Self Care

I’m sitting in my living room, sort of watching a movie about a high school history teacher with a cocaine addiction. I’m not sure of the name, and hesitant to ask my housemates who are actually focusing on the movie, rather than walking in half way through attempting to steal internet connection from the neighbors. I like these moments—the ones that take place in the living room, where I can be surrounded by people and not necessarily have to carry on a conversation. The fall is setting in a bit. It is drizzling out. We have our blankets over us, and appreciating the downtime.

We’ve talked a bit about vicarious trauma at work lately. Nic made it the word of the week after everything that happened the first week, and everything that continues to happen in the population we serve each day. How it’s important to be proactive about dealing with the pain that we see people go through everyday, and the result of being in vulnerable situations. What to do with pain that is not completely our own. So I’m trying to figure that out, and I’m not sure that I’ve reached any conclusions, or new ways to unwind. But there are the parts of my work day that aren’t completely work related that I’ve been hanging onto. The conversations I have with the parking attendant, Adrian, after I drop the van off. His yellow shirt and yellow booth and the large textbook he had opened on the small table. “I’m learning Japanese,” he told me. He paused for a moment when I asked him why. “To be cool,” he said. I nodded and went on my way. There is the bike ride there and back, the walk to the pharmacy to pick up the pain medication, and the walk to the primary care clinic to divide out the week supplies. I guess I never realized how much effort it would take for me to remind myself that the world that I’m working in is not all bad. That there are small glimpses of lights if you stay open to them. And no matter how crazy the day is, there is always time for short conversations.

On another note: we successfully survived our first trip out of the state, to the Cherry Abby JV house in Seattle. There is something about leaving your home for a few days, driving in a direction you’ve never been before. We left promptly at 7 on Friday, with the I pod ready, and arrived around 10 and spent a few minutes frantically searching for the house with prayer flags on Cherry St. It was a charming house, in the way that the Portland volunteer houses are, with shelves of books and dusty corners and bedrooms that may have once been linen closets. And how nice it was to hang out with other communities outside of the structure of orientation. To compare notes and what it’s really like to live with people you don’t know and have a job that you’re completely unqualified for.