Schizoid Sunday

I woke up to the scents of coffee, bacon, and toasted bread product.  D had been up for hours:  he drove out to watch the sun rise, explored Juan Tabo,  and then sat in the parking lot outside Einstein's bagels, waiting for them to open.  He bought cinnamon raisin bagels and honey schmear.  He toasted them to perfection, spread the right amount of schmear, made coffee, fried up some pepper bacon to the level of crunch I prefer (just this side of dead, please), put it all on the tiled tray, and sashayed into the bedroom.

He did decline to bring me the paper, and when he leaned over to give me a kiss he spilled coffee over the quilt.  But these are small things.  It was a lovely way to wake up.

We had a semi-leisurely morning before getting ready for 9:30 church.  The ministers are apparently taking the summer off, as is the choir.  So the service is run by congregants, and the music is provided by various small groups.  Today's music was jazz standards, e.g., Irving Berlin, played by a clarinet and electric jazz guitar duo:  quite lovely but I wanted to be sitting in a dark club, sipping on a nice red and holding D's hand.  It seemed more than a little odd to be sitting in a pew, looking out past the altar area into the sunny nature garden, trying to create a reverent mood.

The homilies centered on the concept of "service as a spiritual practice."  I pondered:  I spend most of my days working in a service profession, and it has never felt spiritual to me.  In fact, quite the opposite:  after a day spent fielding other people's stresses, I feel drained and useless.  Yes, I mainly enjoy my interactions with public and staff, but there is so much that doesn't work, both inside and outside the library.  I want to fix it, but I can only attend to the problem directly in front of me, and I can only use the tools I've been provided.  It does keep me posted on the cultural and societal norms and it does connect me to my community.  But I don't think you can count, "Please God, don't let him come back," as a real prayer.

The other day, I watched as a new colleague reprogrammed a hot pink second-hand Nook for an octogenarian who had purchased it as a gift for his granddaughter.  My jaw dropped when he handed her the gift bag and tissue paper, and it hit the floor when she wrapped up the Nook, flourishing the paper with a professional swirl and saying, "Let's add another one to make it look more luscious."  And she didn't blink an eye when he gave her the leftover wrappings to bundle up for him.  This does not constitute service, IMHO, nor is it a spiritual act.  It was a stunning display of lack of boundaries, and a clear indicator of the dearth of connections and social services:  didn't he have any family to help him?

I thought about that.  I thought about the other colleague chasing after the young man who set off the security gates trying to steal a book.  Why steal a book?  There are no fines, he can keep it for months without repercussions.  What caused him to fall to that place where it seemed easier to walk off with free materials rather than fix the problem with his card or do whatever was necessary to participate appropriately in a community institution?  Why did my colleague feel the need to safeguard property at his own personal risk?  Was he at risk?  Was this service?  Wouldn't true service be to find the young man some assistance?  What do you do, when confronted with needs and boundary confusion that seem insoluble?  How do you serve appropriately?

I don't know the answers, but I did decide it's time to find an animal shelter and serve there.  It will be a true spiritual act to walk a dog and pet a cat, I think.  At any rate, it will feel good.

After church, we had planned to get some sun by the pool, and then drive up to Las Golondrinas for the Santa Fe wine festival.  Sadly, things didn't work out that way.  The derailment began when I checked D's i-Phone for the address of Rebel Doughnuts:  more grease and fat and carbs were needed before we could even think of the next step.  En route to the map app, I found a text to D from K and an e-mail to me from B, and learned that all hell was breaking loose back in my PDX house.  This put me into a deep funk, which I shared with D.   Although we did get the doughnuts, I was unable to enjoy the weird ones (Rebel Doughnuts is Albuquerque's version of Voodoo Donuts.)

Clearly the first order of business was to try to attend to the situation, long distance. While I wrestled with e-mail, D began planting the tomatoes and basil and peppers he had purchased on Saturday. He discovered he did not have enough soil or pots for the job, and was on his way to Smith's. Ever the budget-minded person, I suggested we try the thrift stores on Menaul. While we did find Re:Tail to be a pleasant thrift store, no one seems to donate planters or gardening equipment. I found some much-need curtains for $4, and served my furry friends in that way, but after 2 fruitless hours of exploration, we ended up back at Smith's. It was frustrating: D loves to shop, but I don't, and neither of us wanted to be roaming the strip malls on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

Planting completed and the house put in order, it was time to move northwards.  The drive up was beautiful, but marred by disharmony between partners, the second time in the day.  Or was it the third?  However, the wine festival was fun:  booths of wines, crafts, and foods, plus a stage of very loud hip hop, fortunately far enough away from most of our activities to provide festive, not intrusive, background music.  We were there in the last 2 hours of the festival, and you could tell the vendors just wanted to be gone, but they were gracious enough.  For $13 apiece, we got a tasting glass and free tastes at all the wine booths.  We discovered some nice wineries near Albuquerque and plan to visit the tasting rooms in the near future.  Most of the vineyards are in the Deming area, down by the southern border, so some day we may take a overnighter to the area:  check out Trinity site and then drown our sorrows.

Dinner at Maria's in Santa Fe, and then a silent drive home:  we can't seem to go more than 2 hours before a bone of contention arises.  And instead of burying that bone, we worry at it.  Stupid:  it doesn't do anything but hurt our teeth, metaphorically speaking.

Once home, I found another e-mail from PDX.  My home has been designated a pest hole, myself "white trash."  Or at least my yard, which has always been a jungle and still has stashes of junk left over from the March remodel and J's painting work.  It also appears that none of the leases and agreements that I have in place are holding up, and that will mean loss of vital income.  But I don't want to fight it.  Some of the unhappy renters are friends, and it costs money to defend against suits from those who are not. I am so weary of trying to keep on top of everything with limited budget, skills and time.  I understand for the first time how people can leave cars up on blocks for months at a time.  It seems that for every step forward, I get pushed back two.  I have been trying so hard to take care of business, but my efforts are clearly inadequate to the task.  It seems I haven't hit rock bottom yet:  I need to lose my house and the rest of my friends in addition to my job and my savings and my self-respect.

Maybe I just need to embrace my white trash self.

I tried to read and meditate and get back some of the good times of the day, but it was all too overwhelming and schizoid.  I bounced back and forth between joys and sorrows, and it took several hours to finally reach the middle ground of sleep.

And now I'm trying to figure out how best to spend the rest of my weekend.  I have a lot of business to attend to, but am not sure there is any point to it.  I posted this to FB:

Since there is no way

I can get ev'rything done,

Shall I do nothing?

Lisa says "yup."  I think I'll follow her advice.

Closed communities

1/11/12

Yesterday I went to my first job as a substitute school secretary.  Today was mainly spent in the waiting room of the cardiac unit of St. Vincent Hospital.  The two days were eerily similar to my recent experience working at the mall, in that I was a participant in a system that was entire unto itself.  I spent the day surrounded by a community of people with specific and clear roles.  The outside world floats in, to be absorbed into the space, previous identities irrelevant to the role that was being played inside this system.  Routines are mysterious, tools ditto:  one fumbles about trying to make sense of the simplest things.

The school was the more disconcerting, because less familiar, system.  My training was over a month old, and all I remembered was the name of the program I had to use:  eSIS.  I was fortunate, in that I was subbing for the part-time person, and the principal secretary was there with all her know-how and school savvy.  While I waited for the tech people to call me back with passwords, I searched my notes for clues and watched L handle the constant stream of kids, teachers, and parents.

She knew all their names!

Late-comers were offered breakfast and a place to eat it, and then shooed off to class.   Two students came in with attendance sheets, which were placed in front of me, but everyone else went to L, who dealt with bumped heads (we were out of ice) and broken belts and problem students ("just sit there and wait for Mr. F.")  One girl delivered a "pretend letter," which was the teacher's version of a time out.  L had her chose a book to read until she was calm and ready to return to class, but the girl was already very calm.  "You're ready to make good choices now?"  "Yes."  "Okay."   I guess I'll never know what that was all about.

The principal was in and out, doing observations.  Nurse Bill was there for one of his two days.  Several kids sat in a row, facing the front counter, waiting for him.  One had possible pink-eye, the others just looked pale and tired.  Nurse Bill was also the resident Spanish-speaker, which came into play several times.   I don't know how they managed in his absence.

Various bells rang at various intervals, but no one in the office seemed to be tuned into them:  they were for teachers and students.   The phone rang incessantly.  L was dealing with a frozen computer program, so I answered several times.  I found myself reiterating, "I'm a sub, I don't recognize that name, can you repeat it?"

After 15 minutes of waiting for tech support, I called the substitute office and got...a sub.  So, I left a message and finally remembered how to get into my PPS e-mail.  Aha!  My password info was there.  I logged into eSIS and pulled up the training module and muddled my way through the attendance procedures.  Then I sorted mail and filled the boxes.  And my 4 hours were over, just like that.  I walked out into the lovely bright noon sun, and it was like leaving a matinee.  The show was over, and I was back in the real world.  When I had arrived, the sun was barely up, busses lined the street, and streams of kids were being herded into the building.  Now, the street was empty, I could hear the distant shouts of kids at play, and my day was half over.  I was discombobulated, and it took awhile to re-acclimate.

Today was a repetition of that sense of alienation.  The hospital is an even more closed system than a school, with lounges, cafeterias, magazines, games, and a battery of procedures and jargon.  The elevators ding, the intercom sounds at various intervals, making mysterious announcements or searching for errant staff.  There are exterior areas for visitors, and interior areas for patients, and closed areas for staff.  The doors are carefully labelled to keep you in your place, but they are only randomly monitored, and not all desks are manned.  There are littoral zones, where visitors and staff converge and the roles are less clear.  There are even tiny suites for family members of critically ill patients.  I remember when Dad was in the ICU at Iowa City.  When I wasn't in his room, I was sleeping in a monastic cell, wandering the halls, finding a Chihuly sculpture.  Occasionally I would overhear discussions that reminded me there was an outside world, but I wasn't watching TV or using a computer.  I was just there.

Today was less stressful.  G was not in the ICU.  I was not in charge of administering this system or explaining it to others.  I was there for W, and I already knew the ropes.  As a visitor, once you enter a hospital building, you begin creating a home for yourself.  You are going to be part of this system for awhile, and you want to blend comfortably.  You have your knitting, books, phone, computer.  You introduce yourself to the volunteer at the desk.

I've decided that hospital volunteers are cloned.  They have middle-European accents, coiffed silver-gray hair, glasses, and skirt outfits with pastel cardigans.  They are very conscientious in their duties, collecting names, offering pillows and blankets, finding people.  This particular volunteer knew just where W was.  She had staked a claim to the chairs and table by the window.  The cardiac care waiting room is on the 2nd floor, and as I sat down, I noticed coins and a package of Orbis mints on the concrete ledge outside the window.  This was a modular, hermetically-sealed building, and there was no way the coins could have been tossed out a window or dropped from above.  The only possibility was that they were tossed up from below, close to 2 stories.  Later I counted the coins:  they totaled $8.54. 

W had been there since 7 am, and it was now close to 10. Soon after our arrival the intern came with the good news that the procedure went well and once G woke up, we could leave.

I was there until 4:30.