returning from a blogging sabbatical...
My happiest update is my garden!!! I've been spending all my evenings trying to tame the overgrowth of a garden gone wild. And I'm finally seeing plants peek out of the ground. Anyways, I'm no Wendell Berry, and so I can't express how much I love taking care of my garden quite so eloquently...but there is something so fulfilling about stepping into my backyard to pick some spinach for supper.
Life has actually been a time of settling down instead of moving around. Weird. Sara and I moved to a house in April. It was Move#4 for me this year. And it looks like I'm staying put for a bit. I just recently deferred grad school and am continuing to work at the men's shelter. I'm learning (albeit...slowly...)what rooting oneself in community is like, instead of just dreaming about it while I pack my suitcase and move nomadically from adventure to adventure.
And I think I'll stop with my Male Stranger Encounter updates. In part, because it's become a daily reality at the shelter. And in part because I don't feel comfortable making a joke out of a social situation that is more usually complex than I have been recognizing. Last week, I restricted a 70 year-old man for slapping me on the ass. He got restricted a week before from another shelter for the same thing. He has a degenerative brain disease from alcoholism coupled with a sex addiction that fuels an environment for dumb choices to be make. And probably a really complex past to have lured him into those addictions. And while it's not acceptable to slap a young girl 's butt, I feel it's equally unacceptable to make a joke out of a really broken life.
(Although I do have one last thing to say about that story: the word got out on the street to the rest of the homeless population that I doled out a maximum restriction for that incident. Another 70-year-old man in the park came up to me and said, "We've all heard what happened! What he did was absolutely not acceptable behaviour. I mean, we were all thinking about wanting to do that, but we never actually did."
Aargh. Thanks. Thanks for only thinking about it. Ideally, that sort of thing should not have even crossed your mind...)
Well, I guess that's a little portrait of my every day life. Cheers!
posted by ann renee. @ 2:02 p.m.
4 Comments:
hehe! though i understand the desire to avoid joking about those with broken lives, you gotta admit that they sometimes create very funny situations. and if you cant laugh at the awkward things in life, what can you laugh at? but, yes, most things are more complicated than they seem and some level of understanding is required.
how is the garden going? i wish i had a garden. right now i must be happy with watering our assortment of potted plants. right now, the ones in the window are not doing so well. I think I might have to move them...too much sun, if that is even possible in Holland...
Good to have you back, Ann. Hey, when are we gonna get together? Come visit! Or maybe I'll visit you. In fact, you're kind of in the center of me and Dee, so maybe we can both meet half way at your place! Then we can all hang out. Watcha think?
I work at a place a lot like where you work Ann, and I like reading your stories. Seems like you feel the same tension we do: the desire to avoid joking at brokenness, but also the acknowledgement that if you can't laugh at some things, you'll just be crying all the time instead...
You're in Africa at the moment and since Sara is likely FAR to busy with the thesis and Justin, I'm thinking I've got the perfect opportunity to steal some of your raspberries!! I can still taste them from our pie fest. . . and I can't believe how many of them are squished into such a little space.
. . . Hope your adventures across the pond are a good thing and that you come back bubbling with stuff to say about it. See you soon!
Post a Comment
<< Home