Wildflowers

It seems that the New Year is approaching...again.  I am not sure why we make such a big deal out of this day.  The years come and go so quickly regardless of what sparkly top I wear or what sort of silly hats are conjured up.  But we do make a big deal of it.  Is it just an excuse to celebrate?  Do we need a specific day to decide to do things to make ourselves better?  This particular year has been different for me.  It has a significance in relation to the work I write about.  This year I celebrated ten years of working with these kids.  Ten years of therapy, tantrums, long days, meetings, friendships, challenges and successes.  Most times the challenges seem greater than the successes.  People make comments like, "I don't know how you do it" or "I could never do that".  I understand that these statements are meant to be compliments.  However, whether or not anyone else could do this work is irrelevant. There are lots of jobs I could not do.  But I can do this.  For ten years I have been able to do this work.  And yet I still find myself asking: what is it I actually do?

My tenth year seems like as good a time as any to define the work a little.  Not the specifics.  The tasks are never what it is about.  I could never quantify the number of therapy sessions I have done, supervisions I have had with staff, meetings I have been a part of, or notes I have entered. And those things, while they are responsibilities I have, are not the work.  They are not the point. What I do, at the core of it all, is hold hope.  That can get lost in all of those meetings and notes.  But if I am doing the job right, it is always there.  Wikipedia describes hope as "an optimistic attitude of mind based on an expectation of positive outcomes related to events and circumstances in one's life or the world at large".  I often find it a little silly.  How can I be in the hope business?  I read unspeakable things about how adults treat children and I see the impact of those actions play out as children express pain through aggression and avoiding relationships because they don't feel safe.  I further see how these continual behaviors take their toll on the staff I supervise and how they have to leave much earlier than anyone would like.  So, where is hope?  It's hiding out most of the time.  But it sneaks up on me in the most wonderful ways, often when I least expect it.  

There are plenty of details from the last ten years at work that I cannot remember and might not want to.  But I can remember several flashes of hope, regardless of how long ago they happened, like it was yesterday.  They have existed all ten years.  And they build on each other.  When people ask how I can continue to do this work, these moments are the answer.  They don't happen everyday and sometimes they are so faint that you really have to pay attention to catch them.   They come from the kids.  So in the end, the kids are both how and why I do this work.  They give me hope unintentionally and I hold onto it so I can give it back with intention.  It is an amazing and symbiotic process, just like all things in nature.  Maybe that is why it seems so natural to me.  

Now, there are surely moments of hope that have vanished for me.  I can't remember them all.  But the ones I hold onto don't just provide me with the hope I need to keep working.  They also teach me how to do the work better.  How to be better.  I make meaning with them.  I have one particular moment in mind.  I think it is from sometime in my first year or so.  I worked with a sad, angry boy who rarely wanted to meet with me.  Not so uncommon, but this one stuck with me.  He was young, maybe 8 or 9 and pretending to be so tough.  I always saw right through him and I think for a long time he hated that. Maybe he always did.  But there was one time we were in my office.  I don't remember what we were talking about.  What I remember is that I had music on at the time.  A song was in the middle of playing when he came in and it ended while he was still there. When the song finished, this sad, angry little boy asked, "Can we listen to that one again?".  And I played it again. What was the song, you ask?  Wildflowers by Tom Petty.  I remember being so surprised at the time that this boy, the one who was always acting so tough, wanted to hear Wildflowers again.  And I can still hear his voice when he asked.  It was gentle, like the song.  I have no idea what happened after that.  Like I said before, these things are sparks. They come and they go.  It is my job to keep them handy for a time when they are needed.

This one is strong enough that I have both held it in my memory and called upon it many times to remind me of how hope exists even in times when it seems an unlikely presence.  Something I notice about this spark, and is true of so many of these hopeful flashes, is that it was not an end moment.
It is not like these hopeful times are the sendoff of our kids.  They are random moments in the middle.  That is, in part, because we are always in the middle in my work.  We don't really see the end result very often. These are kids.  They will continue to face obstacles, have successes, and live life long after we are done working with them.  That is why I chose this moment to represent the meaning-making of my first ten years in this work.  Though these kids are not exactly like anything else, they are kind of like wildflowers.  They are colorful, they are sometimes unexpected, there is not one that is the same as another.  And most importantly, they grow when and where they want to.  At the end of the day (or the end of ten years), they do the real work.  And I hold onto the hope that they can do it, that they will grow.  It is that simple.

I don't really need this upcoming New Year from a meaning-making perspective.  I am fortunate enough to be able to find meaning in life everyday.  The kids hold that hope for me.  We are all a bit like wildflowers and I grow each day even as the challenges seem to outnumber the successes.  In moments like this one when that sad, angry little boy asked, "Can we listen to that one again?".

If I could talk to him today I think I would simply tell him, "you belong among the wildflowers...far away from your trouble and worries.  You belong somewhere you feel free".

Then again, don't we all?

Bubbles

Let me start out by saying that adults don't blow bubbles often enough.  I know this sounds ridiculous, but I sincerely recommend that you go and get yourself some bubbles as soon as possible.
There is something magical about the whole idea behind a bubble.   Bubbles are, at the same time, simple and wondrous, fragile and resilient.  And I don't know about you, but bubbles make me happy. I find it exceptionally difficult to be in anything but a good mood when bubbles are floating through the air.

The comparison here may be predictable, but it works.  The kids at work are like bubbles.  All kids, for that matter, are simple yet wondrous.  They might not be able to remember to put clothes on before opening the bathroom door to ask a question, but watching them learn something new is so captivating. And our kids, like none other, are both fragile and resilient.  They fight with all they have each day against things that would have taken me down years ago and we can see that they are all too often a fraction of a second away from falling apart.

What an enchanting adventure it was when I got to blow bubbles with a child at work last night.  This particular kiddo has the impulse control of a grasshopper, yet he can sit and gently blow into the bubble wand in search of the biggest bubble.  And bubbles make him happy too.  Pure joy.

Bubbles are fleeting.  Like these moment of pure joy.  But the image of the bubble is not.  We have to recall the fleeting moments in our minds.  There is something magical about the whole idea behind a bubble, behind a memory.  They are, at the same time, simple and wondrous, fragile and resilient.  As for this fleeting moment, it will help me to recall that no matter what the circumstances, we can all slow down enough to find the biggest bubble.

Chasing the Bus

Have you ever been driving when all of a sudden someone comes racing down the sidewalk?  The runner is moving faster than you are at this point because the light just changed and traffic has yet to do much. As you roll forward you wonder, "What are they running from, to, for?"  And then you see it; the bus just up ahead.  And you realize the runner is chasing the bus.

I cheer them on in my head, hoping that they will get to that ride they desperately need in time.  And why am I talking about strangers and buses?  Because I think that where I work we are all just a bunch of pedestrians chasing after buses.  The song "The Wheels on the Bus" always made buses sound so cheerful, so relaxed.  The "round and round" never seemed to be going 40 miles per hour.  Well, the wheels on our buses (past trauma, busy caseworkers, misguided caregivers, red tape, data bases, paperwork, Medicaid audits...) aren't going "round and round".  They are screaming through without hesitation and with stops so brief we can never quite catch up.

Sometimes I catch one of those runners in a moment when they realize that the bus is too far ahead and they are not going to catch it.  Some of them curse the air and make angry faces.  Others shrug their shoulders and take advantage of some extra time to relax while waiting for the next bus.  I am generally the latter at work.  I am able to recognize when the bus has gotten too far ahead and I usually try to take that moment to remember what it is I am really chasing after to begin with.  Today was one of those days.  I got to work at 7:30 this morning so that I could meet my new overnight worker before she went up to meet with HR.  I prepared for all of the meetings and trainings that then took up four hours of my day.  I chatted with people as I passed by because when they asked if I got their email, all I could say is I haven't been at my desk in four hours.  And that doesn't count the paperwork I was already behind on.  I was chasing that bus something fierce.  And then I had that realization that the bus was too far out of reach today.

I stopped chasing it.  I walked myself down to the gym where the kids and staff from my two cottages were participating in the first in a series of "Fun with Faith" groups centered around how to use music and movement to express feelings.  The two music artists running the group had the kids walking in goofy ways and though things were silly, they were under control.  Then I stood back and watched this amazing group of kids and staff listen to different types of music and move freely around the room in whatever way the music told them to.  It was really something to watch.  I couldn't keep myself from moving just a little as I stood off to the side. Following this joyful exercise, they kids circled up (and they did so the first time they were asked even though they had just been actively moving about the room) and listened to the artists play live music.  One child commented on how small one of the guitars was.  Well, it was only small because it was a violin, but that didn't matter.  Some of the kids stared in amazement as they played.  Others, and many staff members, moved along with the music.  At the end, one of our youngest girls asked "Can you teach me to sing that good?"  It was damn near magical!

And just to think...I could have kept chasing after that roaring bus today.  But I didn't.  And it was then when I remembered what I am really chasing after.

Bucket Fillers

We talk from time to time about bucket fillers at work.  The bucket is you.  The fillers are what goes inside to fill you up.  The fillers are different for everyone.  What fills your bucket?  My bucket has leaks.  I think everyone's does.  Why else would we have to try so hard to fill them?  Let's face it, a lot happens in my day and being pulled to the ground by my hair in the middle of the street could put a hole in the sturdiest of buckets, right?  Right.  True story, by the way.  I like to give from my bucket; it's what I do.  But I need to replenish the water supply eventually.  Lucky for me my job is good for both poking (or sometimes punching) holes in my bucket and filling it.  A perpetual struggle you might say. Last week was rough at work.  The hair pulling incident happened on Friday.  After a hard week an incident like that could pretty much empty my bucket.  But not this particular Friday. Even with all of those holes, I had an experience waiting for me at the end of the day that I knew would fill me up.  

I always tell people that I am rarely frazzled by the kids at work.  That is true.  They are generally my bucket fillers.  But I also consider it a great privilege to supervise the direct care staff.  They can be bucket fillers too.  I have had some amazing learning experiences with the staff I have supervised over the years.  They fill my bucket with youthful energy, endless ideas about how to best care for kids, and an amazing desire to learn.  They might poke a few holes every now and again just like the kids do.  A perpetual struggle you might say.  The struggles are the best part though.  Right in the middle of the whole mess, just when I think there is not enough water to make up for all of the holes, it is the struggle that pushes the most water into my bucket.

On Friday that perfect struggle happened.  A small group of some of my most memorable former staff members and a special client on her way out the door.  They had seen her through some of the roughest times and she had trusted them with her life.  Friday was a time for not just goodbye, but good luck and closure. The actual exchange was full of childlike silliness, awkward silences and adorable moments.  It is always bittersweet for us to say goodbye when we have seen a child grow so much.  A struggle.  It is the ultimate emotional learning experience for them to sit with the conflicting feelings of happiness about moving on and sadness about the relationships they must leave behind.  A struggle.  It all happened in the hallway in front of the elevator.  And as she gave her final hugs and and we walked away, her shoulders dipped and she began to cry gently.  

I left her with these words in her memory book:  "You are like the ocean.  Sometimes fast and sometimes slow.  Lots of ups and downs, but always moving forward.  Always beautiful.  Please remember all that you have learned and keep growing!"

And with the rolling wave of all this struggle, my bucket overflowed.  

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

It has been a few years now since I was told that my co-ed cottage was going to be transitioned to an all girls unit.  I will be the first to admit that I wasn't exactly excited by that idea.  The girls had never been my thing.  I like angry little boys.  They will curse at you and hit you, but there is usually an immediate reason and then it is done.  Not so with the girls.  They will hold on to some detail no one else can remember from three weeks ago, or what they have construed into some detail that never really happened.  They will hold onto it and then go for the jugular with all sorts of nastiness.  And our girls have extra emotional problems.  Needless to say, I was not thrilled.  However, I have never backed away from a challenge at work and this was no different.  I got myself comfortable enough with the idea and presented it to my staff.  You have to really be behind an idea when you talk to your staff about it or it doesn't have a fighting chance.

And so we did it.  We became an all girls unit.  And now I will be the first to admit that the girls have grown on me!  I still love my little guys down the hall, but I have learned to appreciate many things about working with the girls.  They are more contemplative, they want to connect deeply, and they put their heart into whatever they do.  Today I had a great day with the girls.  I am currently running a group about teamwork with them.  They need a lot of practice.  They often spend more time arguing with staff, each other and themselves than they spend on anything else.  The idea of working together toward a common goal is novel for them.  Today I planned a group based on an activity I have done myself.  I have done it more than once during team building days with other therapists at work.  The basic gist is that the first girl is to construct something from materials given (coffee stirrers, toothpicks, gummy bears, dots and marshmallows.  The only girl to see the structure other than she who creates it is the one directly behind her.  That girl then passes the design verbally to the girl in the middle.  She then passes it to another girl who passes it to the girl she can watch trying to recreate the structure.  It is like the "Telephone Game" in kinesthetic form.

I warned them ahead of time that it could be tough and that they would become frustrated.  They were eager to begin.  So eager that the creator used every piece available to create a fairly elaborate structure.  The girl behind her began to give step-by-step directions, but quickly fell behind as the creator worked speedily through her idea.  But they just kept going, step-by-step.  I watched and put out small fires as they arose (an inappropriate comment here, an argument there).  The structures looked quite different for a long time, but the girls didn't know that.  Things almost fell apart at one point (not the structures, but the kids).  This one wasn't paying attention, that one was being too loud for the girls to hear the information being passed along, someone looked at someone else wrong.  The usual.  But they did it.  For an entire hour they followed through with each step, and what do you know?  The structures were amazingly similar in the end!  I was nothing short of impressed!  These girls, these arguing, bullying, disorganized, and emotionally disregulated girls had just done better than a group of well adjusted, educated, patient therapists.  I would say I was surprised, but I was not.  I often say that I learn just as much, if not more, from the kids as they learn from me.  We had a whole discussion after about what was hard and how it might be easier if we were to do this again.  They had it pretty well figured out: make things less complicated, communicate better, and have more support from those around to mediate.  Hmm...is it possible that the girls have figured out how to improve their lives?  I didn't mention that in the moment.  Too big a risk that they will toss the whole idea just because I made a meaningful connection for them.  I will that for later.  In the meantime, I will take their advice!

I just have to also include a side story here.  In the middle of group, one of the girls who had been out with her caseworker came back to the cottage.  She is not your typical girl.  She wears boys clothes and is far more interested in building and sports than brushing her hair.  She had been out for a haircut.  One she has been waiting for.  We all paused to react.  One of the girls said, "you look like a boy!"  I thought to myself, "she looks like herself!"  She bounded to her room with joy in her step.  For many reasons we have not had the pleasure of seeing her truly happy in a long time.  It was the highlight of my week because she so deserves to feel happiness!  They all do.

The R - i - p - p - l - e

The word impact has several meanings.  It is a word that I lament on frequently in relation to my work. In this case, it usually means influence or effect.  Do I have an impact on the kids? Families? My co-workers?  The answer fluctuates from day to day.  Some days I leave work and I truly feel like I have made an impact in some ways.  More often, though, I leave work wondering about it.  However, I don't always take the time to reflect on the concept of having an impact.  Something sparked me to reflect on it yesterday.  Which brings me to another meaning of impact:  the striking of one thing against another.

Yesterday morning a simple thing struck me.  I noticed it gently in the moment, but the impact of this simple thing grew a little over time and created a space for me to notice simple things throughout the day.  It was a reminder that it is often the accumulation of little things that creates a larger impact.  What a powerful idea!  It is not a new idea, but it is one our minds often release hold of.

My vagueness is purposeful.  I wanted to plant the idea of impact first.  Yesterday was like a bit of a ripple.  In the morning, a co-worker of mine threw in a pebble.  Actually, it was more like he unintentionally kicked the pebble into the water while walking along.  It was a simple comment.  I don't remember it word for word, but the gist was that though our paths do not cross that often at work, he could tell that I was not in the office last week.  I wasn't in the office last week.  I was out at a training all week long.  He also asked how the training was and I commented that it was really great.  Then I moved on with other conversations and he exited the room.

Like I said earlier, the impact was gentle in the moment.  I think I made a smart ass comment about it being nice to know that if I disappeared someone would notice I was gone.  I didn't give it much more thought.  Tuesday is full of meetings, so my brain has all it can handle.  In fact, by the end of the day I am happy to sneak in a few minutes in the cottages so that I can be around the kids.  I noticed some small things while spending time in the cottages yesterday.  I participating in a fun game of Freeze Dance with the girls during the group I ran.  We were practicing following directions, allowing personal space, and impulse control.  My supervisor happened to enter the cottage while I was in the midst of romping around the room with the girls.  We made eye contact for one moment and he grinned.  I am not sure I have ever been doing anything more productive.  Sometime after this group I went next door where the little guys are.  One particular little guy was sweeping the kitchen.  The kids were all doing chores.  He was so excited to show me the pile of dirt and crumbs he had swept up from the floor.  He was so proud, and I was proud of him!  I felt a little glow inside that matched his smile.

I didn't connect these things yesterday.  That happened on the way into work this morning.  A lot of thinking can happen when you have a 45 minute commute.  I realized on the way to work that the comment from the morning before had really made an impression on me.  Then I was in a training this afternoon where the trainer reminded us all of humanity's need to be noticed.  Not to be applauded, but just to be noticed.  I think it is really a need to feel like we make an impact.  That simple statement yesterday morning had stuck with me because it made me feel noticed.  It let me know that I have an influence or effect on others.  An IMPACT.  As a result, I was able to punctuate small things that had made an impact on me throughout the day yesterday.

That was the ripple.  It was gentle.  I think the gentle ones last longer and travel farther.  Next time my mind releases hold of the idea that the accumulation of little things can create a larger impact, I think I will just need to find a pebble to gently place into the water.

Take care of yourself, Dave.

My stomach has been in knots for almost two weeks now.  Hearing that someone you care about is in the ICU and his kidneys are failing will do that to you.  Even if he has been sick and in pain, you still wish he would just get better and come back to work.

He always had a smile on his face and funny or encouraging word to say. He worked with kids of every age with grace and patience.  Not all the kids got along with him, but they all respected him.  The grown-ups all got along with him.  By now you have noticed that I am speaking in the past tense.  That is because today Dave Ramos was laid to rest.  It was kind of like losing a family member.  We do hard work that requires an extraordinary amount of emotional exertion.  We depend on each other a lot.  Dave could be depended on for whatever was needed.  He didn't ask questions.  He didn't make excuses.  He just got it done.

The same was true of Dave outside of work.  He battled cancer more than once.  You know that saying a lover not a fighter?  Well, Dave was both.  He loved his family, his work, his life.  He had a passion that is rare to find.  And he never gave up.  The cancer was different this time, but Dave wasn't.   He was relentless in his journey.  Those closest to him would tell you his journey has been a success; he is home now.  Dave was a man of undying faith, and although my faith background is different from Dave's, I joined him on his journey.

I sat with my co-workers in more than one prayer gathering.  I never spoke a word out loud.  I listened and I prayed.  I felt such a sense of community and peace in those moments.  This was so interesting to me.  I don't attend synagogue regularly.  I haven't since I was a child.  I appreciate the rituals of my faith, but don't always feel as much connection as I would like.  Dave helped me feel connected to faith.  I will be forever thankful to him for that.  I attended the Celebration of Life service for Dave last night.  For over two hours, we all remembered his life.  He was only here for 37 years, but there was so much to remember.  Not only were there no empty seats, but there was no place left to stand.  Even the lobby was full.  I dare say Dave helped us all connect with faith last night.  We cried, we laughed, we hugged.  Like I said before, we are like a family where I work.

I am not sure that everyone has the pleasure of remembering the exact last interaction they had with Dave.  He left campus for Winter Break and never got to come back for work.  I am lucky enough to know exactly when mine was.  It was not in person.  It was on the phone.  I was carrying our on-call phone the first week of Winter Break.  Dave called Thursday night.  He was supposed to work on Friday.  He called to let me know that he would not be able to come to work because he had just been released from the hospital.  I didn't want to invade his privacy, so I asked something benign and profound like, "What is wrong?".  Brilliant, I know.  Dave replied with something like, "just the same stuff that won't seem to go away".  I assured him that I would let the appropriate people know he would not be at work tomorrow and finished the phone call with, "take care of yourself, Dave".  That was the last thing I ever said to him.  He found out the next day that his cancer was not only back, but back with a vengeance.  He was never able to come back to work.  

About two months after that phone call Dave died.  If I knew that Thursday night that it would be the last time I would talk to Dave, would I have said something different?  I don't really have an answer to that question.  We all have a lot of unanswered questions after something like this happens.  That is what faith is all about.  Believing even though we don't understand.  We do it all day long at work.  Dave showed us how.  He led by example in everything he did.  If I could see Dave now, I think I would just smile and I would choose the same words: take care of yourself, Dave.