Mixed Weather

I read a book a last week about four six graders drinking tea together on Saturday afternoons. They were in a small down in New York State, and knew not much else besides their school bus, the class bully,retirement communities that grandparents flee to in the cold winters, the strange feeling of walking into a cafeteria for the first time, and their parents' unpredictable decisions. The book, A View from Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg, was introduced to me a month ago, when Leslie Phillip's found it stored away on the wooden book shelves at the lodge we stayed at for winter retreat. Her mom had read it to her when she was young, so she read a few chapters to us inbetween meals and sessions. It's a good one. And I guess it reminded me how much you can learn about the world and the people within it when you enter sixth grade.

It's been raining all week in Portland. Which is no huge surprise, but the beginning of spring has come on with bit more punch than anyone might desire at this point in the year. I guess it's the randomness of it all--the hail and then the sunshine, and then a moment later a gust of cold wind. You never know what coat to wear here, really, or if the sunny bike ride to work will cost you in the afternoon. If we have made it to the warm season or if we should still hold onto what is behind us.

I am sitting in a coffee shop for the first time in a while. People are doing their homework, and taking notes from power point slides on weak acids and ions. Three friends of the barista just walked in. They are hugging. They seem happy to see each other.

I went to church two nights ago for Holy Thursday. I was too tired for such an endeavor, and probably should have considered this before committing to the event. But I went anyways, trying to hold onto a tradition that I was committed to while in Medfield. So I sat and watched people washed each other's feet. I listened to both the Spanish and the English and I didn't feel very close to any of it. I saw my own feet, in my own shoes, and later the hands of another girl who I did not know washing them. I walked home, quickly, and I felt like there was a lot of things in my head that I did not understand. I could still feel the weight of my day and the day I would have ahead. My brother on the other end of the phone, about to go for a run. The long conversation with my supervisor about employee burn out. The beer cans the case manager saw all over Aaron's old apartment when she brought him to pick up his property. He is a new patient, with a 14 and 16 year old, and he wishes he was able to get around better for them. Later that day he wheeled in the office and asked if there was anything he could do to help. I said I'd let him know.

I guess his question, and his quiet despiration to connect, to be part of some sort of project, made me feel sad. I realized how often I may take for granted my 7 or so person staff, all working together and sometimes bickering amongst eachother in the name of a common cause. And that maybe everything would be a little bit easier if we all had people to sit with on Saturday afternoons in front of a hot pot of tea.