A Wandering

Today, I wandered. A few months ago, I set a goal of wandering and writing as part of AFATAC and Youth Worker: Collective's Day of Rejuvenation and Self-Care (curriculum here and paper here). The end of the session culminated in participants taking out their calendars and scheduling when they were going to set aside time for their own mental health. Over the last few months, I have been equally accountable and unaccountable to that goal. I am still finding how to take care of self.

I set the goal of wandering because I know movement makes me write. As of right this moment, I am sitting on the 33 taking in some of my favorite parts of San Francisco. The ground beneath my feet connects directly to my voice. I know this, and yet I don't always do this.

Earlier today, I had coffee with Margaret, and we discussed this very thing. For me, I need to have space around me so I can tune everything else out. In my profession and writing, I listen and connect, but they manifest very differently depending on which one I focus. Professionally, I am better around people with deadlines and accountabilities. For writing, I need to be alone with possibility and limitlessness. And these two forces battle as I try to make writing more of my profession.

I find it difficult to schedule self care. It is something nebulous and evolving; it changes given context and time. There are moments when pouring my self into work is self care; it gives me a sense of purpose and responsibility. Then, there are moments when I need a complete break from everything and everyone; a day spent wrapped in fog. Both are self care, and I have hard time predicting when which one will be needed.

I had no goal or purpose today other than hopping on the bus and getting off somewhere. I brought coffee, a granola bar, a pluot, writing materials, some books, my phone, my iPod, and two video games I'm returning on my adventure. The combination was bound to produce something. Indeed it did. I had two lovely spontaneous conversations with dear friends. I enjoyed a baked BBQ pork bun - a treat I haven't had for too long. I perused a book store - a favorite past time that always inspires. I read and read. I pulled together a playlist of cheesy 80s rock. And I wrote. Goal achieved.

Now, I have arrived home, and I am struggling to find the movement and voice of only moments ago. I can't feel the gentle rocking of the floor below me that calls to me and brings a uniqueness and perspective that isn't matched sitting here on my couch. I am haphazardly typing words hoping to find connections that were once there. I'm still rocking the 80s beats on my iPod, but they don't beckon in the same way. Instead, other clatter beckons. Make dinner. Pet the cat. Clean up her shit from the bathroom floor. Open the windows. Tidy up before the husband gets home. I hear all the other things calling to me. And their voices get louder until I can't hear this one any more. And I know.

More will come when inspiration hits.

Losing my personal narrative

I am trying to figure out what the story is I want to tell since my hours were significantly reduced off on June 30, 2009. So much has happened since then and so many learnings have been revealed to me that I find it difficult to find a way to express myself. All the hard work and long hours from March to June 2009 have taken away from me my communication center. I can't find the words of my personal narrative.

They, the words that is, are with me as I gently stroll through Golden Gate Park's AIDS Memorial or lay on my bed waiting for a nap or stay up with the youth on the last night of the Adobe Youth Voices Summit or wander the Des Moines Art Museum, but the moment I sit down with pen to paper they are gone. It is as if I am in a field of fireflies and my words are the tiny lights sparkling among the grasses. The moment I capture them in my glass Mason jar, they no longer carry with them the same brilliance or luster or magic. Sure, I can shake the jar and they spark for a moment, but they are not the same as their free and unrestrained brethren. They are not spontaneous or rhythmical or organic.

I am even having difficulties finding what comes next; what this paragraph should even be about. Should I write about the power of story to express complexity and voice? Should I write about the shift to more authentic and true shared leadership within the Youth Worker: Collective? Should I write about finally finding my fictional world maybe at the expense of personal narrative? Should I write about the slowing of my life and my resistence to quickening its pace? Should I...? The list is so long and overwhelming that I cannot choose, nor can I find a means to narrow.

In the past, this would have led me to not picking up a pen or opening a notebook. I would have let the overwhelmingness whiddle awy at my identity as a writer. I would have stared at the page and hoped words would write themselves. I would have turned on the television and watched People's Court.

Now, I find myself pushing through and not worrying about what actually comes out. I start with recording my wanderings and opening up to observations. I take my thoughts and fictionalize them into parables. I let my distractions guide me to the page. I still worry about cohesion and flow and grammar and spelling, but I do not let that interfere with the process of creating because I know a story is still waiting to be told.

Maybe the story here is that regularity and a slowing of the pace and the release of control to flow can and does bring change. Maybe it is that I no longer worry about a preconceived notion of a writer, adn therefore can claim it even when nothing makes sense. Maybe it is that I have many stories to tell and yet not all will be told. Maybe it is is nothing at all. All and more are possibilities.

As I sit here on a bench among the many dirt paths of Golden Gate Park, I smell the musty, humid forest air; I hear the whistling of a passerby mix with the panting of dog, the dongs of birds, the buzzing of insects, and the shuffling of feet against the sandy dirt and fallen leaves; I see the shifting of light as the sun passes in and out of the marine fog; I feel the rubber ridges of the pen in my hand and the dull itch of old mosquito bites. And I know that i am more present and aware then I have been in a long time. This brings me calm and peace. And maybe, just maybe that is the story that has just been told.