3 weeks to life - my time at a chico women's shelter

College is a formative time for most people, where we’re encouraged to dream and believe that the world lies at our fingertips, if only we are willing to reach out and grab it. One of the dreams I cultivated during the two years I worked for Cal Poly Women’s Programs and ran the first and only feminist club on campus (yes, first) was that I wanted to develop education programs targeted at young, rural, female youth across the country. Ultimately, I wanted to build women’s shelters and centers as resource centers and community gathering spots from the ground up; develop the concept, implement it and duplicate it across the country. The idea was that these centers could provide rural young women the vision of possibility and choice in low-income areas where sex education and education in general may not have been much of a priority for young women and those raising them. My first step in that direction was to work at a women’s shelter.

I got a job with an organization called Catalyst Domestic Violence Services in Chico as the night supervisor of a local women’s shelter. I worked at the shelter from 4:30 pm to 2:30 am Monday through Friday, and my tenure lasted three weeks. I realized a myriad of incredible things about the nature of abuse, of the human heart, of my own spirit and my own tolerance in those weeks. I realized that I was entering into the lifecycle of a problem at the end, and that I felt inert in the wake of abuse. I was 22 years old trying to provide leadership and mentorship to drug addicted, abused women who were unable to hold a job or maintain custody of their children. The 12 women in the house fought constantly. No one did their chores—the small amount of responsibility they held. We would stand outside together and smoke cigarettes and I would listen to them complain about each other, and listen to their tragic stories. All the while, trying to problem-solve the lives of people who seemed beyond help; who seemed broken.

I wielded no governance over these ladies. One night, sitting at the dinner table and observing the swirling chaos of the house in the throes of dinner preparation, I refused to tolerate what I was witnessing. My mind turned against the current scene and forced my voice. I told everyone to shut up, yelling at the top of my lungs. They stopped, because I’d never behaved like that. I made everyone leave their tasks, their brooms, spoons and rice and come sit at the table together. I told them they were ridiculous. “Look at yourselves,” I urged. “All you can do is fight and yell and abuse each other, and you don’t see that each of you have endured the same struggles. You don’t see that Shaon and Cleo have lived the same lives, have ended up here for the same reasons. You have an opportunity to connect with each other, share stories, try to learn from the other women here and listen. You have a chance to try to heal. You could be friends, if you’d only support each other.” I told them I didn’t care if they did their chores or not. I didn’t sweep my kitchen floor every night, so I thought it was absurd they would have to. What I did do every day was act like a civilized person and try to respect the people around me.

I don’t know why they listened to me or continued to sit at the table and pay attention to what I was saying, but they did. I worked there for one more week. My last night in the house, those 12 women threw me a surprise going away party. They somehow knew that I was a vegetarian and made veggie egg rolls from scratch, and made chocolate covered strawberries. They used their food stamps to buy the food. They showered me with gifts, from stuffed animals to dried flowers and cards. These women had nothing, and gave up their own possessions for me, to see me off.

I did make an impact. One person, at least temporarily, made a difference. i don't know what I made those women see and i don't know why their compassion bloomed in the winter of that house. but i witnessed it, and it changed me.

again, for the people who say "it can't be done." i've been one of those people.

I guess we just have to decide what it is we want to do.

RANT: feminist / weddings

A note on feminist weddings

I am beginning to think they are possible. After reading some very encouraging articles and blogs today, and realizing that I could look at commitment ceremonies to help guide me (potentially).

I resent that because i don't want a girly, poofy dress wedding and i think diamonds are an extremely effective marketing scheme that i don't fall into, that i'm somehow less of a woman, or that i "must just not want to get married." or be married. my mom actually said to me on the phone last night, after an hour of struggling to explain WHY the importance of flowers is ridiculous to me (consumerism, hello), that i better think long and hard if this is what i really want to do, because i just seem so angry. "it doesn't seem like you really want to be married or that you want to do this, at all, so you better think if this is right for you."

i appreciate the "tough questions." i really do. i forgot that my family has some innate block to feminist ideas/ideals. lovely jefferson said, "it makes me want to say f--- it, let's just go somewhere and get married because i don't think you should have to deal with this." that's why i love the guy.

it's not even that the traditions are humiliating, its just that they're forced. it's like, "oh, you're getting married, please step into this box." um, no thanks. i want to be married, but the wedding industry is enough to make me gag. the creation of false necessities for profit. the encouragement of making women feel inadequate. that's a big part of it. what you currently have isn't good enough. you have to do better and be better than what you are. this is a public display as a prize and a public display of your greatness as a couple.

you know, i had a friend -- a close friend -- who did the same thing. She asked, "Why even get married if it makes you so angry?" The apt question is, "why does it make you so angry?" that is complicated and shaded by my trust issues and my own parents' divorce, but is largely influenced by everyone else's expectations. "you're not taking his name? oh. why not?" my response, often aimed at men: "do you want to change your last name? me neither. you never thought about it? me neither. you wouldn't do it? me neither."

it makes me angry because people automatically think because i love this man and want to spend my life with him, that now i am going to work and fret over stupid little details. i will do what i can to plan an event, but because the wedding industry says i need to dance and have a dj, it doesn't make the idea more attractive to me. what's some of my favorite times, or my favorite scene? I think of sitting on the back porch of Streets of London in summer in early evening, when its still light but not so blistering hot. Pitcher of beer, my guy, some friends, just chilling, talking, drinking, smoking cigarettes, shooting the shit. Casual. Laid back. Real. Who doesn't want to go chill with a pitcher at Streets? That's what I want, but somehow it's not really acceptable. Or/and, i don't know how to get it. (Plus, the food at Streets isn't really the good for a vegetarian. :) )

I'm really surprised I haven't written about this sooner. I think I will have many more feminist rants on weddings to come. Like 8 more months' worth.

Ah, an outlet. It's nice to talk and not have anyone talk back, asking me to justify my strangely feminist and counter-culture ideas. (it's like by being counter-culture, i'm subversive. somehow, a feminist bride is a threat to all the carefully placed cards in the house [of cards]. you know what i'm saying.)

Driving home last night, I had a deluge of thoughts about being late-20s and trying to prep for the rest of my life. These included my parents getting old, both my parents being out of work, the strangeness of permanence of a place (driving on old roads I learned to drive on -- they're still there, even though I haven't been for years, it seems) --

My sister who wants to move back to where we were raised

The roads that I've driven in my youth and returned to in adulthood, and how the same concept applies to all the places that i've been -- that they haven't changed but that i have, and that you return to a place a different person, facing the things you once faced when you were so much less you (or a less dense culmination of time-you). the same is true for pittsburgh, london, san luis obispo, tomball. things change, but the roads...

this got me thinking about that old taoist idea that you can travel any distance sitting at home. that its not the place that a person goes, whether to escape or create a new life or perspective, but how they travel in their minds that bring wisdom.

i was feeling strange about being back in folsom after my strange life has led me other places. that i tried to change my "fate" so to speak (or should I call it casual habit, as so many people return to the area they were raised to live out their adult lives. Or god forbid, never leave in the first place --) but ended up back in the area anyway. driving on that same pavement.

Verse 26, from the Tao te Ching (always for Leanne)

The heavy is the root of the light.
The unmoved is the source of all movement.

Thus the Master travels all day
without leaving home.
However splendid the views,
she stays serenely in herself.

Why should the lord of the country
flit about like a fool?
If you let yourself be blown to and fro,
you lose touch with your root.
If you let restlessness move you,
you lose touch with who you are.

And I don't feel I'm losing touch with who I am, but that I envisioned so much more than this. for myself. that life has become so average with tv watching hours and coffee and work and computers and paying the bills. i am at the most stable point in my life i've ever been, and i feel unchallenged. i am not using my brain. i am not the old haley i used to be. or i AM that old haley, but i have more expectations of the real world -- i understand what to reasonably expect from the real world as well -- and i am bored. i am not "there," wherever there is. of course, who knows if I ever would be "there." Maybe only in hindsight.

i know the proportion of my exerted effort, when measured against my current station in life, align exactly. i know that if i want to feel stimulated mentally that i have to go get that. that i have to exert my own effort. it's not like school, where you go sit in a forum where mental stimulation is provided for you, if only you engage your brain. "turn on." there's not that stimulus around for me now. i did just subscribe to two feminist magazines, and bought a buddhist magazine. these things are good. clearly, i miss these things, so deeply ingrained in the root of the way i see the world. but buried under the daily-lifeness to the extent that i can't readily pull them up and articulate a formed thought on the subject -- or a tangentially relevant thought on another subject -- at all. so this is the current effort i will extend.

i know this also has to do with my master's program. [application, i should clarify]. i was talking with friends last night about that old chestnut, where does passion fit into your life. one of them, like konstantin's dad and like sari, thinks work is work and passion belongs in your personal life, as not to be corrupted by the interests of time, advancement, money, ambition, contracts, etc. i understand that, i really do. it's kind of like how i write for a magazine, and edit and do things with words, but the process is so inert and so corrupted that it really doesn't have anything to do with my passion for creative writing and english and literature. that's because those things that i really am passionate about involve thought, and my work does not. my other friend, however, and i were on the same page. we both want to work the dream. weave the passion by day, and have free time to chill or do nothing or what we choose. there's so much time spent idle at work -- 8+ hours a day -- how productive would we be if we were working on something we believed in? very. i know this from my past experience. that's what i want. that's all i ever wanted since i graduated from college and left the women's center. i so felt that my time there wasn't done, and that i was pushed out of my seat. dethroned/usurped. it was a coup of the nepotists. and that didn't work out, now did it. so ironic maya went to pitt, too.

and now pat is writing me a letter of rec. that's good.

is life always a struggle? i look at someone like jeff, who has his frustrations which are daily and far-reaching and broad, all of those, but he takes life so much easier. is it age? is it maturity? is it financial stability -- knowing everything will be ok? there is always that but i don't think its entirely relevant here. maybe he did all his worrying in his 20s and how he's on a path that he likes, and so he's ok. i've been on so many paths i liked for a while. the liking part always fades. then i have to pursue something new. what i try to tell myself lately is that people like barack obama and hilary clinton didn't get into a job and stay there. they weren't satisfied with some status quo position at a city magazine. they moved up certain ladders. i don't know their careers, but to get to a point where you're running for president, you have to have jumped around a lot career wise, and location wise. i try to tell myself that my ambition isn't so blind anymore, and that its actually a quest to lead a meaningful life where i have an outlet to give back to my community, however big that community is. that's part of it. i have so much more to give than this.

to be continued...

Doors/Universe/Memory

I'm listening to the doors at work. roadhouse blues. My old favorite band. Obsession maybe I should say.

Reminds me:

After college, like any other wander-lust not wanting to go home, finally free, 20 something, didn't know what to do and joined my friend Leanne at a summer camp outside of san francisco. redwoods, forest, screaming dirty children, the whole 9. was i prepped for a camp counselor position? what was there to be prepped for? i guess a lot, because i got put in the office.

"that's ok," i thought. "i'm more used to this kind of environment and i won't have to be working round the clock with pubescent teens and pre-teens."

i didn't know i wouldn't get cell phone reception. i felt isolated. in the boones. hated it!

many great and life changing experiences happened at that camp. i learned not to tease boys about sex. [ha] i learned that angels inhabit people and can brighten any day of a life of a day. i learned i don't really love the woods. i learned, again, the value of a car. and i learned the value of friends' friends.

my angel-girl friend rachy, a kiwi, a fruit, a nut [sari asked was she crazy. she never knew anyone who laughed like that] had a friend. he worked at that camp too, but in a different department. his name was adrien. somehow adrien knew i loved the doors. i think that's all we had to talk about because he smoked a lot of weed and was an artist -- you'd think we would have had more in common or more to say -- but he was always singing, on his guitar, so we were left to look at the shadows of trees and the filtering of light. and that was good and well.

one day we happened upon the subject of the doors. we both loved them; he, not nearly as much as i, i'd say. nonetheless, he asked:

"Do you know they're having that reunion concert in Concord? All the original band members -- except for Jim of course. It's on June 5th. I'm going."

Of course I asked if he had an extra ticket, or could i buy one, or WHERE could i buy one, etc. He said they were sold out. Sorry. He was taking a friend. Not to mention, June 5th was my birthday. Ugh!

When I saw him I'd ask him, as the date approached, if he was excited, and was that guy he was taking nearly as cool as me. he said he wasn't sure about the coolness part, but yah, he was excited.

well about two days before my b-day/the concert, we were singing and watching the light and listening to the moon coming out and he asked me, would i like to go? of course I said yes. i don't even think i bothered asking what happened to his dude friend. rachy said "of course he likes you hales. you gotta know that." who knew.

so there we went. the one catch was that i had to drive. car comes in handy. no problem. free ticket otherwise. a birthday present from a near stranger. when we got there, parked, and started walking up, they were just starting the first set and you could hear the deep guitar beat of roadhouse blues. it was awesome.

we were in the 18th row. i think the lead singer from white snake covered for jim. strange, because he was kind of like an elvis impersonator. fluffy white shirt, long wavy hair, leather pants -- looking strikingly like jim. oh well. a reno or vegas show in concord. the rest was authentic.

it was a real high, man.

morning stream of consciousness

afraid of a blank template, are we? so out of practice. don't you hate it when you start writing after a long hiatus -- really long -- and feel like you don't have your voice or don't have anything to say? of course there are the usual things, but average is so ordinary and everyone gets that when they're not in front of the sensational box. i mean tv. one week without tv, have you tried it? i heard the radio interview of a man who decided he and his family would go one week without tv, as if it were food or water, or some kind of real challenge. but it is... and he said the first thing you realize is how much time you have. how much less hectic life becomes. as long as i have books and canvas and white paint i think i'll be fine. who am i kidding. i lived for a year without tv. it's a companion for people who are lonely. it's an excuse to stay inside. it sensationalizes daily life and makes yours feel inadequate. makes you expect something other than what you have, perhaps. people become friends with their tv show characters. emulate them, want to be them. they come up in casual conversation and what i was trying to say was, tv does your thinking for you. even in casual conversation. talk about your shows. what else is there to say?

"wipe your hand across your mouth and laugh. the worlds revolve like ancient women gathering fuel in vacant lots." - thomas stearns eliot, from preludes

[i really need to start reading poetry again]

Others' Insights

Some useful quotes I keep around...

"At every instant, one is either growing into something more, or shrinking into something less." [don't remember source]

"Your work is to discover your work, and then with all your heart, to give yourself to it." - Buddha

"Living in truth means living in confrontation." - Star Jones

"The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them." -Einstein

"A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved." - Kettering

And a favorite poem, always refreshing:

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

- William Carlos Williams

Environmentalism Rant

With all the stuff on TV and the news, the shows about global warming and this book I'm reading (Story of B), I've been thinking a lot about the possibility of one person's behavior influencing the global environment (and I don't mean that in a limited sense of environmentalism -- more in the larger sense of one person implementing some kind of change). But regarding environmental responsibility, can one person make a difference? Is screwing in a light bulb really it?

The whole "green is the new black" thing -- the trendiness of it -- the exposure is good, but the marketing and hype and "everyone should be doing it" attitude of the ... movement ... is off-putting.

Why not continue on my poorly thought out rant?

I am also pissed that hybrid cars cost so much. Remember when they first became a real option for the buyer, how there were those government incentives? You'd get a $10k rebate or something, or some kind of significant pay off on your taxes? That may be high, but I remember thinking, wow. That's incentive. Now, no incentive. People are buying them. I myself want to buy one. But I'm mad that I have to pay about $5k more than I would if it were just the standard model.

I saw part of this show last night on the everyday effects of global warming. Part of what they said was that drastic weather patterns are going to be the norm, not the exception. Then on the news, all this flooding in the midwest. WTF people?

I guess what I rail against is that you can point out faults and flaws until you're blue in the face, you can tell me that Brazil has weaned itself off foreign oil and uses fuel that's 85% ethanol -- which is awesome -- but what good is awareness without a road map for action? Without options? It's like knowing there's a fire in the building but not having been told where the escape route is. Although in that analogy, perhaps you have to find the escape route yourself.

And that's what I wonder. If I want to be a more responsible citizen and minimize my carbon footprint or decrease it or whatev, what do I do? I have to go find a mechanic that can turn my engine into one that runs on biofuel? And where do I get biofuel? I remember hearing recently that in some city in the US [I think] there were biofuel pumps, or at least there was one, at a regular gas station. Was that local?

I know oil makes money. I know it costs money upfront to save money in the long run much of the time. Why are these alternatives not marketed? Just the pounding awareness? You can't keep drilling it in my head that I need to be a responsible citizen but then not tell me how to change. And screwing in a light bulb just pisses me off.