the uncertainty of so many crazy possibilities that life tosses me. There’s a rough framework of expectations/goals in place, but i’m leaving it at that. Perhaps this is naive, but then, perhaps this approach hasn’t done too badly for me yet.
What about you? Do you plan? Do you not plan? How do you balance goals and unpredictability?
g’mornin, April 10…, originally uploaded by jessica anne matthies.
Before i even opened my eyes this morning, i recognized that it was snowing heavily outside. i’ve grown accustomed to the sounds of a sudden, heavy snowfall: slowed traffic, the low growl of cars grinding their way up the hills in low gear, the high pitched squeals of tires spinning out, the soft crunch of footsteps through the shortcut-path behind my apartment…
i heard the heavy footsteps of the roof repairmen above me, and wondered if they would actually figure out a way to work in this. It wasn’t long before they packed up and left, leaving me to my quiet morning.
These snowfall sneak attacks make me smile, savouring the beautifully prolonged presence of winter. i like the way they force everybody to slow down, forget about a schedule for once (or at least, this happens in my idealizing mind), and come up with new plans for the day.
At least, the snow eliminated one of the options that i was debating last night – whether to stay inside one more day and keep cleaning up my apartment, or head out to my trailer to continue the fix-ups/painting. Over a foot of snow outside means the apartment wins out today.
Or at least, i hope that the apartment wins. It (and i) are fighting a war against accumulated junk, and right now the battles seem split. i spent the majority of yesterday afternoon and evening working my way through several BOXES of junk that have been packed up and hauled around from place to place for the last few years, ugh. Check one major win for me. But in this process, i came to realize that my newly bare floors and dresser-top left me feeling slightly anxious. The floors i can handle – no, wait a sec, i LOVE the bare floors, cleared of laundry and junk and boxes, cleared of the caution it usually takes to protect my feet when i crawl out of bed, or try to navigate a path through it all.
But the empty surface on the dresser? What does one do with that? i don’t want useless stuff there, but I have no idea what useful thing goes on a dresser top. Even having a dresser in my room is a luxury that i haven’t had since i was 18 and in my parent’s house. i seriously don’t know how to use that space functionally. My decorative collections are in the main room, my books all have a bookshelf, cosmetics are in the washroom, plants all die when i’m away at work for 4 days at a time… Nothing really seems to fit.
But more than that, it felt like a finished task. Empty surface=no more cleaning project. Then i quickly realized that if i get through all the paperwork junk, and finish up my studio areas, that will be the end of that too, because instead of just cleaning/storing, i’m actually getting rid of junk….and the goal is not to re-accumulate it. Potentially, i could be living with a relatively clean space – ALL THE TIME.
This is a novel concept to me. In fact, i do not remember a point in my life where i have not either been told to clean up my stuff, or otherwise didn’t feel like i had to anyway.
i am a messy person.
And, i am now attempting to change that to “was a messy person”.
i’m not sure I’m ready for this. This is scary – and before you laugh at me too hard, know that being messy has it’s upsides: it’s relaxed, it’s a great excuse to be involved in major cleanup projects, major cleanup projects are a great excuse not to have to leave the house, and not having to leave the house means i don’t have to face being in this city by myself.
Whoops.
Did i stumble onto something there? Oh boy. You caught me red-handed. Guilty as charged: i have a whole can of worms when it comes to trying to figure out how to feel at home and make friends in this city. So staying inside, working on my apartment (that I love) really does give me a sense that i am purposefully working towards being more at home here, without any of the daunting challenge of trying to recreate a new community for myself. But when i’m finished….well, I’ll be back at square one.
i don’t know whether or not completing this whole Apartment Therapy clean-up thing will give me the impetus to actually get out and get back into meeting more people again. i also don’t know that if i do move on, move forward, recreate a little community action, that i’ll find a new excuse for being messy. It’s likely that i will, and then i’ll have to cross that bridge when i come to it, i suppose.
i do know that i love the snow, that i love my quiet mornings, that true to Calgary form the sun is coming out once again, and that i’m feeling ready to pitch back into today’s battle against the paperwork junk. oh gosh.
