More of the Same

It has been over two weeks since I posted anything which usually means I’ve just been too busy to sit still and type. Unfortunately, this time it has way more to do with a lack of things to write about. It is close to spring break time and i think everyone has sort of hit that point in the year where days start running together and habits grate on nerves and everyone is just sort or in need of a break. Despite that, work is still going pretty well. The week before last I got to shadow one of the site supervisors. I just rode around with him to all his different sites. It was neat to get to see everything that actually goes into coordinating that many volunteers, supplies, and contractors, but it meant that I mostly rode around all day instead of doing actual building. I sort of missed dirt under my nails aspect, but this last week I was right back at it. I worked at a few different houses doing all sorts of things, but I’d have to say the highlight was ripping out and rebuilding some stairs. Part of that process required nailing into concrete which led to the introduction of my new favorite tool. Everyone, I’d like you to meet the hammer driven powder actuated concrete nailer. It’s awesome! You put the nail in the bottom, a gunpowder cartridge in the middle, then hit the top with a hammer and it shoots the nail thru the wood and into the concrete. My supervisor that day got quite a kick out of my delight and he said he’d try to request me as a volunteer for next week so I can use it on one of his other sites. Hope that works out. Other than that not much has been happening. There is something for us to do almost every day after work so we usually don’t get home til close to 7 and once everyone has eaten and showered its pretty much time to call it a day. Doesn’t leave much time for adventure. Fortunately, Thursday evening marks the beginning of our spring break and I will be flying far away to New York City. It will be a much needed break and I can hardly wait to see my dear friend Renee. It is hard to pin down which is more exciting—-all the things we’ll be doing, or the simple fact that I will have four whole days away from my team and the monotony of grey and khaki. Regardless, I know it will be fantastic and I feel certain it will result in many blog worthy happenings. I suppose the only other thing worth mentioning at this point has to do with the local landscape. I had no idea Indiana would have such lovely sights. It is only about a five minute walk from our house to the shore of Lake Michigan and from there we have a perfect view of the Chicago skyline.
On a lunch break one day, I got to go on an adventure to Mount Baldy, hike up a huge sand dune, and actually walk out on a huge iceberg type thing that lined the shore. It was beautiful. I had forgotten that sandy beaches with views of nothing but water weren’t exclusive to oceans. One of LARRI's volunteer houses is only about 500 yards from the water and I got unload some lumber there one day. Once again, breathtaking. So yeah, at least that has been a pleasant and much appreciated surprise.

Gary Idiana Gary Indiana Gary...

I have another story for you- less whimsical than the last, but with an even better ending I think. A wonderful thing happened today. We were working at this sweet old lady’s house and I started talking to her about her plants. She asked if I liked plants and I said “oh yes, and I miss mine very much.” We kept working- painting, trim work, light masonry (my favorite!)- and at the end of the day here she comes with this tin can full of clippings, hands it to me, and says “here you go, see what you can do with these.” I had to fight back my usual involuntary squealing, hands waving, leg lifted, excitment reaction, but I didn’t want to frighten her…she really was rather old. I got them home and sorted them out and found homes for them. I’d been wondering how in the world I was going to make it through spring without something to care for and now I have 7 new friends to tend to.
I know they look sad, annoyed, and perhaps even a bit disappointed that their new homes strongly resemble discarded beverage containers, but I hope that after a week or so they will realize how appreciated they are and perk up a bit. It is unlikely they will be allowed to come home in the van with me, but for the next month I plan to love them and care for them and see what happens in the time that we have- sometimes that’s the best you can do. At the very least, I get to have a hobby again for a while.
So far Indiana has been treating us quite well. We are here working with Lakeshore Area Regional Recovery of Indiana (LARRI) repairing houses that were damaged in the terrible floods of September ’08. It’s amazing how much is left to be done. It looks like we will be doing quite a variety of work and I think I’ll be enjoying most of it. The painting gets rather old, but yesterday we got to tear up some tile floor and I hear we should be doing some dry walling and carpentry jobs, so that will be fun. The housing is wonderful. We have big, beautiful, old house with 2 kitchens, a brick street out front, wireless internet, and only three people to a room. Pretty nice. The hardest part to get used to is definitely the driving. On our last project, it wasn’t uncommon to go multiple days without driving anywhere; here we spend a good 2 hours a day shuttling back and forth. Seems like such a waste.
Last weekend was quite a treat. I found out a few weeks ago that one of my favorite college roommates and her husband now live in Chicago, which happens to be about 40 minutes away from where we are staying. Friday right after work I headed to the metro station, rode into the city and got to spend the weekend with Jessica and Nathan. It was wonderful. We did some long overdue catching up and Saturday I got to spend about five hours at the Art Institute of Chicago. The last time I was there was on a family vacation in about eighth grade and the experience was rather pivotal in forming my understanding and appreciation of art. It was great to be back there again and get to stand in front of the same painting that changed my whole perspective so many years ago. Back then, my life plan was to graduate college, move to Chicago, get a job at an engineering firm, get a big dog, and go for daily runs along the waterfront. I got the college part out of the way, but the big dog is really the only part of the old plan that still has any appeal. Funny how things change like that. To top it all off, Sunday night I had the chance to hear Punch Brothers (an awesome bluegrass band with mandolin player Chris Thile) play at the Old Town School of Folk Music. It was an incredible concert and an overall wonderful night. Old friends, new friends, old places, new music- what more could you want out of a weekend?
Okay, laundry’s done, time to go.

A Silly Story About an Unseasonably Sunny Day

I think this morning the sky found a box of crayons. I think he opened it up and found one that shared his name. He got excited at the lovely shade of blue he saw and wondered if perhaps he looked like that too. He hovered over a pond but found the mushy ice made for a disappointing mirror so he convinced the sun to beat down on it to wear away the ice. Sun made quick work of the stale ice, but Sky then found Wind, still bitter though no one could even remember why, pacing forcefully across the water's surface in a hopelessly distracting manner. Sky politely asked wind to hold off a while to give water a chance to rest. As everything settled and his reflection came into view, instead of the vibrant color of his namesake crayon, all Sky saw was a pallid, grayish blue. He wasn’t prepared for this. He was angry; he was sad; he was ugly. Before he could stop himself the tears had filled his eyes and began to streak his face. The big, warm tears rained down on the earth and as the last patches of dirty snow began to melt away, he seemed to feel a bit better, perhaps even a bit brighter. He began to ask himself what sky blue crayon had that he didn’t and wondered if he tried a little harder, if he couldn’t just learn to look the same. So he wiped his eyes and pushed away the negative thoughts. He shrugged off winter’s melancholy and tried to remember a more lively time when earth’s inhabitants weren’t afraid of him and splashes of color burst right up through the ground. The happy memories made him smile and when he did, the final gritty layer sloughed off and there underneath was the vibrant, cheerful color Sky had forgotten he knew how to be. The clouds clustered together in little groups to talk about how happy they were for Sky and the sun gathered behind them like little fans so the clouds edges shone all silvery gold. The wind no longer felt so angry and remembered how fun it was to take more circuitous routes and add little flips and twists along the way. The grass woke up and began the arduous process off stretching it's tangled limbs and reorienting itself. The sun, happy to no longer be the only one awake, found the strength to beam brighter and warmer than is had for the last several months.
I think what I’m trying to say, is that today it was spring. I know the calendar says we have another couple weeks to go, but today I lifted my face to the sky, I felt the sun, I smelled the earth, I heard the birds and all of them were saying the same thing—“we are tired of this colorless monotony. It is time to wake up and remember how beautiful we can be!”

The End

(this is what happens when you run out of work on a construction site and have no option but to stretch out in the first truly gorgeous day of the year and look for shapes in the clouds while you wait for more caulk to show up)

Leaps and Bounds

My team and I left Sherman Lake last Thursday. Our formal debrief was today. By all definitions the project is over, but I have yet to feel that sense of finality that tends to come when things draw to a close. The best explanation I’ve come up with is that whenever the difference that happened inside you is greater than the difference you feel you made around you, it gets to remain an ongoing chapter until you are finished with its lessons, if ever. It happens with people in our lives, it happens with places, it happens with random sentences we hear that stick with us for decades. Perhaps all I’m trying to say is that I’m not finished sorting out and applying my newly learned lessons, and thus the project seems far from over. So, instead of talking about the facts and statistics of my time as a camp counselor, I find myself wanting to talk about the less tangible things because those are the parts that will stick with me. It has been hard for me to comprehend exactly what happened over the last month. Did I learn, did I grow, expand my world, metamorphose? I would assume anyone who has been forced to confront an irrational fear struggles to really explain the experience. I mean, I spent a few weeks around kids and didn’t die. Big deal, right? Right, except that for me, it was a rather large deal. I am leaving with an odd mix of gratitude, chagrin, and empowerment. All these years I have blatantly refused to make room in my comfort zone for children, citing a broad range of excuses from don’t like, to don’t know how, to not capable of. Now that I can see how grossly blown out of proportion the whole kids thing was, it makes me wonder what other things I may have ignorantly categorized as impossibilities. I mean, perhaps the color pink isn’t inherently weak and vapid. Maybe Chihuahua’s do have a valid spot in the food chain and aren’t just a disgrace to the species. Maybe if I tried it for more than a minute, I could actually appreciate the merits of being organized. Maybe public speaking wouldn’t be so bad if I tried it more often and were better prepared. Perhaps I do have what it takes to be a leader, a teacher, an entrepreneur. I have no clue what other doors I have faultily assumed to be locked, but it would be wasteful and incredibly short sighted if I failed to use this experience as a reminder that just because something seems closed, or always has been in the past, doesn’t mean it is unchangeably so. Sometimes it just takes a few people helping you push. Sometimes it may even take a professional locksmith, and that is okay too. I always feel a bit cheap when I write something for one thing and then use it for another, but I was responsible for writing the closure for our debrief today and I think what I came up with captures the project pretty well and I wanted to share it. I realize my verbose nature has once again taken over, but here it is anyway:

Our team entered into this project with an incredibly broad range of emotions and expectations. Some of us with dread, some with excitement, some with apathy. I think everyone assumed that some sort of learning would take place, but I don’t think anyone was really prepared for the growth and attachment that happened. We were on completely different pages when we arrived but I think we left with at least this one thing in agreement: Sherman Lake is an amazing place where powerful things can happen if you allow them to. We were taught so much about being positive role models, and about the far reaching power of our words and actions. We can all leave proud of the work we did, but what only time will tell is this: to what extent will we let these lessons permeate our own lives? Will Honesty, Caring, Respect, and Responsibility become a new standard for us to measure our own actions against or will they be shoved to the inconsequential corners of our memories along side the terms “broken zipper” and “truddy.” Will we remember how important unconditional positive reinforcement is and the uncanny power of the simple question “tell me more”? Or will we just remember the beauty of heated floors or the pungent stench of cleaning supplies? I know that I for one am leaving a different person. I hope the hole that was blasted thru the borders of my comfort zone is a permanent one and that I remember that even when we are certain that conquering a fear will take more than we have inside of us, it is still a worthwhile endeavor and more often than not we’ll end up surprising ourselves. I hope I remember how important it is to have a good support system and how beautiful it is to see people doing what they are truly good at. What we each take away from this project is completely up to the individual-- we did the work that we came to do, but ultimately, the question is, what will we allow that work to do to us in return?

On a lighter note, Thursday morning we head out for Gary, Indiana. We will once again be doing construction work, but this time it will be on homes damaged during last years flooding. So, for any of you bogged down by my two months of panic driven emoting, take heart- I feel I am returning to solid ground and the existential crisis should be over for a time. No guarantees, but I expect future posts to be much more upbeat and entertaining!

Too Good To Be True

I have approximately one and a half hours away from the kids today, but there are a couple of awesome updates that I really wanted to post. First and foremost, I have now been in charge of a cabin of ten girls all by myself for approximately 6 hours now and everything is going great! I got them and their luggage back to the cabin, spent half an hour helping them create their “community commitment” (basically the set expectations that they want to set for themselves for the their time here. Things like have fun, learn, be safe, make new friends, etc.), got them and everything they needed to lunch on time (and it is truly impressive when they actually remember all they need), got them to the high ropes activity early and helped all but one complete the entire course (my last cabin only had about half complete it, and the one that didn’t this time gave it a great effort but is just really scared of heights), and then got them all bundled up sent out for some sledding and archery. I think its going to be a great couple of days- they seem like really good kids. So whew, and wow, and yikes how much longer til I get to sleep?
Ok, now for the other quite exciting news. Yesterday we found out what our next project will be. I didn’t know this was even an option, but our team will be having a “split project” and will actually be doing two separate projects during round three. For the first month or so, we will be in Gary, Indiana. I can’t remember the name of the organization, but we will be working on rehabilitating damaged houses. Yay, more construction!!! On any other blog that would more than likely be a sarcastic statement, but nope, I’m am genuinely excited about reuniting with tools and getting some dirt back under these all too clean fingernails. Also very exciting is the close proximity to Chicago and all the wonderful opportunities that opens up. After that we will head straight to Iowa City, Iowa and spend the next couple of weeks working with some other organization whose name I have also forgotten doing environmental work. It sounds like there will be some invasive species mitigation and…drum roll please…if the weather conditions are good we should be doing some prescribed burns!!!!!!! Woohoo! I for one am super excited about both projects, but I was a bit surprised by the lack of enthusiasm from the rest of my team. Perhaps they will warm up to them once we finally get a decent night’s sleep and are able to stop obsessively counting our small but constantly moving wards. Speaking of which, it’s about time I head back, get them fed, play some dodge ball, wear them out in the pool, and then hopefully read them to sleep before any homesickness disasters arise. I’ve come a long way, but the tears still totally freak me out.

Unexpected Peace

I only have 15 minutes until breakfast so I’ll have to type fast, but after that I probably won’t have a real break until Friday afternoon so I wanted to make sure and squeeze in an update. You may be as shocked as I am to hear that the kids will be here in less than two hours and I’m not even freaking out. Weird. Last week was surprisingly easy. That school system provided their own counselors (high schoolers, now who thought that was a good idea?) so our job was mostly just to help run the activities. We didn’t have to eat with them or sleep with the cabins and we were really only supposed to interfere if there was a safety concern. I spent most of the time belaying at the climbing wall. It was great. At the same time though, it proved to be a rather unsatisfying week. We didn't really see any growth in the kids, and sure they had a good time, but it could have made so much more of an impact on them if they had let the Sherman Lake staff run it.
This week will be more like the first week we had with kids except that there will be one group of six graders here from this morning thru Wednesday at lunch and then another batch will come and be here thru Friday. I’ll be in a cabin with another counselor for the first half of the week but here’s some shocking news- I’ll be by myself for the second half…and I think I’m okay that!! Crazy, I know, but I've learned so much here and I really think it will be fine.
In other news, this was a pretty great weekend. Thursday was my birthday so we went out for Thai food and then came home, ate ice cream, and watched a movie. We had most of the day off on Friday, and I was able to have them drop me off in Kalamazoo for the afternoon. I went to the art museum, had a lovely lunch, went to a bunch of neat stores and antique shops, and basically just relished the chance to be alone and going wherever I wanted. It was delightful. That evening the YMCA was having a member climb night so we went to help out with belaying. There ended up being a bunch of really tiny kids, like 4 or 5 year olds. I still don’t think I’m very good with them, but I wasn’t really scared of them either. Huge progress. They were actually quite cute. I’m usually too preoccupied with planning my escape to actually appreciate the cute factor. Saturday we ran some errands and went out for dinner. Yesterday, I make heart shaped scones for breakfast, went to church, and then had about an hour and a half free so I opted to go for a hike. I was trying a new trail, which happened to not be marked very clearly and for the first time in forever I actually got sort of lost. Normally no big deal, but we were supposed to be helping move gym equipment into the brand new rec center addition and it was not looking like I was going to make it back in time. With about 25 minutes left, I finally made it back to the trailhead, but then I still had about two miles left to run, in combat boots, in about 7 inches of fresh snow. Not fun. I think I went about 6 miles in an hour and a half, and let me tell you, that snow is brutal. I made it back on time, but I was exhausted and ended up with some pretty obnoxious blisters.
Well, I guess that’s about all I have time for. Have a great week!

Many Deep Breaths Later...

Open mouth insert foot.
I stand corrected.
My bad.
Hmmm, well what do you know?

These are a few of the phrases that come mind regarding my attitude toward children for the last couple of decades. I'm not saying I'm a total convert or anything- I mean, given the choice between a week of manual labor or week with kids, or a root canal versus a day with kids, kids are probably still gonna lose- but turns out they are reasonably tolerable after all. The first day I had three goals: don't puke, don't pass out, and don't cry. I was all dizzy and sweaty and could barley get anything down during breakfast but it only took a couple of hours after the kids showed up to backup out of my panic zone and start functioning like a somewhat normal individual. I mostly accomplished my goals- I did cry, but it wasn't in front of the kids, so I don't really think it counts. After completing day one with unexpected ease and lack of disaster, day two came with a massive knot in my stomach that hung around all day. I think I was just so certain that I would fail in some spectacular manner that the anticipation was too much to handle. By day three I was beginning to realize that I may not end up cowering in a corner after all and that since none of them had fallen off a cliff or openly expressed their distain for me, there was a reasonable chance that it wouldn’t happen at all. In fact, they kept hugging me and wanting me to sit by them and teach them more yoga and all kinds of weird stuff like that. The day started fairly well but by the afternoon my patience reserve was running on empty and by this afternoon I was quite content watching those busses drive away with all their noisy, smelly, clingy, adorable contents. Overall, I think I really did a remarkably good job considering what I was up against. My co-counselor was wonderful (both with the kids and with me) and I think we did a pretty good job sharing the lead and making sure everything was covered. We got really lucky and had a great cabin of girls.
By the end, I was fairly comfortable interacting during activity times when there was something to actually do. Meal time and free time were still a little shaky. I'm just not a terribly social person and I would rather just be sitting in the background watching instead of trying to keep people entertained, but fortunately Erin was really good at getting them talking or excited about time filler games. So yeah, I'm alive, I'm convinced that I'll survive three more weeks of it, and as much as I hate to admit it I actually had a reasonable amount of fun this week. I'll be interested to see how I handle the first morning for this next go around. I'm curious how much of the receding terror had to do with getting to know these particular kids versus the degree to which I am "cured" of my phobia. I guess we'll just have to wait and see on Monday- seventh graders this time. Yikes.