It’s been 4 months and 22 days since my return to America. Today I depart once again for Liberia. This return was not exactly planned, nor was it fully expected. I am not nervous, nor am I worried; I’ll let everyone else in my life deal with the weight of those feelings. And, although a few other humanitarian workers who have worked in Liberia have expressed mild confusion about why I am choosing to return, I am returning and I am delighted. My memories of Liberia are filled with profoundly moving experiences. There may be a variety of explanations for this domination of positive memories over negative (as I know I had my fare share of rough times), but I believe it is the origin of our species to improve memories of the past by natural selection. We filter memories just like we filter bad news and we tend to see and hear what we want, when we want. While in Liberia I was influenced in a myriad of ways. I have tried to capture this myriad in past posts, the success of which is likely left wanting, but at least I can say I have tried.
Before I head back to Liberia I would like to quickly examine my time at home. I proudly say home because I recall feeling quite confused by the concept of home when I first returned. I wasn’t sure if a nomad, like myself, could ever truly feel at home anywhere but in-between. Now I say with certainty that Colorado is indeed my home, or at least it is indeed my home, for now. During these 4 months and 22 days I was welcomed back with such warm words and thoughtful gestures it frequently moved me to tears. My last night there was no exception. While packing and thinking about how hard it was to, once again, abandon my tribe, two very special individuals came to pay me a visit and brought along with them some pots and pans. They had learned I managed to go the entire 4 months and 22 days without a single pot or pan in my possession and this troubled them. Clearly a lack of cooking utensils in my possession says something about my capacity to cook; but, it also say something about them. The gesture was to them an easy decision - they had some extra kitchenware and thought it would be nice to give it to me. To me this gesture said so much more as they very clearly were not vexed or confused about my going and they knew I would eventually be back and in need of a pot and/or a pan.
In Denver I worked hard, tried to organize my new home and rested as often as I could. I fully appreciated hot showers for approximately 37 days and then the impact of this visceral experience unfortunately wore off. I can’t recall which shower it was exactly, but there was one day when I started to step into piping hot showers only to discover or fail to consciously discover the remarkable effect of warm water on my skin. To me the opportunity to take a hot shower after months and months of cold and dirty bucket showers tops my list of re-entry activities, I miss appreciating that.
I also fully appreciated my dog, Tuesday. Fortunately for the both of us, this feeling did not wear off, even for one second. Every day I cruised home from a local jail or the office, having just completed an evaluation, excited to see her. I was welcomed home with delight every single time. I loved our walks and our car rides and our trips around town to visit her friends or to get ice cream cones. She is likely one of the most delicate eaters of ice-cream cones and I periodically enjoyed watching her do just that. The support I have received in helping care for this canine has moved me right to tears sitting here in O’Hare airport. I can’t help but cry when I think about Sherry and Laura and Kristy and Dan and Yophy and Terry and Karla and Brian and Sarah and Rick and Stephanie and Jim and Joanie and their collective willingness to help me out whenever I was about to embark on another adventure. Each one of these individuals expressed their love to me by expressing their love towards this four legged creature and I am so incredibly touched by their willingness to help. To top it off, just last week Sherry and Laura, graciously welcomed Tuesday into their beautiful Telluride home for the next couple of months. They did it out of sheer love for dogs, a little love for me and some experienced pride in my work and I feel incredibly appreciative of their act of kindness and their e-mail updates informing me that Tuesday has been dashing back and forth between their log piles hunting chipmunks as well as flirting a little bit with their youngest, yet massive pup, Wilson.
So as Tuesday and I acclimate to another brief change, I am left feeling impressed by animal and mankind alike. For dogs their capacity to acclimate is impressive and yet their time limited memory serves to prevent from the angst of ruminating. We human beings spend a significant amount of time ruminating but then again the act of acclimating is truly one of our greatest strengths. The underlying tragedy of it is we never realize exactly when full acclimation has occurred.
So in a timely announcement I am just been called to board my plane………….
Expect more tales from me soon.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
the psychology of evil and personification of berlin
The lucifer effect and the psychology of evil.
So, I totally had a celebrity encounter while attending a conference in Berlin. Or maybe to be more accurate, I should probably say I totally had a celebrity encounter for a psychologist. And, when I say celebrity encounter I mean I walked by this aforementioned celebrity and nodded my head; he looked back at me and said hi.
Yes that’s right. If you can even believe it I was in the same room with the one and only Philip Zimbardo. Ok, I know for those of you with careers outside the field of psychology this means very little; however, if you took a social psych 101 class you might actually know who I’m talking about. Professor Zimbardo was the principle investigator on the Stanford Prison Study, a very famous study that had to be terminated 4 short days into a two week study because the participating college students took their jobs (as prison guards) and their incarcerations (as prisons) so seriously that the abuse and maltreatment of the prisoners very quickly got out of hand and the study had to be terminated for ethical reasons. It’s a basic study about the power and effect of positions of authority, the autonomy of uniforms and losing ones individual identity.
Well Professor Zimbardo is back and he is trying to explain the psychology of evil. He is doing this because he was called as an expert witness for the young soldiers who participated in heinous acts of torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. He noted the whistleblower, a measly 18 year old reserve (whose conscience simply wouldn’t allow him to not report what he witnessed on a take home CD burned by one of the participating privates), was stalked and threatened so severely by fellow military men and former friends and neighbors from his very small home town in America (as they saw him as “anti-patriotic” to the Bush administration), that he and his wife and small child had to go into a witness protection program. Unbelievable. Really.
But enough about that…………..let’s move on, or rather let’s return to Berlin.
Berlin seems to be a city marked by the disappearance of a wall and an uncanny desire to judge nothing too critically. This city overflows with art and culture. Everywhere there are tributes to philosophers and activists. Everywhere there are galleries and museums. Its universities allegedly became Mecca’s for students of the 60s & 70s who wanted to experience the intensity of those political times in an environment that was on the edge of politics and the dynamics of history. And, according to my patriotic hosts, Berlin’s underground culture flourishes with an eclecticism that can’t be claimed elsewhere with the possible exception of New York City. In Berlin, the people seem to live simply yet this does not by any means mean they have simple lives.
If I were to personify Berlin I would say he is a tall, young, Caucasian, thin man who works with computers and plays jazz in the wee hours of the night. He is a serious fellow who moves briskly with lips tightly pursed. During the day his face remains expressionless, neither breaking into smile of satisfaction nor frowning with disappointment at the results of his work. The cuffs of his white shirt are typically rolled up to the elbows. His pants ever so slightly snug, his collar button open, his bright tie loosened. Now and then he stops typing to scribble note on his scratch pad next to his keyboard. Interestingly about half of his scratches are work related and half are music notes. Even though he tries hard and has a remarkable amount of self-control, the music can drift in, unexpectedly. After work he changes into a short black leather coat, wrinkled olive-green chinos, and brown work boots.
Inside a local deli, saxophone case hanging from his shoulder, this young man stops for a quick snack before a late night session with his band mates. They play in an abandoned building in East Berlin. It’s likely this neighborhood will be vibrant and in a few years to come, but for now it’s a carcass of a former soviet structure and if you look closely enough you might even see a few bullet holes from WWII. Backed up by a piano, drums, an acoustic bass and a clarinet, young Berlin finishes the night by playing a solo. His performance is not bad, decent technique with a love for the process that allows his personality to show through and make the listener's experience more personal, more intense. And this is his life. Somehow he manages to ride the fine line between good citizen and darkish explorer of the night; he does it well and is happy doing it.
So, I totally had a celebrity encounter while attending a conference in Berlin. Or maybe to be more accurate, I should probably say I totally had a celebrity encounter for a psychologist. And, when I say celebrity encounter I mean I walked by this aforementioned celebrity and nodded my head; he looked back at me and said hi.
Yes that’s right. If you can even believe it I was in the same room with the one and only Philip Zimbardo. Ok, I know for those of you with careers outside the field of psychology this means very little; however, if you took a social psych 101 class you might actually know who I’m talking about. Professor Zimbardo was the principle investigator on the Stanford Prison Study, a very famous study that had to be terminated 4 short days into a two week study because the participating college students took their jobs (as prison guards) and their incarcerations (as prisons) so seriously that the abuse and maltreatment of the prisoners very quickly got out of hand and the study had to be terminated for ethical reasons. It’s a basic study about the power and effect of positions of authority, the autonomy of uniforms and losing ones individual identity.
Well Professor Zimbardo is back and he is trying to explain the psychology of evil. He is doing this because he was called as an expert witness for the young soldiers who participated in heinous acts of torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. He noted the whistleblower, a measly 18 year old reserve (whose conscience simply wouldn’t allow him to not report what he witnessed on a take home CD burned by one of the participating privates), was stalked and threatened so severely by fellow military men and former friends and neighbors from his very small home town in America (as they saw him as “anti-patriotic” to the Bush administration), that he and his wife and small child had to go into a witness protection program. Unbelievable. Really.
But enough about that…………..let’s move on, or rather let’s return to Berlin.
Berlin seems to be a city marked by the disappearance of a wall and an uncanny desire to judge nothing too critically. This city overflows with art and culture. Everywhere there are tributes to philosophers and activists. Everywhere there are galleries and museums. Its universities allegedly became Mecca’s for students of the 60s & 70s who wanted to experience the intensity of those political times in an environment that was on the edge of politics and the dynamics of history. And, according to my patriotic hosts, Berlin’s underground culture flourishes with an eclecticism that can’t be claimed elsewhere with the possible exception of New York City. In Berlin, the people seem to live simply yet this does not by any means mean they have simple lives.
If I were to personify Berlin I would say he is a tall, young, Caucasian, thin man who works with computers and plays jazz in the wee hours of the night. He is a serious fellow who moves briskly with lips tightly pursed. During the day his face remains expressionless, neither breaking into smile of satisfaction nor frowning with disappointment at the results of his work. The cuffs of his white shirt are typically rolled up to the elbows. His pants ever so slightly snug, his collar button open, his bright tie loosened. Now and then he stops typing to scribble note on his scratch pad next to his keyboard. Interestingly about half of his scratches are work related and half are music notes. Even though he tries hard and has a remarkable amount of self-control, the music can drift in, unexpectedly. After work he changes into a short black leather coat, wrinkled olive-green chinos, and brown work boots.
Inside a local deli, saxophone case hanging from his shoulder, this young man stops for a quick snack before a late night session with his band mates. They play in an abandoned building in East Berlin. It’s likely this neighborhood will be vibrant and in a few years to come, but for now it’s a carcass of a former soviet structure and if you look closely enough you might even see a few bullet holes from WWII. Backed up by a piano, drums, an acoustic bass and a clarinet, young Berlin finishes the night by playing a solo. His performance is not bad, decent technique with a love for the process that allows his personality to show through and make the listener's experience more personal, more intense. And this is his life. Somehow he manages to ride the fine line between good citizen and darkish explorer of the night; he does it well and is happy doing it.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
a white flag in surrender
“The wounds are going to need some drains to prevent infection and the bite on the top of her leg is going to need a few staples.” Her tone was kindly yet assured. Dr. Sylvie was charming and caring yet ever so reliably professional.
"What should I do?” My tone was indignant yet shattered. The only living thing presently in my care (this blogs very namesake) was attacked by two stray dogs on our run earlier in the day. In that very moment I found myself sitting in the office of an emergency veterinarian hospital being informed that poor tuey was going to need surgery and have to wear one of those horrific e-collars (aka: doggie lamp shades) for a number of days.
When the attack occurred I was just as surprised as Tuesday. The two massive strays approached us from the back and one of them simply picked Tuesday up by her neck as easily as a lion would pick up a baby faun sipping water from a pond. The other, an enormous pit/husky mix, just as quickly put his fangs in her rear. In the next moment tuey was on her side; the big black lab mix with a severely wounded back leg kept his teeth deep in her neck. I screamed at the top of my lungs, threw my zune at one of them and starting kicking at the other. I’m sure it all happened in a matter of 3 seconds, it felt like an eon.
On the way home we walked slowly. Tuesday had her tail down the entire time and I was noticeably shaking while I waited for the woman at animal control to take my call. 47 minutes later she superficially took my complaint, harshly said she would “send someone out” and hung up the phone. Thanks for the support lady, I thought. I hung up and tried to say some compassionate things to Tuesday. Just one look at the two of us and it was clear neither one of us felt reassured.
I was hoping to write this post with elegant detachment and measured passion but one look at any of my previous posts suggests elegant detachment and measured passion are not typically part of my repertoire. Sure I can periodically manage them when it comes to processing my own feelings but for others, rarely.
I’m sure one day I will reflect back on what has happened and view it as a lesson learned. But, presently I feel bitter and annoyed this lesson was taught to me in the manner in which it was because dear sweet Tuesday can’t turn to me and offer her version of events or feelings tied to its occurrence, leaving me trying to feel and process for us both. There is a painful injustice to much of what happens in life but this feels especially unfair at this very moment.
So I will stop for now. This was a hard post to write as I didn’t really want to think about what happened; but, I have made one promise to myself with regards to this wee blog of mine. I will continue to chronicle my journey to and fro foreign lands and I won’t try and filter. My hope is that my dear readers will realize that neither I nor those we hold most dear are necessarily safer on western soil and what happens in life will forever remain uncharacteristically unpredictable. For now I will put up my white flag and surrender.
"What should I do?” My tone was indignant yet shattered. The only living thing presently in my care (this blogs very namesake) was attacked by two stray dogs on our run earlier in the day. In that very moment I found myself sitting in the office of an emergency veterinarian hospital being informed that poor tuey was going to need surgery and have to wear one of those horrific e-collars (aka: doggie lamp shades) for a number of days.
When the attack occurred I was just as surprised as Tuesday. The two massive strays approached us from the back and one of them simply picked Tuesday up by her neck as easily as a lion would pick up a baby faun sipping water from a pond. The other, an enormous pit/husky mix, just as quickly put his fangs in her rear. In the next moment tuey was on her side; the big black lab mix with a severely wounded back leg kept his teeth deep in her neck. I screamed at the top of my lungs, threw my zune at one of them and starting kicking at the other. I’m sure it all happened in a matter of 3 seconds, it felt like an eon.
On the way home we walked slowly. Tuesday had her tail down the entire time and I was noticeably shaking while I waited for the woman at animal control to take my call. 47 minutes later she superficially took my complaint, harshly said she would “send someone out” and hung up the phone. Thanks for the support lady, I thought. I hung up and tried to say some compassionate things to Tuesday. Just one look at the two of us and it was clear neither one of us felt reassured.
I was hoping to write this post with elegant detachment and measured passion but one look at any of my previous posts suggests elegant detachment and measured passion are not typically part of my repertoire. Sure I can periodically manage them when it comes to processing my own feelings but for others, rarely.
I’m sure one day I will reflect back on what has happened and view it as a lesson learned. But, presently I feel bitter and annoyed this lesson was taught to me in the manner in which it was because dear sweet Tuesday can’t turn to me and offer her version of events or feelings tied to its occurrence, leaving me trying to feel and process for us both. There is a painful injustice to much of what happens in life but this feels especially unfair at this very moment.
So I will stop for now. This was a hard post to write as I didn’t really want to think about what happened; but, I have made one promise to myself with regards to this wee blog of mine. I will continue to chronicle my journey to and fro foreign lands and I won’t try and filter. My hope is that my dear readers will realize that neither I nor those we hold most dear are necessarily safer on western soil and what happens in life will forever remain uncharacteristically unpredictable. For now I will put up my white flag and surrender.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
a week full of smiles, bliss and a little contentment
a few small events made me smirk with glee this week.
I was told something sweet and I was given something special.
just a few words, just a few small gestures, but I recognized them as genuine and real and I found myself smiling through the cracks of unhappy contemplation that I have been existing in over the last 71 days.
I almost let them pass and didn’t take a moment to write them down but then I realized it was just as important to write these small measures down as it was to write the tougher more painful ones down. It is just as important to recognize these moments as real so that they too can be internalized and savored. Without that, I am not offering myself some much needed balance and maybe it is this process of acknowledging the good and the bad, the remarkable and the unremarkable that gives us balance and ultimately saves us from ourselves.
So to those of you out there who offered me these small gifts this week – thank you for the stories, thank you for the silverware, thank you for the invitations, thank you for the roses and thank you for each small thoughtful act of kindness that may have been done unconsciously, but were done nonetheless, ultimately easing my discontent and leaving me feeling as if a feather brushed across my face and brought me back to my current, pleasant reality.
I was told something sweet and I was given something special.
just a few words, just a few small gestures, but I recognized them as genuine and real and I found myself smiling through the cracks of unhappy contemplation that I have been existing in over the last 71 days.
I almost let them pass and didn’t take a moment to write them down but then I realized it was just as important to write these small measures down as it was to write the tougher more painful ones down. It is just as important to recognize these moments as real so that they too can be internalized and savored. Without that, I am not offering myself some much needed balance and maybe it is this process of acknowledging the good and the bad, the remarkable and the unremarkable that gives us balance and ultimately saves us from ourselves.
So to those of you out there who offered me these small gifts this week – thank you for the stories, thank you for the silverware, thank you for the invitations, thank you for the roses and thank you for each small thoughtful act of kindness that may have been done unconsciously, but were done nonetheless, ultimately easing my discontent and leaving me feeling as if a feather brushed across my face and brought me back to my current, pleasant reality.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
re-engaging with the clamor of the west while residing in the gap between misery and enlightenment
Could fulfillment ever be felt as deeply as loss? Romantically she decided that love must surely reside in the gap between desire and fulfillment, in the lack, not the contentment. Love was the ache, the anticipation, the retreat, everything around it but the emotion itself.
~ Sai – The Inheritance of Loss
Despite the fact that there are over 588,000 people live in Denver Colorado, I have been fluctuating from feeling shipwrecked and alone to re-energized and connected. And, although my re-entry experience has felt much easier than last time; in part, due to the what I now conceptualize as vicarious resilience **(or the internalization of all the amazing strength I witnessed with survivors of horrific war trauma in Liberia) I still find myself tripping over myself and when I trip I tend to bruise easy. So although many individuals have assumed I have moved on, moved back to my old life, there are still times I struggle and times that I feel the urge to put a message in a bottle.
My points of destabilization seem to creep up on me and take me by surprise and more often than not I end up in tears. But the tears are not the issue of concern because as a dear friend of mine pointed out – tears have always been easy for me. Whenever I start to feel something, anything really, I tend to cry. Rather than label the feeling or share it I simply cry and cry until the water dries up and then I move on. Tears are to me what love was to Sai: the ache, the anticipation, the retreat.
What I have realized is that traveling and working abroad in areas of need of humanitarian action makes one modest - you are forced to see what a tiny place you occupy in the world and what a crap-shoot it actually is that you just happened to be lucky enough to be born to a privileged family in a privileged country devoid of horrifying events in your immediate environment. Seeing the world also reminds you that the horrifying events – the poverty, and war and trauma is the real global REALITY and what we’ve got here is layers upon layers of denial and dissociation. How is it that we can be at war and I (nor any of my closest friends) have been immediately affected? And, how it is that things like genocide, torture, kidnapping, environmental degradation, violent repression of political rights, the release of toxins into pristine environments, discrimination and the conscription of child soldiers all over the globe occurs constantly and we don’t stand up and swallow up such brazenness in one gulp?
So I’m left feeling miserable. No, that’s not right. I don’t actually feel miserable. Maybe I am just feelings some sort of chronic level of mild unhappiness. Well not unhappiness exactly but more like the absence of the ecstasy that I would periodically feel when I was surrounded by people who had been enlightened by their experience. I also feel overwhelmed by the bullshit. I have to admit I have already started to worry about things that simply shouldn’t matter and am concerned I am chronically being underexposed to the things that truly do matter.
What I keep doing to check my misery is simple. I just keep reminding myself about the true mystery of the world. For me, the true mystery of the world is the visible. People carry grief and I am amazed by its weight. Young boys give me directions and I am awed by their innocent kindness. A woman holds the glass door open for me at the bank and waits patiently for my empty body to pass though.........all day long it continues, each kindness reaching toward another, strangers reaching out to strangers.........and I am thankful these things find me because they keep me from myself, and this is my faith: humanity.
** the concept of vicarious resiliance was developed by (HERNÁNDEZ, GANGSEI, ENGSTROM, ET. AL. 2008)
~ Sai – The Inheritance of Loss
Despite the fact that there are over 588,000 people live in Denver Colorado, I have been fluctuating from feeling shipwrecked and alone to re-energized and connected. And, although my re-entry experience has felt much easier than last time; in part, due to the what I now conceptualize as vicarious resilience **(or the internalization of all the amazing strength I witnessed with survivors of horrific war trauma in Liberia) I still find myself tripping over myself and when I trip I tend to bruise easy. So although many individuals have assumed I have moved on, moved back to my old life, there are still times I struggle and times that I feel the urge to put a message in a bottle.
My points of destabilization seem to creep up on me and take me by surprise and more often than not I end up in tears. But the tears are not the issue of concern because as a dear friend of mine pointed out – tears have always been easy for me. Whenever I start to feel something, anything really, I tend to cry. Rather than label the feeling or share it I simply cry and cry until the water dries up and then I move on. Tears are to me what love was to Sai: the ache, the anticipation, the retreat.
What I have realized is that traveling and working abroad in areas of need of humanitarian action makes one modest - you are forced to see what a tiny place you occupy in the world and what a crap-shoot it actually is that you just happened to be lucky enough to be born to a privileged family in a privileged country devoid of horrifying events in your immediate environment. Seeing the world also reminds you that the horrifying events – the poverty, and war and trauma is the real global REALITY and what we’ve got here is layers upon layers of denial and dissociation. How is it that we can be at war and I (nor any of my closest friends) have been immediately affected? And, how it is that things like genocide, torture, kidnapping, environmental degradation, violent repression of political rights, the release of toxins into pristine environments, discrimination and the conscription of child soldiers all over the globe occurs constantly and we don’t stand up and swallow up such brazenness in one gulp?
So I’m left feeling miserable. No, that’s not right. I don’t actually feel miserable. Maybe I am just feelings some sort of chronic level of mild unhappiness. Well not unhappiness exactly but more like the absence of the ecstasy that I would periodically feel when I was surrounded by people who had been enlightened by their experience. I also feel overwhelmed by the bullshit. I have to admit I have already started to worry about things that simply shouldn’t matter and am concerned I am chronically being underexposed to the things that truly do matter.
What I keep doing to check my misery is simple. I just keep reminding myself about the true mystery of the world. For me, the true mystery of the world is the visible. People carry grief and I am amazed by its weight. Young boys give me directions and I am awed by their innocent kindness. A woman holds the glass door open for me at the bank and waits patiently for my empty body to pass though.........all day long it continues, each kindness reaching toward another, strangers reaching out to strangers.........and I am thankful these things find me because they keep me from myself, and this is my faith: humanity.
** the concept of vicarious resiliance was developed by (HERNÁNDEZ, GANGSEI, ENGSTROM, ET. AL. 2008)
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
dot dot dash. dash dot dot dash.
In the middle of an unremarkable chilly day the voice of the roaming nomad started to whisper in my ear….”you’re kidding yourself you know. You have to go……There are so many places you have yet to see….you have to go back….you belong out there…you must move about…there is work yet to be done.”
At first I didn’t listen. No, that’s not it exactly. At first it just felt like a lack of silence where there should have been some. A Morris code of sorts repeating itself like a broken record to someone who can’t decipher it.
Dot dot dash. Dash dot dot dash…
I went on with my day. Visited the Fuel café for some coffee. Completed an eval on a minimizing perpetrator. Took the dog for a walk. Studied paint samples. Then I ran into my dear friend and mother of my most favorite twin boys in this whole entire world. She indicated she would stop by with my little mangos after she picked them up from school. The idea was I could see them while she took a look at the latest paint swabs I have put on my wall. There were many. Paint seems like the biggest commitment of my life.
Dot dot dash. Dash dot dot dash…
They entered like a tornado. Bubbly lemonade in one hand crumbs on their face and updates to tell…
Aidan: Auntie Gwen! We’re here. I made this for you at school. It’s a fire truck!
Patrick: Auntie Gwen! Oh, hey Tuesday! Look I made this for you too! Can you open this for me?
Gwen: Sure Sure yes yes! Come in my little mangos. How was school?
Dot dot dash. Dash dot dot dash.
As I look for the bottle opener and rummage through drawers the undecipherable white noise continues to play in the back of my head.
Dot dot dash. Dash dot dot dash.
It’s still repeating when Aidan asks me, “where do you sleep Auntie Gwen?” I inform them there’s a bed in the mezzanine and they can check it out if they want. Tuesday adores these two little boys and therefore follows them everywhere they go when they are around. Due to the fact the stairs going upstairs do not have backs on them she has been experiencing some anxiety climbing them and looks a bit like a serpentine on her way up. This makes the mangos giggle. I can’t help but suffer from breakthrough smiles just experiencing them doing simple everyday activities. They come back down and we talk about the things in my loft. Then they start burping, which of course leads to more giggles. We all head down to the second floor to check out paint schemes. Clearly I’m seriously lost and a bit preservative about this issue. I may need an intervention soon.
We head back upstairs to my tiny little loft and continue to play and giggle. After a while their mother decides it is time for them to head home for tacos. Patrick has decided he wants meat. Aidan is presently a vegetarian and declares he will be having bean tacos.
Aidan asks when they can come over again. I inform them that I will be going to California the following day and plan to return on Saturday so maybe they can come next week. I start to teach them the surfers hang loose hand sign and we practice together. On a related note, I am proud to report they both know how to do the classic Liberian handshake (i.e., the shake-snap) and they proceed to practice it once again with gusto.
All of a sudden Patrick looks confused and hides his head in my pile of African fabrics. We all pick up on his emotional shift but his mother and brother, much more astute about Patrick’s emotional states than I, move closer to him and his mom gently begins to brush through his bushy blond hair. Aidan quickly asks me, “Auntie Gwen how long will you be gone?” I tell him, “just until Saturday.” “How long is that,” he replies. I show him four fingers and say, “only four days.” He whispers, “that’s not long” and his mother wholeheartedly agrees while patting Patrick’s back. Patrick raises his head and looks at me with tears in his eyes and patchy red spots on his cheeks and it’s clear that he had begun crying because he believed I was going to leave once again for a much longer period of time. Still speechless he studies my face and my fingers. Satisfied with the scenario he gets up and everybody prepares to go.
Tuesday and I walk them out and we talk about the next time they would like to come over. It was decided it will be next week before school. I ask about their plans for the weekend but, by then, we are at the car. They managed to walk through a massive pile of mud before climbing into their car seats. Their mother doesn’t seem to mind in the least. Aidan quickly rolls down the window and keeps asking me a series of questions. “Where is the water? Where are you taking Tuesday for a walk? What airline are you taking to California?” Then, while I sit there fully appreciating the fact they are still waving to me out the back window of their car, I realize the Morris code in my head has stopped. As if it somehow got lost, I finally experience utter silence.
In that moment, feeling lost in the silence, I realize what the noise was all about and I sigh…..my enviable struggle – should I stay or should I go?
The fine line between explorer and abandoner was captured in the emotional experience of a dear sweet boy who had lost his aunt, a flawed aunt no doubt; but, an aunt that has managed to mean something to him and an aunt who has left him for one third of his short life to date. To him the thought of losing me again was like the injury pain I referred to in my previous post. To me the thought of staying and the thought of going is equally as painful but I remain thankful that the choice and the struggle are there because a life without it suggests I am not wanted nor needed anywhere in this big loving yet scary world………..
At first I didn’t listen. No, that’s not it exactly. At first it just felt like a lack of silence where there should have been some. A Morris code of sorts repeating itself like a broken record to someone who can’t decipher it.
Dot dot dash. Dash dot dot dash…
I went on with my day. Visited the Fuel café for some coffee. Completed an eval on a minimizing perpetrator. Took the dog for a walk. Studied paint samples. Then I ran into my dear friend and mother of my most favorite twin boys in this whole entire world. She indicated she would stop by with my little mangos after she picked them up from school. The idea was I could see them while she took a look at the latest paint swabs I have put on my wall. There were many. Paint seems like the biggest commitment of my life.
Dot dot dash. Dash dot dot dash…
They entered like a tornado. Bubbly lemonade in one hand crumbs on their face and updates to tell…
Aidan: Auntie Gwen! We’re here. I made this for you at school. It’s a fire truck!
Patrick: Auntie Gwen! Oh, hey Tuesday! Look I made this for you too! Can you open this for me?
Gwen: Sure Sure yes yes! Come in my little mangos. How was school?
Dot dot dash. Dash dot dot dash.
As I look for the bottle opener and rummage through drawers the undecipherable white noise continues to play in the back of my head.
Dot dot dash. Dash dot dot dash.
It’s still repeating when Aidan asks me, “where do you sleep Auntie Gwen?” I inform them there’s a bed in the mezzanine and they can check it out if they want. Tuesday adores these two little boys and therefore follows them everywhere they go when they are around. Due to the fact the stairs going upstairs do not have backs on them she has been experiencing some anxiety climbing them and looks a bit like a serpentine on her way up. This makes the mangos giggle. I can’t help but suffer from breakthrough smiles just experiencing them doing simple everyday activities. They come back down and we talk about the things in my loft. Then they start burping, which of course leads to more giggles. We all head down to the second floor to check out paint schemes. Clearly I’m seriously lost and a bit preservative about this issue. I may need an intervention soon.
We head back upstairs to my tiny little loft and continue to play and giggle. After a while their mother decides it is time for them to head home for tacos. Patrick has decided he wants meat. Aidan is presently a vegetarian and declares he will be having bean tacos.
Aidan asks when they can come over again. I inform them that I will be going to California the following day and plan to return on Saturday so maybe they can come next week. I start to teach them the surfers hang loose hand sign and we practice together. On a related note, I am proud to report they both know how to do the classic Liberian handshake (i.e., the shake-snap) and they proceed to practice it once again with gusto.
All of a sudden Patrick looks confused and hides his head in my pile of African fabrics. We all pick up on his emotional shift but his mother and brother, much more astute about Patrick’s emotional states than I, move closer to him and his mom gently begins to brush through his bushy blond hair. Aidan quickly asks me, “Auntie Gwen how long will you be gone?” I tell him, “just until Saturday.” “How long is that,” he replies. I show him four fingers and say, “only four days.” He whispers, “that’s not long” and his mother wholeheartedly agrees while patting Patrick’s back. Patrick raises his head and looks at me with tears in his eyes and patchy red spots on his cheeks and it’s clear that he had begun crying because he believed I was going to leave once again for a much longer period of time. Still speechless he studies my face and my fingers. Satisfied with the scenario he gets up and everybody prepares to go.
Tuesday and I walk them out and we talk about the next time they would like to come over. It was decided it will be next week before school. I ask about their plans for the weekend but, by then, we are at the car. They managed to walk through a massive pile of mud before climbing into their car seats. Their mother doesn’t seem to mind in the least. Aidan quickly rolls down the window and keeps asking me a series of questions. “Where is the water? Where are you taking Tuesday for a walk? What airline are you taking to California?” Then, while I sit there fully appreciating the fact they are still waving to me out the back window of their car, I realize the Morris code in my head has stopped. As if it somehow got lost, I finally experience utter silence.
In that moment, feeling lost in the silence, I realize what the noise was all about and I sigh…..my enviable struggle – should I stay or should I go?
The fine line between explorer and abandoner was captured in the emotional experience of a dear sweet boy who had lost his aunt, a flawed aunt no doubt; but, an aunt that has managed to mean something to him and an aunt who has left him for one third of his short life to date. To him the thought of losing me again was like the injury pain I referred to in my previous post. To me the thought of staying and the thought of going is equally as painful but I remain thankful that the choice and the struggle are there because a life without it suggests I am not wanted nor needed anywhere in this big loving yet scary world………..
Monday, May 5, 2008
a shadow of sorts
I long, as does ever human being, to be at home wherever I find myself
~Maya Angelou
Strangely enough even though Maya’s words truly resonate within me, I find myself longing for the home I recently left behind; and, this my friend, is the blessing and the curse of the roaming nomad. If one chooses to move around and truly be at home wherever one finds oneself, then they can then say that they have been blessed by the experience of having not one but many homes. The opportunity to explore and settle into a new environment is an unexplainably illuminating experience, and yet, with every new home experience comes the tragic yet ever looming necessity of saying goodbye. Goodbyes are never easy and if anyone says they are then they are minimizing the pain or avoiding the connections. As human beings we are not good at it; therefore, we avoid goodbyes like we avoid the plague. But if we chose to connect and engage with others, then leaving will most definitely be exquisitely painful.
As I sit here thinking about my most recent home, Liberia, I ache. I realize now that I did not consider it home simply because I lived there for an extended period of time; I considered it home because I felt so incredibly understood there. A few exceptional people who knew nothing about my past, nothing about my future, decided to take a risk and let me in. What’s unbelievable about that is that simply based on random circumstance, their pasts have been filled with heinous events and their futures are for all extensive purposes, unknown. I was moved by it all and miss each and every one of them.
It’s nice to come home to my nest in Denver and with every touching reconnection, every sunny day, every walk with Tuesday and every conversation with a curious acquaintance I am reminded why I feel so exquisitely loyal to the life I have created here. It wasn’t handed to me; I earned it by making meaningful interpersonal connections and memories with people so incredibly dear to me that it brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. And yet, for every day, every month, every year that I decide to call another place home, I am left being experienced as a memory, an idea, a shadow of sorts by all the people I hold dear on domestic soil.
Being experienced as a shadow is very painful but truly being present and engaged when we reconnect is a healthy reminder that proximity is not always the answer. Being close doesn’t always solve the problems or make people feel more connected. Sometimes being close allows people to take things for granted; reunions are a chance to express and reminisce. So it seems there is a fine line between comfort and pain when it comes to interpersonal relationships. In fact it is a common belief that a relationship without pain is a relationship not worth having. To some pain implies growth. But how do we know when the growing pains stop and the injury pains begin? Am I an explorer or an abandoner if I close to walk that fine line? And, what happens if I make the wrong choice?
So the question remains can I continue to do this work (and move around as I do) and still hold on to those I hold dear? I fundamentally believe my work is a calling of sorts. For every second of my life I have felt lost, I have felt comfort in the fact that I have always known what I was meant to do professionally. But am I a whole person in any given world I chose to live in if I am chronically leaving it? My biggest fear is that I am in fact living my life as a shadow and am more frequently referenced as someone from the past rather than someone from the here and now.
~Maya Angelou
Strangely enough even though Maya’s words truly resonate within me, I find myself longing for the home I recently left behind; and, this my friend, is the blessing and the curse of the roaming nomad. If one chooses to move around and truly be at home wherever one finds oneself, then they can then say that they have been blessed by the experience of having not one but many homes. The opportunity to explore and settle into a new environment is an unexplainably illuminating experience, and yet, with every new home experience comes the tragic yet ever looming necessity of saying goodbye. Goodbyes are never easy and if anyone says they are then they are minimizing the pain or avoiding the connections. As human beings we are not good at it; therefore, we avoid goodbyes like we avoid the plague. But if we chose to connect and engage with others, then leaving will most definitely be exquisitely painful.
As I sit here thinking about my most recent home, Liberia, I ache. I realize now that I did not consider it home simply because I lived there for an extended period of time; I considered it home because I felt so incredibly understood there. A few exceptional people who knew nothing about my past, nothing about my future, decided to take a risk and let me in. What’s unbelievable about that is that simply based on random circumstance, their pasts have been filled with heinous events and their futures are for all extensive purposes, unknown. I was moved by it all and miss each and every one of them.
It’s nice to come home to my nest in Denver and with every touching reconnection, every sunny day, every walk with Tuesday and every conversation with a curious acquaintance I am reminded why I feel so exquisitely loyal to the life I have created here. It wasn’t handed to me; I earned it by making meaningful interpersonal connections and memories with people so incredibly dear to me that it brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. And yet, for every day, every month, every year that I decide to call another place home, I am left being experienced as a memory, an idea, a shadow of sorts by all the people I hold dear on domestic soil.
Being experienced as a shadow is very painful but truly being present and engaged when we reconnect is a healthy reminder that proximity is not always the answer. Being close doesn’t always solve the problems or make people feel more connected. Sometimes being close allows people to take things for granted; reunions are a chance to express and reminisce. So it seems there is a fine line between comfort and pain when it comes to interpersonal relationships. In fact it is a common belief that a relationship without pain is a relationship not worth having. To some pain implies growth. But how do we know when the growing pains stop and the injury pains begin? Am I an explorer or an abandoner if I close to walk that fine line? And, what happens if I make the wrong choice?
So the question remains can I continue to do this work (and move around as I do) and still hold on to those I hold dear? I fundamentally believe my work is a calling of sorts. For every second of my life I have felt lost, I have felt comfort in the fact that I have always known what I was meant to do professionally. But am I a whole person in any given world I chose to live in if I am chronically leaving it? My biggest fear is that I am in fact living my life as a shadow and am more frequently referenced as someone from the past rather than someone from the here and now.
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