Water in the House

Twelve years ago, I wrote Fire in the House telling the story of my journey to the Amazon and receiving ayahuasca with a group of fellow travelers. I integrated that story into the main narrative of my life for the years before and several years after that journey. This post picks up with where that story leaves off.

Our move back to the East Coast in 2012 felt so exciting. We bought a house just miles from where Chris and I grew up, and after being renters and moving around quite a lot for about a decade, we were so ready to settle down and live in one place for more than a couple years. We loved the lush green backyard with a pond and the enormous cherry tree in the front yard. Even though there was quite a lot of renovating and updating needed in the house and the pond was filled with slimy scum, it still felt like our personal paradise.

The house was a refuge through so many changes. Our daughter went through middle school, high school and college while we lived there. My career changed rather drastically three different times, and Chris opened and sold a successful business during those years. 

Smithbridge, the nickname we used for the house, became a tranquil haven after many years. We'd added a wood burning stove that sat in front of a beautiful old stone wall, and it put off enough heat to keep us warm one winter when an ice storm left us without power for almost a week. The backyard was the shining jewel of the property. My husband's friend designed and built a pool and spa that looked like it was always meant to be there. Along with Chris's rehabilitation of the pond and completion of all the landscaping, it felt like a five star resort back there. 

When the world stopped in March of 2020, we were so grateful  to have each other and this beautiful place to wait out whatever was to unfold. 

The house was even the backdrop to our daughter's short stint of TikTok fame. She amassed around thirty thousand followers or so from dance videos she shot around the property during the pandemic. Chris and I even joined her in a couple videos, and making and sharing those videos was a happy and lighthearted note in those strange early months of lockdown.

I worked from home during the pandemic, a stroke of luck that I could keep earning while my husband's business had to close. In the first months of the pandemic, my job was also such an emotional support to me. To be sharing the odd experience of lockdown with each other over the phone and on Zoom made me feel like I had a rich community, growing closer instead of further away from people. 

During the pandemic, work changed a lot though. By early 2021, it felt less like a connected community, and more like a place of endless demands and lots of stress. I later found out that my small company had started moving towards the market at that time, and all sorts of changes to make us more attractive to a bigger player were in motion. Our dynamic work family was morphing into a corporate hierarchy that could more easily merge.

By the middle of 2021, my mother's health was in rapid decline. She had around the clock caretakers over at her house, along with both my father and older brother. The two of them were keeping the regular household responsibilities going, but they were also getting in each other's faces more and more each passing day. Their relationship had always been tough, but the stress of seeing my mom change so much added a whole new pressure, and unfortunately there was a lot of yelling and tension. 

And even more unfortunately, my sister with Down Syndrome was living there too. I'd been thinking for years that it wasn't the ideal place for her, but my mom was so attached and didn't want any discussion about Kristin moving out or doing something different. By that time, Kristin was in her 50s, and she'd always lived with my parents. To my parents, it was a given that with them was the best place for her. 

On Kristin's birthday that year, I gave her a karaoke microphone that she could plug into her iPad. After she opened it, she told me that there was a problem: she threw her iPad away. That led to a massive trash can and room search to find that her iPad was in fact gone. It was an attention getting action on her part, and a wake up call to us all that Kristin wasn't getting the attention and care she needed. She'd become lost in this household of chaos.

After a big fight a few weeks later between my brother and my parents, my mom caved and told Kristin that she should move in with me. Kristin agreed and within a couple more weeks, it was done. My dad handed me a fistful of files regarding all aspects of her finances and health as we were taking her suitcases out the door, and with that they passed the baton making me officially in charge of her and all her affairs in one fell swoop. My days of just getting to be her fun little sister that gave her lots of hugs and attention were over.

Although the learning curve for being her guardian was steep, some of the sweetest moments of my life arose in those first weeks and months after she moved in. Tucking her in during those first nights of transition to my house, seeing her in the middle of the night walking to the bathroom all groggy and in her pjs, playing card game after card game around our big dining room table. I was getting to know her in a way that I hadn't since we were kids and shared a room. 

I was adjusting to this new adventure in parent/sisterhood, and all the while, my mom was dying.

She'd been diagnosed with Parkinson's around 7 or 8 years earlier, and since late 2020, she'd been in and out of hospitals and nursing facilities, all under special visiting restrictions due to the pandemic. Her memory was deteriorating, and each one of these traumatic trips through the healthcare system sent her mind and emotions further down a hole. 

By the end of 2021, everything had gotten heavy and hard and sad. My company was running full speed ahead towards closing with the big dog that had decided to acquire us. My mom was staying in a nursing home around the corner from me, and I visited her daily when I could find an hour or so to pull myself away. Kristin was emotionally fragile and touchy, but she wouldn't talk about my mom or go with me to visit her.

The work closing happened in mid-December, and I decided to leave instead of move on to the new company. Freed from work, I had a little time to work with my husband and daughter to put together a modest Christmas celebration for my dad and sister, and we did the best we could at being festive while my mom was getting closer to her end in the nursing home. The day after Christmas, I began working at lightening speed with hospice to bring my mom home before her death.

Even though she was no longer interactive by the time we got her home, I could sense that she relaxed in the presence of her home. I certainly was more at ease with her there. My dad was overwhelmed by it all, so he hid in the basement most of the time. My brother was still away, and my daughter and husband stayed back at my house with Kristin. 

But I wasn't alone there. I was blessed by a fleet of loving women from hospice and the caretaking company who'd worked with my mom for the year or so before her death. They made my mom's last days as comfortable as possible. It wasn't the family gathered around the bedside sort-of death I would have liked her to have, but it was a dignified end for her and a sacred time for me. 

As 2022 started, my days were rather empty and aimless. With no work calls or emails to fill my hours, I swam in a wide open space where strangely triggered fits of emotion could flow. My sister was also pretty disoriented; my mom had always been her north star. 

I had noticed how Kristin always talked about her more independent younger days and how she wanted to go off to college like my daughter, to live in a dorm. Without much else to occupy my mind or days, I researched and called around trying to find different activities or communities where she could go for the day, or maybe even a place where she could live in a dorm and have regular activities. We found a book club that was meeting online and an exercise class at a gym close by, but neither one was working out very well. 

My research into possibilities for Kristin kept leading to dead ends and depressing conversations about how few options there were for older special needs adults. The most prevalent possibility in my area were small group homes, and that wasn't the right thing for Kristin. The whole point was to find an opportunity for her to have a bigger social community, and this wouldn't expand her circle very much at all. And more, it would be the luck of the draw on whether her few housemates would be a good match for her personality and needs. It just didn't feel like a viable option from my perspective.

My husband and I were talking about possibilities one day during this time period, and my husband handed me his phone to show me a place he thought looked interesting. It was more of a nursing home than what I'd envisioned, and I scoffed, "no, not something like that!" 

Then, I typed something into his phone, and the first thing that popped up was the site for Marbridge. I quickly poked around on the website, and then I handed the phone back to my husband and said, quite proud of myself, "something more like this." 

He took the phone, and I watched him as his eyes started to widen. "Yeah. This place looks amazing!"

I grabbed the phone back out of his hands, eager to actually take a real look. Long story short, Kristin ended up visiting there with me a month or so later, and in May of 2022, she moved in to a dorm, got a full class schedule, and began living Marbridge's slogan: A Whole New Life.

That was the great blessing of 2022.

And while that blessing was unfolding, just weeks before the springtime memorial service I'd planned for our mother, the second big loss of my life happened. My best friend since childhood, Kim, died suddenly and tragically. 

That spring and summer are a blurred mix of tears and travel in my memory. I went back and forth getting my sister settled into her new life, so far away from where she'd lived all her life. I also took a road trip, reconnecting with friends from so many phases past who were close to Kim, and returned to help create a memorial service for her in the summer. It was a healing time, but I struggled at getting used to being in a world that didn't have my mom and Kim in it.

When September came, I thought that maybe I was going to get the chance to land, to catch my breath, to begin figuring out what I was going to do with the rest of my life. Before I got much traction into anything at all, my dad died in an accident in early October. And then just a couple months later, we lost our beloved dog, Jack.

Before my mother's death, I'd never lost anyone very close to me. Now, losing loved ones had become my new identity. And with my father's death also came a huge mound of new responsibilities. Both overwhelmed by the tasks and grateful for the sense of purpose, I dove in and busied myself with getting things in order. 

As 2023 continued to unfold, and month by month passed without further death or tragedy, I started to feel that maybe I was in the clear. Maybe the wave of tragedies was now complete, and I was officially on the other side of the death spiral. My parents' house sold quickly and easily, and once the weather warmed, things just kept zipping along. I felt myself beginning to feel excited and optimistic, ready for new adventures, new challenges, new possibilities.

Visits to my sister had me bouncing around to different Airbnbs in Austin for over a year without finding any that felt truly comfortable. In October of 2023, I felt enough solid ground beneath me to leap, and Chris and I decided to buy a cute place near Kristin, maybe just to set up as an Airbnb that we could use anytime we wanted, or maybe we'd sell Smithbridge and use it as a temporary place to live while we figured out where we'd move next. It felt exciting to be striking out in the world - making a decision, a change, a stand for something new.

The closing on the Austin place unfolded in mere weeks, and all felt so synchronistic and guided. Even our home inspection felt wonderful. The inspector felt so familiar to both Chris and me because he reminded us so much of my ex-boyfriend, the one that introduced Chris and me forever ago. We'd just seen that old friend in the summer, after he'd heard about Kim's death. The inspector reminding us of this special person from our past gave us a warm feeling, a sense we were on the right path. 

For Thanksgiving, we planned to celebrate in Austin. My daughter had relocated out west by that time, and she flew in so that all four of us could be together. Chris and I packed up a truck with spare furniture we'd claimed from my parent's house before it sold, along with some other odds and ends that we didn't need at Smithbridge, and with that, we were off.

It was a beautiful trip, and we left Austin feeling filled with optimism. Even a flat tire on our first of two long days driving back to Smithbridge didn't get us down. We just took it as a sign to ease up and added an extra day to our trip, so that we could spend our last night in one of our favorite towns: Asheville, North Carolina. And it was such a nice night there. We ate at a restaurant where we'd gone on our 20th anniversary in 2020; it had been our first trip since the start of the pandemic. During this 2023 overnight in Asheville, we reveled in the excitement of all we could create with our lives now that things seemed to be settling down. 

As we made our way to Smithbridge the next day, this song played in the car during our final approach. Chris didn't say anything, but the lyrics at the start of the song began to stir him. We rode in silence for the last miles, and as we drove past the front of the house, the lighting looked eerie, but neither of us said anything. When Chris pressed the garage door opener, and the door began to open, I breathed a sign of relief without really thinking about why. 

As soon as the car stopped in the garage, I hopped out and ran in to go use the bathroom. 

Water coming from the ceiling, hitting my face. What the fuck?! 

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," I say it like it's like a mantra that I just cannot stop. I look around.

Inches of water on the floor and more spilling in through the ceiling each second. The things I'd left on the coffee table a mass of melted paper. The book I'd been reading hardly recognizable. The pictures of my parents on the table soaked through.

Chris is in the house now too. I'm still unable to stop my mantra, and I hear him scream "oh shit!" He opens the basement door, and I see him disappear behind it heading down the stairs.

I run back out to the garage. I'm wet, and it's so cold out. But I can't look at what's happening in there. I start crying and brace myself against the car. I notice Skippy is in there alone and confused. I get in the back seat next to him, still crying. I rest my head against him and just take a moment to weep. He probably needs to go to the bathroom, or just get out of the car after all day in here, so I lift him up and put him in the fenced in front yard. 

It is so fucking cold. I didn't dress for this at all. I remember there is a jacket somewhere buried in the trunk, but I just can't even bother digging for it. I shiver and leave Skippy alone there in the front yard and run out to the back, to my favorite tree back there: Hope. That's what I named her during a little argument in our first years in the house after Chris suggested that maybe we cut her down. The name stuck for all of us. 

I make full contact with Hope, let her hold my weight. I feel oddly warmer as I stand so close to her. It is a clear night with a nearly full waning moon, so quiet and crisp. As I face towards the woods, I sense that everything is fine, and all is exactly as it should be. 

I turn back and face the house. The lighting is rather eerie from the fixtures that are hanging loose and shining into the water, but for the most part it looks rather normal. The same way it has looked so many nights before from out here.

How could it be that seconds earlier, I was in the middle of hell and everything felt so irreparably wrong, and now, I am out here and things feel peaceful and ok. I stay with Hope and just breathe.

A truck pulls into the driveway, and the headlights rouse me. I head back up, and see Chris talking to someone pulling a bunch of gear out his truck. I learn it's the fire marshal responding to our 911 call. As he and Chris go into the house, I go and get Skippy from the yard and bring him back to the car. I sit in the back with him so we can get warm together. The tears start again. 

The fire marshal wearing high rubber boots and using a wooden pole turned off the electricity to the house. Chris had already shut the water off before he came, and the marshal told Chris that he was lucky to be alive. With the electricity still on, going down into all that water in the basement without any protective gear was a death wish. 

Before he left, the fire marshal also told us that he thought the house was a tear down. With so much water in there, he said it would always have issues with mold and all sorts of problems. I audibly shrieked at the thought that the house would never be lived in again. 

In a state of shock and overwhelm, we got things as stabilized as we could and left to stay at an Airbnb for the night. On the way, Chris told me that he had visions of a flood as he listened to Tracy Chapman sing Times Are A Changin' during those last minutes of our ride. In retrospect both of us realized there was this strange feeling that something might happen. We'd dismissed it, thinking it was just that we'd gotten so used to bad things happening. 

As we reviewed how this could've happened, there was one memory in particular that was so puzzling.

Generally, we turned off the water to the house for a trip of a week or more. This being almost two weeks, as we were getting ready to pull out, him driving the truck and me the car we'd return in, I called to him and said, "did you turn off the water?"

He got out of the truck, and I joined him in the driveway. 

"I didn't, actually. We just got that new whole house humidifier, and I didn't see a switch to turn it off. I don't know if it'll break it to turn off the water. And remember what that inspector said at the new house?"

I did remember, and I nodded my head. The inspector, the one who put us both at ease because he looked like our old friend, had told us that he was of the mind that you shouldn't turn off the water when you go away. He said something about how sewer gases can fill up the lines and smell up the house.

Chris was often one of those overly worried types, so I really appreciated his willingness to just let it go and trust the universe. I agreed that we should just leave the water on - nothing had ever happened before, so of course, it would be just fine.

And yet, sometime possibly as early as when we were standing there having that conversation in our driveway, the water supply line to our upstairs bathroom toilet randomly shot off and across the room, and water began to slowly fill our beloved home. By how much water had accumulated, it likely was sometime in the first days of our trip when the water began.

Never in my life have I felt as shaky as I did in the first days and weeks after the flood. It wasn't that the house was at the top of some pyramid of value for me; it just felt eternal, dependable and safe. Seeing that safe space where we'd weathered the pandemic and so many changes in such a state of destruction shook me to the core. 

The remediation contractor we called said the house could be dried out and rehabilitated, so we started the process, even though we felt like we'd never live there again. We spent a little over the week in the area grabbing special items and checking on the remediation work, and it was a knife in my heart each time we visited. Mold had started growing on everything because it took days to get the drying process moving because of a weekend and the timing lag on insurance approvals. It didn't even feel safe to be in there and breathe the air.  And the house was overtaken by men I didn't know or feel comfortable around, walking around like they owned the place, pulling down walls and pulling out our personal items that were too waterlogged to be saved. 

Days after we were set to return from Austin, we ironically had the very last renovation we planned to do on the house scheduled: a replacement of all the old upstairs carpets. We'd waited on this last step because Jack had some incontinence issues in his last years. With him gone for months now, it felt like time for that final touch to make the house complete. Now, instead, the carpets were being ripped out by the water remediation workers, and there were much bigger jobs to handle than getting new carpets in there.

I've come to see Smithbridge as sand mandala, like the ones monks spend so much time creating in such intricate detail, and then, with a swipe of their arm, it's all scattered away. Gone forever, in a teaching that life is in the process of creating, not holding on to the thing of beauty with attachment.

But I was so incredibly attached, and I felt the pain of it in those first months after the flood. My mourning of Smithbridge merged with the morning of my mom, my best friend, my dad and Jack. I'd spent so many special times with each of them in that house. 

On the way back to Austin before Christmas, we stopped in Asheville as we were passing through to meet with a couple friends and catch our breath. That was our last time in Asheville, and when Asheville flooded in September of this past year from Hurricane Helene, I felt it so deeply. It was such a familiar feeling of seeing a place I loved decimated by water, and such an odd sense of synchronicity that my last times in Asheville are on either side of discovering my own flood tragedy.

Austin gave us a warm winter and a new home to fill and settle into. Having our place there to catch us was an amazing saving grace. It gave us a pathway to move forward, build something new, a focus to help us stay in the present and experience what was there for us, instead of dwelling on what we'd lost. 

We sold Smithbridge in early spring to a flipper who wanted to flip it into his own family's dream home, and then in June, after a frustrating and drawn out process, the insurance claim and final bills for the remediation services were finally closed out. What we recovered from the house was delivered to our new place in Austin, and by the end of summer, it was all behind us, like a strange dream. Even thinking about Smithbridge now, looking back to pictures, remembering little details, it feels like a fantasy. Like the amazing place we created over a decade was another dimension, and some portal opened mysteriously and sucked it up. We've seen some pictures of the rebuild by the new owners, and it really is not at all the same house.

We just crossed the anniversary of the flood a couple weeks ago. Looking back at all that's happened, I feel gratitude, not sadness. I crossed a threshold I didn't think I'd ever cross, a shift of actually not wishing that the flood had not happened. I've gained so much liberation and insight in the experience.

One thread that is still bearing so much fruit is all I've learned about trauma. Here in Austin, I found a yoga class early in the year that has been a real life changer for me. It's a very slow and restorative style class, and the teacher ends the class with a sequence that leads to involuntary shaking of the body called neurogenic tremors. The process is known as trauma release exercises, or TRE, and the discovery of it came in large part from the observation of how wild animals shake after experiencing a trauma. Scientists have discovered that shaking is a healing response that allows the animal to move past destabilizing events without carrying the trauma with them. A whole movement has blossomed in trauma therapy and somatic practices that centers around helping humans do a similar process to release stored trauma from the body. 

There's an exercise that my teacher often does in class, where she tells us to tense up our whole body as much as we possibly can and then hold it along with our breath for a few seconds. Then, she tells us to release with an exhale and dump out all that tension. She says that it can help us release not only the tension we'd just created, but also release old tension that we didn't even realize we were holding, that we couldn't consciously contact and release.

This exercise feels like a metaphor for my flood. It was an increase of tension in my body, on top of the heavy load of stress and trauma I was already carrying. As I released that tension, so much else fell off with it: old patterns of behaving, anxiety, people pleasing tendencies, even personality traits that no longer felt aligned with who I'd become. So many tears that I'd never really been able to release started to flow, lost feelings and memories were able to rise to the surface.

Landing here in Austin has been different than any other transition I've experienced before. The kind people and interesting things we've found to do have changed my everyday life in a drastic way. More music and rhythm, more laughter and relaxed community experiences, more smiles and waves from strangers, more walks and sunshine. Even my relationship with Chris feels completely renewed. Realizing that our time together could've ended that night if he had been electrocuted when he went down to turn off the water flipped a switch to make me so grateful for each day we do get together, so grateful we are able to keep going on to the next adventure.

Turns out the flood was a magical culmination of everything that came before. The word that oddly comes to mind when I think of it now is generosity. In a way that I could have never imagined on the day when we first discovered the flood, it feels like one of the greatest gifts the universe ever gave me: a sort-of dramatic evaporation of all that won't serve me on the road ahead, leaving me renewed and stronger, and much closer to Home than I've ever been before.

The Empty in Empty Nest

The car ride home from the hospital after my daughter was born was one of those simple experiences that I can call up in my mind and re-experience like it's happening in the present.  She was born at the end of April, and during those few days when we were in the hospital, the world opened up into a gorgeous spring.  I had never before and haven't since experienced the extreme transition of an East Coast spring the way I did that year, emerging into it after days in a hospital room with only a small third floor window to view the magic that was happening outside.

As I sat in the back of the car next to my newborn in her freshly unwrapped car seat, I gazed out the window amazed at how it seemed that in just a matter of days the small buds on the trees turned into bright green leaves.  I felt how the transformation outside was a reflection of a transformation happening inside me and inside that car where my husband and I were travelling home to begin our journey of keeping this vulnerable and fragile baby alive, all on our own.  Scared, overwhelmed, grateful, awestruck.  These don't even begin to touch the mix of emotions that make that car ride one of the most memorable of my life.

And then this week, I experienced the bookend car ride of driving home after dropping my girl off to her freshman college dorm.   The air conditioning was a soothing relief to the oppressively humid summer day.  I smiled as the images of the day reeled: her dorm room coming to life just the way she wanted, the campus buzzing with excitement, the friendly faces of her new roommates and their families.  She was off into her independent life ready to make her dreams come true.

And I was being freed of the responsibility of raising a child.  Being a mom hadn't come easy for me.  Many times, I thought about this finish line, hoping I'd do ok as a mom, that she'd get all she needed to live a happy life.  And here I was, seeing everything I hoped for her come to fruition.

And as a let out deep breath, my smile fell into the sharp silence of the car. 

Thoughts started spinning.  Was she really ok?  Were her roommates actually the friendly girls they seemed?  Would she be comfortable in that small bed?  Should we have cleaned everything before moving her stuff in?  Do they ever clean those places?!

I couldn't hold back this immense and irrational feeling of worry, so I shot off a text.  I thought if I just got one little response from her, it would calm me down.  But just how it should be for a girl who just moved in to college, she wasn't sitting there staring at her phone ready to promptly respond to her mother.  And so the rest of the car ride, we sat in silence, and I waited for those three dots to appear and let me know that she was there on the other end.

I watched myself over the next days: an addict jonesing for my next fix of contact from her.  Even though it horrified me, and I didn't want to be that mom, there was no stopping the impulse.  Eighteen years of conditioning my mind to worry about whether she was hungry or sad or hurt had created a momentum that felt unstoppable.  It isn't just something I did; it is who I was.

When parents who'd already been through this transition tried to tell me how hard it is and how weird it feels, I brushed it off in my mind.  "Nah, not for me.  I'm psyched and so ready.  She's psyched and so ready."  I felt so sure that this time of life would just be a huge celebration.  I just saw this wonderful beginning for her, for me, for my husband.

And it is.  A beautiful beginning for all of us.  Yet, it seems that I'm not going to get out of mourning what is ending.  

The rainy day that followed move-in day took my by surprise.  Teary, unmotivated, depressed.  I had to use all the discipline I could muster just to put down the phone and stop sending somewhat empty texts hoping for a reply, any reply.  I finally admitted to my husband, to friends, to co-workers: this is a lot harder than I thought it would be.

Although being a mom wasn't something I always wanted to be, it turned into the most important thing.  It drove my decisions about career, where to live, my relationships, my diet, my activities; it's been the root of literally every single thing in my life.  And now, some big part of being a mom is over.  She's an independent bad-ass who really doesn't need anyone leaning over her shoulder making sure she's ok.  

There is still that sense of celebration for the good things to come for her, for me, for my adult relationship with her. That celebration still feels like the deepest truth of this transition.  

But, I might just get all weepy when I come across pictures of when she was little, a video clip of her from last year, some odd thing that she left around the house.  I might just have those days with the need for a hit of contact is so strong that I have odd fits of incessantly reaching out to her until I get a response.  I might just get insanely creative at finding ways to end up around the corner from her school or come up with necessities that I must drop off to her.  

Eventually though, I hope that all the room here in the nest starts filling up, and not with more babies!  I'm remembering some dreams for myself that went on the shelf years ago when I made being a good mom the most important thing.  I look forward to the time when the letting go has run it's course, and my own new beginning takes off.

A Peaceful Human Race

Feeling drawn to head back to my old blog: a peaceful human race.

I moved from that blog to this one a while back because that name just felt so uncomfortable to me.  I didn't want to be preachy, naive, unrealistic.  A peaceful human race?  Who the hell am I to think I could have anything to do with bringing something so huge and impossible into being?

And now, for some reason it just doesn't feel so uncomfortable anymore.  I'm not really inclined to write about myself, my own way, my stories.  This doesn't really feel like the ground that gives me inspiration anymore.  When inspiration does strike, it's always the same theme, the same motivation, the same dream.

And so now instead of who the hell am I, I'm feeling more like: why the hell not!  Maybe I am preachy, naive, and unrealistic.  I believe in a peaceful human race.  I believe it's possible and that it's a vision worth dedicating myself to, a dream worth dreaming.

So in the coming weeks or months, I plan on settling in to that title that used to make me so uncomfortable, and seeing what happens next. 

Love Bernie Not Feeling the Bern

So much to like about Bernie Sanders. I'll definitely watch him with interest, but if he does get to the general election, I can't imagine I'd vote for him.

We have a major difference of opinion about the role of government. I hear Sanders advocating that government is supposed to cure the ills of society. That it should enforce fairness, safety, health, and goodness; it should be the mechanism to make all as it should be.

As much as this utopian view can resonate with the part of us all that doesn't want to see suffering, to be suffering, to feel like we're part of a society that creates suffering, I think the idea that government can create this society is just a fantasy. There are too many different views about what fairness, safety, health, and goodness really are. A well-meaning plan to cure all these perceived problems will inevitably divide the people who agree with the agenda's values from those who disagree.

And, there is a dangerous growth of government money and power when the tax and legislative reach grows. Even if you trust the politicians in power when there are these expansions of government, they won't be the same ones in power in the future. Growth under a benevolent dictator paves the way for other dictators with very different intentions.

And he seems to blame corporations for so many things going wrong, but what power is it that those big corporations are usurping? It's government power. Power those corporations can access and use to skew playing fields because the government has it to give to to the highest bidder. And what about small mom n pop corporations? Tax rules and regulations aimed at keeping the big corps in check only make it even harder for the little guys to compete. They can't afford the savvy accounting and legal support needed to navigate the morass into sustainable profits. We're already killing that old American dream that anyone can build something from nothing, and I think more in that same direction would make it worse.

Freedom was the core value at the founding of our country for important reasons.  We need those checks and balances, the separation of powers, and the protection of each individual's freedom to their own pursuit of happiness. We're all so different, and a big government doesn't leave the room for our highly individual pursuits.

As much as I really like Bernie's heart, I don't think I could ever vote for him. I value freedom too much. I want a small government that protects freedom and empowers us to save ourselves. I want a government that trusts our nature and trusts the mechanisms of life itself to achieve to the balance we need as we move through the ages.

"I breathe in, I breathe out"

As I digested the horror of the Paris attacks with the rest of the world, my reaction was steeped in the thought, "Oh, shit.  Here we go with the violent retaliation, the "anything goes" spying, the easy doorway of acceptance for new policies that will create a stronger military world order."  And that chain of thought made me a little desperate to see countering perspectives, to see messages about unity, about being the peace we wish to see in the world, about retaliation just turning the next violent cycle.

And I had to dig deep, but I found this really lovely letter: Alexis' Letter about Peace.  It was heartening for me, reflective of my own sense that the work that's needed for peace is work for all of us, in our own hearts, in our own breath - in and out.

And then, I stumbled on this article: Gary Johnson-Isis, Refugees, Syria, Terror, and was a little more heartened to find a politician saying some things I feel myself, some things that make sense to me in relation to all this.  In 2012, my hope for Gary to get some traction and actually win the presidential election exploded, but I was let down.   I feel like gathering some hope again.

I, too, am 100%, a pacifist.

I know it's not a popular point of view, and in times like the present, pacifism gets such criticism as being weak, uncaring, and cooperating with evil.  But to me, that could not be further from the truth.  I'm all for being strong, for caring deeply, for trying to help, and for fervently disagreeing and opposing terrible acts of violence.  I'm even for self-defense as well, if one's not using a ridiculously broad definition of defense.

I just think it can be much simpler, if we slow down, breathe in and breathe out, and stop letting fear call the shots.

I say: send food, send education, send love; welcome children, welcome those who are suffering, welcome a new way forward; stop with the weapons, stop with the divisive hatred, stop with the messages written in blood.

Each Moment's Choice

I.

"It's so good to see you!" I say as I hug her, my voice wavering as I collect myself from the shock of how different she looks.  She's so thin, her face so sunken, and her teeth must still be in that cup on her nightstand.  She never walked around without them, but now, she doesn't seem to care at all how she looks.

She pushes me back.  "Do you have a car here?"

"Yeah, sure Grandmom.  I have a car, that's how I got here."

"Get me out of here."  She whispers with her head down.  Her gaze pierces me.  She angrily stares me down, and I feel this sharp closing in, like a tightening straight jacket on my entire body gripping tighter and tighter.  What the hell do I say?  Where could I take her?  I don't even live around here anymore, and my mom certainly doesn't want me to take her back there. Grandmom would just start in on her about how my mom should have her live there, not here.

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.  I look around.  The TV set is louder than is comfortable, tuned in to some daytime drama.  A few wheelchairs parked in front, the people in them with distant stares, faces not even turned to look at the TV.  A few workers are gathered over near a desk, one with a scowl and hand on her hip, the other having a similar distant stare to the people in the wheelchairs, like it's just their bodies present in the scene, nothing else.  And as I'm taking it all in, I focus in on this weird smell, some blended scent of bleach, plastic, and human waste - deeply unpleasant when you really pay attention to it.

It sucks here.  No wonder she wants to get out.

I turn my face back to hers, mouth still open with no words coming out.

"Let's go!" she says, conspiratorially.  She lowers her voice, "now."  She pierces me again with that stare.

II.

"I can't, Grandmom."

I pause, hoping that this intensity in her will settle, so I can spend that quality time with her that I'd been planning during the drive over.

"Well, then get the fuck out of here."  She turns and starts walking toward a hallway out of this rec room where we've been standing.

"Grandmom, wait," I start to walk after here and gently place my arm on her shoulder.  "I came here to see you.  I miss you.  I want to spend time with you.  Can't we just sit down and talk?"

She briefly turns and looks into my eyes with a fire blazing.  "There's nothing to say if you don't want to help me.  Get out of here."

"I don't want to leave.  I want to spend time with you," I say to her back as she starts walking at an oddly fast pace for a 99 year old woman.  "Please, Grandma, wait."

She doesn't.  She keeps on, and I follow.

I follow her into her room, but she barely looks at me.  Her anger dissolves into despair, and then into an absence.  I keep trying to engage her, to tell her about my family, to ask her about her life, but she doesn't say a word.  Her eyes barely open, her face not turned toward me at all.

Eventually, I give up and walk to my car.  I get in it and drive away from what will turn out to be the last time that I see my grandmother.

II.a.

"Ah, ok, I guess.  Are you allowed to leave?"

She apparently only hears "ok" because she starts down the hallway that I'd just come down, walking so fast that I have to skip a few times just to catch up with her.  As we get closer to the door, a man approaches.

"Where are you going?" he asks with an authority in his tone that causes a fear grip on my rib cage.

My grandma ignores him and reaches for the door handle.  He grabs her aggressively by the shoulders.

Without even thinking, I push one of his hands off her shoulder.

"We're just talking a little walk, ok?  She wants some fresh air."

"Well, then you need to sign her out," he says starting to close the door in front of my grandma.  My grandma uses a little of her superhuman force and pulls against his hand to get the door open again.  He looks surprised.

"Sir, we'll just be right out here.  Can you just make a note that she's outside with her granddaughter, and we'll be back soon.  Thanks."

I help Grandmom push the door all the way open.  She gets her hunched over little body out the door, and I follow, with the man pursing his lips and watching from the vestibule.  My grandmother makes her way down that front walkway headed straight for the parking lot.

I chase after her. "Grandma, slow down.  That guy is going to grab you and make you go back in there if you don't slow down."

Her speed decreases slightly, but she doesn't turn her head up from the walkway and says, "which one is your car?"

"Grandma, he doesn't want us to leave.  We're just supposed to be walking around, getting fresh air."

"Where's you're car!!"

"It's  there!" I blurt, pointing at my mom's gold SUV.  The two of us take off running for the car, as I pull out the keys and unlock the doors.  As I help her up and into the front seat, I see the guard start running out the front door.

This Dukes of Hazard type excitement starts coursing through my veins as I practically leap over the front of the vehicle and throw my body into the front seat.  The guy is just reaching us when I get the car started and throw it in reverse.  His fist hits the car, just as I'm far enough out of the spot to put it in drive and hit the gas.  The huge car, so much bigger than I'm used to, shakes a bit as it starts to pick up some speed.  Noticing not a single car in the parking lot or the road ahead, I screech my way out into the street.

As I round the corner, I see the guy in my side mirror, arms down at his side, not walking, just staring at the car with this pissed off look.  My grandmother looks out the window at him.  It feels like he thinks his intimidating look is all that's needed to lure her back there.

I laugh, thinking he really has no idea how my feisty grandma works.  The harder she is pushed by someone, the harder she pushes back.  She's always been that way, and in this moment, I really appreciate that about her.

She lets out this cackle and smiles for the first time since I'd arrived.

Now that the chase is over, I notice my pumping heart beat, sweat, fast breathing.  I pull in a deep breath, and let it out with a huge sigh.

"Whoa, Grandma!  Not what I was expecting at all!"

She laughs again and settles back into her seat, not saying a thing.

....

An Experiment

Feeling like a caterpillar lately, while consuming its body weight many times over.  Thankfully, I'm not actually subsisting on leaves and watching my body blow up to many times its original size, but still, I am feeling that bloated caterpillar sensation.

I'm overwhelmed by near constant consumption of information.  There's all the different kinds of information I've been bringing in my whole life, just basically all the stuff that life itself imparts.  But now included in all that living is an onslaught of texts, emails, and Facebook posts.  Plus there's that deeply seductive bottomless pit of information: the Internet.  My curiosities are instantly satiated, any idea researched into a plan, and any bored moment transformed into a fully entertained one.

Even though I really do like these ways that technology makes it easier to communicate and share, the thing is that I'm starting to notice less and less time to make my curiosities, ideas and open moments into creative actions.  I spend more time pinning recipes on my Pinterest board than I do cooking.  I'm taking screenshots of watercolor paintings I love instead of dusting off the brushes and playing with some paint myself.  I'm reading other peoples' quotes and thoughts far more than I'm writing down any of my own.

And so, I've decided to try a little experiment in the hopes of bring the inflow of information and creative outflow into a better balance.  I've deleted my Facebook account.

I have a habit of turning to Facebook to fill an empty moment, just a quick scroll through to see if anything catches my interest.  Sometimes it's for a few second, sometimes for several minutes, but sometimes I'm spit out of the black hole with blurry eyes and that cracked out feeling of having no idea how long I was gone.

I'm not anti-Facebook or pledging to stay off forever because for the most part, I really do enjoy it and see its value in my life.  I'm just noticing that this habit I've got is drying up a healthy boredom that used to lead me to some interesting places which I don't frequent as much anymore.

And so, the experiment starts now.  This caterpillar is heading into hibernation of sorts, curling up into my own chrysalis to see what happens next.


Update 1: One week into my little experiment, and I'm liking the shift.  A busy week at work has made me replace the Facebook checking habit with a work email checking habit. But still, I feel something starting to clear out a little.  It's like the part of my mind that chews on drama, that thinks about what's happening out there and tries to feel out how I fit in it, that's the part of my mental process that feels like it's getting less air time. And it's nice.  This waning feels in harmony with the leaves falling off the trees, the woods thinning closer to transparency, and the darkness falling earlier in the day.

It kind-of feels like when I was a kid - going in a closet and closing the door to make it really dark in there, dark enough so the glow-in-the-dark details on my new pair of sneakers would show.  In this little metaphor, I feel like I'm in slow-motion, pulling that door closed.


Update 2: Week 2, and today I had the first surge of feeling like I wanted to get back on Facebook.  With yesterday's tragic events in Paris, I wanted to log on and feel connected with the world community in the mourning and horror.  I wanted to see people's posts and feel that momentary communion from our common feelings coming together in similar posts, in likes, in comments.

And there was also a strong interest in what other people were thinking, where their minds went after learning about the attack.  Did the people I follow on Facebook agree with a need for swift and strong retaliation;  Or was there maybe someone else that felt like me?

And then, I became so grateful not to be on Facebook right now.

More and more in recent years, I realize that I'm a high octane pacifist, a "militant pacifist," as Einstein put it.  I don't really have nice manners or a soft tone; I'm not some sugary-sweet type that just wants everyone to get along.  Rather, I vehemently disagree with the idea that the way to fight violence is with more violence.

Whether we call it an air strike or a terrorist attack, aren't they both sweeping violent actions taken in order to send a message?  And doesn't the person on the receiving side of that message always hear something quite different than what was intended?  Violence is the most ineffective tool for communication, and yet we, just like them, turn to it again and again to really get our message across.

I pray that the more enlightened parties in these violent conversations rise up to be the change we need in the world.  To be the Peace we need.

To end my Facebook experiment update, the events in Paris highlighted to me a real beauty of social media - the safety check-ins, the way that grieving people around the world can unite in solidarity by logging in and sharing a few clicks, words, and pictures.  It's so lovely in the face of such darkness, and I miss being a part of it today.  And yet, I know that my big mouth often lands me in a debate when I try to share my perspective about things like this, so just maybe the most connected and loving place for me today is not on Facebook.  Peace and love to all those impacted by the events in Paris, and May Peace Prevail on Earth.


Update 3: It's three weeks in, and a real shift has taken hold.  At first, checking my work email on my phone replaced the FB habit, but this week I took the next step: deleting my work email from my phone.  I don't really need it to do my job, but it'd become a way to keep a little part of myself at work much more than I needed to be.

So now, my phone and I aren't nearly as connected; the phone is just this practical device for necessary communications, instead of a little vacuum of attention and time.

And my relationship with news changed a bit this week.  I've never been a big consumer of the news.  There's so much spin, manipulation, and fear peddling in the information coming through the mainstream channels, and I've noticed how much it impacts my mood and general feelings of well-being.  I used to force myself to sift through and try to stay informed, but at some point, I just let myself off the hook.

But FB was a channel I left open that kept me moderately engaged in the cycles of information spinning through the population.  Since that channel has been shut down, while I happen to be quite interested in what happened in Paris and the response, I've been searching the news, targeting exactly what I'd like to know.  And it's been interesting.  I've found different information than I used to encounter, and I feel like I'm getting information more targeted to what I'd like to know, instead of spinning into an overwhelming abyss.

All in all, I'm loving this experiment right now.  Any addictive withdrawal is complete, and new things do seem to be popping.


Last Update: Well, my little experiment has been over for a while now, so time for a conclusion.  Honestly, it's nice being back.  I really do like the ideas, images, and interactions that FB brings into my life, but I'm also aware of how easy it is for the balance to get completely thrown off, for it all to become a barrage of useless garbage or negativity. Moving forward, I think it's likely that I'll spring back and forth, on and off, always mindful of whether FB is a positive or negative influence on my current state of mind.

My blanket answer to any legal question

When people ask me a legal question, I always end up saying the same kinds of things, whether a problem is civil or criminal, already a legal case or one that may come about.  It seems that I'm either highly unoriginal or I see the same core themes at the heart of navigating any legal issue that might arise.

Either way, here it is, my one-size-fits-all legal advice:

1. Keep your mouth shut

Except to ask questions.  And then listen closely to answers, and carefully consider any information before sharing anything with anyone.  Only give information when you've fully considered what you will say and how it will work for and against you. And only speak if it's true; lies will come back to bite you in the ass.

Besides the ways what you say can work against you, talking too much will fill your head with too much conflicting garbage.  Too much talking about the situation can make you fuzzy and unclear because 1) you'll keep your own mind on the hamster wheel of replaying it again and again, and 2) you'll solicit other people's opinions, advice, memories.  It will very likely confuse you, so limit your venting and advice-seeking.

2. Do not expect the justice system to give you a fair result

Civil - Even if a situation is unfair or you can get everyone you know to agree it was wrong, it may not be against the law and/or you may not be able to prove it with evidence that's allowed in court.  Don't assume because what happened was wrong that going to court will get you what you think is fair.

Criminal - Our criminal justice system is hurting, really hurting.  Mass incarceration is a reality and it's sad, and as much as we all want to believe only guilty and dangerous people are behind bars, it isn't true.  Take any criminal case very seriously and ALWAYS remember point 1.

3. Do not hand over your life and your case to your lawyer

When getting a lawyer, don't assume that the ones you pay the most money will be the best.  The pricey lawyer might be great, but they might not be.  Ask for recommendations, keep your options open, and building a relationship with whatever lawyer you get is key.

Your lawyer is there to advise you and I suggest you listen closely to that advice, but cooperate and stay involved.  Read your paperwork; you may not understand it all, but you will understand some.  Fact sections in briefs and filings will be easier to read.  See the story that each side is telling, and let your lawyer know if things aren't right.  Know deadlines and court dates, show up and be in touch with your lawyer ahead of these dates.

This is your life, and your lawyer has lots more cases than just yours.  No one knows the stakes as well as you, so don't hand over all your power.  Stay involved.

4. Do not expect a legal case to address your emotional turmoil 

Although the legal system is designed to address unfairness and injustice, don't expect that all the anger, sadness, pain, and mistrust you feel as a result of being screwed over will magically disappear if you win a case.  Even if you win, the pain will still be there.  Think of a divorce, one spouse out for blood because of all that happened; even if that spouse wins, gets everything sought and more, the wounds will still be there, maybe more so because the hope that they would be gone upon winning is no longer there.  Work within yourself, with a therapist, with other healing professionals to deal with the emotional turmoil, and don't expect or even want the legal system to heal that pain for you.

Most likely, a journey through the legal system will just create more emotional things to work through, and keep this in mind if you have a choice about starting, continuing, or ending your legal battle.

5. End any legal battle as quickly as possible

My biggest and most often used piece of advice is to end any legal battle as quickly as possible.  If you can avoid going to court, do.  If you can settle, do.  Litigation is emotionally-draining, time-consuming, and expensive; if you have a choice about it, be sure it's worth it.


Disclaimer:
I'm sure some lawyers would strongly disagree with my overall perspective against litigation, so take this advice knowing that I greatly value peace of mind, more than money, being right, or saving face.

Am I Part of the Cure, or Am I Part of the Disease?

Years ago, these lyrics from a Cold Play song stopped me.

I was driving alone when the song came on the radio.  As I heard it and let those lyrics seep in, I immediately knew my answer, and it devastated me.

It wasn't that I was some ugly and violent part of society's disease.  I wasn't trying to hurt anyone.  But in a split second, I saw that being part of the disease could be much more passive.  I was well-meaning cog in so many wheels of dysfunction. My job felt like dysfunction, my relationships were dysfunction, the growing separation between my insides and my outside: total dysfunction.  Even though I so desperately wanted to be part of the cure, I stopped being able to fool myself into believing that I actually was.

In the decade or so since, my life has changed drastically, and for the better.

Then this past week, I was driving along and that same Cold Play song came on the radio.  And those same lyrics poked at me, drawing out the answer for this point in my life.

And all I got was silence, blankness, neutrality.  I had this sense that I'm neither disease or cure.  I could feel a sense that blindly cooperating with dysfunction was no longer my MO, but at the same time, I didn't feel any great sense of myself as part of the cure.

And that really opened a question for me: What does being part of the cure even mean?

Obvious examples came to mind: Malala, Maggie Doyne, Greg Mortenson.  People whose lives presented them with a choice, and the choice they made became an unfolding of goodness and love, a path of inspiration for others.  People who seem to be living a sense of Dharma in the highest degree are the ones that come so quickly to mind when I think of what being the cure means.

But what would being part of the cure look like in my ordinary little life? I can't see one of those big decisive moments when I could have chosen some path of healing or service.  And even those special moments when I did have a crossroads and chose fully with my heart, they were quiet moments, powerful in a way that was just significant to me, maybe a couple of other people.  Can I really consider that being part of the cure?

Way back when those lyrics first rocked me out of my comfort zone, I had a fantasy that writing would be my way to be part of the cure.  I could write positive waves into the world around me; I could inspire, or enlighten, or just add something unique and good into the mix of things.

But, as the years have passed, I've noticed the goodness I feel in writing gets pinched or corrupted if I think at all about what it would mean to anyone else.  When I'm writing for any sort-of result or reaction, the whole process becomes a mess of egoic dysfunction, no sense of cure-making at all.

And I keep feeling a crazy little secret hiding in all of this: the attempt at cure-making is no cure at all.  The rhythms of my life seem to show this one over and over.  "Don't try so hard, just be... just Be."

But is this enough?  When I look around and see so many things that break my heart, is it enough to just be, to just live my beautiful and blessed life, to enjoy it and love as best I can?

For now, this seems my only choice, and no denying that it's a great choice.  And even so, I feel a sense that the question isn't over, that it might never be over.

Giving Up

“Time to cash in your chips

put your ideas and beliefs on the table.
See who has the bigger hand
you or the Mystery that pervades you.

Time to scrape the mind's shit
off your shoes
undo the laces
that hold your prison together
and dangle your toes into emptiness.

Once you've put everything
on the table
once all of your currency is gone
and your pockets are full of air
all you've got left to gamble with
is yourself.

Go ahead, climb up onto the velvet top
of the highest stakes table.
Place yourself as the bet.
Look God in the eyes
and finally
for once in your life
lose.” 

― Adyashanti

 This poem crossed my path recently and has really stuck around.  On one hand, it resonates with that sense of letting go and clearing out that I always feel at the end of a year, but it points to something so much deeper.

Giving up.

So often that phrase is seen as weak or small, but lately, I've noticed a real courage in defeat, in surrender, in giving up.  The strength of being willing to tread forth without hope of a win, or being right, or succeeding at anything.

Just walking, one foot in front of the other, curious, wide eyed and unsure about where your feet are walking.  

The Next Thing

Seven months ago, I posted this on Facebook (italics added):

Today, I complete the The Artist's Way, a twelve-week program created by Julia Cameron. It’s officially tagged as a creative recovery program, but for me, it’s been about more than opening the channel to create art. It’s been about opening the channel to create absolutely anything – loving relationships, a satisfying career, a truer version of myself, the next moment. This is my second time through the course; the last time, back in my mid-twenties, was a crazy mess, although still quite transformative. This time was calmer and more of a journey into self-honoring and self-empowerment than what I expected when I began. And so, onto the next chapter I go…

The italicized line has really taken on a life of its own, and in particular, that "satisfying career" piece has been a trip.

To start with some context, my decision to do The Artist's Way came from two intersecting circumstances: a lot of time on my hands, and not a clue with what I might do to fill it.  My move back to my hometown necessitated leaving a full-time law teaching job, and as I experimented with continuing on the teaching path, the signs kept showing me that this wasn't the way to go. 

During my first year back, I got a little break from figuring all this out when I worked side by side with my husband as he started a business in his field, dog grooming.  Although it was such a great experience to see my husband, the dog whisperer, do his thing, when the business took off, the obvious choice for both the good of the business and our marriage was to hire other people. 

And then, I was out of excuses and really freed up to find my own thing, but the next thing has turned out to be quite an elusive little sucker.

Over two years of on and off job searching, I've gone through cycles of sending out tons of resumes to walking away from it all for a little while.  A big part of my frustration has been the way the current job market feels, a sea of position announcements with no give, each drawing a neat little box of specific requirements.  And as I measured myself against these requirement lists, again and again, I felt like a messy blob of way too much and not enough all at the same time.  I felt like a completely misshapen peg staring down a bunch of perfectly defined little holes, and I had no desire to even try wedging myself into most of them.  From the lack of response to so many of my applications, they had no desire for me to try.

And actually, I really started to love unemployment.  The looking for jobs part really sucked at times, but it would be easy to get used to not working.

But as soon as I'd start settling in to that contentment, the pendulum would swing back, and I'd remember how I felt when I wrote that post on Facebook.  I wanted to do something in the world, be part of something that felt meaningful, paint the next part of this lifelong work of art called My Career.  I could see how all the signs in life kept lining up in a unified message that it was time for me to step out, so Operation Fulfilling Job kept on moving forward. 

In the search, there were two notable possibilities: a job right out of the gate as a social media strategist, and a job about two months ago as a prison case manager. 

The social media job was an exact match for my desire for great aesthetics: gorgeous office building, cool and interesting co-workers, huge opportunities for creativity.  And at first, all slid along feeling quite fated with a great interview and then a call to come back the next day.  But even though an offer followed, there was a strange series of miscommunications that shattered my fantasy of this perfect new job before it even got off the ground.

After months of nothing more than a bunch of half-hearted applications, the prison job was the next thing that really ignited a sense of possibility in me.  Although it lacked all the aesthetics that made me drool over that social media job, I thought maybe I'd be more content on the other, more purposeful, side of the spectrum.  But, as I detailed in my last post, this too was not at all a fit for me.

I wanted the meaning and a sense of service to the greater good AND I wanted the aesthetics, the good feeling day to day.  I wanted the chance to start a creative and intellectual adventure with beauty at both the surface and the depths.  Even though the possibility of finding such a thing was looking less and less likely, I somehow kept the faith. 

Shortly after strike two on this job seeking odyssey, my experience underwent a noticeable shift.  A couple of job announcements crossed my path within days of each other.  One was for the exact job that I got out of law school, although in a different office.  It was something I was good at then, and all my experiences in the interim only made me more qualified.  The other announcement was for a job with a renewable energy company mentioning a mix of skills that fit within my legal background and my more recent exposure to business and accounting through doing the books for my husband's business.  And this second announcement felt so different from all the ones I'd been seeing; rather than a neat and defined box, it was vague, open, and flexible.

Finally, I wasn't in that spot of feeling like both too little and too much for a job.  For one of them, I felt myself to me the perfect fit, given that the exact job title was already on my resume.  For the other, I could see how I was an interesting possibility with the key skills and qualities they hoped to find.

As you can probably guess by now, one of these two jobs has become that next thing for me.

That job I held in the past, not even a phone call.  A week ago, I got a letter in the mail that they decided not to pursue my candidacy.  It actually amuses me that when I finally did find that perfect fit of a box, there was still no response.  Great confirmation that this time of my life really is for starting something new.

And my new thing has emerged from that uniquely open job announcement.  It feels more beautiful and interesting than the job I would have created from my own mind if I'd really let myself imagine that anything was possible.

This time I'm not buying into any fantasy of perfection, but I am truly excited and curious about the shape this new phase of life will take.  And so again, onto the next chapter I go...

Capitalism as a Way to Address Our Prison Crisis?

Almost fifteen years ago, I walked into a prison for the first time, and since then, the current state of our prison system had been of great and heartbreaking interest to me.  I wrote a little about my thoughts, feelings, and experiences with all this in locked down light back in 2010.

And recently, I have had a new surge of energy in this area.  I've been job searching on and off for the last couple years, looking for a meaningful and interesting new start to my career.  In the process, I've opened up and explored a huge variety of possibilities, and a couple months ago, I applied for and accepted a position as a case manager in a local jail.  Although the pay wasn't great, it had the stability and benefits I wanted, and it felt like an opportunity to do meaningful work that would channel my compassion for incarcerated people into something productive.

I lasted two days. 

The PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act) talk and the prison tour culminated into a stomach turning reality check.  I could not possibly handle being in this environment day after day.  The smells, the overcrowding, the human beings caged up for huge parts of the day with one or two other people in rooms the size of a typical bathroom...I wanted to cry or just scream "how can we call this humane!" 

I was in a facility holding mostly people who had not even been convicted.  Any one of us, no matter the legality of our actions, could be accused of a crime.  And the unfortunate reality of our criminal justice system is that convicted isn't really synonymous with guilt; just take a look at all the exonerations of people after decades of serving time.  Guilty or innocent, this is no way to treat other human beings.

Although I felt moved to action, I chose my mental well being and walked away from the job.  But I started researching and thinking about possibilities for shifting the horrid direction of mass incarceration and inhumane conditions in our prisons.  In this, something occurred to me.

I started here: Why Scandinavian Prisons Have Less Recidivism.  For me, this article was heartening and opened up some optimism that at least somewhere in the world a different approach is taken.  Then, I came across this: Prison Firm CCA Seeks to Reduce Number of Repeat Offenders, and an idea started coming together.

What if one of our for-profit prison companies could be convinced to build a prison much more like one of these Scandinavian prisons?  What if it was built to compete with the overcrowded and violent facilities throughout our nation?  What if this company used the project to study the recidivism rates in different types of facilities?  What if judges across the country were moved to send offenders here for a more rehabilitative period of incarceration?  What if this started to shift the cycles of recidivism and the ever-increasing prison population?

Many states (19, I think) outlaw the use of private prisons, and just a few minutes searching the topic of private prisons reveals the skepticism and disgust in the public perception of these facilities.  I don't know whether this public opinion reflects reality because of the lack of studies on whether the conditions in the private prisons are really worse than in the publically run facilities.  My own gut says that there isn't much of a difference, and the distaste comes from the fact that these prisons are making a profit.

But lately, I've started challenging that assumption that the profit motive only instigates greed and corruption.  (A book that started opening me to this view is Be The Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the Worlds Problems.)  Either private or public, there's a ridiculous amount of our tax dollars perpetuating this cycle.  Could the for-profit motive lead to greater efficiency in the spending of those dollars?  Could it lead to more creative solutions, more creative ways of connecting the greater good with a profit?  Could this bottom line motivation actually be helpful in instigating change?  Is it possible to start a revolution here in the for-profit sector that stagnant government bureaucracy couldn't possibly accomplish? 

I'm inclined to say, yes.

Thoughts?  I invite any and all ideas, by email, message, or comment below.