Three6ix5ive's Blog
Three-hundred sixty-five days. One at a time.Day 359: Goodbye Part III
I overslept. Dammit. It’s about 6am and I meant to wake up at 3:30. I’m about halfway done packing and I am getting on a plane at 12:45.
Why do I always leave these things to the last minute? Ok, it’s gonna work out, because it’s gonna have to. One of the things I like the least, is being in my bed when I don’t wanna be. I don’t know exactly why, but sleeping when I could be awake just seems a bit silly to me. I’ll get this all done.I’m making pretty good headway on my room when I’m summoned downstairs by Rachael. Nicky’s dad is here to pick him up.
Oh damn, one more housemate down. I’ve seen such an evolution in Nicky during this year. It’s funny how long the group hug lasts when he gets going. For this guy who himself claims he’s “not a cuddly guy” I know he’s gonna miss us. I go back and forth wishing I could be the first or the last to leave. Right now I kinda wish I’d been the first to go. My second to last goodbye is tough.I finish packing with barely any time to spare. I realize that although I am “done” my bags are ridiculously heavy and I don’t have enough time to really help clean up and help Rachael mail Nate’s boxes. But I am really relieved to have the packing out of the way.
Man I am sooo lucky to have someone so great helping me. No way I would have gotten things packed if Rachael hadn’t been there. She was also sooo gracious when we realized there would be no way I could go to the post office with here and make my plane. I wish I coulda helped her out, but also it’s a big, fat, ego-stroking compliment when someone asks me for help lifting something heavy. It kinda sucks if I can’t deliver.We head to the airport and I’m trying not to think about the leaving too much right now. It’s not that difficult when I have the thought of missing my plane filling my head. It’s close. Take off is 12:45 and it’s about 12:00 when we get on the highway. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Well, I guess I could get an extra night in Buffalo. Not too bad… though it would cost me. We get to the airport at about 12:15. Props to Rachael!
I think in the car I made it a grand total of about 3 minutes before sporadic sentences that sound like “You know, this year has been good” and “I just want you to know how much I appreciate you” start to emerge from my mouth. Why do I suck at words so much some times?!?At the counter, I fork over 50 bucks for the extra 16 pounds in my checked bags. Ouch! The Southwest employee sternly reminds me no less than 4 times how important it is that I proceed straight to the gate without stopping. It’s 12:20 now and my plane is boarding so in my eyes… I’m right on time. Rachael walks with me pretty much as far as she can go before she has to buy a ticket. We hug and exchange our long goodbye before she has to leave. I take my bag but before I get called up to the TSA attendant I look back to see if I can wave goodbye. I can’t find her and I burst into tears. And then I’m that girl. It’s over I guess.
Rachael really went as far as she could before airport security really should’ve tackled her. I love that. I had been avoiding the tears as long as I could. I don’t have one of those TV cries. No. My eyes puff up like Kirby. I get a snot trail like it’s my job and my lungs get terribly confused. So… mission failed. As I step up to TSA I wonder if my cellophane emotions will get me through security faster. They don’t. I get to my gate just as they close the doors and I have to have southwest reopen them so I can get on the pane. Soon we’re in the air. Like I said, right on time.Bye.
8/11/10
Day 106: First Snow
Rabbit Rabbit.
I hate winter. I hate seeing my breath in the air. I hate that sneaking suspicion… are my toes wet or just cold?? I hate wearing two layers of pants. I hate it!
So this year when Buffalo made it 235 days between snow seasons ( Think this is like the 3rd or 4th longest since 1884) I wasn’t frowning. I was, however, driving.
When I miss the bus to work, I usually take the house car. It’s about an hour wait between buses, and driving actually takes me half as long. I just have to give up the serenity of an hour on the bus. On the way home from work today I see something great. An SUV stalled in the middle of a large intersection that enters a major road. As soon as I come up to the red light I see a sedan full of young guys rush over to the SUV. In about 7 seconds flat, they get thing in neutral and off into a nearby parking lot. What a wonderful act of kindness.
I’m learning all kinds of things about kindness this year. St. Johns Outreach Center = Kindness 101. Learning how far a little kindness goes and how dark it can get when you miss that piece. Kindness is simple and monumental. I share my office with two employees of a group called Pathstone. They are being so secretly kind to me and keeping me sane. Carl shares his wisdom with me and Marcell shares his calm. I feel really lucky to be here.
12/1/10
Day 238: Community Living
I am in love with intentional community and am learning a bit better what that word “intentional” means.
I have been a part of three intentional communities in my life I think.
FLF aka Feels Like Friday. This is the close group of friends that formed at the beginning of my freshman year of college with one goal: to be friends… on purpose. We celebrate anniversaries, birthdays, half birthdays. We visit and vacation together. We have silly little traditions. And well, we do it on purpose. Admittedly, things have been harder since we’ve graduated, but FLF still goes on.
Project Fresh This is a dance group formed at Notre Dame. Project Fresh is a family though and our sessions are about a lot more than dancing. I originally joined because my roommate and I wanted to do something together for some roommate bonding. She got the chicken pox and I stayed in the group long after the one little show I’d planned on doing. It served as my much-needed therapy for Dance Co. of Notre Dame and St. Mary’s Dance and even Welsh Fam dance. Out of all the dance groups I belonged to, P Fresh was the most pure and the most holistic. We danced together, ate together, prayed together and really let ourselves become a part of one another’s lives. The family keeps growing with every new class, but alums know you never leave Project fresh. It’s like the mob I guess… well one of our mottos is “Join our army”
Then there’s the CCSC or Catholic Charities Service Corps. This is an intentionally intentional community. There are all kinds of different definitions and ideas of what that means. My small community, me and my 3 housemates, decided to define together what community means. We asked what our challenges were, what we needed, and what we hoped for. This was one of the most powerful community “nights” for me in the year. Well it wasn’t much of a night, it was two activities on two days about a week and a half apart. And it was the most powerful community night for me.
Community has its ups and downs. The challenges of living with others and not just next to them are great. I purposely left out our definition of intentional community (though it had a lot to do with that last sentence there) so that you could think about it. Maybe you are in one now, or about to be, or want to be, but think about it anyhow. What does that mean, intentional community? Feel free to use friends, google, God, or Roald Dahl to help you figure it out. Just figure it out and then maybe… try it. For two weeks… 3 months… 9 months… a year… a decade…
Intentional Community Resources
- www.ic.org – gives you information about different intentional communities including eco-villages, co-housing, communes, co-ops, and faith-based communities.
- www.cnvs.org – yerp. All the Christian volunteers please stand up. Looking for faith-based service? Chances are you’ll land yourself in an intentional community. Use the response guide to narrow down your choice. looking for 3 months overseas with less than 10 people in a situation that provides healthcare and a stipend? Found it! Next?
- www.three6ix5ive.wordpress.com – But also blogs like this one. Wanna learn about ashrams? Learn Need to understand volunteer life on a reservation. Understand. It helps.
I’ve realized this year how much better I function in an intentional community. It’s a practice of compassion. Even the very difficult moments are a little more comfortable because of the way the CCSC is set up. I won’t always have 2 designated “support people” I won’t always have a “keeper of the bigger picture” and I am told this is a “seed-planting” year. I have hoped this practice of living lovingly with one another would be fruitful, and I can already see it has been.
Day 167: Oh… You Sounded White on the Phone
So several times a week something very similar to the following conversation occurs:
Outreach member: Hi I’m looking for Gloria.
Me:Yes. How can I help you?
OM: Oh no, Is Gloria in her office?
Me: Yes, I’m Gloria. How can I help you?
OM: You? Really?
Me: Yes, did you need something?
OM: Oh wow! You just sounded white on the phone.
WTF?! It happens at work. It’s happened at school. It pretty much happens anytime someone meets my work, or my voice, or my resume before they meet me. Translation: I didn’t expect anyone black to be accomplished/composed/able to relate to me/outta prison…etc..etc.
Yes, there are those innocent little moments where we recognize simple misjudgments, but there’s no excuse the second or third or seventeenth time. It’s not okay. It’s not a compliment to tell someone how well they’ve done for a black woman. It’s not okay to create these invisible barriers so that when one reaches some mediocre level of success we can praise them for being “good enough”.
I never had this idea in my head as a child. I didn’t grow up thinking I wanted to do well enough “for a black woman”. I’m glad that this invisible barrier wasn’t discovered until I’d grown a little older and more set in my ways. I can’t shrink back down to the expectations the world has for me now.
“Your playing small
Does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people won’t feel insecure around you.”
Marianne Willamson A Return to Love
2/5/10
Day 170: Stop This Train
Stop this train I want to get off and go home again
I can’t take the speed it’s moving in
I know I can’t
But honestly won’t someone stop this train- John Mayer
Yeah i know it’s emo to use song quotes. News flash, it’s a little emo to have a blog, and I tend to be emo sometimes. Anyhow..
I think this is a point many can empathize with whether you are in a year (or two) of service, are a full-time student, full-time mom, are living paycheck to paycheck, have a family, are about to start a new career, are on your own, or you are otherwise not a robot. (For the robots, however, I got you covered here. Eat your heart out Albright-Knox). At day 170, which was early in February, I just about hit a wall. I was tired from all sides and didn’t really give myself the chance to let off some steam. About 4 hours into that Monday, I decided I needed a half-day if I was gonna be of any use at all.
As rewarding as it is, for me, there is nothing like working in human services to make me feel very small and very insignificant. I wasn’t completely ignorant to social service or general public welfare issues before I started the CCSC. But since I have been here, I’ve become more aware of the increasingly large amount of information and experiences I do not know and have not realized. (Unk-unks for you hipster business folks). I’m lucky to have a pretty flexible placement and a home I enjoy coming back to each day.
For people who are about to decide whether or not a program like the CCSC is for them, I just wanted to share my outlook on one aspect of long-term service. I can’t imagine there not being a few… or more times when you just want to throw your hands up and lay your head down. It’s been inevitable for me. And if you are serving compassionately and with a real interest in human dignity (in my opinion and experience), your emotions are gonna get the best of you and sometimes that’s gonna be anger or sadness or frustration or complete and utter confusion. The thing though, is to have some sort of method that allows you to rebound from those points well. It’s like taking part in any kind of intense exercise. As fit as any person can get, you’re body is gonna take a beating at some point and the true test, and goal, of physical fitness is how well and how fast you can recover from the activity you put your body through.
Stop this train. For me, I’ve been fortunate to take advantage of the benefits of community living. I’ve had people to talk to and empathize with. We’ve also laid groundwork and continue to work on our relationships so we can help one another out when needed. It doesn’t make me less tired, I don’t think, to have the CCSC and be a part f the community, but it makes me more comfortable with those moments where I just wanna fall apart. It offers a little strength to rebound. Yep the CCSC is pretty bouncy, which comes in handy from time to time.
2/8/10
Day 220: CCSC Plug Part 1
So this is the time of the year where people usually start stamping down post-graduate service if college is ending.
This time last year I was courting and being courted by a service program I thought was 100% right for me. After I graduated I got the sad news that I wasn’t going to be a part of the service program I had been looking at. I was pretty crushed I gotta say, and it showed. After spending some time moping and cursing and crying I started looking again.
It was the end of June before I found the CCSC while searching for service opportunities on the CNVS website. If you are interested in Catholic Network of Volunteer Service, click here. All programs are faith-based. A variety of different (but as far as I know they’re all Christian) faiths, time commitments, educational requirements, and program structures are offered. After talking with Amy, the program director, quite a bit and thinking things over for some time, I decided to apply for the program. It was June 22nd when I first sent Amy en email. July 23rd was the day that everything finally got squared away. I was in the CCSC, I had a placement, and it felt right. 3 weeks later I was on a plane to Buffalo. I’m recounting that because during that week in June, and various other points in my senior year of college, I was so unsure of my next step it was unbearable. Looking back it, I wasn’t too late for anything. I was stuck in the mindset that says you gotta have August planned out by the time May is ending. That’s BS.
So for those of you are are getting to this page from the CCSC site, let me know if you’ve got any questions or concerns that I could address about full-time volunteer service and even specifically about our program. For those of you coming from elsewhere and interested in service, the same invitation goes out. You can also take a look at the CCSC here(CCSC-izzle Applic-izzle). It’s more to get you thinking and reflecting on some things before you plunge into an application. Don’t worry about right or wrong answers, just don’t say you eat babies or anything. I can’t see that being good.
Peace all.
Day 179: Getcha foreheads dirty!
I’m gonna borrow a lot of other people’s words for today. Today is Ash Wednesday. In the words of my housemate, Nicky, it’s the day where “you get your forehead dirty if you’re Catholic”. Lent is my favorite part of the Catholic year. It leads up to Easter which is my favorite holiday for reasons I am a little bit gray about. I guess I like it when there’s a universally recognized part of the calendar set aside to focus on putting faith in action. Putting your humility where your mouth is. Anyway, I have a lot to say about Ash Wednesday and about Lent, but I’ll say it when the words come to me.
I’ve been thinking for a long time about what kind of intentions and commitments I’d make this season. And what sacrifice would do me well. I want to make a bigger effort to live in a way that is aware of the people here with me. I’m looking to kinda break down my learned standards when it comes to luxury and privilege and such. I’ve had a few ideas that I may share with y’all later. For now I’d like to share a couple of sites and a quote.
I am borrowing words from a woman who borrowed them from C.S Lewis as recorded by Ron Sider. (Yeah this is an MLA nightmare, so please excuse my utter unwillingness to even try and punctuate that)
“Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you & I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may go on to victories you never dreamed of.” If you say, “I’m a student, I’m too poor to be materialistic or to worry about downsizing my lifestyle,” you will miss the chance of making value-based decisions which will shape the rest of your life.
Wurd.
Globally Significant Lifestyle à la John 3:17 – Step back and see a bigger picture when it comes to needs, wants, service, and stewardship. Wondering how much of the world lives (or more like survives) off less than $1 a day? Find out.
Millennium Development Goals – The UN’s special project to save the world. never heard of it? It’s kinda a big deal.
2009 World Hunger Map – A visual representation of where hunger lives in the world. Please just take a look. Ask questions. Look for answers. Find more questions. Repeat.
US Poverty/Hunger Map – Quick facts about hunger and poverty in different states. Note: Hunger in the world view and hunger in the US view are two very different things. And about “hunger”… in 2005 some people in suits decided to change the terminology for hunger to “food insecure”. Guess hunger is too dirty a word.
