When I moved to Seattle, I took a job at YouthCare as a Case Manager for a program called Civic Justice Corps. It was a job readiness program that worked with young adults coming out of prison or jail and was intended to teach these young folks job skills.
I started work three days after I moved to Seattle and after working in San Francisco, working as a case manager with formerly incarcerated folks, first in a court diversion program, then designing and running a post-prison/jail reentry program. Unfamiliar with the Seattle landscape, I dove in like I did in San Francisco because, that's what I do. I learn where I live.
My caseload consisted of 15 young adults between the ages of 18-24, mostly young African American men. Young men with children, young men who never really got to be children, young men who got into trouble for being children.
As I dove into Washington's criminal justice system, I was shocked with the differences in law and policy. Arrest records and juvenile records were showing up on background checks, young folks were getting convicted for "malicious mischief", ban the box was a new concept, kids were going to prison. Where the hell am I?
One of the young men on my caseload was a 21 year old young African American man from the "Souf End" of Seattle who had just been released from a four year prison stint. Meaning he went to prison at the age of 17.
Quiet and cold, he showed up to work with this job readiness training program every day. I didn't appreciate his attitude but I did acknowledge that he was showing up. A couple of times early on, he challenged me and I challenged him in a group setting. I remember pulling him aside one day after a particularly irritating battle, telling him "you are very intelligent, you don't have to prove it all the time. It is seen."
We became friends after that. The final ice breaker was when we talked about how one must grill a cheeseburger. Rapport. Connection. Good energy. Visibility.
I jovially called him by his last name and he, in private and eventually in public, called me his "work mom." He started to make friends with his peers and started to relax and extend his personality. It was fun to be a part of. I encouraged him to get his license and we ended up going to the Department of Licensing four times for that-twice for him to fail his written test, once for him to fail his driving test and finally, to get his license. That fourth time, after he and I had collectively spent about fifteen hours sitting in a licensing office, he walked out of the testing area with a look of pride on his face and an eagerness to share his good fortune. He had passed.
The following day, he showed up to work and out of nowhere, started talking about his family roots in Alabama. He wanted me to google his family's home in Alabama so we did. We went to Google street view and the screen filled up with an image of a mobile home in the middle of a wooded area somewhere in rural Alabama. The family home. I felt his combined energy of pride, roots and determination.
He graduated from that job training program. His mother attended the graduation and he introduced me to her. A small woman who carried her hard life on her face and bones, she was there to support her son, amidst both of their hard circumstances. When he introduced me, he said "tell my mom what I did while I was here" and I proceeded to tell her about the different certifications he achieved, the good work he did and the progress that he had made. She listened intently, longing for hope but bracing herself for bullshit, and finally accepting that some genuine and positive truth had been spoken about her son, relaxed into a feeling of pride. So did her son.
He and I lost touch after he graduated from the program. Life happened and I was his Case Manager. Two years later, I received a letter at work from Coyote Creek Corrections Center. He had been convicted of robbery and sent to prison for five years.
We wrote to each other for the next five years. He attended accounting classes while in prison and I attended graduate school. I listened to his plans and dreams and I kept him updated on what Seattle was up to.
He was released the year I graduated with my MSW. We connected on the phone I congratulated him on his accounting certification that he earned at Coyote Creek and he congratulated me on my Master's degree. We lost touch again and haven't spoken since.
What a beautiful and tangled web we weave. Beauty and love in all of it if you make the right choice and get tangled in it.
Sometimes I cry for the way that we hurt each other.
Sometimes I cry for the way that we hurt ourselves.
Sometimes I cry for the way that we love money.
Sometimes I cry for the way that we have to work so hard.
Sometimes I cry for the way that we really don't have to.
Sometimes I cry for the way that we treat animals.
Sometimes I cry for how well they treat us in return.
Sometimes I cry for the way we hurt women.
Sometimes I cry for the way we hurt men.
Sometimes I cry for the way that all of our tears are disregarded.
Sometimes I cry for how our country is going down the tubes.
Sometimes I cry for how little we do about it.
Sometimes I cry for how little we can do.
Sometimes I cry for how quickly we get old.
Sometimes I cry for how young we never got to be.
Sometimes I cry for all that we have lost.
Sometimes I cry for all that we have and will gain.
Sometimes I cry for the way things should be.
Sometimes I cry for the way things could have been.
Sometimes I cry for the way things once were.
Sometimes I cry for all of them at once.
And that's ok.
Let's all just take the time to do so. That's ok too.
Not long ago, my relationship with someone ended. The catalyst for the end was surprising, the end itself was disappointing and heartbreaking and the aftermath was unsettling. I've had to simultaneously struggle with mourning the loss of what was and what could have been, reconciling the reality of that relationship and navigating the confusing end. It's been hard.
This relationship was ultimately not meant to be but it was not in vain. I learned more about myself than I ever have, experienced a tremendous amount of growth and was challenged time and time again in the lessons of what I want in love, what I bring to love and how important it is to honor myself with love. Another lesson learned is how hard change is, how hard honoring oneself can be, how hard it can be to walk away from something you wanted and how hard but crucially important-for yourself and the other person-it is to walk away with unconditional love for yourself and them.
As the Universe works in synchronicity when you are connected with it, just a couple of days after the end of the relationship, I was invited to Corn Planting Ceremony with my Native brothers and sisters. A gentle ceremony, it gives time to reflect on the past year and look forward to a new beginning. Akin to the planting of corn seeds that will, with love and attention, grow into healthy, enriching nutrition, this ceremony calls upon us to practice the same love and attention in our internal lives so that we may continue to cultivate and enrich our souls and our exterior life as well.
A couple of days at Council House did me good. Fellowship with people that care about me and I them, peaceful rest in the woods and sleeping under the stars in the bed of my truck with nothing between me and the night sky. Intentional reflection around the sacred fire in the Council House calmed my rattled nerves and comforted my shattered heart.
The sacred fire, an important piece of most ceremonies, is started the first morning of ceremony and burns until the end, tended to by all. Since the fire burns day and night, fire tenders sign up for "shifts" to tend to the fire. It is an honorable task. My first shift was mid-afternoon on a 91 degree day and it took strength and courage to sit in the Council House with a hot fire. I was joined by people moving in and out of the Council House but spent most of that afternoon with a twelve year old boy who decided that he'd rather stay in the hot Council House tending fire with me than play in the hot sun with his friends because, as he simply put it, "I like talking with you." I felt honored and greatly appreciated the young, innocent energy that he brought into that afternoon when I felt anything but young.
My second shift, a shift that I was called to take by Creator, was the 4am to 6am shift. Typically an undesirable shift, I committed to it with honor and gratitude and was looking forward to having quiet, peaceful time alone with the Old Ones to ask for love and protection to heal my heart. At the suggestion of one of my spiritual Elders, I brought tobacco to throw into the sacred fire with my prayers.
I set an alarm on my cell phone for 3:45am to be sure that I was up in time to relieve the previous fire tender and spend this time that I desperately needed. I woke up at 3:30am and looked up to see more stars than I could ever recall seeing. Bright stars, twinkling stars, huge clusters of stars that looked like a million galaxies, all shining down on this early morning. It was beautiful.
As a walked towards the Council House, tobacco in hand, I was hit with a sudden pang of anxiety and grief. Could I let go? How hard was this going to be? What was going to happen next, both in the context of this relationship that just ended and with my intimate relationships overall?
I entered the Council House and met with the previous fire tender, a Cherokee woman. We talked for a bit about how the night had gone, marveled together at the starry landscape and, as these things go, an old story, one of Cherokee origin, came into the conversation. While she did not present this story in the context of my current struggles, it hit me like a bolt of thunder in how relevant it was in its synchronicity to them:
How Strawberries Came to Be
In the beginning, First Man and First Woman lived peacefully, although the would sometimes argue, often about trivial things. One day, the couple got into an argument over something trivial, however the argument escalated and both ended up quite upset with each other. The woman, as equally upset as the man, ran off in anger and the man let her go, not interested in talking with her further. As time passed, the man realized that he did not remember what the argument was about and began to miss her. He looked over the ridge and saw that the woman was still running. He attempted to catch up to her but, with her feet fueled by anger, he could not catch up to her. He asked Creator to put forth roadblocks to stop her so that he could reconcile. Creator listened and put up a mountain. The woman quickly went over the top of the mountain and down the other side. The man asked Creator to attempt to block her again. Creator put forth a large forest but she ran straight through with ease. The man asked a third time to block her and Creator put a wide, rushing river in her path. She swam across with ease. After a few more failed attempts, Creator went to the man and said "it seems that she is able to cross these obstacles because she is familiar with them. Perhaps if I put something new and different in her path, it will slow her down" so he put a large field of wild strawberries in her path. Although the woman's feet were still fueled by anger, she stopped to marvel at the sweet smelling, heart-shaped berries and began picking and eating them, enjoying this new discovery. As she enjoyed this bounty, the man was able to catch up with her and soon after, they both realized that neither of them remembered what the trivial fight was about and spent the rest of the day in the berry patch, enjoying the sweet berries and enjoying each other. So when arguments happen, whether they are trivial or not, take time to think of new ways to block the anger and focus more on loving one another than focus on trivial fights and disagreements. In other words, share some strawberries with those that you love.
This story, like all old Native stories, resonated with me in its simplicity and kindness in message. However, it was more than that. Just a mere two weeks before the end of our relationship, I noticed a couple of rogue strawberry plants in my garden. Transplanting themselves, they ended up on the outer edge of my garden in the path. Not wanting to destroy them but also wanting to get them out of harm's way in the path, I offered them to my partner for his porch. We had just bought a bunch of flowers to cheer up his deck and we both agreed that strawberries would add to the joy. I offered to teach him how to care for them along with the other plants, something he was looking forward to. We both were.
That was not meant to be. The relationship
was not meant to be. Fueled by anger, he is running and I have no
roadblocks for his path. Our time together has come to a close, like the
slamming of a door.
After the woman told the Strawberry Story and left, I spent the next hour in prayer. I prayed for him. I prayed for his children. I prayed for strength. I prayed for wisdom gained. I prayed to keep my heart open. I prayed to not make the same mistakes again. Each time I prayed, I threw a pinch of tobacco on the fire. Each time I threw tobacco into the fire, the flames jumped higher, quickly grabbing and taking the tobacco and prayers up to the sky. But when I prayed to get through the overwhelming sadness that I have over this loss and the grief that is drowning my broken heart, the tobacco did not catch fire right away. Instead, it lingered on the wood for a while before eventually becoming engulfed by the flames. I cried. Big, pain-filled tears, I cried.
This sadness will linger for a while. A piece of it may always be there. Or perhaps it will just take my heart a little more time to heal and, like the tobacco, it will be taken up and away when it is time. It is a personal call for me not to rush this particular matter of the heart. I loved him and a part of me always will. Grief is just love with nowhere to go but all things in time.
And again, like the Strawberry Story, the focus must be on unconditional love and gratitude that I have for this person and this relationship, not on the pain and hurt. I do hope that one day, whether it's in this lifetime or another one, we can enjoy some wild strawberries together.
Had some stuff and things on my mind last night so I decided to cruise by the garden then extend that into an evening stroll. On this stroll, I found a little park about four blocks from the garden. Baseball diamond, full playground including my favorite, playground swings.
Playground swings were my favorite as a kid. Floating and flying, fast and slow, I got to be a kid and I got to be a different kind of brave-that kid brave where you swing as high as you can, then leap off of the swing. I was always a cautious kid but that caution went out the window on the swings. I still love them for the same reasons, although I will admit I'm not quite as brave in taking the leap anymore. There's a metaphor for ya.
I spent a good half hour on the swings last night, tripping on the sunset and listening to tunes. My head felt more clear and a little bit of energy was gained back.
I decided to head over there again tonight to play. I've still got stuff on my mind and I'm also trying to be really mindful of keeping a work/life balance at the new gig and be sure to prioritize living life more. My recent stint of funemployment really gave me a chance to appreciate life, warts and all and I'll admit that I like the way that feels. So I cruised through the garden for a minute before heading over to the park. The park was quiet except for a dad teaching his son how to play baseball. As I lifted off, I appreciated the weightlessness. We all carry so much weight sometimes, it's nice to shake it off, even for twenty minutes. The sun peeked out for the first time all day. And I took some time to let some of that weight fly off.
Grateful to have found another neighborhood clubhouse and thinking spot :)
As a kid, eating healthy was not only something that we didn't do, it was something that we weren't taught to do either. My family on both sides have never eaten healthy-lots of processed foods, sugar, carbs. Growing up in Alaska added another element to the formation of unhealthy eating habits. Food is incredibly expensive in Alaska, especially things like fruits and vegetables due to the high shipping costs. In addition to that, the long transport times tend to deliver less than ideal produce. So we grew up on cookies, candy, carbs and other cheap meals. A lot of times in the morning rush, my mom would throw three Rainbow Chips Deluxe cookies on a plate and that was breakfast. I was addicted to sugar by the time I started school, if not sooner. I don't blame her for it-she was in an abusive relationship, struggling with alcoholism, didn't get that education either from her parents and was working a menial government job and couldn't afford healthy foods. I would've done the same thing in her situation.
My weight has fluctuated since grade school and I think I'm once again overweight by about twenty pounds for the fourth time in my adult life. This wreaks havoc on my self-esteem and gives me another way to put undue pressure and criticism on myself. It's a bit of a constant thing.
These habits transported directly into my adult life. At first, I found the taste and texture of fruits and vegetables to be repulsive. They also didn't hit my pleasure center like sugar did-and still does. Eventually I got over that but I certainly wasn't eating healthy food on the regular. My depression and sexual trauma feed into my unhealthy eating habits as a subconscious way to try to make myself unattractive or beat myself up while simultaneously provide short lived pleasure and comfort. Fucked up, isn't it?
It seems like 2016 on into 2017 is more shedding of old skin. First it was my relationship to work, then it was my ability to give and receive love. Now it appears to be time to tackle my longstanding body issues and learning how to care for myself in this way as well. There's a steep learning curve here-I wanted to buy beets today but wasn't sure what they looked like-but I'm going to do myself a kindness and learn.
This is another reason that my little garden is such a healing place for me at such a divine time. And I did find those beets eventually.
After my contract with UW ended, I was out of a job. I wasn't overly concerned about that, as I was good and done with UW and had an interesting gig ahead of me. I had taken a job working with the small Native village of Kivalina, Alaska. They were looking for a Wellness Coordinator to help create community support and projects primarily focused on youth and young adults but because of the small population, would no doubt affect and involve most of the villagers.
Kivalina is in the Arctic Circle, in an area known as the Northwest Arctic Borough and has a population of just under 500, many of those residents under the age of 18. Less that two square miles in its entirety, Kivalina is only accessible by bush plane. They struggle with many social problems-alcohol abuse, domestic violence, depression and other mental illness and lots and lots of sexual assault-something that Alaska has had a shockingly long and intense reputation around. No accountability for violent offenders and no escape for victims. However, the catalyst for a Wellness Coordinator was the staggering rate of suicide in the Borough and specifically in Kivalina. In the last nine months, three young adults committed suicide.
In January, I spent four days in Kivalina essentially on a working interview. Meeting with villagers, learning more about the current state of the village and how it got that way. I stayed in the only school in the village, a school that had been rated substandard over twenty years ago. The building smelled of backed up sewage, there were three working toilets out of six and none of the showers in the lockers rooms worked. This was the nicest building in town and the only building with plumbing.
I met many villagers-some welcoming, some suspicious-but I was always invited in and fed. All homes in Kivalina and HUD homes mostly building in the 70s or 80s and most all are ranked substandard as well. Holes in floors, broken windows, no plumbing. People literally shitting in buckets. Third world country conditions in the great America that we need to make great again. Amidst all of this, however, were all of these beautiful people! Mothers raising young children, often alone. Grandmothers and grandfathers wanting to spend time with the young people of their village. A Tribal Administrator that wanted something different for his village. And survivors. So many survivors of so many things.
A few villagers that captured my heart were the four young adult interns working with a newly formed project called Kivalina Food Sovereignty Project. The brainchild of my colleague and friend in this adventure, a UW PhD Anthropology student, it was a chance for young adults to invest in their community in a real way. The interns were all in their early 20's but had already lived the lives of someone two, even three times their age. Some of their experiences are ones that many will never have to endure. Their internship was to be five months long and would culminate with a trip to Seattle in May to present at the Indigenous Food Symposium at University of Washington. What an exciting prospect for young people who have never left the confines of Alaska. I remember how liberating it was to leave too.
I was intrigued by the opportunity to work with this village. My heart went out to them regarding their circumstances. I felt good about the opportunity to work with Native people, my people. I found it curious that life had brought me back to my home state almost twenty years to the day. I was up for the interesting adventure that this promised to be. The Tribal Administrator was too and offered me the job. I would spend two weeks on and two weeks of in Kivalina for one year.
About a month later I made my first trip out to Kivalina. The first couple of days I stayed under the radar but by the third day, word had gotten out that there was someone from "down below" staying in the village. I started getting long glances, propositions, questions like "are you wild?". Shit was starting to get real.
It was then that I started to struggle. I had left Alaska twenty years ago because of ten years of childhood abuse, paired with a rape that last year that I was there and numerous other sexual violations throughout junior high and while I was homeless. Like I said before, Alaska has had a shockingly long and intense reputation regarding sexual assault. Now I'm back in Alaska twenty years later and it is all too familiar and a little disconcerting in the ways that it was familiar. Suddenly I was a light sleeper again. Just like that I was on autopilot, looking for vulnerable places in the house that could either be broken into or that I could be cornered in. Surveying the house for all potential weapons and hiding them. Sleeping with a weapon. Triple and quadruple checking the lock on the front door and my bedroom door. Putting force into both doors to see what it would take to break them. Sleeping in the room closest to the front door.
My fifth night there it happened. I woke up at 3am to the sound of boots crunching on the snow. I was up like a shot, sitting in pitch black and completely still. I hear someone fumbling with the door, trying to break in. Oh fuck, they're in. Weapon in hand, I sit on the edge of the mattress in the dark. I hear my door knob jiggle. Yep, he's after me.
I'm up like a shot, light flipped on, phone in hand and foot wedged against the door as I beat on the inside of the door with my heavy Maglite flashlight yelling "who's that?!", being sure to cease from making noise to hear where he is headed. Texting other villagers that I know are safe and are up. I get responses right away and within minutes I had five people coming to my rescue. We found the intruder hiding in an empty bedroom in the dark, highly intoxicated. It was someone that I knew had been tracking me for three days.
The next morning or rather, four hours after the incident, I went to work. Another survival mode practice on autopilot. That day was a blur in a parallel universe-I was harassed and verbally abused by the Tribal President and blamed for the incident. When I asked for my money back for the lodging that I paid for that I was no longer going to use, I was denied and verbally abused some more. I was attempting to make travel arrangements to get the hell out of there but all airports were closed due to a heavy winter storm. Alaska State Troopers weren't able to come out to apprehend my intruder, not that they would have made much of a priority of it anyway. The stress was intense within that situation but that wasn't the only thing going on. A coworker was crying because the young child in her charge had eaten laundry soap and she wasn't sure if he was going to get flown out to a clinic in time to be saved. Another young woman left crying after finding out that her paycheck wasn't ready; she was crying because she owed her father money and she knew he was going to beat her up if she didn't have it for him. I just wanted out but I was stuck.
I spent the next two days riding out the storm by taking copious amounts of NyQuil and sleeping. I spent some time with my rescuers who were so kind to come to my aid and take me in for two days while I waited to depart. I left Sunday afternoon to get to Anchorage for the red eye and was back in Seattle 430am on Monday with another layer of trauma compliments, once again, of the last frontier.
As the shock started to fade, I felt a range of emotions-violation, humiliation, anxiety, depression. That wasn't the hardest part. The hardest part was the deep full circle that this experience was. Sexual violence, violation of space, verbal abuse, victim blaming, Alaska. Almost twenty years to the day. There is a lesson here but I do not understand it.
It took me almost three months and an intense four-day depression crash to understand this lesson. If I were to be truthful however, it is a lesson that has been waiting for me to understand for twenty years. This most recent experience in Alaska was an opportunity, a fork in the road. A do-over. It was the gift of strength in self to decide not to carry trauma in the same old, tired and hurtful ways I had carried it my whole life. It was the universe, in it's strange yet straightforward way, giving me agency to not define myself by my trauma. To no longer carry the shame that had become second skin. An opportunity to forgive myself for the sins of others and be happy. I decided to give that gig a shot.
A few months later and I feel different. Different in the way that I process, the way I carry myself, the way I live in my body and in the world. It's a new way of living for me and I still have a lot to learn but so far I like the road I'm traveling.
Last night I came across the GoFundMe for the young adult interns with the Kivalina Food Sovereignty Project. They are raising money for their trip to Seattle next week for the symposium. They were short of their goal by a bit and without question, I covered the difference which, in an ironic twist was the same amount that I got ripped off for. But I was proud to be in a position in my life to support the hopes, dreams and hard work of these young folks and proud of them for pushing against all odds to find a bigger and brighter world out there besides the pain and trauma that they are so intimately acquainted with.
It took twenty years, a trip to Kivalina, Alaska and four young Inupiaq men and women for me to realize that it was okay to be happy.
"We are never so vulnerable as when we love, and never so hopelessly unhappy as when we lose the object of our love."
Sigmund Freud
I would elaborate on this quote further by saying that we are never so hopelessly unhappy and out of control as when we make the choice, consciously or unconsciously, to push away the object of our love.
I have been guilty of this dynamic. Sometimes called the "push/pull" dynamic or the "idealize/devalue/discard" phase, it is a pattern of behavior that hurts both people involved. The non-clinical description of this dynamic is feeling closeness (idealize/pull), followed by an incident where one or more parties feel hurt and, in reaction to the hurt, push the person away on an emotional level (devalue/discard/push).
This is an incredibly painful process for all involved, regardless of who is "calling the shots". It is exceptionally painful if both parties are participating in calling the shots. The pain magnifies if one or both parties don't realize or acknowledge that they are engaged in this pattern.
These behaviors tend to sprout from the fertile yet toxic soil of childhood and/or adult abandonment, betrayal, infidelity and abuse. It is a subconscious and poorly formed defense mechanism to avoid hurt. However, it is a surefire way to hurt yourself and others.
Andy Weir, author of "The Martian", wrote a short piece called "The Egg". In this passage, he writes "Every time you victimized
someone you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve
done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by
any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”
Thinking of this push/pull dynamic in this context brings different life to it. Why would I want to do this to someone else? Why would I want to do this to myself? Why wouldn't I want to prioritize love and joy? Why do I feel like I don't deserve happiness and love, because someone told me that once? Because someone treated me without happiness and love at different points in my life? Those situations were painful lessons but that's all they were. Lessons.
When you start attending school, your goal is to get to the next grade, obtain the next degree. You don't stay stuck in kindergarten learning how to tie your shoes for eternity. As you walk through life, your goal is to reach comfort, happiness, joy, love, enlightenment. You don't stay stuck in trauma learning how to further traumatize yourself.
So re-frame this push/pull dynamic.
Instead of pushing people away, push negativity, hurt and bad habits aside. Push yourself to love yourself and be happy.
Instead of pulling people in to act as balm to your wounds, only to find out that that's an impossible to task to put on someone, pull people in to love them and let them love you.
Pull good energy in. Push good energy out.
When I went to my first plant ceremony last September, I kept hearing these same words from the ancestors over and over again: "let them love you." On the surface I understood what this meant, felt it was a basic concept. However in practice, it was and continues to be one of the hardest lessons I am learning. I am learning, but I certainly have not graduated from this particular school.
But I am learning. In a recent situation where I felt pushed away, hurt and confused I chose to push negativity out and pull happiness and love in. A hope for happiness for this person and happiness for myself. Love for this person and love for myself. While I felt wounded and frustrated that this person was not seeing their own push/pull dynamic, I acknowledged my own long and arduous journey towards understanding and owning my push/pull dynamic and compassionately understood how hard it is to own this particular dynamic, given how painful and how deeply ingrained it is.
It is not my responsibility to guide this person into seeing the "error of their ways." It's not an error. It's a reaction that hurt and traumatized people engage in as an effort to avoid future hurt. Does it work? Of course not. Does it happen? Of course it does.
My responsibility is to choose to love myself and love the people in my life in an unconditional way. And that includes pulling loved ones in closer and pushing love and energy towards them, even if they can't see it. For with that love and energy comes the confidence and trust that they will eventually see and if they don't see, I can continue to wish them love and peace on their journey even when it doesn't align with mine.
Learn fast and walk slow but in those times that you learn slow and walk fast, love each other anyway.
