What can I say? Kids love me

I think kids can tell I'm never really sure what to do with them. They gravitate towards me like they're planning on tormenting me. I think they just love to throw me off. They draw me pictures, make me valentines, tear down the hallway to hurl themselves around my waist. There's one five-year-old who says, "I'm your boyfriend!" every time I see him, and comes to inspect my office to see where I've put his artwork.

Or maybe they can tell I'm not exactly a grownup, and I'll play around with them more than the other women around.

This all makes me subject to a lot of teasing around the office, because everyone believes I hate children just because I tell them I have no plans to push out a few of my own. (Whether or not that is actually true doesn't matter to me when it comes to my nosy co-workers. For the sake of their teasing, I'm not having kids.)

I never really know how to talk to them, so I use a combination of wide-eyed enthusiasm and adult language. As much as the baby-talkers annoy me, so do those who insist prissily that they talk to children just like they do adults.

But the real reason I try to avoid kids is because they're too hard to leave. I'm ok with giving up my women. I know it will happen; as much as I like a lot of them, it's easy to let them pass through my life. If the kids burrow into my heart, it hurts too much. I just sent a client on her way with two adorable children. Her 18-month-old learned to stand by my knee and wait for me to pick her up, tossing her in the air before she landed on my hip. She'd pierce my eardrums with her squeals, and bounce in my arms until I did it again. The 8-month-old would stare off sleepily into the distance until I came into focus, and he'd break into a drool-filled grin. I got him to laugh by dipping him and playing airplane.

I put them on a bus and sent them on their way, and the 18-month-old started to cry. So did I, as soon as I ran off the bus and got into my car, and sobbed. Sobbed. For ten minutes straight. I don't think I've ever cried over a client before. Ok, that's not true. But I've never cried about losing one before. These kids, man. They got under my skin. I miss them too much.

Camp

I listened to This American Life today; it was a rerun from 1998 about camp stories. It reminded me so much about my own camp experiences, and my heart ached a little at missing it so much. Things ended really badly for me--no perfect final summer to round out my memories--so for the longest time, I pushed thoughts to the back of my mind and when I thought about it at all, it was while sleeping, in nightmares.

But the truth is, mostly camp was a little crystalline bubble of perfection, an escape from the normal angst of teenage years, a wooded oasis of peace for six summers. I'd give anything to be able to return in some capacity. Like maybe there's a summer camp out there in the wilds of Wisconsin or Michigan who needs a social worker on staff?

I felt like I was a completely different person there. Still me, I suppose, but electrified. (The things I would do to make a kid laugh . . .) Maybe I remembered being a camper--of course I did--and as a counselor I wanted to make sure the kids took away wonderful memories like I had.

Two things stick out in my mind as important and special. The second year I counseled, during a junior high week, we had Invitational during vespers. The invitational was the one night during the week where we took communion and invited everyone in camp to accept Jesus into their heart. For campers who had been coming back summer after summer, this was a meaningful tradition, and the cabin chosen lead vespers tried its hardest to make the service a tearjerker. The counselors stayed behind to talk to any kid who needed it. Technically, this was for discussing spiritual issues, but inevitably kids who had gone through rough patches, like losing a friend or having parents get divorced, would stay to cry on someone's shoulder. I don't remember what happened at the service, or after, I just remember going back to the cabin and putting the girls to bed and laying down myself. A few minutes after I turned out the lights, one of my girls got me, and said another camper was crying. I crawled up to the girl's top bunk, and said, "sweetie, what's wrong?"

I wasn't the type who called people "sweetie" or "honey," but the girl was crying so hard that it slipped out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying.

"Sweetie, what's wrong?" and I gathered her in my arms.

She said, with difficulty through her sobs, that she didn't know whether or not she had Jesus in her heart. How do you know if you do?

That was a conundrum for me as well. I was supposed to be some sort of spiritual advisor for these girls, yet I wasn't even sure how I felt about things myself. At that very moment, I didn't know if I had Jesus in my heart. Was he supposed to wave and say hi once he got there or what? And since he hadn't, did that mean he hadn't shown up? I was only 18 or 19, fairly new to Christianity myself, and not 100% sold on it. Honestly, I think I was a camp counselor more for the kids and less because I was an avid Christian.

But you don't say that to an 11-year-old kid in spiritual crisis. You don't admit that you have no answers when she's sobbing and looking to you to ease her pain somehow.

So I asked her things about her belief, and I talked about how you never know anything for sure--you just have to believe. And believing makes things real. She stopped crying, and thanked me, and we both went back to sleep.

I don't know why this ranks up at the top of my experiences, but it seems so special to me.

The second thing happened my final year of counseling, for the most part, a pretty miserable time because of my co-counselors, not because of the kids. Senior high week towards the end, we had a closing ceremony for the graduating seniors--yet another opportunity to wring the most possible tears out of an evening. This particular class was special to me. They had been freshman when I was a senior, so I had been both camper with and counselor to them. After the ceremony, one boy said he had something important to talk to me about, and could we go for a walk. We ended up sitting by the lake under the stars. I was slightly nervous, because I knew I had to be careful about anything with the slightest hint of inappropriateness, and a counselor and camper of opposite sexes off somewhere alone could fall into that category. But he and I had been friends since we'd met, at a youth rally four years before.

He talked about meeting me then. As a senior, Kurt Cobain and grunge had finally hit Marion, and I embraced the combat boots, flannel shirts, and what Hannah called my "elephant" pants. I ran around the youth rally, according to him, this really cool person, unlike any Christian he had ever met. Like him, he thought, and he decided he maybe could find a place for himself in religion. (It didn't hurt that he was a hot little skater punk. I have a weak spot for them.) He said he considered me his spiritual mentor. I didn't know how to respond, how to let him know that no one had ever said anything more wonderful or meaningful to me in my life. How to thank him in a way that conveyed how honored I was. I don't remember what I said.

I'm not the person I was back then. But I suppose I don't have access to the same environment, and the world seems like a harder place now--no place for the same blissful summers where you're closed off from the real world, existing in a special dream place like camp.

The first summer counseling, I felt alive and hypersensitive every single moment, drinking in the experience. I made friendships with my co-counselors that I thought would be rock solid for the rest of our lives, but the intensity that camp fosters rarely translates successfully to the mundane world. I thought I'd fallen in love, too, and remember like it was yesterday a walk we took, on the way to the chapel, revealing our feelings and the tragedy that we could not be together (for myriad reasons).

Oh, everything was so dramatic and important back then. (Maybe it came from being 18, too.)

My last summer counseling was night and day different than the first. I felt I was on one side of a canyon, my co-workers on the other, and I couldn't figure out how to build a bridge across to them. It didn't seem like they were trying to connect with me, either. I felt so isolated, and threw myself into the work, ignoring the importance of connecting with them. The tone was different, too. I always looked forward to immersing myself in a deeply spiritual summer and making new friendships, but suddenly the space was no longer safe. I was no model Christian during my college years, but the woods were sacred to me. The other counselors were profane, disrespectful, pretty much assholes, really.

The hardest week was senior high. I was 20, so not much older than some of them, but a few of the counselors were where I was two years previous--just a summer out of their own camping experience, and good friends with some of the very people they'd have to take charge of. S, the boys' counselor I shared a cabin and responsibilities with, he was my age, with a year or two of counseling experience, thus theoretically more capable than some of the younger counselors. Yet he was one of the worst. It was more important to him to be liked, and he took inappropriateness to an extreme.

In the middle of the week, he supervised the kids who wanted to drag their mattresses out to the communal porch to sleep. I stayed in my bunk on the girls' side with a few of the campers who didn't want to brave the mosquitos. The porch crowd didn't get much sleep, and I didn't close my eyes all night. I don't know what reality S was experiencing that made him think that sex, sexist, and race jokes were somehow appropriate in that setting, but nonetheless, that's what he was telling. Then he started talking shit about the other counselors. I could hear everything clearly through my open window in the quiet woods that night, and I felt like I was being kicked in the stomach over and over and over. Today, though, I don't remember if he said anything bad about me. Everything about the night was so horrible, him talking cruelly about me would not have made things noticeably worse. I don't know if it was an idea that has only come to me over the years, or if I thought it but couldn't execute it: I should have gotten up, gone out to the porch, and asked S if we could take a walk. The kids, of course, would have known as soon as we were out of earshot, that he would be in deep trouble--or so he would have told them later. I was so meek and passive that I probably couldn't have said how I really felt. Or maybe I would have just started crying.

I am slightly proud to believe if this happened today, I have grown enough that I would have addressed it. Back in 1995, though, I stayed in my bunk, crying and praying all night.

And then I think of the "Footsteps" poem, and I felt God with me that night, but what I would have given not to be there, listening to hatefulness where there should have been love.

I wanted to leave the next day. I was leaving early anyway, to study in Ireland, skipping the last week of the summer. I only had a week left before then, and I didn't think I could make it after that night. The only person I felt close to was the camp director, and she asked me not to go.

So I stayed, and got through the end of senior high week, and the next week. I don't know how, or what happened. That night was burned so deeply on my consciousness that, more than ten years later, it's really the only thing I remember from that hellish summer.

I relived it in dreams for years after. My photos are stuffed far out of sight; last time I checked, it even hurt to look at them. My whole love affair with camp was obscured by that last summer. It seemed so unfair that I couldn't even locate my good memories of it; my sleep self only recalled the bad.

But ten years have passed. I'm a different person now, which is good. Maybe someday, back in Kansas, visiting for the summer, I could go back and make peace with the woods again.

Having children

The most compelling reason I can see for having kids is not my nephew Milo. He is cute as hell, the most beautiful kid I've ever seen (no, really, I'm being objective), and my heart does melt when he hugs me and tucks his head into my neck. (The fact that he even seems to remember me, and didn't start crying when mom left him with me this week to babysit, makes me swoon a bit.) But still, that doesn't make me want to spawn.

He doesn't talk yet! I'm ready to start conversing. Pretty much I don't know what to do with kids if they can't carry on a conversation with me. So he's adorable and all, but he doesn't make my ovaries ache.

What does it--not that my ovaries ache. They don't--is seeing what joy my aunts and uncles, and my parents, find in their adult children. I remember all the crap they went through, heartache during the difficult teenage years, and all my cousins seem to have emerged victorious, on the other side where they are now friends with their parents. It is damn cool to see.

I thought about this all when I was with twenty or so of my relatives for Christmas. It was such a loud, happy place to be. And I thought about what it would be like to introduce some grand-kids (and great-grand-kids) into the mix. My aunts and uncles, parents, grandma, would be over the moon.

For a brief moment--and I blame my unquenchable competitive streak--I wanted to be the one to kick that off. I'm the oldest grandchild, after all, and the first to get married. Why not be the first to have a baby?

My strongest feeling about children is, what if we regret not having them later when it's too late? Ultimately, I don't think that's a compelling reason to reproduce.

But there's just something about a big, loud, happy family at Christmas, even if you have to slog through twenty years to get there.

It's the kids

The kids kill me every time. I put my hands on my hips, cock my head, and watch a 4-year-old mimic me, realizing that in doing so, she's saying that she finally trusts me. And I think about wanting to protect her, from her father who hits her mother, from her mother who isn't the best parent in the world.

A 10-year-old who catalogs the abuse his mother has suffered, and lists it readily for her when she asks for clarification (even after I've told her not to treat him like a partner, and to let him be a kid). And the 7-year-old who has suffered more at the hands of a sick and twisted relative than I ever want to know about. Who looks up at me and hangs on my arm like I'm going to save her from all that.

I can deal with women in pain and crisis. Because they're adults. Theoretically they can help themselves; my job is only to listen and give suggestions. But the kids. There's no use in saying, "Things will be ok. I'll help keep you safe." Because I can't, and who knows if things will ever be ok?

I couldn't ever work just with kids. It's too heart-breaking. I think about them long after I've forgotten their mother.

From inside a black and white

I did a ride-along with a police officer at my internship. We started around 3:30, just when Evanston Township High School was letting out. LG, the field training officer I was riding with has a regular shift at the school, so we parked on the south end of school. A block down, she said there was another car posted; a paddy wagon cruised in front of the main entrance, and one or two undercover detectives circled campus. I couldn't believe it. It seemed excessive, but LG said there were fights there nearly every day. We sat there for 45 minutes, but the kids all filed peaceably past.

About halfway through our watch, a white car filled with boys and booming music pulled up to the light next to us. Immediately LG said, "that car's on a special watch," and punched the license into her computer to verify. I guess someone a few streets over called in to complain that this car was speeding on the street, and the boys in it were smoking weed. I got momentarily excited, because I thought LG might go after them, but she said she couldn't move during school duty, and we'd catch them later. (We didn't.) She said if she came across them again, she'd find a reason to pull them over.

That instigated a really interesting conversation about drugs and the law. Evidently if an officer pulls a driver over and has suspicion of illegal activity (like smells it or something), they can say, "Would you step out of the car, please?" and when the driver and/or passengers do, that action gives the police the legal right to search the car. And if the driver refuses to get out of the car, officers can do whatever they need to in order to remove the person from the car.

LG also told me the difference in smells between burnt and unburnt cannabis. I kept my mouth shut. It's a good thing if a cop thinks you're too naive to know about that.

Then we cruised Evanston, and I got to see all the bad parts. (I had no idea Evanston had an underbelly!) Once there was a bank hold-up call, and LG decided to race to it, despite being all the way on the opposite end of the city. She said it's usually a false alarm, but in case it wasn't . . . By the time we got there, the call had been cancelled, but it was pretty exciting to be in the car with the sirens going, speeding through rush hour.

After that, she pulled over a woman who illegally turned right on red--right in front of us! LG said that if she pulls someone over, she's going to give them a ticket, no passes. LG wants to be a traffic cop. I thought that sounded pretty boring, just going after driving offenses, but she said that it included doing accident reconstructions.

That was about the highlight of the afternoon. It was pretty slow. None of the calls were for us, though we did check on two other incidents (two boys fighting, and a drunk, injured man) to see if the officers there needed help. We cruised past all the parks where kids usually hang out and get into mischief, though no one was that day. LG took me to one of the parks where the Latino gangs usually are, and pointed out, "That's so-and-so. He's a Latin King. And that's so-and-so. he's in Los Locos." She told me a lot about gangs, which was super interesting. I guess when a Latin King murders someone, he gets to tattoo 5 dots on his hand, like on a dice. Those who specialize in thievery get to tattoo 3 dots.

Towards the end of the ride, we came across two drug officers who LG is friends with, and we parked in a community center lot and talked for a while.

LG said I should do a ride along on a Saturday night. It would definitely be more action-packed than this afternoon was, but it was really nice to see more of Evanston, and get familiar with some of the areas where my future kids (clients) hang out.

Teasing

Part of me just doesn't understand sociability. Of course I love having friends. But work is a different matter. I was used to office work, where the people in my department would hole up their own offices. We'd gather for a weekly staff meeting, occasionally be drawn out for collaboration projects, then get together for happy hour on Fridays to drink too much and complain about work. No one ever looked askance if I didn't emerge from my office the entire day.

Now I realized that spending more than a few minutes shooting the breeze, sometimes talking work, sometimes gossiping, is really a way of life (here anyway). I sat at the front desk for part of the afternoon today, because the admin assistant was out, and a coworker I really enjoy sat with me for about an hour, chatting. Talk turned to the admin (who is fairly new, only about 2-3 months into the job). My gut twisted. I get really uncomfortable with the amount of gossip that goes on at work, and lately there's been a lot about this woman. She and I are friendly and talk a little, but there's a lot of weird tension between her and many of the other staff, and it seems partly to be racially motivated, which makes me freak out even more. I feel stuck in the middle.

But what I understand now is that she doesn't really make much of an effort. I imagine it would be hard to come into the middle of our department, because there are a lot of forceful personalities--it sure was hard for me, but my coworker said at least I didn't isolate myself and not talk to anyone. I don't know about that. I think this coworker just likes me and so gave me the benefit of the doubt. But still, it took me a long time to feel comfortable amongst my coworkers. A looong time before I could sit through a staff meeting without worrying that the raised voices meant huge conflict, instead of normal discussion.

It did take me a while to realize that I enjoy my coworkers a lot more if I chat and joke around with them during the day instead of holing up in my office.

Speaking of joking, it sure doesn't feel like that when my coworkers bug me about having kids. For a brief moment, I considered telling them I couldn't bear children, just so they'd be appalled and not bring it up again. And I can't even fully express how much it bothers me when they talk about me being pregnant, having kids, or, with just as much regularity, how much they think I hate kids. I even have an on-and-off serious dislike for one coworker because she seems to take just too much glee in teasing me about it. And it seems to be a vicious cycle of behavior, because I do sort of play it up when they tease, loudly proclaiming that there's no way in hell I'll ever get pregnant, sure don't want to ever be a mom, etc.

So it happened again today during our staff meeting. They ganged up on me again, asking when I was going to get pregnant, and I just couldn't take it. I had some serious hate on for the world this morning due to hormones, and I got a little snappish with them. I've always wanted to get snappish about it, though I just don't really have the nerve, plus, I know all about how the point of teasing is to get to someone. And in the end, the one I don't particularly like, said, "aw, we jest messin' witcha."

And then it dawned on me. They like me. I think in small part they also like playing with someone who takes herself too seriously, but I think they do like me.

Spanking

I think I earned a few miffed comments and judgmental raised eyebrows when I said, about a wailing, temper-tantrum-throwing child, that I'd spank him if he were my child.

And I would. Of course, if this particular child were mine, he wouldn't have been horse-whipped by his grandparents, called "bastard" and "retard" by his father, and he wouldn't have watched his dad push his mom out of a car speeding down the highway. For a child like this, I understand spanking is entirely inappropriate. I understand why his mom disciplines (or doesn't) the way she does. I don't think her permissiveness is doing the child any favors, though. Because of her attitude as well as her abusive husband's, he'll grow up not only to beat the hell out of his girlfriends, but he also won't have any respect for any authority figures. What could the police and the legal system do that's any worse than what he's experienced in his life?

But my (theoretical) children will not experience this kind of pain camouflaged by love. They will, as I did, understand that disobedience has consequences, and if it continues past verbal warnings and unsuccessful time-outs, the next consequence is a spanking. Not once in my sassy, asshole childhood did I ever confuse violence and love. I knew exactly why I was getting spanked. I knew it was something I brought upon myself because of my behavior. Kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. And if the kids get Tim's genes, boy howdy will we have some genius kids.

Of course I want to be a loving parent with consistent discipline, so that situations never reach the spanking point. But if they do, I will.

I know it's an extraordinarily controversial opinion. But it's one I've thought quite a bit about.

Church

At the conference last week, one of the breakfast keynote speakers was a Chicago police officer, ordained minister, and survivor. She was a very powerful speaker. The topic was Faith and Domestic Violence, I think. She opened with prayer, and said stuff like, "We as Christians need to . . ." and I closed her out. I thought, "How dare you assume we're all Christians?" I knew at least one woman besides myself in the room was definitely not one: the Indian woman who was yesterday's keynote speaker.* Her comments were punctuated with murmured "amens" through out the room; I was so uncomfortable. Then she recited a bible verse (maybe? I don't know. Maybe a poem.) and I realized I was singing it in my head. It was a song that I remembered from church camp.

* (I don't think I'm Christian anymore. And yet, somehow it feels blasphemous to say that outloud.)

And then I wondered: why am I struggling so hard against this? When I looked past my initial reactions of indignation and uncomfortableness, I remembered the comfort of religion. I remembered how church camp changed my life.

So we went to church on Sunday. It was one Tim had been to once or twice with a classmate. It was relatively new, held in the movie theatre. There was a worship band (usually made up of a drummer, bassist, guitarist, and a few singers), and the minister had a cordless mic so he could roam the floor. It opened with the band leading some songs. The music was typical electrified acoustic contemporary Christian, but no songs I knew in the past. But there was something to it.

My throat closed up, and I couldn't sing. I wanted to run, to leave the theatre and wait for Tim in the car. I thought I was having a panic attack. A few tears leaked out.

And I still don't know exactly why I was so scared. I think it relates to camp, and my memories. If you opened me up, I'd have a big frozen spot inside that holds together everything about camp.

* * *

It was the place where, in high school, I spent three summers talking about God and faith, and making amazing friends. Then in college, three summers counseling. I loved counseling even more. I got to spend six weeks there, instead of just one; and it was a magical place. When I left, and went back to my regular life, it was hard to see God everywhere, and live a spiritual life. There, it was just the way of life, and we all existed in a perfect bubble of nature, lazy days, friends, and the constant presence of God.

The first year, I counseled for myself. Since I loved being a camper, being a counselor was the logical next step. I made incredible bonds with my co-counselors. I thought these were friends I'd have for the rest of my life. The next two years, I did it for the kids. I remembered what an affect my own counselors had on me, and I couldn't believe kids came back the next year looking for me, excited to have me as their counselor because they loved me the year before.

The last year I was there, it was all about the kids. My coworkers were all assholes. (Strange, that would happen at a Christian camp.) Senior high week, my co-counselor slept outside on our porch with whichever campers wanted to. One night, I awoke to hearing them all whispering. My co-counselor took the lead in telling sexist and rascist jokes. I couldn't believe it. I should have gotten up, asked him to take a walk with me, and said, "look, this is incredibly inappropriate, and it makes me sad and uncomfortable." But I was shy, and just laid there crying all night. In the morning, I went to the director and begged her to let me quit and told her why. She didn't, or rather, she asked me to stick it out for another week (I was leaving early anyway--this was the summer I studied in Ireland). Because she was a good friend and a good boss, I did. It was hellish.

Because of that summer (and there's more; I'm not telling the whole story), whenever I'd think back on camp, it was with a bad taste in my mouth. All my dreams about it ended up as nightmares. (That is not a metaphor. I'd jerk away in the middle of the night, my heart pounding, or tears bathing my face.) It seemed like my entire six-year experience there was ruined because of that last summer. My feelings run deep, and are incredibly conflicted.

So that's probably why I wanted to run away and cry on Sunday.

We decided this movie theatre congregation wasn't the church for us, when we got home and Tim wanted to talk about it, and all I wanted to do was run the vacuum as loud as it could go, and not think. I couldn't even tell him what my feelings were because I couldn't articulate them. I just had this huge weight on my chest. But as we got to cleaning (the only way I was able to carry on a conversation), we realized that more than anything, we wanted to set Sunday aside as a special day. I felt happier cleaning and talking with him than I did listening to the minister talk about women's special blessings (in honor of Mom's Day).

So this is going to be our Sunday: awaken and have a good breakfast. Once a month, go to church. The next Sunday, conduct our own "church." The following, house cleaning. The next, our own church, and so on. I'm pleased with it.

Santa’s here!

We had our Christmas party today. Santa came (the husband of a lady who works here. He’s built exactly like you’d expect, with the long white hair and beard.), and everyone got a present, and their picture taken on his lap. The kids were in awe of him. Afterwards, when he stuck around the party, they crowded around him asking questions. One little boy stroked his hair and beard, probably to see if they were real. (The elf—his wife—introduced us, and he said he’s been doing this for ten years. He's the best Santa I’ve ever met.)

I almost died of cuteness at the kids’ reaction when they were on his lap, getting their picture taken. Some were so shy and excited to be near him. Others were really scared. All of them were in awe of the presents he gave.

I’ve never had much Christmas spirit. I mean, I love that it’s family time, but I never for a second believed in Santa Claus. I can see why, though, when we have kids, I might just tell them about Santa and let them believe as long as they can.

Movies at the juvie

I volunteered for my first movie night at the juvenile dentention center tonight. I didn't know what to expect, so I was a little nervous. In the end, it reminded me a lot of the psych hospital, in that it seems like this big deal, but then the kids act normal, just like kids, and make you forget what they did to get in there. Not that I knew. We weren't allowed to talk about it with them.

It was wonderfully fun. The volunteers did an introductory game for the girls, where we each told two truths and one lie, and the girls had to guess which was the lie. That was almost the most animated part of the evening. They absolutely loved it. And for some reason, they wanted to know how old we all were, then kept insisting that none of us were really as old as we claimed.

Then we watched part of Akeelah and the Bee, and did an art project involving scrabble letters and posters. It reminded me so much of the groups I'd led in the hospital, but more fun. There were no reprimands because they were talking loudly (the professor in charge actually encourages that), no stern reminders about how they needed to focus on the task at hand. We were just there to have fun with the girls and take their minds off their grim lives for three hours. And that, in itself, I suppose, is pretty therapeutic.

It was such an amazing environment to foster. The first time I met most of the volunteers was last week at a training, and they seemed nice, but I was still shy. The event made me feel more comfortable with everyone, so I feel a bond with them already. It is a unique and wonderful experience to be with woman who are happy and supportive and love what they're doing. It's energizing, and makes me excited about the path I've chosen.

No touching

There's a no-touching policy at the hospital. I can understand it. Once a boy snuck into a girl's room and they had sex without the staff knowing and DCFS threatened to yank all their wards for good (which is not a bad idea, because it's a freaking hassle and a half dealing with DCFS kids and their slow-ass bureaucracy).

But there's a girl there--and she's not alone in this--who radiates the need to be touched. You can see it emanate from her in waves. She's crumbling inside with her desperate need for affection. She'll try to hug the staff, and with varying degrees of kindness, they'll remind her of the rule. When she approaches me, I don't have the heart to discourage her, so I let her rest her head on my shoulder, and put one arm around her to guide her back to whatever she should be doing. Her thin body pulls all the warmth from my fingertips.

I remember, way back in the days of being a camp counselor and blanketing the chapel with inspirational messages, one said that you need four hugs a day for survival, eight for maintenance, and twelve for growth. To be missing that most basic of human touches, my heart hurts for those kids.

Working with families

In my interview last week for an internship at a youth-services agency, they asked me what I liked about teenagers, and what the challenges working with them were. I love teenagers because they're living through possibly the most formative time of life. They can still have the innocence of children (wellll, not so much the ones I work with), and some of the wisdom of adulthood (ditto). And I remember what a glorious yet angst-filled time that was for me. Plus, some of them respond really well to my sarcasm, and others to my sympathetic side, so we just really get along.

What I don't like about working with them is their parents. So many of the kids are in the hospital and diagnosed with bipolar disorder or intermittant explosive disorder because their families are just pretty fucked up. So rarely do I actually believe their mental health diagnosis is actually a chemical inbalance and not the response to a difficult, traumatic upbringing.

But today I led a family session that went so well. The mom was upset but still willing to support her son. First I asked her how she wanted to see his behavior change when he got home, and she listed a bunch of things. We talked about the supportive services he was already receiving. Then I brought him into the room and asked him to tell his mom what he had been working on while in the hospital. He said his anger issues and coping skills; and I asked him to elaborate and give examples about what skills he's learning. Then I gave both of them a copy of a poem called The Meanest Mother in the World. (It's pretty cheesy but it's a good way for kids to reflect on why their parents do things like impose curfews, make them do chores, etc.) I had him read it outloud and then explain what he thought it meant, and how it applied to his mom.

Then I brought out a art project the son had done during a therapy group about suicide. It was a funeral program. He read it to his mom and explained how he created it and why he included the things he did. It was a really amazing program. I said, "What do you think it would be like for your mom, if this were a real program for your funeral?" which generated good discussion.

I wasn't planning on the next part, but the conversation led up to it really well, so I asked the two of them to do a reverse role play of mom and son. The mother really got into it, acting like her son wanting to go out and hang with friends. I think the son was irritated by the exercise, but he responded as his mom would, and afterwards, was able to articulate some good thoughts about the activity.

Then we made up a contract of behaviors, what the son would work on when he went home, what the mom would do, and some things I'd be able to help them with. The son was able to come up with his own ideas of how his behavior should change that mirrored what his mom said, and she was agreeable to the things he asked her to do, like being there for him when he needed to talk and to not blame him for things before asking first if he caused them.

Finally, I gave each of them a saying about attitude and had the son read it. Then it was over, and the family hugged. One of the nurses asked me a little later what had happened, because evidently the kid came back to group with a really bad attitude. So maybe he didn't get as much out of it as it seemed, but I don't really care. The mom was pleased with how it went, and she's very supportive of him, and will allow him to come back into the home, so that's the important part. And it made me feel really good about my (slowly but surely) improving skills.

Babies

We have a dangerous precedent set before us: Tim's dad didn't want kids until he spent time with his nieces and nephews, and my mom didn't want them until one day at age 28, she just decided she did. Tim met his nephew for the first time this weekend, and I'm, well, I'm nearly 30.

I'll admit, I watched Tim pretty closely with Milo, worried that he would fall madly in love and decide on the spot that he wanted Milo 2. And we talked about it a lot.

I think we talk about it so much to reassure ourselves. For our heads to remind our hearts, should they become wistful.

But babies don't really do it for me. Milo is darling, but I lose patience quickly when he frets, and he's just a lot of work. I think where I might get caught is toddlers. I think if I could have a baby starting at toddler age, I could be persuaded. I like toddlers, and preschoolers, and the 6-10, and the junior high kids, and high schoolers, but I'm just not ga-ga over babies.

But it's a bit of a relief to not be baby crazy now that Milo is around. I like my life the way it is. I like Tim being the center of it, and our relationship being the main focus.

A friend

The day after I started working, I went to a three-day domestic violence training conference in Birmingham. I drove up and roomed with another newbie, the children's counselor in another department. Perhaps it was spending all that time together, the nature of the training, etc, but I learned things about her that she'd probably never told anyone else. Our conversations were really deep and introspective, but, as these things seem to go, didn't really translate into casual conversation when we'd run into each other in the break room after we got back. And our paths don't cross much in our daily work.

Then she was out on maternity leave for three months. Twenty-seven-years old, two step-children and two biological children. How do you develop a friendship with someone whose free time is taken up with changing diapers, preparing lunch for school, picking up kids from day care? (And before you think that sounds assy, the truth of the matter is, I need friends to go the gym with. To go to the bar with. To take a craft class with.) Besides, I rarely believe anyone is interested in being my friend.

But today when we ran into each other in the kitchen, she mentioned the conference, how much fun it was, and how she'd like to "get away" for another one. It made me realize she probably is run ragged with the four kids and a military husband. She probably does need a friend, as much as I do.

I think, once I'm done with the strict part of this diet, I'm going to ask her to have lunch with me.

Dear mom and dad

You asked me where you went wrong as parents, so here it is: you never should have had a second child. I was an angelic, happy two-year-old, the center of attention. Bringing a more attention-worthy being into the world screwed things up. Except that twenty-five years later, that person ended up being my favorite in all the world, so maybe that's not it.

Sticking me in therapy when I was 10 for having anger issues? Or was that actually good parenting? I see so many kids who don't know any other way to deal with the uncontrollables of life, and I think they need outside help. But maybe because I was forced to go. Maybe because we had to sit in a circle with the therapist and talk about the way we communicated--or didn't--maybe that's why now talking about feelings with you feels like something I need to run away from. And on that note, it was definitely the family meetings we were forced to have. Ugh. I am never doing those with my kids.

Maybe it's because on more than one occasion, dad read my mail and my journal. I had a boyfriend do that once, and I wanted to kill him. (I should have.) So why was I the teensiest bit relieved whenever dad would do it and confront me about whatever problems he read? Because then I didn't have to be the one to break up with my crazy-ass boyfriend, and another time, he hooked me up to the best therapist I've ever had. Listen, I don't condone reading your kid's private stuff. But, well, I'm glad for what came out of it.

Maybe it's because you didn't support me after I graduated from college. Oh sure, you packed up my things and drove me to Chicago. Then you stayed with me for a week, showing me how to get around the city, setting me up with a bank account. But where was the money after that? Oh right. Then I got a job. And a second job. And I found an apartment and friends, and it was pretty exciting being able to say, "I did this."

I don't know. Where did it all go wrong? Is it me? Why do I feel like I'm 16 all over again when I have to talk about the way I feel about you? Why is it so hard to say "I love you" in person, but easy on the phone? Why do I feel like you'll laugh if I cry in front of you? I know you won't. Maybe you were right on that therapy tip.

love, me

Glorious sadness

Just a small town girl, livin in a lonely world
She took the midnight train goin anywhere
Just a city boy, born and raised in south detroit
He took the midnight train goin anywhere

When I was in college, I had what I thought was a great idea for a short story. I think it was about an abused woman. My boyfriend at the time started yelling at me, "Why can't you write anything happy??" He didn't understand when I said that sadness was more compelling.

I've always been drawn to it. I have that luxury, I suppose, given that I have had a overwhelmingly normal, functional life filled with much happiness. There's a hyperreality to sadness, an idea of, "this is it; this is what it means to really feel."

That must explain why I am obsessed with 80s music. It's desperate and sad, melodies that plaster themselves across a heart and chest that is barely keeping it together. One note away from falling apart. Listening to it summons the feelings, the physicality of it in an instant.

When I was in junior high, I got invited to a slumber party at D's house. I don't know why. Perhaps her mother suggested it. We certainly weren't friends. She was sweet and kind, and popular for those reasons, but she also continually sported a leather jacket from her much older boyfriend (she started dating high school boys when we was in the 5th grade, yet as far as I knew, never suffered any vicious talk behind her back about it). To note that these jackets, the succession of them, were probably Members-Only jackets really puts a damper on how thoroughly bad ass they seemed. For she didn't date the cross country team, the basketball team; she dated the guys who took welding for the express purpose of pouring their creative energies into making water pipes and got caught smoking behind the gym instead of participating in P.E. class. Guys she somehow tamed into watching their language and politely extinguishing their butts when she came around.

This was the girl who invited me to a slumber party. This was the girl about whose parties I'd heard whispered rumors. To say I was rattled and mystified at my invitation is an understatement. I wondered if it was a joke or if she had somehow lost a bet and I was the butt of it.

It was unlike any sleepover I'd ever been to. We got to order pizza, and drink Mountain Dew in her room, making prank calls on her private phone line. Her bedroom walls were plastered with posters of Warrant, Stryker, and Motley Crue. We watched videos on MTV (a channel I had only heard about). D talked knowledgeably about the themes in her favorite song, "Janie's Got a Gun," using words I had never even heard before, and she sighed over Nikki Sixx and Janie Lane.

Then her boyfriend drove past. He and his friends picked us up, and we cruised Main for a while. It was something I knew older kids to do; never imagined I would do it, too. The high school boys blared their hair metal and tolerated us waving our arms out of the windows in the air stream and shrieking.

It was almost too much for my system. Wired on caffeine and newness, the whole evening had a dreamlike quality. It became imperative to cross my arms in front of my chest, holding myself together in an attempt to keep my chest from breaking open and merging with the night. I didn't know how to stop it, how to put on the brakes and regain control out of the heady dizziness that the night became. I didn't want to. I didn't want it to ever end. It was wildly beautiful, desperate, and sad. I couldn't have articulated it then, but I sensed something beyond my experience, beyond my maturity, about the gorgeous tragedy of boys looking for excitement in a dead-end small town, of beautiful, ripening girls, children really, anxiously expanding the boundaries of experience.

I moved to Chicago the day after I graduated from college. I couldn't wait to leave Kansas in the dust and get to a place where I really belonged. I spent most of my early 20s trying to forget where I came from. It made sense in my head. In a way I could never exactly name, I didn't feel like I belonged in the place I grew up. I always felt like an outsider. Strange, to spend 21 years in one place and feel your connection tenuous at best.

I'd visit Kansas again on holidays and feel uneasy. The wide open spaces were hard to take in. My depth perception would be wonky for the first day or two of each visit, and I wouldn't be able to look outside at the hills.

Chicago seemed to bring out who I really was, though being a naive country girl suddenly urbanized was an adjustment. I'm sure I made a lot of missteps and tried on a lot of different "me"s before I found the right fit. But it was my city, and I was deeply sunk in a long-term love affair with it. Every experience I had confirmed my love and sense of place. I met glamorous city girls, and dated underground music geeks. One I fell for hard for several years, and when we discussed our future, I only felt a slight twinge that I'd be settling down with another die-hard city boy. Only once or twice did I wish he were the camping type, and after him, I dated boys so urban that if you put a tire iron in their hand and pointed to the flat, they wouldn't know what to do.

It started to seem ridiculous, these skills that I had (I was changing flats at 14!) that I didn't find mirrored in my dates. I stopped revering encyclopedic knowledge of obscure bands above rugged survival skills. And I despaired that I'd ever find a good combination of the two.

Tim brought back my sense of place, only it's no longer Chicago. I can't escape my past. The small town, the rural homestead, lonely flint hills that are the most beautiful lands I've ever seen. I'm fascinated by it all, amazed even now at growing up in an existence so far removed from any kid I know today. I've worked with kids who don't even know where Kansas is on a map, nor have ever seen a real farm. I write so frequently about the past because it intrigues me, and, I think, helps me get to the bottom of who I am today. It may in fact be the most interesting part about me.

Putting it out there

Tim thinks I need to be specific about what I want out of a job, and put it out into the universe to let it simmer.

For the first time ever, I can be specific. I finally know exactly what I want to do. I guess this is why I went to grad school, but in some ways, knowing exactly what I want to do also blows. If I had a wider view, it would probably be easier to find a job. I could look at the job listings, usually around 25-50 each time I look, and actually find something that looks at least appealing enough to apply for. I wouldn't be crippled with anxiety, wondering what I can possibly do that won't make me feel like I'm wasting my time, or finding something that will at least position me well for what I can do eventually. Now that I know what I love, anything less than that really will feel like a waste of time.

So here goes, universe. Work your magic for me.

I want a job at a community mental health agency, doing family therapy with adolescents. I want the job to allow for some group work, perhaps with self-esteem or social skills training, maybe anger management. Maybe music therapy! Maybe dance! Anything creative that will spark the kids' interest. I want the job to have the room to grow into restorative justice and peace-making circles. I want to be able to some day write a grant for the purchase of a bunch of drums so that we can have drum circles.

I want the hours to be flexible, so I can start late and work late, and still maintain my shelter job. I want it to be maybe Tuesday through Saturday, so I can take my Sundays and Mondays to be with Tim.

And lastly, I'd like it to be within biking distance on warm days. I don't want a drainingly long commute. I won't mind doing home visits, I won't mind if I have to drive clients around in my car. I just don't want to have to drive for an hour or more in bad traffice to get to work.

That's it. This is exactly what I want. This is my job description of heaven.

Edited to say: I thought of something else. I'd love to also be able to run a movie series or book club for teens that had some therapeutic value to it. I am thinking of this as I proofread a library journal, and it seems like the young adult librarians are always doing cool things that I think could somehow be woven into a social worker's job, too.

I always thought I'd become a librarian, after spending years in the cult of ALA. If there was some way to combine the two--no, three, including the editing bits of my life that I miss--that would be the perfect job.

I suppose what it all really boils down to is that I want a job where I can be creative. I never realized what an asset that could be to therapy, and it's exciting to see that I can include that in my work. But I need a place that values it, and lets me run with all my wild ideas.

Jobs jobs jobs

Before school, when I was just preparing, I felt aimless because I wasn't working any longer. While it was hard not bringing in any income, it was even harder to feel like I didn't have any purpose (starting school in a month, a week, a few days didn't strike me, at the time, as purpose).

And then I started, and though I became overwhelmed with the courseloads, it seemed like most of my classmates had jobs. It seems like the schedule is very accomodating (to a degree) having a part-time job.

So I got two.

I'm going back to the shelter, to do overnights again, on Tuesdays. I remember what vivid nightmares I had there, sleeping on a Murphy bed a foot from an unsecured window that opened onto a creaky veranda. How I'd fall asleep by entertaining visions of an abuser tracking down his woman and breaking into the shelter through my window. One medium-strong kick would propel him right through. Or a recurring dream about locking the front door yet people opening it up and walking right through. After two years of working days at a shelter that felt like Fort Knox, it will be hard to feel safe in this environment again.

And yet. Going back there to fill out paperwork reminded me why I endured so long last time. Walking into the office fills me with peace. No matter what stressors are bothering me before work, no matter what kind of mayhem I might (and am likely to) encounter at the shelter, I feel like a weight has been lifted and my mind is clear when I am there.

My other job is tutoring once a week at a westside Chicago elementary school. Unluckily for them, they did not ask me if I was any good at it. I suspect I will not be. I tried to help at girl with her homework at my internship yesterday, and it was pretty pathetic. I did not know how to lead her to answer "In what city is the White House located?" after it was clear her little 3-page article on the government did not hold the key. (Because I'm pretty sure just telling her was not a good method. But my "Do you know who the first president was? . . . Do you think maybe they might have named a city after him?" was pretty ham-handed, and besides, the girl didn't know anyway.)

But I think it will be an interesting time. More experience working with kids, at any rate.

Swim team

I practice tennis at the Y. The courts are next to an indoor pool. It's been so temperate lately that they leave the floor to ceiling windows open, and swim season just started. As I walked across the court each time after my turn in the hot seat, I'd see bodies lined up against the window. Adolescent boys, their new muscles pop out of their skin like novelty balloons, and the girls they talk to seem light years older than them. Light years older than I remember being at that age.

At that age, I was nearing my inglorious end to swim team. Not so much a loser as filler. I was just another body to put in an empty heat. I always worked just hard enough to get through it. (I never really understood the passion that drives athletes to put every ounce of themselves into competition.) It was, as sports have always been for me, a social outlet for the very shy.

No matter what happened during the school year or who I was then, during the summer, I had friends on the team. There was no one from my class to take the lead and ignore me like usual. My teammates were older or younger, and I was a part of the group.

During meets, we'd write our events on our arms in permanent marker, and draw hearts in zinc oxide on our backs, to tan in our own summer tattoos. Each poolhouse candy counter was reassuredly the same; we'd get Zotz and Chik-o-Stik and a particular kind of red liquorice I've never been able to find anywhere else, and we'd split up our spoils.

That's where I learned how to flirt, with two guys a year ahead of me, who would never have looked at me twice--and didn't--any other time of the year. And with inappropriately friendly college boys who were terrible coaches for teenage girls. Years later, I still have a crush on one of the former guys that I have never been able to shake.

Then one summer, I got a part-time job, and my parents never mentioned swim team again. As an inherently (where did I get this??) lazy person, no matter how much I enjoy a sport or exercise, I won't do it unless pushed into it. So I forgot about sun and swimming and boys in bathing suits, and started pushing cones at an ice cream shop in town.

The kids in the window reminded me, though, of what a good way to pass the summer.