Boundaries

This is a post about work. It's also a post about boundaries, mental and emotional ones for the most part. It's also a post about mental health.

I work in a pretty unique environment--a residential facility for youths suffering mental illnesses who need 24hr care. The first time that I came to my work campus I got a bit freaked out because the day was foggy, overcast, and out of the fog loomed this fenced in area with smaller gated, fenced in buildings scattered around it. All of the fences were at least 10 ft high; some of the fences went all the way up and connected at the top. 

(As a testament to the human ability to adapt however, arriving at work, opening the gate with my key and locking it behind me no longer even makes me bat an eye.)

We had to sign a veritable booklet of papers to work here so I don't want to identify it or say too much about it but suffice to say that inside, it's such a different world. Sometimes driving home I look around me and marvel at the people who are walking on the street without concern of them running into traffic, or talking on the corner but freely, without my needing to monitor their conversation so it doesn't stray too far into dangerous territory. That people can work with knives on their own at home, have plastic bags, use a straightener, clip their nails without supervision. That doors open freely and you don't need a walkie-talkie at your ear to hear what's going on. 

Boundaries become critical in a job like mine. Boundaries that prevent you from taking work home and prevent you from becoming friends with the kids you work with. Sometimes that's hard, at least for me, because I'm better at making friends than I am at being an authority figure. But you have to be an authority where I work--you have to round up people who won't listen to you and don't want to listen to you. That requires convincing yourself of having authority. 

There's such a fine line between being nurturing, kind, but also firm in limit-setting. In establishing good rapport but also establishing good boundaries. Honestly, I'm not quite there yet. Man though is this a place to get there. 

I try not to talk about work too much once I get home. Sometimes I can't help it; sometimes it all comes exploding out like a whale that has beached itself in a small town. I feel bad at those times for my patient boyfriend who listens to all of it without saying a word, though that experience must be somewhat akin to being sprayed directly in the face with freezing seawater after you've been enjoying the balmy weather of Miami all day. Sometimes I dream about the kids at my work. That's stressful. Most of the time though, I try to park my work somewhere along the road that takes me back into town. Maybe there, by the stoplight or at least here, once we've passed this hotel. I play music and sing along. It's all to slip out of the hat I wear at work, slip myself thoroughly out of it and stow it carefully (not forgotten or buried) in its proper place until I need to put it on again. I think that's how all of us who work there manage. 

Mental health divides; it divides the healthy and the unhealthy but it also divides those who give it a measure of merit and those who believe illness there to be an inferior illness. The latter is understandable! It's not very productive but the line between brain and biology, between self and body is blurry and has been blurry for a very long time. We're getting better at sharpening this boundary but people's perception tends to change slowly. It takes a lot of momentum to turn a big thing, whether that thing is society or the ideas and behaviors and beliefs instilled across a lifetime. Regardless, I think it all comes down to whether it's productive, whether what you believe and the actions you take actually make a difference. Isn't that the ultimate goal? 

In the end, I go there and do my best in situations that are scary, stressful, but slowly shaping me into being someone that I want to be. Then I come home and I let that all go. You can't carry the burden of other people if you don't take time to rest. I'm inspired by how brave a lot of the kids I work with are and by the very words of faith that I will say to them--it makes sense to feel that way, you are doing so well at holding back your anger, expressing your needs in a gentle manner, letting yourself be sad and vulnerable, giving great peer support, remaining positive throughout peer negativity, I am proud of you I am proud of you I am proud of you. 

Wednesday

Hoo I'm sleepy. But I also ate a lot after coming back from McMenamins because my body has developed a habit of becoming hungry around 10:30-11pm as a consequence of getting off work late. I've noticed that there are definite food phrases that I go through: not too long ago it was celery/carrots with ranch dressing, then string cheese (phase that is slowly being left behind), and I think that the next phase is cinnamon-sugar toast.

NOT artisan cinnamon-sugar toast. SCREW artisan toast. 

It was nice getting a beer with Aroa and Libby. Walking back in the dark across the quad near our apartment, I looked around and actually felt that Corvallis was familiar and homey for the first time. Not to say that the apartment doesn't feel like home--it does, partly because I'm a huge homebody and need to establish some place that is both physically and mentally home base, and partly because we do inhabit this apartment after all. But I think that I haven't yet adopted Corvallis itself, through the landmarks and roads may be recognizable. Granted, there really isn't very much to learn, in terms of the city's layout, since Corvallis is so small. 

So it was pretty cool to get a little jolt of Corvallis-the-city-as-home, while walking back. I think that it may have been due to meeting up with friends while Scott's gone on his research cruise. Like I'm making the city more "mine." 

I picked up a shift at work today so I was there from 8-4:30 (due to a meeting after my shift). There was an abnormally high number of staff on unit today which made it a loooot smoother and easier. I wish that we could maintain such high client:staff ratios all the damn time so it's not just five frazzled staff dealing with 15 even more chronically frazzled and high needs kids. But! No work until Sunday! Which I'm tempted to ask off of, just so that I can have a full day weekend day with Scott since he gets back late on Saturday I believe. Also because this job is such high stress sometimes.

It was one of those rare gloriously sunny days in the Pacific Northwest* so after work, I went on a run. It felt like I was running through molasses, but now feel much more relaxed than I have in a long time. I saw some interesting purple flowers near the side of the road which I have since tried to google "purple flower like a bell hanging down with criss-cross pattern" and "small bell-like flower that hangs down" and other iterations, one of which somehow led me to a google image result of nothing but purple dresses (?). Maybe they were clematis, I have no idea. 

I'm a bad person. I picked some daffodils from the street. They grow everywhere here! They're like weeds, near the side of the highway! Just like tiger lilies used to be in Wisconsin.  

Okay I'm going to stop writing now. 

* Sophisticated Asterisk Usage Time. I have a theory that people in the Pacific Northwest are so rabidly in love with the Pacific Northwest partly because of these rare sunny days. It's like being in a relationship with someone who is usually distant, rather overcast, doesn't really respond to your feelings or emotions and likes to rain on your parade but who also SUDDENLY will shower you with warmth, and light, and affection, and sweetness. Everybody gonna get addicted! Classic emotionally manipulative relationship right there. 

musing 1

I haven't written anything here in a long time. 

It's something I'm not even sure is that helpful, or even that meaningful, but it was something that I mainly enjoyed. So I'd like to do it again, even if it's just short and brief and every now and then. 

Today I'm wondering about black and white photos. Namely, how we connect with them. I always find it particularly interesting to see manually colored versions of b&w or sepia pictures.

for instance: http://petapixel.com/2012/01/17/famous-black-and-white-photos-with-color-breathed-into-them/

How transformative! The b&w pics are so obviously of another time and I think just having that knowledge gives them an air of history--a significance, a weight. Obviously those are pictures of famous people who are plenty weighty historically already but even if he subjects were ordinary people, the subconscious association with "Past" subtly flavors how we perceive the photo, I think. 

Once they're colored, they become a lot more mundane. B&w is a pretty forgiving photo medium. It smoothes out imperfections of color but at the same time it gently blurs away life. Aside from the knowledge that b&w photos are old and thus weighty, that distancing from color and life also makes them weightier. Meaningful. Like statues of ideals of people rather than real people.

Color makes the people ordinary, makes them beings who breathed and ate and pooped and got back pains and lost things and drooled in their sleep.

Sometimes that's hard enough to remember about living people today. 

The End

Words

I don't know if I've always felt this way but I am far more comfortable communicating via writing than I am through speaking. Words are versatile and beautiful. They give you distance which can translate into perspective and function as ladders to climb between thoughts or probe deeper into them. Words give you time to frame a coherent reply or express yourself more succinctly and eloquently than anything you could call up on the spot in the moment. 

Sometimes a whole sentence can pass through my mind with no meaning extracted from it. Instead, I listen to its cadence. Some sentence are metaphors for stories, with an introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, end. But they're not just meaning--they're sound too, sound as expressed by the mental voice reading in your head. And some sentences can have a sound to them that are metaphors for songs. Certain words fit better than others; certain phrases end a paragraph with exhilarated sigh, not with a bang but with a profound reverberation of meaning and sheer sound: 

"...for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Buendia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth."

Words can make chills go down your spine. The agreed upon patterns of letters can convey enough information to elicit a physical reaction from your body. 

Poetry--good poetry--is a miracle. Spoken word makes me hold my breath without even realizing it, exhaling only with that ringing silence that comes after the final word, the final chord, before people raise their hands and break its almost physical presence with the sound of applause. I love that moment and if it's a good one, it raises the hairs on my neck. 

Lyrics to songs dazzle me. They straddle two worlds. They put meaning on top of meaning, layering semantics over the meaning found in music itself, creating a palimpsest. A climactic melody supports the words that go along with it--just listen to any Disney song where the hero/heroine finds their way. But instrumental music can express plot just as well as sung words and sometimes even better. It can express the unspeakable. Put the two together and what do you get? Words that detract from song? Song that distracts from words? Or something created between the two that adds up to more than either.

I find it hundreds of times easier to communicate by writing things out but I accept that not everyone feels that way. And sometimes I wonder if resorting to writing is putting distance not only for perspective but also for safety--as if by writing we can edit ourselves and experiences to a safe, unemotional hands-length away. I don't know the answer to that. But there is something beautiful in arranging and perceiving words, something beautiful and critical that may not be sufficient for the human condition but which I believe is pretty damn near necessary for it. 

Beep Beep

Hello there :) It's been awhile. I don't even know if anyone reads this anymore but for once in my life I'm going to not analyze why I'm doing this or who my audience is or anything meta like that. I miss writing my thoughts out on here because it forces me to produce roughly eloquent sentences instead of conveying my thoughts in run-on ones that don't come to a significant point. 

What have I been up to? On the surface, not too much. I've been working at University Book Store as a seasonal temp. They pay very little but at least it's something and at least I'm suffering. That may sound weird but it's one of the reasons I wanted to get a job like that. I've never really had to clock in, clock out, eat my lunch/dinner in 30 minutes, and remain unflaggingly cheerful to people I don't know at all. As someone who's fascinated by people in general, retail's a great way to just observe. People begin to blend together, except for the ones that stand out for some reason: the impeccably made up older Southern lady who locked her keys in her car and had to wait in the store for almost an hour, talking too loudly into her cell phone and calling me "dear." The short Spanish man who basically taught me about the fancy pens or at least let me kindly fumble my way into learning about them while helping him out. The old German man named Klaus who needed University seals, or was it paperweights, and he was sure someone at the store showed it to him before and what kind of name is Connie? There are those kinds of customers but mostly everyone starts to look the same and sometimes you embarrass yourself saying hello again to someone who just walked by. 

I like that though. To know that people are more similar than we think. To see people buying gifts for their nieces and nephews and grandchildren in Florida, California, Colorado, knowing that each personal niece, nephew, grandchild is unique but the experience of caring for someone far away can be repeated so many times amongst unknowing strangers. I don't know any of these people (except for Peter, my old Neuroscience professor who bought something one day) and I don't really care about any of these people but in a benign, distant half-senile avuncular way I wish them all well. 

There's a lot I disagree with when it comes to retail and the tip of consumerism iceberg it represents. But I'm learning so much too. I would never want to work in retail forever but I'm glad I'm having this experience, despite not wanting to go into work on Sunday...or any day really. I call it suffering because sometimes it is so mind-numbingly boring for eight long, tedious hours on your feet but maybe that's too strong of a word. I mean unpleasant. I mean soul dullingly boring. I mean painful. That's what life is, having to be able to endure such adjectives. I like all my coworkers at least and it's teaching me to be more confident with strangers. 

Other than that I've been trying to be more creative, reading good books, cooking things, and going outside. Here are some pictures. I've been walking and running in Owen Woods and Garner Park. The trees are in Owen, on a breathtakingly cloudy, cool day in which the vastness of the sky hung over the prairie and the trees stood out like bones. I LOVE weather like that. Standing on the hill looking out in the distance with my cheeks chilled, slightly out of breath from hiking upwards, is so profoundly real and unadulterated it makes me feel wild.

 On the right is the beautiful award-winning bird shelter on Garner Park, designed by Stuart William Gallagher. What a incredible sight! I'd just come from rambling around in the little forest bordering Garner (lost the path a few times and had to climb over some fallen trees) then came out and went up the hill to this view. It's so proud, all clean lines and open sky. It was really cold that day but the sun was shining. This was the day after the Owen picture so the contrast of cloud and sun was amazing. 

And these are garlands Kelly and I made at the library yesterday for craft night. My camera failed me on this but the clouds were cut out of old books using a die-cut press thing. The book pages had been unsuccessfully tie-dyed in a previous project but I thought it looked interesting. I cut the raindrops out of blue cloth scraps and all the pieces were sewn together on a sewing machine. 








I've also been trying to figure out what I want to do in the future, which has necessitated asking some big questions and then asking them again. I'm not sure about a lot of things but I do know you can only move forward. In that case, I've also been trying to become better at keeping in touch with the people who matter and letting go of those who might not have a good influence. I'm trying to believe in myself no matter the path that I take or the choices I make, and letting myself inhabit all that I'm worth. It's not easy but every day feels meaningful at least.

The Post-Facebook World

Well, my own little world, not the larger one. Here are my observations on no longer having a facebook:

-It's harder to get in contact with people. A couple of times now I've thought of people who I'd like to contact but don't have a means to get ahold of other than through facebook. People who are in that watery grey area between acquaintances and friends, or even people who are solidly in the acquaintance ring, can fall through the cracks because you can't reach them. Most of these types of frienquaintances aren't in your phone or email address list. Facebook allows you to connect with those types and without Facebook, short of creepily showing up where they work, it's kind of impossible to get in touch.
The Flip Side: It makes those people you do get in touch with--and stay in touch with--more meaningful. It reveals how far you're willing to go in order to reach someone. It makes those connections more authentic. I fully understand the merits and necessity of casting a large social net but I think I'll always be someone who assigns more value to relationships that require some tangible effort to meet up or talk.

-It's easy to feel alone. Because face it (or maybe Facebook it, ha ha), there's some degree of connection in scrolling through a friend's pictures or reading their status posts. I really do miss seeing pictures of those I care about on Facebook.
The Flip Side: It's easy to feel alone on Facebook too. At least for me. And after awhile, scrolling through 67 pictures posted by your friend to a recent album just gets bland. Habituation, that inescapable affect-leveler, just comes in and rolls all over your interest. Seriously, if someday a pill were invented to prevent habituation, suddenly relationships and even mundane tasks would be completely revolutionized.

-It's harder to talk to people. This isn't quite the same as staying in contact with people. I'm talking about Facebook chat, mostly. Since Facebook has become the social media website of everyone's choice, most of real-time talking takes place on Facebook--since everyone's already on it all the time. That means there's less people on Gmail and...well, Gmail.
The Flip Side: Not sure if there's a really clear Flip Side to this one, since it would be nice to chat with more people. Perhaps it's just the whole existential crisis of short-term chatting versus having a real conversation in person. But that's the same Flip Side as the first one. So, jury's out on this one.

-It's harder to do group things. Facebook's event tool does make it a lot easier to initiate group events and sometimes people forget the person who's off of Facebook or it takes more effort to get ahold of that person.
The Flip Side: Um? I like Facebook events. All I can think of is that Facebook events never really accurately reflects who's attending and who's not. There's like a built-in Facebook Event Factor of Adjustment for every Yes, I'm attending that also accounts for the more-likely Maybes.

-Your information is yours. Granted, your information's being made NOT yours in many other ways just simply being on the internet. Furthermore, all the information that was once on your Facebook is still out there, somewhere, and accessible. But the abstract part of me does take satisfaction in the thought that my info isn't being sold to companies through Facebook, that auto-played video ads won't show up in my newsfeed (for all y'all who use fb on your smartphones), that I am not being mined like a fat vein of binary ore. At least through Facebook, currently.
The Flip Side: It's happening through everything else on the internet.

All in all, I personally still think that the benefits of not having a Facebook outweigh the costs. There are days when I really want to log on and see faces, hear news; those are the days my friends meet Connie Who Needs A Facebook Fix. But after I'm done scrolling through a few minutes of information, I'm happy that by closing the website/app and handing the phone back to my friend, I've returned to Facebooklessland.

Onward

It's coming to that time of year again. I love listening to crickets chirping in the cool night, nights cool enough for blankets. Fall is always such a nostalgic time for me, bittersweet yet exciting from enough years of school beginnings to evoke a conditioned response: things ending, plants dying, CLASSES!!
Only this year is different. There aren't any classes, or any beginnings, to look forward to. I really should've done more job searching/life figuring out/anything really earlier this summer. But no matter, it's too late to agonize over it so all I can do is send out my applications now and recognize that all things pass. We make our way through all moments.

I'm looking forward to going out west. Hopefully Scott won't be road-tripped out because I intend to properly do the whole thing: Glacier, maybe Banff, Olympic National Park if I can finagle it. Mountains! Forests! Oceans! Part of me has been longing to see mountains for so damn long. I remember flying to San Francisco and looking down over the Rockies, thrusting out of the ground like the bones of the Earth. Ribs for our world. Even diminished by airplane distance they were formidable, texture in an otherwise textureless view. From a plane textures get lost but patterns get highlighted--that's why flying over farmland is so interesting. I love looking at the patchwork quilt of farms in Wisconsin separated by strips of forest. Every now and then there are circles in the fabric from weird circular irrigation sprayers.

Anyway, that'll be my view flying back, which is something I have been avoiding imagining. I'm generally pretty good at holding my emotions back in public but I'm worried I won't do so well this time.

Looking forward into the future terrifies me. The idea of not knowing makes me uncomfortable. But if you think about it, there are so many things we can't know. I was talking to a friend about the future, specifically about how far down the future we should cast our minds. I think that while planning for big things is very important after a certain point it becomes counterproductive to think about what point B will look like or how we'll get there. That one quote by that one guy with Maria in his name (Rainier Maria Rilke and the poem is this) keeps coming to mind lately. It's a lovely sentiment and one that I'm slowly, slowly trying to meld with a voice in my head (that sounds a lot like my mother) saying "you must find an appropriate goal and act accordingly to achieve that goal in your life BE IN SCHOOL." Who knows? I've been told that I'm idealistic and rigid in applying those ideals. Maybe that's true because it seems to me that if you choose one school of thought you can't subscribe to another one--if you are a Wanderer Liver Into Answers (ha, liver) then you can't be a Planner Straight To Grad Schooler. But maybe life is a patchwork of schools of thought and I just don't know how to sew them all together yet.

A lot of my friends are going away, going abroad. I've been pretty happy not having a facebook these months but I miss staying in touch over that. It's easier particularly because a lot of my friends don't use gmail or gchat anymore. There's something to be sad for short but more frequent communications of the sort that facebook enables. But I don't want facebook to be giving me video ads or selling my newsfeed rights to companies. I know that google and a plethora of other online entities already do that but I can't opt out of google, realistically. I don't know. We'll see.

I'm really looking forward to Scott coming home. But tomorrow, Devil's Lake with a geophysicist!! That'll be fucking awesome.