Mike is back. Yay!
It’s been a busy day. We had Laser Eagles. Mike was not the tracker – I worked with Jennifer Marr who is a fabulous tracker! Mostly I was collecting together the paintings that I intend to exhibit at the ROM so that Kimberly can drop them off at the CAVE office. This is where Paul and I are collecting them, where Andrew will photograph them, and where we will make our plans for shaping the exhibit so that its message is as powerful as possible.
Oh yes, Kimberly is back too. Yay! The impact of her absence hasn’t been as obvious to me because she did an excellent job of replacing herself while Mike and she were away. But just the same, lots of things went on hold, like some fundraising, so it’s wonderful to feel the energy picking up again.
I spent a large part of today getting a cat from Hamilton to the northernmost reaches of Toronto. In all, eight people were involved in moving one cat. Mike and I got to do the actual driving and delivery of a yowling and frightened feline. On the one hand, it’s truly bizarre, and as Mike was reflecting as we drove, nothing of this really has anything to do with the cat itself. He simply wasn’t wanted where he was and I knew someone who did want him and Mary and Gloria did not want to see him killed and there you go, grown adults spending a day and a good bit of money moving an animal across three municipalities!
It was good to see Gloria and Mary again as well. I spent a lot of today handing out happy faces and stars. I have discovered in the past few weeks that it is a wonderful thing to surround myself with stars and happy faces. I have been using them to keep track of the twelve projects I am creating so as to keep on track and to keep motivated. The “unintended” result is that it has become ever so clear to me that I made a decision when I was very young, probably four, that I did not want EVER to cry again when people hurt me. It certainly was a simple enough and obvious enough decision for a four year old to make in the kind of situation that I found myself in as a child. Never could I have imagined that by having such a determined focus to be stoic and invulnerable that I would powerfully shape myself into a person who struggles to be compassionate both with myself and others and who is unwilling to be emotional and touched.
Of course, that has shifted a lot over the years but this Third Cycle has powerfully revealed to me that I carry the tightness and the burden of the decision to be encased in a shell. My own shell has way more shaped my body and my heart than did the plastic shells that the doctors encased me in when I was a teenager with a growingly twisted body.
At the same time, while happy faces and stars came into my life to support my desire to shift the world towards giftedness, the same happy faces and stars have cracked the shell and helped me discover a child who deeply longs for affirmation and who responds to affirmation with joy and laughter.
So today I decided to give it away, bought some packages of stars and happy little Easter chicks (actually, one of them is kind of grumpy!) and gave them to nearly everybody I ran into today. Is this something I would do every day for the rest of my life? Probably not, but then again, who would have ever thought I would be exhibiting at the ROM?
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
April 13, 2011
It’s been ten days, maybe eleven, since I had a dose of Morphine. I’m beginning to think that today may be the day.
Factors: pain in my lower back, headache, a low pressure high humidity air mass here at the lakeshore, lots of time up in the chair yesterday, anxiety! Anxiety – the key factor to having the experience go from a minor discomfort that disappears into the day’s activities to becoming THE theme of the day.
Why did we create such a world that is so hard to grow up into? Yesterday I found out that the Workers Compensation “tax” on my staff’s payroll is going to take most of the extra allocation that I received earlier this month leaving me – for the third time in 18 months – nearly out of money to pay my personal assistants. No amount of friends’ generousity and creative money finding prepares me for these moments – when someone/thing beyond my awareness/understanding/management exercises their “legitimate” right to take “my” money. I am left with “hopeless”! Anxiety!
Of course the Morphine does not find the extra $5000. It just takes the pain out of “hopeless”. Hence the risk of addiction.
Yesterday I was toying with the idea of restarting my PhD at OISE, mostly because there are some fat research scholarships available. I realize that I still don’t really want a PhD – it’s way more like I want to be a Senior Researcher of my own Institute on Excellence in Research and Development in Inclusion. It’s what I am anyway, and it would give me the appropriate “trappings” – context – for me to look like what I am and to attract the team and the money.
Today the dream seems more than usually unattainable. It seems utterly defeated before it’s born – like: “Who do I think I am, anyway!” The raid on my payroll is just another example – another message from the universe – “Know your place. Go back to bed and die.”
I need/want a different place to go back to. I don’t mean I want to move. I mean I want Square One to be real enough that I and we are not constantly shoring up daily life.
Jen has taught me to breathe through the anxiety – to allow the muscles to relax and stretch out. I have also come to believe that miracles are always happening and that I can rely on something being available that right now I have no awareness of. The real question worth asking is: “How am I going to make myself available for a miracle?”
Factors: pain in my lower back, headache, a low pressure high humidity air mass here at the lakeshore, lots of time up in the chair yesterday, anxiety! Anxiety – the key factor to having the experience go from a minor discomfort that disappears into the day’s activities to becoming THE theme of the day.
Why did we create such a world that is so hard to grow up into? Yesterday I found out that the Workers Compensation “tax” on my staff’s payroll is going to take most of the extra allocation that I received earlier this month leaving me – for the third time in 18 months – nearly out of money to pay my personal assistants. No amount of friends’ generousity and creative money finding prepares me for these moments – when someone/thing beyond my awareness/understanding/management exercises their “legitimate” right to take “my” money. I am left with “hopeless”! Anxiety!
Of course the Morphine does not find the extra $5000. It just takes the pain out of “hopeless”. Hence the risk of addiction.
Yesterday I was toying with the idea of restarting my PhD at OISE, mostly because there are some fat research scholarships available. I realize that I still don’t really want a PhD – it’s way more like I want to be a Senior Researcher of my own Institute on Excellence in Research and Development in Inclusion. It’s what I am anyway, and it would give me the appropriate “trappings” – context – for me to look like what I am and to attract the team and the money.
Today the dream seems more than usually unattainable. It seems utterly defeated before it’s born – like: “Who do I think I am, anyway!” The raid on my payroll is just another example – another message from the universe – “Know your place. Go back to bed and die.”
I need/want a different place to go back to. I don’t mean I want to move. I mean I want Square One to be real enough that I and we are not constantly shoring up daily life.
Jen has taught me to breathe through the anxiety – to allow the muscles to relax and stretch out. I have also come to believe that miracles are always happening and that I can rely on something being available that right now I have no awareness of. The real question worth asking is: “How am I going to make myself available for a miracle?”
Sunday, April 10, 2011
April 10, 2011
It’s early on Sunday – about 10:30am. It’s been a very different week so it’s fitting to write at a very different time.
The new guy, Brian, did very well on his first solo shift. This is a saving grace in the midst of the stresses of covering Mike’s vacation and of Helen’ and Eva’s sudden illnesses, and the “back-ups” – people who typically cover an odd shift here and there – all seemingly being elsewhere this weekend!
I think that I wrote recently that I am keeping a chart up each week of the twelve projects – thirteen this week! – that I am juggling. I give myself happy faces each day on each project for efforts I have made and stars for team efforts, with or without me. Mike’s absence leaves a big gap in a third of the chart, which lets me know that I am only in contact with a big part of my life through him right now. It looks like an area where I can build communication with others!
The chart also reveals that I already have achieved my goal with ODSP and I can take it off my project list. I got another new case worker about two weeks ago, and I decided to go to see her in person, to explain my plan to transition off of “the pension” by October. It turned out much better than that. She can, and did!, mark my case as eligible for receiving the drug and dental coverage, and wheelchair repairs and replacements even when I make too much money for the income part. This will also be true after I am 65. This makes a significant difference to my current plans for making money.
Early in the week I noticed that there were very few cubes – prefabricated modular cells made in Texas – remaining in the train yard. The immediate view from my bedroom window was returning to its themes of marshalling yard and industrial wasteland. I assumed that the local prison – now up to four stories with two big towers and one huge one – was near completion. Yet, two nights ago, another train came in and I awoke to several stacks and flatbeds of the largest, grey cubes.
Once again I am fascinated by how much goes on at night in the gigantic playground, and how I just don’t see all of it. This activity is typically accompanied by bright, sometimes flashing lights, and last October I was several times kept awake by an enormous arc lamp. The actual work is accomplished by very few people and humungous machines. How can it be so hidden? Yet they must have discovered ways to be more discreet so that now we all pretty much sleep through it.
Just how big is it going to be, this prison?
I painted today. More gray and blue, but today with some Gesso. It’s my first time with Gesso, necessitated by the use of somebody else’s recycled canvases. It made the acrylic paint work more like oil – thick, slow to dry, easy to scrape off. Expensive. Yet somehow I felt like I was t taking charge of my craft, not just painting. If I truly am a serious artist then I must understand the economics of it – not understanding as in learning but as standing for it to work and grow, to have its own integrity. More than one trained tracker, reliable supplies of sufficient quality, a style, themes, a context, appreciation for its own sake. It is not therapy.
The new guy, Brian, did very well on his first solo shift. This is a saving grace in the midst of the stresses of covering Mike’s vacation and of Helen’ and Eva’s sudden illnesses, and the “back-ups” – people who typically cover an odd shift here and there – all seemingly being elsewhere this weekend!
I think that I wrote recently that I am keeping a chart up each week of the twelve projects – thirteen this week! – that I am juggling. I give myself happy faces each day on each project for efforts I have made and stars for team efforts, with or without me. Mike’s absence leaves a big gap in a third of the chart, which lets me know that I am only in contact with a big part of my life through him right now. It looks like an area where I can build communication with others!
The chart also reveals that I already have achieved my goal with ODSP and I can take it off my project list. I got another new case worker about two weeks ago, and I decided to go to see her in person, to explain my plan to transition off of “the pension” by October. It turned out much better than that. She can, and did!, mark my case as eligible for receiving the drug and dental coverage, and wheelchair repairs and replacements even when I make too much money for the income part. This will also be true after I am 65. This makes a significant difference to my current plans for making money.
Early in the week I noticed that there were very few cubes – prefabricated modular cells made in Texas – remaining in the train yard. The immediate view from my bedroom window was returning to its themes of marshalling yard and industrial wasteland. I assumed that the local prison – now up to four stories with two big towers and one huge one – was near completion. Yet, two nights ago, another train came in and I awoke to several stacks and flatbeds of the largest, grey cubes.
Once again I am fascinated by how much goes on at night in the gigantic playground, and how I just don’t see all of it. This activity is typically accompanied by bright, sometimes flashing lights, and last October I was several times kept awake by an enormous arc lamp. The actual work is accomplished by very few people and humungous machines. How can it be so hidden? Yet they must have discovered ways to be more discreet so that now we all pretty much sleep through it.
Just how big is it going to be, this prison?
I painted today. More gray and blue, but today with some Gesso. It’s my first time with Gesso, necessitated by the use of somebody else’s recycled canvases. It made the acrylic paint work more like oil – thick, slow to dry, easy to scrape off. Expensive. Yet somehow I felt like I was t taking charge of my craft, not just painting. If I truly am a serious artist then I must understand the economics of it – not understanding as in learning but as standing for it to work and grow, to have its own integrity. More than one trained tracker, reliable supplies of sufficient quality, a style, themes, a context, appreciation for its own sake. It is not therapy.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
April 6, 2011
Yes, the date was had!
It has been a tumultuous day – the wheelchair broke, the water was off so the building’s boilers could be fixed, an assistant went home with a blistering ear ache leaving me in bed waiting for the only one who come in - Nick, three promised cheques have yet to arrive, and yes, the date was had!
Let’s call him Fred. He is a welder and worked until 6am and so couldn’t get himself here by 11:00am. We talked back and forth a few times on the cells – I think I might have woken him up the first time. He got to the Yalla café about noon.
In the meantime Yalla was about 35 minutes late opening up. Helen and I stood about for awhile, then went for a short walk. Michel, one of the owners, broke his hip falling on ice on Feb. 19, and he still isn’t allowed to put weight on his leg. He and his wife/cook Helen had errands to run before they opened and so were late.
As I entered the café my new chair would not come out of the partial tilt I had it in to travel at higher speeds. It’s been quirky all along, and I suspect the controls have been messed up from the beginning! Anyway I was not in a good position for eating.
But it’s not bad. It turns out that Fred is a Shiite Muslim who escaped from Iraq after all his family were killed except himself and one brother by Sadam’s people. He was brought by the UN to Hamilton. His English is week, but Michel welcomed him in Arabic, translated when necessary, teased me and said many flattering things. Eventually we were both comfortable enough, and Helen, my assistant (who was the soul of discretion throughout it all) propped me up with a cushion and we four ate together, sharing food from each other’s plates. Fred paid and walked part of the way back with us.
We will likely have another date, and not need Michel.
I spent the rest of the day in bed so the tech could take my chair in for a major part replacement.
Throughout the day I noticed that the number of prison modular cubes waiting in the train yard has gone down dramatically this week. There are perhaps only a dozen left. Today I actually saw an oversized flatbed take one out of the yard, loop around to Horner Ave., and drive it to the back of the now almost finished prison assemblage.
It was fitting that I was landed back in bed to see this little drama. Until now most of the activity has happened in the dead of night, or occasionally in daylight, but not when I was present to witness it.
Mike and Kimberly are off to Whistler for eleven days, for pre-wedding planning, sampling and inspection of facilities. It leaves a BIG hole in my schedule and my life.
Today I realized that “sick” is now definitely done! I have entered fully into my commitment to live Third Cycle fully and powerfully, to unmistakenly turn Inclusion over to a future in good hands and to live my life as the miracle it is as I fulfill this chosen task. Fred, Michel, Helen, Mike, Kimberly, Nick and many, many more hold me respectfully, carefully and insistently in the precious chosen and created family that makes my amazing life both possible and worthwhile – (and I haven’t had Morphine in six days!)
It has been a tumultuous day – the wheelchair broke, the water was off so the building’s boilers could be fixed, an assistant went home with a blistering ear ache leaving me in bed waiting for the only one who come in - Nick, three promised cheques have yet to arrive, and yes, the date was had!
Let’s call him Fred. He is a welder and worked until 6am and so couldn’t get himself here by 11:00am. We talked back and forth a few times on the cells – I think I might have woken him up the first time. He got to the Yalla café about noon.
In the meantime Yalla was about 35 minutes late opening up. Helen and I stood about for awhile, then went for a short walk. Michel, one of the owners, broke his hip falling on ice on Feb. 19, and he still isn’t allowed to put weight on his leg. He and his wife/cook Helen had errands to run before they opened and so were late.
As I entered the café my new chair would not come out of the partial tilt I had it in to travel at higher speeds. It’s been quirky all along, and I suspect the controls have been messed up from the beginning! Anyway I was not in a good position for eating.
But it’s not bad. It turns out that Fred is a Shiite Muslim who escaped from Iraq after all his family were killed except himself and one brother by Sadam’s people. He was brought by the UN to Hamilton. His English is week, but Michel welcomed him in Arabic, translated when necessary, teased me and said many flattering things. Eventually we were both comfortable enough, and Helen, my assistant (who was the soul of discretion throughout it all) propped me up with a cushion and we four ate together, sharing food from each other’s plates. Fred paid and walked part of the way back with us.
We will likely have another date, and not need Michel.
I spent the rest of the day in bed so the tech could take my chair in for a major part replacement.
Throughout the day I noticed that the number of prison modular cubes waiting in the train yard has gone down dramatically this week. There are perhaps only a dozen left. Today I actually saw an oversized flatbed take one out of the yard, loop around to Horner Ave., and drive it to the back of the now almost finished prison assemblage.
It was fitting that I was landed back in bed to see this little drama. Until now most of the activity has happened in the dead of night, or occasionally in daylight, but not when I was present to witness it.
Mike and Kimberly are off to Whistler for eleven days, for pre-wedding planning, sampling and inspection of facilities. It leaves a BIG hole in my schedule and my life.
Today I realized that “sick” is now definitely done! I have entered fully into my commitment to live Third Cycle fully and powerfully, to unmistakenly turn Inclusion over to a future in good hands and to live my life as the miracle it is as I fulfill this chosen task. Fred, Michel, Helen, Mike, Kimberly, Nick and many, many more hold me respectfully, carefully and insistently in the precious chosen and created family that makes my amazing life both possible and worthwhile – (and I haven’t had Morphine in six days!)
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
April 5, 2011
Okay, I started with Facebook, with an ad for seniors who want to date. It led to a website where I would have to pay money so I quit filling in my information there.
Then Helen remembered a site that she thought might be solely for non-heterosexual people. It’s called Plenty of Fish. We looked it up and it turned out to be both free and quite comprehensive. Not only is it for all types and all ages, but it gives lots of advice on how to create your profile, what to do on the first date, what not to talk about, etc.
I signed up and had four responses in less than 24 hours. Exciting!
Today is Mike’s last day until April 19th. We packed a lot in today since our lives overlap so much with both Landmark and Inclusion. However busy we needed to be, today’s activities included checking out the responses that came through this morning!
Before you know it I was “chatting” with a man who lives in Hamilton and is originally from Iraq. I am not a very fast typist when it comes to chatting and so I happily encouraged Mike to do the messaging. Once again, within minutes, I was pushing his boundaries, and in some senses he was pushing mine. On the one hand I was asking his advice on how I should respond. On the other he jumped in at least once to answer the guy’s comments before I had said anything. This led to a very productive conversation about what is weird and what is too much and the value to me of having opportunities to mix friendship, experience and support. Among other things I realized this morning that such boundary melding sometimes actually gives me more safety, not less, and it certainly gives me valuable insight into the worlds of younger people, walking people, and just simply people who get to see parts of the world that I will never see.
Anyways, I now have a coffee date for tomorrow morning. We are going to go to the Yalla Café. Not only do I feel welcome and comfortable there, but Helen and Michel, the café owners and operators, love me and will give me a very good perspective on how this new guy is as a potential relationship. If anything, Michel may be somewhat paternalistic and that at least will be funny.
It’s all very different from any time I’ve tried dating before. It’s funny but this thing about expressing myself with fewer inhibitions has really shifted my world and its possibilities.
I will, of course, write a story about how it goes. Now it is time to sleep.
Then Helen remembered a site that she thought might be solely for non-heterosexual people. It’s called Plenty of Fish. We looked it up and it turned out to be both free and quite comprehensive. Not only is it for all types and all ages, but it gives lots of advice on how to create your profile, what to do on the first date, what not to talk about, etc.
I signed up and had four responses in less than 24 hours. Exciting!
Today is Mike’s last day until April 19th. We packed a lot in today since our lives overlap so much with both Landmark and Inclusion. However busy we needed to be, today’s activities included checking out the responses that came through this morning!
Before you know it I was “chatting” with a man who lives in Hamilton and is originally from Iraq. I am not a very fast typist when it comes to chatting and so I happily encouraged Mike to do the messaging. Once again, within minutes, I was pushing his boundaries, and in some senses he was pushing mine. On the one hand I was asking his advice on how I should respond. On the other he jumped in at least once to answer the guy’s comments before I had said anything. This led to a very productive conversation about what is weird and what is too much and the value to me of having opportunities to mix friendship, experience and support. Among other things I realized this morning that such boundary melding sometimes actually gives me more safety, not less, and it certainly gives me valuable insight into the worlds of younger people, walking people, and just simply people who get to see parts of the world that I will never see.
Anyways, I now have a coffee date for tomorrow morning. We are going to go to the Yalla Café. Not only do I feel welcome and comfortable there, but Helen and Michel, the café owners and operators, love me and will give me a very good perspective on how this new guy is as a potential relationship. If anything, Michel may be somewhat paternalistic and that at least will be funny.
It’s all very different from any time I’ve tried dating before. It’s funny but this thing about expressing myself with fewer inhibitions has really shifted my world and its possibilities.
I will, of course, write a story about how it goes. Now it is time to sleep.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
April 3, 2011
A friend once told me that in the world of astrologers when Mercury is in retrograde (which means that it appears to the naked eye to be travelling backwards) all kinds of difficulties in the area of communication show up. I’ll bet if I were to check – which I’m not going to – Mercury has been in retrograde for a while now! Tonight my computer just stopped dead twice. Earlier this week I have been hassling with two of the City Team members, and other stuff has been breaking down or messing up, like the car door switch not working.
Just the same, aside from the pain being pretty bad all week, the most recent weeks of my life have been very powerful. For example, tonight on the way home from Newmarket, and while getting caught in a snowstorm, and while my hips and feet were tired and starting to hurt, Mike and I still had a very creative conversation around renaming our peace/Inclusion organization and around structuring it, resourcing it, etc.
My capacity to express myself is clearly shifting. I can see a kind of progression from black and white to shades of gray to colours breaking out. I find myself with the ability to experience compassion and to experience all sorts of things without needing to severely judge. I find myself laughing, and even genuinely being funny sometimes.
I am in the midst of a Landmark seminar called Sex and Intimacy. I came to it very reluctantly and mostly because I’ve been complaining for years that I don’t have a sexual partner and certainly not a lover. It is extremely ironic that I, who is absent of willing partners to support me to have a sexual expression, have been avidly sought out this last year by people who want to know more about sexuality and the experience of being physically limited in mobility. I am sure this has lots to do with the play – the Book of Judith. But even here, expression is breaking out. When I was interviewed for the Trillium funding research project on personal assistance and supporting sexual expression, I was asked very powerful questions about the nature of personal assistance and what it is like to be assisted. I felt genuinely free and grounded in answering these questions and left one of the interviewers moved to tears. I was clearly in the zone of my personal gifts.
It is emerging in the Sex and Intimacy seminar that one of my major blocks has been what we call in Landmark a winning formula. It works for me to be a strategist who builds my efforts on eliminating the likelihood of failure. In other words I always have at least one back up plan and often two in case something is not working out in my life. This way of thinking is very helpful for dealing with issues like staff people not showing up because they got ill overnight or breakdowns in my wheelchair, my car or my own body. However, it is from such a world view what clearly shows up for me is failure. In other words, when you first buy a Chevrolet, all you see is Chevrolets, or when you first find out you’re pregnant, suddenly you are surrounded by strollers. I have been causing myself to experience failure in the area of my sexual expression.
So I have decided to play a game with myself. I am going to start dating again. In fact, I promised to have one date this week. Anybody know of anybody I could go on a coffee date with??? Helen came up with a brilliant idea that if the date goes well, no problem, but if the guy turns out to be boring or annoying then I can write a story about it in my blog. Either way, it gets to be expression and I get out of the failure loop.
It also solves a problem of what to keep writing about in this blog. I do not believe I can get back to the once a day schedule, but I believe I can get this out twice a week.
Anyways, that’s it for now. I am going to bed.
Just the same, aside from the pain being pretty bad all week, the most recent weeks of my life have been very powerful. For example, tonight on the way home from Newmarket, and while getting caught in a snowstorm, and while my hips and feet were tired and starting to hurt, Mike and I still had a very creative conversation around renaming our peace/Inclusion organization and around structuring it, resourcing it, etc.
My capacity to express myself is clearly shifting. I can see a kind of progression from black and white to shades of gray to colours breaking out. I find myself with the ability to experience compassion and to experience all sorts of things without needing to severely judge. I find myself laughing, and even genuinely being funny sometimes.
I am in the midst of a Landmark seminar called Sex and Intimacy. I came to it very reluctantly and mostly because I’ve been complaining for years that I don’t have a sexual partner and certainly not a lover. It is extremely ironic that I, who is absent of willing partners to support me to have a sexual expression, have been avidly sought out this last year by people who want to know more about sexuality and the experience of being physically limited in mobility. I am sure this has lots to do with the play – the Book of Judith. But even here, expression is breaking out. When I was interviewed for the Trillium funding research project on personal assistance and supporting sexual expression, I was asked very powerful questions about the nature of personal assistance and what it is like to be assisted. I felt genuinely free and grounded in answering these questions and left one of the interviewers moved to tears. I was clearly in the zone of my personal gifts.
It is emerging in the Sex and Intimacy seminar that one of my major blocks has been what we call in Landmark a winning formula. It works for me to be a strategist who builds my efforts on eliminating the likelihood of failure. In other words I always have at least one back up plan and often two in case something is not working out in my life. This way of thinking is very helpful for dealing with issues like staff people not showing up because they got ill overnight or breakdowns in my wheelchair, my car or my own body. However, it is from such a world view what clearly shows up for me is failure. In other words, when you first buy a Chevrolet, all you see is Chevrolets, or when you first find out you’re pregnant, suddenly you are surrounded by strollers. I have been causing myself to experience failure in the area of my sexual expression.
So I have decided to play a game with myself. I am going to start dating again. In fact, I promised to have one date this week. Anybody know of anybody I could go on a coffee date with??? Helen came up with a brilliant idea that if the date goes well, no problem, but if the guy turns out to be boring or annoying then I can write a story about it in my blog. Either way, it gets to be expression and I get out of the failure loop.
It also solves a problem of what to keep writing about in this blog. I do not believe I can get back to the once a day schedule, but I believe I can get this out twice a week.
Anyways, that’s it for now. I am going to bed.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
March 20, 2011
Happy solstice and extra large full moon! I’ve heard that the moon is as close in physical distance right now as it ever gets. On top of that last week’s earthquake shifted the earth axis, narrowed the Pacific Ocean by 13 feet and slightly compressed the Earth’s shape so that we are now spinning ever so slightly faster.
This week also marked the memorial services of two people who have effected my view of Inclusion – Wolf Wolfensberger and Marilyn Ferrell.
I felt shaken in my core this week. It’s not that anything particularly good or bad happened, but just the same, it felt like some kind of reorganization.
Outwardly the signs of this are that my circle met today and I ensured that we did not talk about my health or my needs, but about how I am groping to reorganize my life so that I can integrate and balance all of the commitments that are trying to happen to put Inclusion and Peace deeply into the conversation of the world. To use a biblical phrase, this week has been about girding myself to conduct the big fight, the big push.
Mike and I counted my commitments, not such an easy task because they do overlap quite a bit with each other. In the end we decided on twelve:
1. The ROM Exhibit
2. Laser Eagles
3. The Book of Judith
4. Zombie Video Game Research & Development
5. Making WPIT a genuine presence
6. BMX Model Research
7. Health & Well Being
8. Wisdom City Team
9. My Staffing
10. Weaning myself off ODSP
11. Having Individualized Funding Extended
12. The Book and Getting it Published
All these things together will bring about the capacity of my colleagues and I to deeply embed a new conversation about Inclusion. Anything less will have me and our efforts unstable in some way. So in a very real way it’s all or nothing at this time.
Of course, this is the way it looks right now. Expect in the near future it will consolidate into a simplified version of this picture. The genuinely core issues will emerge and it will be clear how to empower all of it through a few key efforts.
It is also clear that I and we really need project management and a project co-ordinator. These things are necessary to engage as many people as possible and keep as many efforts going as possible all at the same time.
What has shifted is my level of certainty. This is what must be and can be.
This week also marked the memorial services of two people who have effected my view of Inclusion – Wolf Wolfensberger and Marilyn Ferrell.
I felt shaken in my core this week. It’s not that anything particularly good or bad happened, but just the same, it felt like some kind of reorganization.
Outwardly the signs of this are that my circle met today and I ensured that we did not talk about my health or my needs, but about how I am groping to reorganize my life so that I can integrate and balance all of the commitments that are trying to happen to put Inclusion and Peace deeply into the conversation of the world. To use a biblical phrase, this week has been about girding myself to conduct the big fight, the big push.
Mike and I counted my commitments, not such an easy task because they do overlap quite a bit with each other. In the end we decided on twelve:
1. The ROM Exhibit
2. Laser Eagles
3. The Book of Judith
4. Zombie Video Game Research & Development
5. Making WPIT a genuine presence
6. BMX Model Research
7. Health & Well Being
8. Wisdom City Team
9. My Staffing
10. Weaning myself off ODSP
11. Having Individualized Funding Extended
12. The Book and Getting it Published
All these things together will bring about the capacity of my colleagues and I to deeply embed a new conversation about Inclusion. Anything less will have me and our efforts unstable in some way. So in a very real way it’s all or nothing at this time.
Of course, this is the way it looks right now. Expect in the near future it will consolidate into a simplified version of this picture. The genuinely core issues will emerge and it will be clear how to empower all of it through a few key efforts.
It is also clear that I and we really need project management and a project co-ordinator. These things are necessary to engage as many people as possible and keep as many efforts going as possible all at the same time.
What has shifted is my level of certainty. This is what must be and can be.
Friday, March 18, 2011
March 18, 2011
I realize that I have fallen far from the standard of writing every day in this blog. It begs the question – is this something I am still committed to, and if so, what am I prepared to do to keep it up.
This blog was born in a desire to express myself free from the constraints of my imagined response from readers. “Just put it out there – the hell with what I think they think about it!” this dichotomy soon proved to be false, and what was left was the growing courage to say what I had/have to say.
I would never have imagined that I lacked courage, but still its absence and now its presence – or growing presence – is apparent to me. It’s not about courage to speak/write but about courage to create a space where what “I” say can live beyond my immediate being. It’s about the willingness to be judged openly, to be sifted, to have some given the ongoing listening that will have it continue and some annihilated.
I see that I am a leader and that I have been unwilling to see that I am a leader.
I see that I am powerful and that I have been unwilling to see that I am powerful.
I see that I am angry and that I have been unwilling to see that I am angry.
I see that I am faithful and that I have been unwilling to admit that I am faithful.
Recently it has become occasionally apparent to me that there really is no “win” or “lose”. Win/lose is a useful model when one is young. Just like we teach 8 year olds that arithmetic IS mathematics, we teach ourselves to play life’s game as a win/lose struggle. But arithmetic is a small and insipid model of reality inside a vast set of models that we call mathematics which is in itself just one sort of approach to creating models of “it all”.
As I continue to manifest the complex set of human possibilities that I call Inclusion I am growing in my power and willingness to have it be as I say it can be. And, of course, I am not alone.
My anger is currently a curious phenomenon to me. I am angry most often when a promise isn’t kept. Outward judgement keeps me from noticing when I refuse to make a promise or don’t notice that I have made one or fail to be responsible when I don’t keep my own promises.
Most of my life my anger has been much more apparent to others than to me, and, of course, that sort of illusion is a great source of mischief. It has been like I could not let myself notice my power because I was afraid I would use it angrily and do harm. But “harm” is in a similar realm as “win/lose”. The creative and destructive forces of Shiva are permanently infused into each other.
As I see that I can be powerful and responsible I also see that others can be powerful and responsible. I do not have to tell them how to be or take care of them – simply call them into being.
Imagine a world where, by the age of seven or so, we were all calling each other to fully be and to responsibly hold together the spaces within which we can all be. Wouldn’t that be Inclusion?
This blog was born in a desire to express myself free from the constraints of my imagined response from readers. “Just put it out there – the hell with what I think they think about it!” this dichotomy soon proved to be false, and what was left was the growing courage to say what I had/have to say.
I would never have imagined that I lacked courage, but still its absence and now its presence – or growing presence – is apparent to me. It’s not about courage to speak/write but about courage to create a space where what “I” say can live beyond my immediate being. It’s about the willingness to be judged openly, to be sifted, to have some given the ongoing listening that will have it continue and some annihilated.
I see that I am a leader and that I have been unwilling to see that I am a leader.
I see that I am powerful and that I have been unwilling to see that I am powerful.
I see that I am angry and that I have been unwilling to see that I am angry.
I see that I am faithful and that I have been unwilling to admit that I am faithful.
Recently it has become occasionally apparent to me that there really is no “win” or “lose”. Win/lose is a useful model when one is young. Just like we teach 8 year olds that arithmetic IS mathematics, we teach ourselves to play life’s game as a win/lose struggle. But arithmetic is a small and insipid model of reality inside a vast set of models that we call mathematics which is in itself just one sort of approach to creating models of “it all”.
As I continue to manifest the complex set of human possibilities that I call Inclusion I am growing in my power and willingness to have it be as I say it can be. And, of course, I am not alone.
My anger is currently a curious phenomenon to me. I am angry most often when a promise isn’t kept. Outward judgement keeps me from noticing when I refuse to make a promise or don’t notice that I have made one or fail to be responsible when I don’t keep my own promises.
Most of my life my anger has been much more apparent to others than to me, and, of course, that sort of illusion is a great source of mischief. It has been like I could not let myself notice my power because I was afraid I would use it angrily and do harm. But “harm” is in a similar realm as “win/lose”. The creative and destructive forces of Shiva are permanently infused into each other.
As I see that I can be powerful and responsible I also see that others can be powerful and responsible. I do not have to tell them how to be or take care of them – simply call them into being.
Imagine a world where, by the age of seven or so, we were all calling each other to fully be and to responsibly hold together the spaces within which we can all be. Wouldn’t that be Inclusion?
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
March 15, 2011
It has been over a week since I began using this blog to reflect on the letter that I have now sent to the two pastors of First Presbyterian Church of Savannah – Stephen Williams and Will Shelburne. I sent the letter today. It had a few modifications from the text in the last four postings. I ended up concentrating more on invisibility and less on being an enemy.
In one sense I feel directionless and in another I feel quite the opposite. It is clear that the next five or six months will be focused on Laser Eagles, the ROM art exhibit, shifting my staff team and my physical realities in order to accommodate the upcoming trip to Oregon, Arizona and the Conference for Global Transformation in San Francisco. The purpose of much of this trip is to nail down an opportunity to research the BMX Model and to demonstrate the inclusive video game at the conference.
So the direction is set in that sense. It is not set in a more personal and specific sense. Questions such as “Do I need a different kind of staff person so I can travel more easily?” or “How do I make sure that I’m making enough money that I can let go of ODSP if/when I need to?” – these questions remain vague and uncertain. Of course, their vagueness will disappear as necessity demands I take action. For example, I currently only have three weeks of staff time scheduled and my staff will soon be questioning me about what shifts they will have and how many hours and when am I going away and all that sort of thing. In other words, life will give me a direction if I haven’t already chosen one myself.
I am battling with myself. The question looks something like “I thought you were going to retire?” My circle is meeting on Sunday and I can already hear them protesting the intensity of life which faces me from end of April until end of August.
It is not hard to see how this all emerged. A few months ago I was lying on my back in my comfy bed recovering from near-terminal illness. Two forces conspired to shift all that. First, I was intrigued by the gigantic toys playing blocks outside my window at night only to discover that a prison is being assembled in my neighbourhood. Secondly, a colleague from the Book of Judith play went to a party because we couldn’t go to Edinburgh in November because I was sick. This set off a chain of events leading to my having an Inclusion art exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum. Add to these main themes that I actually did recover and that Laser Eagles was revitalized this fall by the combined efforts of Kimberly Fu and the CAVE board, and rather suddenly I’m pushing to create THE art exhibit about the journey of Inclusion that will – one hopes – convict people with the desire to embrace diversity.
There are other factors such as Mike Skubic and the video game. It all runs together at this point. I am on the road again and compelled again.
I have a great sense of fatigue just thinking about it all. Of course, the thinking about it is way more tiring than the doing of it, but that’s where I’m at right now. I have been learning in many ways, and particularly through the course on achieving a lasting impact that a sense of fatigue and hopelessness is really no more than confronting the perception that “the tiger is not dead but asleep”. You can drag it out of the path but as soon as it wakes up it is going to walk right back to the road and lay back down on it again. Trying to bring about Inclusion has been like trying to drag this sleeping tiger out of the road.
The course has been very interesting and instructive. It has pulled up virtually every occasion where I have felt like I got close to making a powerful impact on building Inclusion only to be driven back into obscurity. Whether it was Al Etmanski firing me in 2000 or Tom Kohler crossing his arms and emphatically saying that people with disabilities are not invited to Citizen Advocate training or Jack Pearpoint or Marsha Forest not including me in Inclusion Press. No matter how great and inspiring my own journey has been or my ideas may be I am not seen as having the practicality that is required to put a real organizational strategy together and to bring it to fruition.
So now we (mainly Mike and I) envision a well resourced organization that will foster Inclusion. Now I am preparing to put my energy on the line to get the necessary steps in place. I cannot know of course if I am just dragging another sleeping tiger to the culvert from whence it will shortly return, wet and hungry.
In one sense I feel directionless and in another I feel quite the opposite. It is clear that the next five or six months will be focused on Laser Eagles, the ROM art exhibit, shifting my staff team and my physical realities in order to accommodate the upcoming trip to Oregon, Arizona and the Conference for Global Transformation in San Francisco. The purpose of much of this trip is to nail down an opportunity to research the BMX Model and to demonstrate the inclusive video game at the conference.
So the direction is set in that sense. It is not set in a more personal and specific sense. Questions such as “Do I need a different kind of staff person so I can travel more easily?” or “How do I make sure that I’m making enough money that I can let go of ODSP if/when I need to?” – these questions remain vague and uncertain. Of course, their vagueness will disappear as necessity demands I take action. For example, I currently only have three weeks of staff time scheduled and my staff will soon be questioning me about what shifts they will have and how many hours and when am I going away and all that sort of thing. In other words, life will give me a direction if I haven’t already chosen one myself.
I am battling with myself. The question looks something like “I thought you were going to retire?” My circle is meeting on Sunday and I can already hear them protesting the intensity of life which faces me from end of April until end of August.
It is not hard to see how this all emerged. A few months ago I was lying on my back in my comfy bed recovering from near-terminal illness. Two forces conspired to shift all that. First, I was intrigued by the gigantic toys playing blocks outside my window at night only to discover that a prison is being assembled in my neighbourhood. Secondly, a colleague from the Book of Judith play went to a party because we couldn’t go to Edinburgh in November because I was sick. This set off a chain of events leading to my having an Inclusion art exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum. Add to these main themes that I actually did recover and that Laser Eagles was revitalized this fall by the combined efforts of Kimberly Fu and the CAVE board, and rather suddenly I’m pushing to create THE art exhibit about the journey of Inclusion that will – one hopes – convict people with the desire to embrace diversity.
There are other factors such as Mike Skubic and the video game. It all runs together at this point. I am on the road again and compelled again.
I have a great sense of fatigue just thinking about it all. Of course, the thinking about it is way more tiring than the doing of it, but that’s where I’m at right now. I have been learning in many ways, and particularly through the course on achieving a lasting impact that a sense of fatigue and hopelessness is really no more than confronting the perception that “the tiger is not dead but asleep”. You can drag it out of the path but as soon as it wakes up it is going to walk right back to the road and lay back down on it again. Trying to bring about Inclusion has been like trying to drag this sleeping tiger out of the road.
The course has been very interesting and instructive. It has pulled up virtually every occasion where I have felt like I got close to making a powerful impact on building Inclusion only to be driven back into obscurity. Whether it was Al Etmanski firing me in 2000 or Tom Kohler crossing his arms and emphatically saying that people with disabilities are not invited to Citizen Advocate training or Jack Pearpoint or Marsha Forest not including me in Inclusion Press. No matter how great and inspiring my own journey has been or my ideas may be I am not seen as having the practicality that is required to put a real organizational strategy together and to bring it to fruition.
So now we (mainly Mike and I) envision a well resourced organization that will foster Inclusion. Now I am preparing to put my energy on the line to get the necessary steps in place. I cannot know of course if I am just dragging another sleeping tiger to the culvert from whence it will shortly return, wet and hungry.
Monday, March 14, 2011
March 14, 2011
So for me the struggle is between having a path before me that calls me to be invisible and having one that calls me to be an enemy, and wanting to choose neither. Readers and friends know that I consider my deepest calling is to search for/invent a large gate that invites peoples everywhere to feel invited to enter and build inclusive communities.
As I understand the message: “Love your enemies” (at least tonight) the path of being an enemy is clearly preferable to being one of being invisible. Relationship, communication and mutual growth is available to enemies – the dark side of being colleagues. If my only real choice were between being invisible and being seen as a threat, I am powerfully drawn toward being an enemy!
It’s such a compelling set up. No wonder so many people who are labelled as disabled, and their parents and friends, become advocates! The fights are typically endless and largely unsuccessful. But in fighting, one feels one’s own reality and overcomes the annihilation of being unseen.
Perhaps the call to love one’s enemy is Christ’s way to break through the set up – not from the “advocates” position perhaps, but from the perspective of those who live within the world of doors and steps. How would love look between these worlds so physically separated within the same space?
Of course, love looks like the donation of time and space to be in Savannah and do my art. It looks like the welcome to service, and church suppers, and casseroles dropped off to keep us fed, and use of the fax machine and so many doors held open so often. These gifts are received with genuine gratitude.
But is there a level of love that can transcend the fundraising account, doors held, casseroles and shelter, and go to the souls of the people who come together for such a brief moment and from such different worlds? Is there a love that gives visibility and recognition, taking the fear out of “enemy”? How do the “strangers” become “angels” for each other?
I am hopeful that when this tumultuous year has settled and my art exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum has become history I will have the opportunity to return to Savannah, to First Presbyterian Church, and that by then I will have new discoveries about Inclusion and transforming invisibility. I will make an effort to host a dialogue about enemies that have discovered love. Perhaps we will be our own best examples.
As I understand the message: “Love your enemies” (at least tonight) the path of being an enemy is clearly preferable to being one of being invisible. Relationship, communication and mutual growth is available to enemies – the dark side of being colleagues. If my only real choice were between being invisible and being seen as a threat, I am powerfully drawn toward being an enemy!
It’s such a compelling set up. No wonder so many people who are labelled as disabled, and their parents and friends, become advocates! The fights are typically endless and largely unsuccessful. But in fighting, one feels one’s own reality and overcomes the annihilation of being unseen.
Perhaps the call to love one’s enemy is Christ’s way to break through the set up – not from the “advocates” position perhaps, but from the perspective of those who live within the world of doors and steps. How would love look between these worlds so physically separated within the same space?
Of course, love looks like the donation of time and space to be in Savannah and do my art. It looks like the welcome to service, and church suppers, and casseroles dropped off to keep us fed, and use of the fax machine and so many doors held open so often. These gifts are received with genuine gratitude.
But is there a level of love that can transcend the fundraising account, doors held, casseroles and shelter, and go to the souls of the people who come together for such a brief moment and from such different worlds? Is there a love that gives visibility and recognition, taking the fear out of “enemy”? How do the “strangers” become “angels” for each other?
I am hopeful that when this tumultuous year has settled and my art exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum has become history I will have the opportunity to return to Savannah, to First Presbyterian Church, and that by then I will have new discoveries about Inclusion and transforming invisibility. I will make an effort to host a dialogue about enemies that have discovered love. Perhaps we will be our own best examples.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
March 10, 2011
I attended one sermon, given by Stephen Williams. It was to remind us that Jesus told us to love our enemies.
I remember that I was deeply moved, and now I don’t remember why. I remember that I had been listening from the middle of the central aisle because the notch that has been carved out of the last row of pews is a few inches too short for me to fit into.
I remember that I started to go up to Stephen after the service. Because I go out a different door I came up from behind him, and not being able to get his attention that way, I came around a different way. The second approach was more like swimming upstream because I was then moving back up the sidewalk as the departing crowd was coming down the path.
By this time several minutes had passed and Stephen was ready to move on. Not being able to catch more than a fleeting greeting from him, I shouted from a distance that I would write him a letter. This will be in that letter.
Mainly I remember how it seems that our different life circumstances virtually turn Stephen and I into each other’s enemies – not in an overtly hostile way – but in the sense that we physically and socially cannot share space except in the most truncated way. Good intention does not prevail against the long time present barriers between us.
In the model of Inclusion I have created (the BMX Model presented earlier in this blog) my sojourn in Imlay House was B – Basic Level inclusion. Mike and I were welcome, treated in a very warm way, freely given comforts and shelter, occasionally gifted with food, interacted with politely but briefly, and otherwise left alone, accountable for nothing more than returning the keys when we left. Other interactions were imagined before we arrived – there was speculation that we would meet with the youth group or speak at Wonderful Wednesday’s dinner, but when we actually arrived there was no space in people’s calendars.
Now, I don’t experience that I am an enemy or am viewed as an enemy of members of First Pres – quite the opposite. Just the same, if I WERE experienced as an enemy, and especially if I behaved like one, would the time at Imlay House have led to greater inclusion for Mike and I?
The scriptures admonishing Christians to love their enemies are all about “turn the other cheek” and “carry the load an extra mile”. They suggest that love is expressed as tolerating pain, standing present in the face of stress, generating more effort beyond an already overwhelming strain – all in the context of hostility and disrespect.
An enemy is not invisible. Mike and I were mainly invisible.
What would Christ have said about loving the invisible? Does this reality lay on me the responsibility to become an enemy when I am invisible, so that there will be an opportunity to be loved? Is that why Rosa Parks had to sit at the front of the bus?
(to be cont’d)
I remember that I was deeply moved, and now I don’t remember why. I remember that I had been listening from the middle of the central aisle because the notch that has been carved out of the last row of pews is a few inches too short for me to fit into.
I remember that I started to go up to Stephen after the service. Because I go out a different door I came up from behind him, and not being able to get his attention that way, I came around a different way. The second approach was more like swimming upstream because I was then moving back up the sidewalk as the departing crowd was coming down the path.
By this time several minutes had passed and Stephen was ready to move on. Not being able to catch more than a fleeting greeting from him, I shouted from a distance that I would write him a letter. This will be in that letter.
Mainly I remember how it seems that our different life circumstances virtually turn Stephen and I into each other’s enemies – not in an overtly hostile way – but in the sense that we physically and socially cannot share space except in the most truncated way. Good intention does not prevail against the long time present barriers between us.
In the model of Inclusion I have created (the BMX Model presented earlier in this blog) my sojourn in Imlay House was B – Basic Level inclusion. Mike and I were welcome, treated in a very warm way, freely given comforts and shelter, occasionally gifted with food, interacted with politely but briefly, and otherwise left alone, accountable for nothing more than returning the keys when we left. Other interactions were imagined before we arrived – there was speculation that we would meet with the youth group or speak at Wonderful Wednesday’s dinner, but when we actually arrived there was no space in people’s calendars.
Now, I don’t experience that I am an enemy or am viewed as an enemy of members of First Pres – quite the opposite. Just the same, if I WERE experienced as an enemy, and especially if I behaved like one, would the time at Imlay House have led to greater inclusion for Mike and I?
The scriptures admonishing Christians to love their enemies are all about “turn the other cheek” and “carry the load an extra mile”. They suggest that love is expressed as tolerating pain, standing present in the face of stress, generating more effort beyond an already overwhelming strain – all in the context of hostility and disrespect.
An enemy is not invisible. Mike and I were mainly invisible.
What would Christ have said about loving the invisible? Does this reality lay on me the responsibility to become an enemy when I am invisible, so that there will be an opportunity to be loved? Is that why Rosa Parks had to sit at the front of the bus?
(to be cont’d)
Saturday, March 5, 2011
March 5, 2011
This being the second time I stayed (as in lived for a few days) at Imlay House I knew to bring my own ramp. Both entrances – the main one on 46th Street, and the back one from the preschool are stepped.
It’s so odd to be doing my thing and to hear someone else using my rickety old ramp. Although quite safe, my decade old heavy foldable ten foot ramp is bent at the hinges and dented in many places. It rattles as weight travels along it, so every toddler, parishioner or caretaker who used it announced the fact clearly. And there were many. This is no problem of course, but simply a curiousity to me. Why is it that mostly when “walkees” have a clear choice they choose a ramp, and if ramps are so much to be preferred, why don’t people build them by default instead of steps?
There must be forty doors in major transitional areas of First Pres – outside doors to the church, Imlay House, the offices, the preschool, and transitional doors from lobbies to main rooms to hallways to the next building, and the like. Of these doors I could only use five and none of them independently. On this second trip it became clear to me how this reality deeply effected how I actually end up relating to folks of the congregation.
Firstly, many of my interactions – and especially my first interaction with nearly everyone – is to get their assistance to open and hold a door. From the ushers who first direct me to a side door and then who insist on opening both sides even though I clearly need only the half that isn’t bolted shut, to the office clerk who finds me waiting outside Stewart Hall for a passerby to release the always locked door from the inside, most everyone is going to shape their relationship with me in terms of helping me get in or out of the space.
Secondly, I will just never go to or be seen in probably fifty percent of the spaces regularly used by parishioners – the stage, the second floor of Imlay, the pulpit, the choir area, and more I can only imagine since I cannot get even near!
How this limits what those good people imagine I am! I will never preach or cook for them, play with or teach their children, counsel with the Synod, provide strategic planning or pastoral counselling – all things I have done before but will not do with First Presbyterians of Savannah - not just because I am from Canada but also because they will not ask me to. Why not? No one ever SEES me in the spaces or these roles, or gets to talk with me much beyond door opening.
This reality was hitting me rather hard this time around. First Presbyterians have seen me often enough over several years that some greeted me as if they had been expecting me to show up anytime soon – like a distant cousin that they remembered had gone to school on another continent and were expecting could show up for spring break. I have a feeling that I’m almost at home there, that I actually could be home there sometime. Yet as close as I have gotten I feel that I also can’t get much closer. The doors cannot – literally cannot open – to me.
It made me wonder about and look at how good, hospitable, open hearted and minded folks could stay so so white in the midst of a world of an international port as Savannah is. Why isn’t Savannah as multicultural as St. John’s Newfoundland? Clearly there is another sort of door that the parishioners are busy managing, but somehow will never open to many of the other people in Savannah. Clearly the members of First Pres never have a chance to find out all the ways other people would love to contribute to their wonderful community. (to be cont'd)
It’s so odd to be doing my thing and to hear someone else using my rickety old ramp. Although quite safe, my decade old heavy foldable ten foot ramp is bent at the hinges and dented in many places. It rattles as weight travels along it, so every toddler, parishioner or caretaker who used it announced the fact clearly. And there were many. This is no problem of course, but simply a curiousity to me. Why is it that mostly when “walkees” have a clear choice they choose a ramp, and if ramps are so much to be preferred, why don’t people build them by default instead of steps?
There must be forty doors in major transitional areas of First Pres – outside doors to the church, Imlay House, the offices, the preschool, and transitional doors from lobbies to main rooms to hallways to the next building, and the like. Of these doors I could only use five and none of them independently. On this second trip it became clear to me how this reality deeply effected how I actually end up relating to folks of the congregation.
Firstly, many of my interactions – and especially my first interaction with nearly everyone – is to get their assistance to open and hold a door. From the ushers who first direct me to a side door and then who insist on opening both sides even though I clearly need only the half that isn’t bolted shut, to the office clerk who finds me waiting outside Stewart Hall for a passerby to release the always locked door from the inside, most everyone is going to shape their relationship with me in terms of helping me get in or out of the space.
Secondly, I will just never go to or be seen in probably fifty percent of the spaces regularly used by parishioners – the stage, the second floor of Imlay, the pulpit, the choir area, and more I can only imagine since I cannot get even near!
How this limits what those good people imagine I am! I will never preach or cook for them, play with or teach their children, counsel with the Synod, provide strategic planning or pastoral counselling – all things I have done before but will not do with First Presbyterians of Savannah - not just because I am from Canada but also because they will not ask me to. Why not? No one ever SEES me in the spaces or these roles, or gets to talk with me much beyond door opening.
This reality was hitting me rather hard this time around. First Presbyterians have seen me often enough over several years that some greeted me as if they had been expecting me to show up anytime soon – like a distant cousin that they remembered had gone to school on another continent and were expecting could show up for spring break. I have a feeling that I’m almost at home there, that I actually could be home there sometime. Yet as close as I have gotten I feel that I also can’t get much closer. The doors cannot – literally cannot open – to me.
It made me wonder about and look at how good, hospitable, open hearted and minded folks could stay so so white in the midst of a world of an international port as Savannah is. Why isn’t Savannah as multicultural as St. John’s Newfoundland? Clearly there is another sort of door that the parishioners are busy managing, but somehow will never open to many of the other people in Savannah. Clearly the members of First Pres never have a chance to find out all the ways other people would love to contribute to their wonderful community. (to be cont'd)
Friday, March 4, 2011
March 4, 2011
There are two pastors at the First Presbyterian Church of Savannah – Stephen Williams and Will Shelburne. I am attaching a copy of these next blog postings to an e-mail to both of them, primarily because I want to express the impact on me of being a very distant participant in their congregation and also because Stephen preached about “loving your enemy” and I said I would write him a letter after that moving sermon. That letter is now nearly four weeks overdue.
First I must say to both Stephen and Will that you are WELCOME and ENCOURAGED to read my blog – thirdcycle.blogspot.com – if something in this intrigues or puzzles you.
Mike and I stayed at Imlay House for the eighteen days we were in Savannah. Imlay House has two storeys and an attic, four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a parlour - with a piano - that can easily accommodate twenty, a sitting room/TV lounge, a small patio looking over a park, a dining room to seat ten – outfitted much as my Grandmother’s was in the 1950’s, and a tiny kitchen and laundry facility.
Mike and I kept largely to two bedrooms and the kitchen because we did not want to mess up the more formal areas with artistic or domestic activities and because we felt no need to interfere in any way with congregational events that occasionally took place in the parlour. The kitchen turned out to be a fairly common area – the two who prepare the congregation’s Wonderful Wednesday church suppers and the man who caretakes the premises often use the kitchen and laundry as a sort of overflow – crates of eggs, etc. Although we were surprised by this overlap it was also quite welcome as these interchanges formed the basis of a growing sense for us of belonging and camaraderie.
Besides Imlay House the entire complex includes a preschool for thirty-eight children, a meeting/community hall with a stage and industrial kitchen – Stewart Hall, a church office building of two stories with meeting/classrooms, offices, counselling rooms and a library, and the church building itself in a very traditional style of the eighteen hundreds with a steeply raised pulpit, altar, choir, etc., stained glass windows on two sides, and the severest of wooden pews - capable of seating well over 500 worshipers.
First Presbyterian has a vibrant, community minded congregation that is dominated by greyed heads but still includes a good sized number of young families. Compared to the multicultural background of Toronto, First Pres is nakedly “white” with a mere handful of individuals who might identify as other than Caucasian.
Two dominant themes run through the ambiance of the whole establishment. One is “build and sustain your community here!” and the other is: “Help the less fortunate!”. Thus at the only Wonderful Wednesday supper I attended this trip there was a glass jar on every table to collect pennies for a food charity and the after dinner topic was a presentation from a Presbyterian missionary who has spent most of her career helping to restore congregations in the former Soviet Union. She had many stories of how the congregations there are often heavily persecuted on the one hand while being the only community many youth experience in that economically devastated region.
Stewart Hall is frequently busy as are the meeting rooms of the church offices, with everything from bagpipe lessons to ballet practice to discussions of city politics to youth groups of several types. Although a few people are clearly participating in nearly everything, most are participating in just two or three ways and so the congregation has gained a reputation of being a genuine community. Some participants drive in from great distances even though Savannah has as many churches per square inch as Toronto has coffee shops.
Beyond this, my impressions of First Pres are many and mostly strong. For example, the level of hospitality displayed by the congregation seems nearly limitless. They let us stay for free, they keep a bank account for us to raise money in the US for World Peace through Inclusion, people frequently offered generous amounts of food and we had ready access to the fax machine, the internet and other resources, (to be cont’d)
First I must say to both Stephen and Will that you are WELCOME and ENCOURAGED to read my blog – thirdcycle.blogspot.com – if something in this intrigues or puzzles you.
Mike and I stayed at Imlay House for the eighteen days we were in Savannah. Imlay House has two storeys and an attic, four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a parlour - with a piano - that can easily accommodate twenty, a sitting room/TV lounge, a small patio looking over a park, a dining room to seat ten – outfitted much as my Grandmother’s was in the 1950’s, and a tiny kitchen and laundry facility.
Mike and I kept largely to two bedrooms and the kitchen because we did not want to mess up the more formal areas with artistic or domestic activities and because we felt no need to interfere in any way with congregational events that occasionally took place in the parlour. The kitchen turned out to be a fairly common area – the two who prepare the congregation’s Wonderful Wednesday church suppers and the man who caretakes the premises often use the kitchen and laundry as a sort of overflow – crates of eggs, etc. Although we were surprised by this overlap it was also quite welcome as these interchanges formed the basis of a growing sense for us of belonging and camaraderie.
Besides Imlay House the entire complex includes a preschool for thirty-eight children, a meeting/community hall with a stage and industrial kitchen – Stewart Hall, a church office building of two stories with meeting/classrooms, offices, counselling rooms and a library, and the church building itself in a very traditional style of the eighteen hundreds with a steeply raised pulpit, altar, choir, etc., stained glass windows on two sides, and the severest of wooden pews - capable of seating well over 500 worshipers.
First Presbyterian has a vibrant, community minded congregation that is dominated by greyed heads but still includes a good sized number of young families. Compared to the multicultural background of Toronto, First Pres is nakedly “white” with a mere handful of individuals who might identify as other than Caucasian.
Two dominant themes run through the ambiance of the whole establishment. One is “build and sustain your community here!” and the other is: “Help the less fortunate!”. Thus at the only Wonderful Wednesday supper I attended this trip there was a glass jar on every table to collect pennies for a food charity and the after dinner topic was a presentation from a Presbyterian missionary who has spent most of her career helping to restore congregations in the former Soviet Union. She had many stories of how the congregations there are often heavily persecuted on the one hand while being the only community many youth experience in that economically devastated region.
Stewart Hall is frequently busy as are the meeting rooms of the church offices, with everything from bagpipe lessons to ballet practice to discussions of city politics to youth groups of several types. Although a few people are clearly participating in nearly everything, most are participating in just two or three ways and so the congregation has gained a reputation of being a genuine community. Some participants drive in from great distances even though Savannah has as many churches per square inch as Toronto has coffee shops.
Beyond this, my impressions of First Pres are many and mostly strong. For example, the level of hospitality displayed by the congregation seems nearly limitless. They let us stay for free, they keep a bank account for us to raise money in the US for World Peace through Inclusion, people frequently offered generous amounts of food and we had ready access to the fax machine, the internet and other resources, (to be cont’d)
Thursday, March 3, 2011
March 3, 2011
I am restarting this blog while I’m feeling somewhat intimidated. I have never decided for how long I was going to keep up writing these posts. I started this blog out of a desire to express myself in an unfettered way while I recovered physically and while I got oriented to a new phase of life. Basically these accomplishments have been met.
Certainly there is value in keeping a daily journal. It is valuable in keeping me from unconsciously looping over the same thoughts and worries. Of course, it’s not that I don’t loop. Rather I can see the loops more quickly and have a go at saying something new more readily when I am writing everyday. As I engage in writing and thinking new (to me) things my world gains possibilities.
As for others, there are 17 followers of this blog, which is truly amazing to me! It certainly seems that a slowly growing circle of people are engaged with me in a dialogue about Inclusion. Of course this is not a typical dialogue but there is definitely an element of conversation. This element mostly shows up when people talk to me in real life situations about what they have recently read here. This is perhaps the most valuable aspect of this blog for me as I have many more moments when I am able to talk about things that I’m interested in with people where I don’t have to start at “square one”.
The intention of writing these postings daily has broken down a number of times. Some gaps happened when I ran out of things to say, but usually, at these times the daily discipline has been valuable because pushing through the gap gets me to a deeper level of understanding of myself and what I think. More of the gaps have happened when there was just more going on than I could physically and socially keep up with. In Savannah it was just more than I could fit into my energy level and time frame. It was important to focus on making sure that the painting happened. And it did happen!
On Friday night of last week I did a presentation at The Sentient Bean in Savannah – a community and social justice oriented coffee shop. I included in my talk the six pictures of the work that Mike and I did over eleven days at Imlay House.
From a certain perspective I left out one of the paintings. I use paper towels in one of my techniques to create a water colour impression. Mike saved the paper towel used to create one of the six. It is, in fact, a seventh creation all by itself, but I did not include it in the slides I showed that night.
Painting with Mike as my tracker, and also having him as one of only two personal assistants, and also living with him as a housemate for two weeks created the kind of emotional compression that my circle worries about vis a vis me and my safety and the choices I make in my life. It was very clearly, at least at some points, a strain for both of us. We got through it and we both did quite well, I think. We accomplished what we intended to do and the accomplishments were well done for the most part. At the same time we have conversations to have with each other and with others to explore that emotional compression and to see if there are better ways to achieve such accomplishments in the future.
So what was achieved? For me it was the six paintings, and above all THE painting. It turned out that “Dirty Window” is not THE painting. By February 20th it was clear to me that Mike and I could not finish “Dirty Window” in a way that would leave me satisfied with the work and him feeling acknowledged for his effort. It was at this point that I had a conversation with Mike that gave me a better understanding of how he could paint and keep up the work in a way that was both centred in his previous experience of doing art and reflecting the direction I wanted to go in. When I understood what he meant by “inking” I was able to formulate the picture in my own mind in a way that could work for both of us. Once again the art lead both of us in a different direction. The painting ‘Winter Mourning” is a true expression of Mike’s efforts, my response to the prison, and what the art itself wanted to be.
Here are some of our other accomplishments. I saw 14 pelicans over 2 days. We had a lot of fabulous meals. We spent a little less money than was available – YAY! We went for several long walks – sometimes together, sometimes separately. I gave two trainings for Chatham Savannah Citizen Advocacy, and both were well received. My talk at the Bean lead to some interesting reflections on what it will take to forward the action on Inclusion and Peace. Finally I did a bang up job of supporting an advocacy group on the last Monday of our trip, in Atlanta.
Now is a re-entry time. I love Savannah and I love Etobicoke. I am appreciated in a way in Savannah that does not happen anywhere else. The same is true in Etobicoke. The two worlds are different and both compelling. Part of my own inclusion journey is to continuously sort out having both.
Certainly there is value in keeping a daily journal. It is valuable in keeping me from unconsciously looping over the same thoughts and worries. Of course, it’s not that I don’t loop. Rather I can see the loops more quickly and have a go at saying something new more readily when I am writing everyday. As I engage in writing and thinking new (to me) things my world gains possibilities.
As for others, there are 17 followers of this blog, which is truly amazing to me! It certainly seems that a slowly growing circle of people are engaged with me in a dialogue about Inclusion. Of course this is not a typical dialogue but there is definitely an element of conversation. This element mostly shows up when people talk to me in real life situations about what they have recently read here. This is perhaps the most valuable aspect of this blog for me as I have many more moments when I am able to talk about things that I’m interested in with people where I don’t have to start at “square one”.
The intention of writing these postings daily has broken down a number of times. Some gaps happened when I ran out of things to say, but usually, at these times the daily discipline has been valuable because pushing through the gap gets me to a deeper level of understanding of myself and what I think. More of the gaps have happened when there was just more going on than I could physically and socially keep up with. In Savannah it was just more than I could fit into my energy level and time frame. It was important to focus on making sure that the painting happened. And it did happen!
On Friday night of last week I did a presentation at The Sentient Bean in Savannah – a community and social justice oriented coffee shop. I included in my talk the six pictures of the work that Mike and I did over eleven days at Imlay House.
From a certain perspective I left out one of the paintings. I use paper towels in one of my techniques to create a water colour impression. Mike saved the paper towel used to create one of the six. It is, in fact, a seventh creation all by itself, but I did not include it in the slides I showed that night.
Painting with Mike as my tracker, and also having him as one of only two personal assistants, and also living with him as a housemate for two weeks created the kind of emotional compression that my circle worries about vis a vis me and my safety and the choices I make in my life. It was very clearly, at least at some points, a strain for both of us. We got through it and we both did quite well, I think. We accomplished what we intended to do and the accomplishments were well done for the most part. At the same time we have conversations to have with each other and with others to explore that emotional compression and to see if there are better ways to achieve such accomplishments in the future.
So what was achieved? For me it was the six paintings, and above all THE painting. It turned out that “Dirty Window” is not THE painting. By February 20th it was clear to me that Mike and I could not finish “Dirty Window” in a way that would leave me satisfied with the work and him feeling acknowledged for his effort. It was at this point that I had a conversation with Mike that gave me a better understanding of how he could paint and keep up the work in a way that was both centred in his previous experience of doing art and reflecting the direction I wanted to go in. When I understood what he meant by “inking” I was able to formulate the picture in my own mind in a way that could work for both of us. Once again the art lead both of us in a different direction. The painting ‘Winter Mourning” is a true expression of Mike’s efforts, my response to the prison, and what the art itself wanted to be.
Here are some of our other accomplishments. I saw 14 pelicans over 2 days. We had a lot of fabulous meals. We spent a little less money than was available – YAY! We went for several long walks – sometimes together, sometimes separately. I gave two trainings for Chatham Savannah Citizen Advocacy, and both were well received. My talk at the Bean lead to some interesting reflections on what it will take to forward the action on Inclusion and Peace. Finally I did a bang up job of supporting an advocacy group on the last Monday of our trip, in Atlanta.
Now is a re-entry time. I love Savannah and I love Etobicoke. I am appreciated in a way in Savannah that does not happen anywhere else. The same is true in Etobicoke. The two worlds are different and both compelling. Part of my own inclusion journey is to continuously sort out having both.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
February 22, 2011
It would be easier, likely, to keep up these blog entries while in Savannah if Mike were more available to type for me. Mike has been working night and day except when Lara is on and is either talking with Kimberly, taking a well deserved break, painting or cooking and cleaning up when I get to the computer. On the other hand I am typically exhausted or thinking about my next presentation when I get here. Either way Farmville or Freecell usually wins out and takes up the last hour of my day.
Today, it’s earlier in the day, the two Citizen Advocacy presentations are done, Mike is painting and the constipation that plagued me since Sunday has given way. In other words I have enough energy to type this myself.
It became apparent, also on Sunday, (today is Tuesday), that the prison painting could not “get done” by Friday, or perhaps at all, in the style we were pursuing. In other words I got through about half of a highly detailed reproduction of the photograph “Dirty Window” and stopped. I have long doubted my own, and Mike’s capacity to make a close reproduction, and quietly wondered if a miracle would strike, or when and how I would choose, with Mike, to take a different approach. The moment came Sunday night, on going to bed, as I asked Mike what question he was going to bed with – to get answered by wake-up time in the morning. I told him that my question was something like: “What sort of painting could get done by Friday evening – the time I make my presentation at the Bean – that would also authentically represent my experience of discovering the construction of a prison in clear view of my bedroom window.”
Sunday evening I explained that I had hit a six month time period in 2005 when I stopped painting. This occurred when I got frustrated when I wanted to paint detail and could neither conceptualize it for myself nor convey the picture in my mind well enough to my tracker to get her to put on the canvas what I was (vaguely) imagining. Eventually I realized that this was NOT a disability issue, but a common phenomenon among artists. The art itself has a way of partly determining what it will be like when it’s done, and to keep on going, the artist must surrender to the art piece, and let it become what it will.
Laser Eagle artists also must surrender to the will and capacity of the tracker. This apparently extra dimension is merely part of the dynamic dance. By dancing the art becomes and in the end it is what it is. Such is life fully lived.
In the midst of this conversation Mike told me that he is a finisher – someone who takes what a graphic artist has pencilled and fills in the lines and colour. This is something I did not know. So now we have begun again.
I will now have five or six pieces for Friday’s presentation – and later the ROM exhibit. I will have an unfinished, detailed piece and three or four side pieces (pieces we made after long detailed efforts on “Dirty Window”, made with left over paint and less constraint). I will also have a more cartoon like piece – unfinished or finished. Together they represent a more complete picture of my journey to respond authentically to the prision outside my window.
I realize now fully why I had to – was compelled to – come to Savannah. The pelicans have little to do with it – they were the dream image calling to me. I saw some last week and have not wanted to see them again.
I came to express my gratitude.
I have been shown a door to expressing the beauty and possibility of inclusion, of citizenship and community, of faith, of diversity, of life itself. For many years Savannah has been a mirror for me, showing me aspects of exclusion, of elegance, of perseverance, of courage, of creativity. I have been able to see myself and to hear my own voice in ways I can and could not experience elsewhere.
Marsha and Jack brought me to Savannah the first time, but this place and the things I have done in it, like Citizen Advocacy work with Tom Kohler and peace work with Gabor, have been expressions of my own dream. Awkwardly I have discovered Judith and her song over thirty years, and the trips to Savannah have been choruses in my melodic creation.
Friday I will “sing” what there is at that point, and I will tell all of Savannah that comes to hear how this beautiful, terrible town, built on the bruised backs of slaves, has opened my door to freedom.
Today, it’s earlier in the day, the two Citizen Advocacy presentations are done, Mike is painting and the constipation that plagued me since Sunday has given way. In other words I have enough energy to type this myself.
It became apparent, also on Sunday, (today is Tuesday), that the prison painting could not “get done” by Friday, or perhaps at all, in the style we were pursuing. In other words I got through about half of a highly detailed reproduction of the photograph “Dirty Window” and stopped. I have long doubted my own, and Mike’s capacity to make a close reproduction, and quietly wondered if a miracle would strike, or when and how I would choose, with Mike, to take a different approach. The moment came Sunday night, on going to bed, as I asked Mike what question he was going to bed with – to get answered by wake-up time in the morning. I told him that my question was something like: “What sort of painting could get done by Friday evening – the time I make my presentation at the Bean – that would also authentically represent my experience of discovering the construction of a prison in clear view of my bedroom window.”
Sunday evening I explained that I had hit a six month time period in 2005 when I stopped painting. This occurred when I got frustrated when I wanted to paint detail and could neither conceptualize it for myself nor convey the picture in my mind well enough to my tracker to get her to put on the canvas what I was (vaguely) imagining. Eventually I realized that this was NOT a disability issue, but a common phenomenon among artists. The art itself has a way of partly determining what it will be like when it’s done, and to keep on going, the artist must surrender to the art piece, and let it become what it will.
Laser Eagle artists also must surrender to the will and capacity of the tracker. This apparently extra dimension is merely part of the dynamic dance. By dancing the art becomes and in the end it is what it is. Such is life fully lived.
In the midst of this conversation Mike told me that he is a finisher – someone who takes what a graphic artist has pencilled and fills in the lines and colour. This is something I did not know. So now we have begun again.
I will now have five or six pieces for Friday’s presentation – and later the ROM exhibit. I will have an unfinished, detailed piece and three or four side pieces (pieces we made after long detailed efforts on “Dirty Window”, made with left over paint and less constraint). I will also have a more cartoon like piece – unfinished or finished. Together they represent a more complete picture of my journey to respond authentically to the prision outside my window.
I realize now fully why I had to – was compelled to – come to Savannah. The pelicans have little to do with it – they were the dream image calling to me. I saw some last week and have not wanted to see them again.
I came to express my gratitude.
I have been shown a door to expressing the beauty and possibility of inclusion, of citizenship and community, of faith, of diversity, of life itself. For many years Savannah has been a mirror for me, showing me aspects of exclusion, of elegance, of perseverance, of courage, of creativity. I have been able to see myself and to hear my own voice in ways I can and could not experience elsewhere.
Marsha and Jack brought me to Savannah the first time, but this place and the things I have done in it, like Citizen Advocacy work with Tom Kohler and peace work with Gabor, have been expressions of my own dream. Awkwardly I have discovered Judith and her song over thirty years, and the trips to Savannah have been choruses in my melodic creation.
Friday I will “sing” what there is at that point, and I will tell all of Savannah that comes to hear how this beautiful, terrible town, built on the bruised backs of slaves, has opened my door to freedom.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
February 19, 2011
It is Saturday. I had a late lunch at “the Bean” after resting for the morning and spending a few hours on Tybee Island. No pelicans today, except for four I saw from the causeway, driving into the island from Thunderbolt. They were flying in formation much as fighter plane pilots do at air shows. This is how I knew they were pelicans and not sea gulls.
It has been an exceptionally warm day. Mike and I both wore shorts. Tybee was packed with beach folks. This likely is the reason for no pelicans. I walked around most of the southern end of the island but did not feel much like staying. I just don’t like people in crowds that much.
We – Lara, Mike and I – finally met up with Tom Kohler at the Bean. At first Tom was a little cool – arms crossed and that sort of thing. As the conversation unfolded it seems that he is defensive/worried that I will confront him about the Citizen Advocacy approach to imaging the “protégé” – the official term used in CA to denote the person who has been labelled disabled, and with whom CA programs “match” a typical citizen. Tom and I have disagreed in the past about the importance of providing “trainings” to both the citizen advocate and his/her protégé, and not just the advocate alone, as tomorrow and Tuesday are arranged. It wasn’t on my mind to confront him this time with that, but clearly he was getting up for an argument.
For me the biggest thing to sort out was what I am going to talk about tomorrow and on Tuesday. Tom wants something about presence and possibility. With Mike there we ended up talking a lot about the inclusive video game. In the end Tom said he wants me to talk about Marsha and me, then about how Mike and I met and got into the several projects we share – along the theme of listen, imagine, network.
I will sleep on this, and I am sure will catch the flavour, but as a different theme has been becoming more important to me, this doesn’t seem too natural.
It has been fabulous working with Lara. But as any given day progresses, without good structures for me to participate, and to eat and sleep without Lara’s or Mike’s full time presence, all of us get tired, defocused and edgy.
In particular I feel the need to create some distance between Mike and I and we made some progress with that today. Even though Mike is not working as a personal assistant today he has hung around me except when he slept in and when he lay on the beach for awhile. I believe that Tom caught the wave because he took Mike for a beer without me, and he also entered into a brainstorm about where, when and with whom Mike can go for a meal – again without me.
I am alone now and it is good. I was not prepared for how dirty Imlay House is. I was going to get Lara to wash the kitchen floor which is so filthy that my chair leaves track marks in the dirt. There is no mop. Lara offered to wash it with rags, but she is getting tired, the edginess has started, and it isn’t worth the time/cost to exhaust her that much. So we will continue to live with the grime.
My own edginess is abating as I get Mike’s alignment with how much money we have to spend on food, as well as getting the painting well underway. I think we are about 30% done. We will also need to set up some slides for Friday. I think it is going to get easier as we get the strangeness and the vacation –ness out of the way, hopefully pretty soon now. Then both of us will get more comfortable just getting the work done. There is a lot of work.
It has been an exceptionally warm day. Mike and I both wore shorts. Tybee was packed with beach folks. This likely is the reason for no pelicans. I walked around most of the southern end of the island but did not feel much like staying. I just don’t like people in crowds that much.
We – Lara, Mike and I – finally met up with Tom Kohler at the Bean. At first Tom was a little cool – arms crossed and that sort of thing. As the conversation unfolded it seems that he is defensive/worried that I will confront him about the Citizen Advocacy approach to imaging the “protégé” – the official term used in CA to denote the person who has been labelled disabled, and with whom CA programs “match” a typical citizen. Tom and I have disagreed in the past about the importance of providing “trainings” to both the citizen advocate and his/her protégé, and not just the advocate alone, as tomorrow and Tuesday are arranged. It wasn’t on my mind to confront him this time with that, but clearly he was getting up for an argument.
For me the biggest thing to sort out was what I am going to talk about tomorrow and on Tuesday. Tom wants something about presence and possibility. With Mike there we ended up talking a lot about the inclusive video game. In the end Tom said he wants me to talk about Marsha and me, then about how Mike and I met and got into the several projects we share – along the theme of listen, imagine, network.
I will sleep on this, and I am sure will catch the flavour, but as a different theme has been becoming more important to me, this doesn’t seem too natural.
It has been fabulous working with Lara. But as any given day progresses, without good structures for me to participate, and to eat and sleep without Lara’s or Mike’s full time presence, all of us get tired, defocused and edgy.
In particular I feel the need to create some distance between Mike and I and we made some progress with that today. Even though Mike is not working as a personal assistant today he has hung around me except when he slept in and when he lay on the beach for awhile. I believe that Tom caught the wave because he took Mike for a beer without me, and he also entered into a brainstorm about where, when and with whom Mike can go for a meal – again without me.
I am alone now and it is good. I was not prepared for how dirty Imlay House is. I was going to get Lara to wash the kitchen floor which is so filthy that my chair leaves track marks in the dirt. There is no mop. Lara offered to wash it with rags, but she is getting tired, the edginess has started, and it isn’t worth the time/cost to exhaust her that much. So we will continue to live with the grime.
My own edginess is abating as I get Mike’s alignment with how much money we have to spend on food, as well as getting the painting well underway. I think we are about 30% done. We will also need to set up some slides for Friday. I think it is going to get easier as we get the strangeness and the vacation –ness out of the way, hopefully pretty soon now. Then both of us will get more comfortable just getting the work done. There is a lot of work.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
February 17, 2011
I think this is my sixth, but certainly it is my fifth, visit to Savannah where I have stayed a significant length of time. The first visit was in the mid-eighties when I travelled through here with Jack and Marsha. We were on a tour talking about Inclusive Education. Jack drove the van and did some of the personal assistance. It’s funny how my circle questions these tours I do when it was my circle that got me started back then.
The second one was without Jack and Marsha. I was travelling with Marie Matthews, and I believe there was another assistant then, but I don’t remember who it was. I distinctly do remember that Tom Kohler was my main host back then in 1986 or ‘87. I also remember that it was around the time of St. Patrick’s Day because Marie and I participated fully in the festivities. (Savannah has the world’s largest St. Patrick’s Day parade outside of Ireland.) I kept the green wig for many, many years!
Other trips fade into the background excepting for the one that brought me to Tybee Island and Imlay House (where Mike and I are now). That was 2008. Gloria, Franziska and Jean came with me, and a personal assistant named Paula who turned out to be an absolute failure as a supporter. This is how I came to meet Lara. Gloria and Franziska remember this trip very differently from me, but no matter. It was the birth of the idea that I would go on the World Peace through Inclusion Tour. It’s not that I planned the tour then but somewhere in my understanding I realized how much I needed to come south to sort things out. I met the pelicans, I encountered the unconscious attachment to slavery and I realized that this was a place where I could be reflected enough to find myself – like seeing myself in a mirror.
I also remember that trip as being one where I was full of anxiety, as were Gloria, Jean and Lara. The World Peace through Inclusion Tour was also a time when my companions and I were frequently emotionally upset. Now that I have passed through the beginning of the Third Cycle and I am back in Savannah, I realize that anxiety goes along with coming here. I am sure there are many factors. My assistants get homesick. Moving from one space to another, including packing up and shifting all of my gear, is another great source of disruption. The concern that there will be enough money has legitimacy. The background “worry” that my attendant care money will get suspended is there. However, these things are typical of any trip that I have taken. Only Savannah brings out this somewhat higher level of anxiety!
Perhaps it is because of the mirror! Somehow I find myself intensely drawn into the images of slavery. They are everywhere. There is a print on my bedroom wall of a 19th century garden – a vision of elegance that includes a pale white woman in a white dress with a white parasol. It is a perfect counterpoint to the elegance of Savannah and is reminiscent of our modern idea of the old plantation. My point is that such gardens and the plantations they were part of can only and could only have been sustained by free or nearly free labour. In spite of this the labourers remain largely invisible.
It reminds me of one of my very first trips to Georgia. We were participating in a conference in a large and elegant hotel. It was my first encounter with peach daiquiris. A black woman was sweeping in the middle of the lobby. Dozens of people – white people – walked around her and never saw her.
During the World Peace through Inclusion Tour I was made aware that slavery is alive and well in the United States – I am sure elsewhere as well. The essence of slavery is the buying and selling of humans. It apparently has never been made illegal to purchase a human being. Since it has become socially unacceptable, or at least politically incorrect, to speak of slavery or to acknowledge its presence, the means of buying and selling have become hidden. For example, the police will round up idle men and when they appear in court to be convicted of loitering, they will be sentenced to work for a major employer of the local area who has been working with the police to develop his labour pool. As “criminals” the men do not need to be paid more than a pittance. Most of the money that changes hands, if any, goes between the employer and the police.
Of course, it is not hard to understand why so many men are idle. It is not hard to create a recession and end jobs in the kind of capitalist economy that pervades our society.
As I become more conversant with the means of creating slavery I have been constantly struck by the commonality of how we create disability. These mechanisms are less hidden in the southern states as well. Labelled individuals are bought and sold between nursing homes and institutions on a regular basis. Tom Kohler, John O’Brien and other Georgian activists have told many stories of people they know personally who started in the south and were shipped from state to state at the convenience of the “service system”.
When I came to Savannah last I was engaged in consulting with some citizen advocates and friends of a man in his twenties who was starved to death in a nursing home on Tybee Island. They suspect that this happened because when you reach the age of twenty-one in Georgia the state will no longer pay for your “care”. This man’s only known relative was unwilling or unable to pick up the tab, and consequently he was put in a back room and left to die.
The friends and advocates were asking themselves how it was that they could not have seen what was going on. It seems that even those who are very aware of this dynamic are still not always able to be conscious of its invisibility.
So here I am struggling to make something visible that scares me deeply. No wonder I am anxious as are those around me. No doubt some wish I would just go away.
The second one was without Jack and Marsha. I was travelling with Marie Matthews, and I believe there was another assistant then, but I don’t remember who it was. I distinctly do remember that Tom Kohler was my main host back then in 1986 or ‘87. I also remember that it was around the time of St. Patrick’s Day because Marie and I participated fully in the festivities. (Savannah has the world’s largest St. Patrick’s Day parade outside of Ireland.) I kept the green wig for many, many years!
Other trips fade into the background excepting for the one that brought me to Tybee Island and Imlay House (where Mike and I are now). That was 2008. Gloria, Franziska and Jean came with me, and a personal assistant named Paula who turned out to be an absolute failure as a supporter. This is how I came to meet Lara. Gloria and Franziska remember this trip very differently from me, but no matter. It was the birth of the idea that I would go on the World Peace through Inclusion Tour. It’s not that I planned the tour then but somewhere in my understanding I realized how much I needed to come south to sort things out. I met the pelicans, I encountered the unconscious attachment to slavery and I realized that this was a place where I could be reflected enough to find myself – like seeing myself in a mirror.
I also remember that trip as being one where I was full of anxiety, as were Gloria, Jean and Lara. The World Peace through Inclusion Tour was also a time when my companions and I were frequently emotionally upset. Now that I have passed through the beginning of the Third Cycle and I am back in Savannah, I realize that anxiety goes along with coming here. I am sure there are many factors. My assistants get homesick. Moving from one space to another, including packing up and shifting all of my gear, is another great source of disruption. The concern that there will be enough money has legitimacy. The background “worry” that my attendant care money will get suspended is there. However, these things are typical of any trip that I have taken. Only Savannah brings out this somewhat higher level of anxiety!
Perhaps it is because of the mirror! Somehow I find myself intensely drawn into the images of slavery. They are everywhere. There is a print on my bedroom wall of a 19th century garden – a vision of elegance that includes a pale white woman in a white dress with a white parasol. It is a perfect counterpoint to the elegance of Savannah and is reminiscent of our modern idea of the old plantation. My point is that such gardens and the plantations they were part of can only and could only have been sustained by free or nearly free labour. In spite of this the labourers remain largely invisible.
It reminds me of one of my very first trips to Georgia. We were participating in a conference in a large and elegant hotel. It was my first encounter with peach daiquiris. A black woman was sweeping in the middle of the lobby. Dozens of people – white people – walked around her and never saw her.
During the World Peace through Inclusion Tour I was made aware that slavery is alive and well in the United States – I am sure elsewhere as well. The essence of slavery is the buying and selling of humans. It apparently has never been made illegal to purchase a human being. Since it has become socially unacceptable, or at least politically incorrect, to speak of slavery or to acknowledge its presence, the means of buying and selling have become hidden. For example, the police will round up idle men and when they appear in court to be convicted of loitering, they will be sentenced to work for a major employer of the local area who has been working with the police to develop his labour pool. As “criminals” the men do not need to be paid more than a pittance. Most of the money that changes hands, if any, goes between the employer and the police.
Of course, it is not hard to understand why so many men are idle. It is not hard to create a recession and end jobs in the kind of capitalist economy that pervades our society.
As I become more conversant with the means of creating slavery I have been constantly struck by the commonality of how we create disability. These mechanisms are less hidden in the southern states as well. Labelled individuals are bought and sold between nursing homes and institutions on a regular basis. Tom Kohler, John O’Brien and other Georgian activists have told many stories of people they know personally who started in the south and were shipped from state to state at the convenience of the “service system”.
When I came to Savannah last I was engaged in consulting with some citizen advocates and friends of a man in his twenties who was starved to death in a nursing home on Tybee Island. They suspect that this happened because when you reach the age of twenty-one in Georgia the state will no longer pay for your “care”. This man’s only known relative was unwilling or unable to pick up the tab, and consequently he was put in a back room and left to die.
The friends and advocates were asking themselves how it was that they could not have seen what was going on. It seems that even those who are very aware of this dynamic are still not always able to be conscious of its invisibility.
So here I am struggling to make something visible that scares me deeply. No wonder I am anxious as are those around me. No doubt some wish I would just go away.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
February 16, 2011
I feel like I am cheating the readers of this blog because I have not been giving lots of details of life for several weeks now. Mike and I are at Imlay House in Savannah after three days travelling down and stopping to visit along the way with Peter Block. Chris Lee drove with us and has gone back to Ontario and Florida. He will join us again on the 26th. Lara Howell is now supporting me along with Mike. Everything is working out.
There are so many details. At the moment I am tired and adjusting to the sulphur in the air and water of this marshy place. Today Mike and I got to Tybee. In the absence of detail I thought I would share a few of the pictures of what we have experienced. And, yes, I have seen pelicans - about ten of them. One demonstrated to Mike just how pelicans fish. It is a sight and a sound to behold. I hope you get to see it yourself someday.
Here are the pics:
There are so many details. At the moment I am tired and adjusting to the sulphur in the air and water of this marshy place. Today Mike and I got to Tybee. In the absence of detail I thought I would share a few of the pictures of what we have experienced. And, yes, I have seen pelicans - about ten of them. One demonstrated to Mike just how pelicans fish. It is a sight and a sound to behold. I hope you get to see it yourself someday.
Here are the pics:
Monday, February 14, 2011
February 14, 2011
Mike, Chris and I are in a grubby motel just outside of Knoxville. I have just finished being on the teleconference course called Making a Lasting Impact on Discourses. We’ve been eating southern BBQ and enjoying it immensely. The needle under the bed, the blood on the box frame and the punch hole in the door are perhaps not so intriguing!
Today we had lunch with Peter Block. I realize that it has been a good six years since I met him. I consider him a good friend and patron. And today I also realized that it was time for me to buy lunch! I also gave him a pack of Laser Eagle cards as a Valentine’s Day gift.
Peter Block is very much part of my “bigger conversations” friends. We quickly were talking about empires and the economy and making the invisible visible and seeing the abundance that is right in front of us, and connecting all of that to the Bible and world news and… etc. I’m pretty sure that Chris and Mike were pretty deep into the conversation as well. We recorded it on Mike’s iPhone and I intend to put excerpts of it into this blog now and then.
It was a gruelling task yesterday to obtain a cell phone that had a headset (Bluetooth!) that Mike and I can use throughout the trip as it has a Savannah number. Neither one of us can afford the horrendous cost of roaming charges on our regular cell numbers. I’m glad that we persevered through the annoyance because the wifi in the motel failed me and I wasn’t able to get onto my teleconference through Skype. I’m so glad that I had the phone as a back up! By the way our number is 912-713-5739.
The topic of tonight’s teleconference was “resignation”, which in Landmark terms means the hopeless feeling. The upshot was to have us look at that resignation comes from feeling like you are one small person against a big world. In this model of oneself it is impossible to believe that you (I) have the power to impact a worldwide culture – in my case the cultures of exclusion and war.
We were encouraged to play with other models of ourselves. I came up with that I am a mouthpiece of a conversation that is pressing to be heard – the conversation of Inclusion and peace. Please, if I forget as I’m sure I will, and start feeling small and alone, remind me that this is a way of looking at myself that I inherited when I was little.
We are less than a day away from Savannah. If it wasn’t for my teleconference and for needing to drop Chris in Atlanta tomorrow, we probably would have pressed on and made Savannah by tonight. Actually I prefer it this way as it’s easy to get lost in Savannah at night and it will be a great pleasure to have Mike see it’s elegance for the first time in broad daylight.
Peter Block made a clear point that I should thank the people of Savannah for making me aware of how slavery and disability are two parts of the same economic conversation – turning people into commodities instead of persons with rights and gifts. I appreciate that he put it this way – in terms of gratitude and appreciation. This will help me greatly when I am speaking to people. I’m expecting to give four presentations while I am here.
Beyond that, the pelicans and the painting, not to mention the church suppers and other opportunities for good southern food are very much on my mind. And then there are the many, many people that I’m eager to reconnect with. The first of those will be Lara, the beautiful young woman who is going to be Mike’s sidekick for this leg of the trip.
I am so happy to be on an adventure again. Yes, I am tired and my back hurts sometimes. Just the same, it is like I am being recharged. Now and then “the mouthpiece” must find new words and new perspectives. Being on the road has always given me opportunities for just that kind of reframing and waking up. I love where I live and at the same time I so very much need to be moving about in the world. This is who I am!
Today we had lunch with Peter Block. I realize that it has been a good six years since I met him. I consider him a good friend and patron. And today I also realized that it was time for me to buy lunch! I also gave him a pack of Laser Eagle cards as a Valentine’s Day gift.
Peter Block is very much part of my “bigger conversations” friends. We quickly were talking about empires and the economy and making the invisible visible and seeing the abundance that is right in front of us, and connecting all of that to the Bible and world news and… etc. I’m pretty sure that Chris and Mike were pretty deep into the conversation as well. We recorded it on Mike’s iPhone and I intend to put excerpts of it into this blog now and then.
It was a gruelling task yesterday to obtain a cell phone that had a headset (Bluetooth!) that Mike and I can use throughout the trip as it has a Savannah number. Neither one of us can afford the horrendous cost of roaming charges on our regular cell numbers. I’m glad that we persevered through the annoyance because the wifi in the motel failed me and I wasn’t able to get onto my teleconference through Skype. I’m so glad that I had the phone as a back up! By the way our number is 912-713-5739.
The topic of tonight’s teleconference was “resignation”, which in Landmark terms means the hopeless feeling. The upshot was to have us look at that resignation comes from feeling like you are one small person against a big world. In this model of oneself it is impossible to believe that you (I) have the power to impact a worldwide culture – in my case the cultures of exclusion and war.
We were encouraged to play with other models of ourselves. I came up with that I am a mouthpiece of a conversation that is pressing to be heard – the conversation of Inclusion and peace. Please, if I forget as I’m sure I will, and start feeling small and alone, remind me that this is a way of looking at myself that I inherited when I was little.
We are less than a day away from Savannah. If it wasn’t for my teleconference and for needing to drop Chris in Atlanta tomorrow, we probably would have pressed on and made Savannah by tonight. Actually I prefer it this way as it’s easy to get lost in Savannah at night and it will be a great pleasure to have Mike see it’s elegance for the first time in broad daylight.
Peter Block made a clear point that I should thank the people of Savannah for making me aware of how slavery and disability are two parts of the same economic conversation – turning people into commodities instead of persons with rights and gifts. I appreciate that he put it this way – in terms of gratitude and appreciation. This will help me greatly when I am speaking to people. I’m expecting to give four presentations while I am here.
Beyond that, the pelicans and the painting, not to mention the church suppers and other opportunities for good southern food are very much on my mind. And then there are the many, many people that I’m eager to reconnect with. The first of those will be Lara, the beautiful young woman who is going to be Mike’s sidekick for this leg of the trip.
I am so happy to be on an adventure again. Yes, I am tired and my back hurts sometimes. Just the same, it is like I am being recharged. Now and then “the mouthpiece” must find new words and new perspectives. Being on the road has always given me opportunities for just that kind of reframing and waking up. I love where I live and at the same time I so very much need to be moving about in the world. This is who I am!
Saturday, February 12, 2011
February 12, 2011
It’s the day before I leave for Savannah, with Mike Skubic and Christopher Lee. Things are a bit chaotic around here!
Once again I missed blogging yesterday. I was at the “Work of Hearts” Gala, a fundraiser for Laser Eagles. I think for now it is just better to say that I will blog every four days at least, or twice a week. Until I get my road life back under my belt I don’t want to give the impression that I’m simply choosing not to blog. Rather I am re-establishing the “rhythm” that gets it all done. – (preferably making it all look easy at the same time!)
The Gala was fabulous and a real testament both to what people can accomplish even when they don’t necessarily see “eye-to-eye”, and to Kimberly Fu’s capacity as an event organizer. It was elegance at its best and done on shoe string. Regardless of how much money was made (I have no idea!) the essential value of Laser Eagles was communicated far and wide.
I had a real sense of people working together, as well. Mike Skubic and Helen Tweddle jumped in – with my Dad’s car – to make Greg’s transportation work out. Other tasks were getting handled with little fanfare. It made community seem real.
For me this was all on top of a week of last minute rushes, dramas, inadequate schedulings and opportunities – lost and found. It seemed that I still had only two double bookings to resolve, and they both worked out rather miraculously.
A sense of a fundamental shift is there. The new ODSP caseworker called me to get help in working out my complex financial situation with the clear intention of making it work for me. Olivia passed MY proposal around to all members of the Inclusion Circle. The media CAME to the Laser Eagles event. It feels like I’m actually being taken seriously!
I have wanted to and thought about blogging all the way through, but not had the energy and focus when the time came. I really SHOULD get one of those voice recorders that can be downloaded and converted to a text file.
Anyway the adventure has truly begun. The car is washed, gassed and loaded. Nearly everything is done, except the sleep.
Soon I will be painting, and revealing – mostly to myself – what message the rising Mimico Correctional Centre is trying to evoke.
I guess what really shifted is that I am willing, or nearly so, to be a leader with a distinct point of view, a defined vision of what the next world needs to be like, the beginnings of a strategy, and the willingness to have others improve it.
It is late and my eyes are drooping, my legs aching and my head fuzzy. Let the adventure begin.
Once again I missed blogging yesterday. I was at the “Work of Hearts” Gala, a fundraiser for Laser Eagles. I think for now it is just better to say that I will blog every four days at least, or twice a week. Until I get my road life back under my belt I don’t want to give the impression that I’m simply choosing not to blog. Rather I am re-establishing the “rhythm” that gets it all done. – (preferably making it all look easy at the same time!)
The Gala was fabulous and a real testament both to what people can accomplish even when they don’t necessarily see “eye-to-eye”, and to Kimberly Fu’s capacity as an event organizer. It was elegance at its best and done on shoe string. Regardless of how much money was made (I have no idea!) the essential value of Laser Eagles was communicated far and wide.
I had a real sense of people working together, as well. Mike Skubic and Helen Tweddle jumped in – with my Dad’s car – to make Greg’s transportation work out. Other tasks were getting handled with little fanfare. It made community seem real.
For me this was all on top of a week of last minute rushes, dramas, inadequate schedulings and opportunities – lost and found. It seemed that I still had only two double bookings to resolve, and they both worked out rather miraculously.
A sense of a fundamental shift is there. The new ODSP caseworker called me to get help in working out my complex financial situation with the clear intention of making it work for me. Olivia passed MY proposal around to all members of the Inclusion Circle. The media CAME to the Laser Eagles event. It feels like I’m actually being taken seriously!
I have wanted to and thought about blogging all the way through, but not had the energy and focus when the time came. I really SHOULD get one of those voice recorders that can be downloaded and converted to a text file.
Anyway the adventure has truly begun. The car is washed, gassed and loaded. Nearly everything is done, except the sleep.
Soon I will be painting, and revealing – mostly to myself – what message the rising Mimico Correctional Centre is trying to evoke.
I guess what really shifted is that I am willing, or nearly so, to be a leader with a distinct point of view, a defined vision of what the next world needs to be like, the beginnings of a strategy, and the willingness to have others improve it.
It is late and my eyes are drooping, my legs aching and my head fuzzy. Let the adventure begin.
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