“Roll Away Your Stone, I’ll Roll Away Mine”

I think it’s a writer’s thing to engage in a struggle over how accurately you can describe something, how perfect the words you choose can be. Often, when I’ve been working on a story or poem, I’ve gotten stuck on a feeling I know so absolutely well but just cannot express accurately. I sit, trying to type my way into the right words, and not quite getting there. That is a little like how I feel about this month’s post. So, I guess I’m ready as I’ll ever be to share my vignettes of April, one day late.  This post’s title courtesy of Mumford and Sons. 

A few weeks ago, I was struck by this thought from Rumi: “your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built.”  The second I read it, I realized that that was basically my main goal in JVC, and also, maybe in life: deconstruct my barriers, to let people in, to let myself really feel things thoroughly. (I could talk about the Enneagram, a personality thing that half my house is obsessed with, but I just won’t)  

I have a point, I promise. In a lot of ways, April has been about trying to share my experiences, without protecting myself. It is so much harder for me to be honest in person, to not add “but it’s fine,” to the end of a complaint or negative observation. This is partly because  of my general sometimes disturbingly  optimistic worldview, but it’s also a real fear of being vulnerable, something that I think most of us share. As someone who tends to feel things deeply, it’s scary to think of what this soft heart would do walking around without its armor.

So, I’m trying. Both to be more honest with myself about how I feel about JVC experiences by taking some quiet, intentional time each day for prayer, yoga, journaling or just to sit with my thoughts—and to be more honest with those I love. I’m trying to believe the whole JVC thing, that when you don’t allow yourself to receive love and comfort, you take away from another’s opportunity to be present to you, and for both of you to share in each other’s joys and sorrows. It’s not easy. As I told our program coordinator when she was visiting last week (and was trying to be honest), I get a little awkward turtle when trying to talk about myself.  Sometimes I just don’t know what to say.

Which brings me to an experience that I don’t know how to share, or perhaps, like I said at the beginning, just don’t have the right words for. Today, I said goodbye, I think probably for the real, true, last time, to a student I’ve worked with all year. It was a long time coming, he’d had a million last chances, had just come back from a two-week suspension, and maybe you’ll tell me it was bound to happen. Watching him this year was like watching a very very slow car crash, a long, drawn-out self-destruction. But part of me held onto this hope that he could hold on till the end of the year, could just keep his head down, change his attitude a little bit, just a smidge, and would make it. Working with him was frustrating and exhausting, but I have so much love for him and wanted so much for him to have some love for himself. I cannot help thinking about where he is now, and where he’s going. I cannot help thinking that he will slip through the cracks. Even now, it is hard for me to try to tell you about it. How can I explain how I feel about it? That I know that it may have been better for his class and the school if he had left months ago, but that I still mourn his loss? That it was a weight off my shoulders every day that he was absent, but that I can’t bear to see him go? That my interactions with him, my failures with him, are one of my greatest sources of desolation?

And it sits with me now, that he is a boy who is terrified of vulnerability, maybe not too differently than I sometimes am. He has come through so much already, that he holds his heart tight in his grip, keeps it out of sight for safe keeping. Sometimes, I could see its light through his fingers, but it was always only a glimpse before he hid it away again. He is not the only one I know like this. I find myself constantly trying to show these ones that I care about them, love them. I try to tell them they are all right, that letting people in won’t break them. But there are times, when I hear their stories, that I don’t even know if that’s the truth.

He told me today that I would forget him. That soon he would be just another student who was at school for a while. I don’t think that’s true.  I hope that’s not true. But he’s right in a way. Life goes on around these things. Not to give the whole, “but it’s fine,” like I promised I wouldn’t, but it’s mostly been a really fun and happy month. Telling stories like this makes it seem that these moments that loom large are the only thing. When really, this last month was long hours, state tests, ridiculous field trips, small struggles, home adventures, good books, chats with old friends, letters, laughing with family, and nights with the roommates, grateful suddenly, that we take the time to say goodnight, to tell each other to have a good day.  

And here’s the thing, for all our self-work, for the occasional thankless days, there are gifts. For volunteer appreciation week, the head of our program had each of the boys write me a card. Forty cards. All different, all with different thanks, a different sense of humor, more or less artistic ability, all with different things to say, as different as the boys themselves. I was overwhelmed. And yeah, I was pretty awkward turtle, frankly, but that’s beside the point. When I brought them home, read each of them, hung them on a string and posted them on my wall, I was touched in a way I’ve never been before. They remembered things I didn’t even remember—times I took care of them when they were sick, books I found for them, things I said. Each sentence on a card felt like a smooth stone for my pocket, something to carry with me on the hard days—that at least one time, I had helped a boy be himself, or control his anger, or make the right choice, be a writer, or have someone to listen to him. It was an incredible gift to receive—maybe the best—because they were given with such love and with their own funny, sweet, little kid-goofiness.

I could be wrong, but I think those moments of connection only come when I can bring myself to school, into my community, into my friendships, saying simply, with no defenses, fear aside, here I am. So for the sake of those moments, as we head into the challenge of silent retreat this weekend and our tenth month in JVC, I’ll keep working on my barriers, I’ll roll away my stone.

“So Bless My Heart, Bless My Mind, I Got So Much to Do, Ain’t Got Much Time”

I sat down to write a March post seven thousand times. Yes, seven thousand exactly. Each time, I was midway through, when something new occurred and I thought, actually, I should definitely write about that, scratched what I’d written, and started again. Since it is now the last day of March, it’s time to just cut my losses and write something, whether I actually get at the heart of what this month has been or not. Forgive me. Post’s title courtesy of the Alabama Shakes.

Yet again, Lent has rolled around with its usual questions, Catholic guilt, and promises. It happens to have arrived this year at a sort of breaking point in my search for spirituality during JVC. Coming from a very dynamic, accepting, interesting faith community at Holy Cross, my search for something similar in this huge city has been very difficult. Honestly, I came home last month after one mass, sat down with some of my roommates, and said, simply, “I just don’t know if, or why I am Catholic anymore.” March has been full of wrangling.

A huge part of this feeling has been the new mass language.  Though they may seem like small changes, and though the church has been constantly trying to convince Catholics that either 1) language just doesn’t matter, it’s coming together for worship that counts or that 2) the new language is the real language, I refuse to be convinced. I’ve spent too much time in religious studies classes in the past few years learning about the massive changes that have occurred in the church because of one tiny language choice made at the Council of Nicaea, to believe that language doesn’t count. When it comes to community, to spirituality, to the naming of belief, what counts more than the words we use? And, frankly, I resent the implication that I, or that Catholics in general, are just too stupid or too well-trained to notice or to resent a wall placed between the people and their God. I notice, I am alienated by it, and I am going to announce it.

I think, had I not been in JVC this year, I probably would have ignored the whole thing. I would have said, I’ll continue to be connected to God in other ways, and just stop going to church. But, JVC has asked me to keep questioning, to keep searching for spirituality, and to stay engaged, and SO, I just keep hunting. Thanks to some very rebellious nuns (“I think the liturgy is deadly,” one said) and a church in Harlem called St. Charles with a lively parish and an awesome Jesuit priest, as well as a lovely spiritual director who is trying to convince me I just can’t do this wrong, I’ve found some renewal, and though I’ll keep asking the questions, at least I can know that I’m not the only one.

One of my students said last week, “Miss F.-S., March is the worst. Every year, March comes, and it’s just the worst.”  Though I don’t totally agree with him, it’s not a super pleasant month. Too in between seasons. Too without holidays or breaks. And sometimes, I think, we 22-year-olds feel just like the 12-year-olds I watch over every day—a little confused, a little unacquainted with ourselves. The other day, the Harlem house looked at some pictures from the very beginning of the year, and we all, within a few minutes, said the same thing: we look so much younger. Which is probably not true, but it’s sort of the principle of the thing. You walk through experiences and come out seeing a new face. I walk through Harlem, do things on my own, say something at my school, and look at myself and say, suddenly, who is this person? Who am I becoming? It’s not the first time I’ve felt this way, but it makes the question of what I’m doing next year seem all the more important. Where do you go from something this meaningful? What do you do when you’re kind of waiting around to do what you really want to? It’s all very unsettling. I walk home from school, winding my way through a neighborhood I know so well now, my mind buzzing with the sense that time is running out. There is just so much to do, here, and in life. How am I going to do it all?

Thank God I have a community to rely on. And thank God I have good friends and a beautiful family to rely on. And thank God, finally, that I have a job that reminds me constantly that the now is too important to miss because of useless anxiety for the future.

There have been so many moments at school I could talk about this month—both joyful and awful, exhausting and hilarious. But I’m just going to focus on one that I hope I’ll remember for a long, long time. Tuesday afternoon, one of the eighth graders was really upset. He has some anger issues and has a lot of trouble controlling his emotions. One of my earliest memories of him is when he almost punched another boy and then sobbed on the stairway while I just sat with him for almost an entire class period. He was angry on Tuesday, frustrated, with other students, with his work. It led into a really upsetting conversation that I won’t go into here, but at the end of it, knowing that he writes some really good poetry, I told him to go home and write about all this. “No, Miss F.-S.,” he said, “I’m done with poetry.” I shrugged my shoulders, and said I was expecting a poem the next day anyway. The minute I saw him the next day, he grinned and said he had a poem for me, pulled it out to show it to me, and then stopped and said, “Umm, just one minute, I just have to…” And ripped piece of it off before handing it to me. Before he did, however, I saw what he had written, just Thanks, Miss F.-S., in small letters at the bottom of the poem. The photocopy I have just says Thanks now, but I’ll remember. What else is there? What more can I ask for than that?

So, I meet the end of this complicated and bizarre March with a grateful heart that I made it through, and that despite some of its complexities, there were so many very simple gifts. A middle school dance where I could be proud of the boys and truly enjoy, the chance to show loved ones the Harlem and city I love so much, so many phone calls, coffee dates, meals, moments of laughter with my community, packages from home, so much enthusiasm from my little writing club, so many kids reading books I recommended, so many moments of camaraderie with my colleagues. I am just so blessed. And I’ll be damned if I don’t remember it.

“Uptown, Downtown, a Thousand Miles Between Us”

In New York, February has been characterized by a dull greyness, while the temperature bounces erratically and irritatingly between unseasonably warm and seasonably cold. That is a long way of saying that it had better be spring soon.  Sorry these posts just keep getting longer, as one of my ever-wise roommates said once, “I just have a lot of thoughts and feelings.” My bad. Just a warning , too, this post isn’t a super happy one.

The song I took this post’s title from is called “East Harlem,” by Beirut.  The song opens with the phrase, “Another rose wilts in East Harlem.” Our house has taken it on as a kind of anthem, and I’m doing my best to learn it on the Ukulele (yeah, I have an endless thirst for hobbies, apparently) I’ve been thinking about it a lot this week, as we at St. Al’s, lost a really wonderful person, a nun and staff member at the school who meant a lot to all of us. There seemed some correlation to me, though it might be totally unclear to anyone who’s not in my head.

Even besides that loss, school has been a veritable minefield.  And maybe I should be more used to it by now. Maybe all the strangers who have warned me off middle school know something I don’t.  Whenever I introduce the topic of my job, and middle school, I tend to get the same sorts of responses— Uhh, how’s that going for you? You’re a saint. Jesus, that sounds like hell.

It’s not hell. I do not deserve sainthood. And, most of the time, it’s going pretty well. Sometimes, even most of the time, I am so blessed by the beauties of this age group that I am able to overlook the rest of it. The vulnerability of these middle school boys, who cry in front of me, who attach themselves to me, who love to read, and offer up their writing to me (seriously, ninety percent of them write in their spare time, how cool is that?), and who make me laugh, make them fun and inspiring.

But lately, middle school has been getting to me. So here is a mini-rant about the annoying/difficult things about middle school. They almost always say the absolute wrong thing, when they’re frustrated they will personally attack you, they are overly emotional, overly physical, overly selfish, and overly stubborn. They are in love with you, or hate you, often with the span of a minute.

But more than all that, I am flattened by the issues I see every day that we have a complete lack of resources to meet. Last week, one student I work with often, completely shut down. He’s done so before, but this was the worst I’d seen him. As his supervisor during the day while he refused to go to class or do work, at one point he said, “Miss F.-S., I want to drop out. I want to transfer from school to school until they don’t notice I’m gone. Then I’ll drop out, not get a job, end up on the streets, and die there.” Though the day ended on a decent note, it was not solved by any means. I also learned about the abuse he had suffered as a child, and the emotional and psychological issues he had had over the past few years. For the first time, I understood why he was constantly pushing my boundaries, trying to test how much I would withstand, before he could trust me. I went home teary-eyed and desolate.

This is only one example of the kind of challenges the boys face. Another student told me all about how many times he’s been “pressed” (read: had his money/belongings taken on the street) since he was a child with absolute nonchalance. Another is working on coming out to his friends at school (the homophobia and sexism issues are crazy at school), and through his poetry. The things they go through are painful, ruthless, impossible. In the face of it, I am someone standing outside a window looking in, hand to the glass. I can never understand their lives, because, God knows, there’s a thousand miles between us, even if I only live a few blocks away.  I constantly have to remind myself that I am not there to fix them or their lives, but to be present, to accompany, to walk with them. Sometimes that helplessness is impossible to accept.  It is a crime to me, that most of these children probably won’t get someone who is qualified to help them with their academic or emotional problems.  I am it, sometimes. And that is an injustice in and of itself.

At re-orientation, one of the speakers told us that part of processing our experiences in JVC would be allowing ourselves to be broken by the people we met and interacted with. I think I am doing that, at least most of the time. And while it is valuable, that vulnerability is terrifying to me. But those days when I come home, scared and tired, empty, flat, hollowed, tearful, stay with me because I know that they are the days I am being changed, the days that I am allowing myself to connect, and to be transformed by my experiences. I expect that in a year or two, I will treasure them more than any others.

In a way, I think that is why I’ve been trying to take more joy in those moments when I am just myself, and not meant to be a kind of receptacle for emotion, with my community, my friends from elsewhere, my family.  I spend time on playing instruments, crafting things, reading and writing, and listening to music, because that reinforces the fact that I am still…someone. I’ve been loving my walks lately, getting off a stop earlier than I could, and just trying to see the city from different angles, finding new favorite coffee shops (Lenox Coffee at 129^th and Lenox, so great), new little shops to walk through, new views.  I cannot wait for spring to come, to make more of that discovery possible.

Together, as a house, we all seem to be coming to terms with the fact that this will end. This year will end. JVC will end. And the likelihood is, I will no longer be in this city. I will certainly never be in this city at this same age, in this same place in my life again. I am trying to savor those moments when I’m really aware of where I am and why, while making lists entitled “things I could do next year and still be happy.” In the meantime, I’m just happy our plumbing and heat are finally fixed, and trying to stretch out my toothpaste supply. In the back of my mind, though, I think, I’m sure,  that as the song says, I’ll come here–home–again. Someday.

This gallery contains 4 photos.

Good Times For a Change

“The City Called Me So I Came, It isn’t Mine to Question what it Said”

This post promises to be a jumble. Consider yourself forewarned. It’s been a crazy few weeks with LOTS  to ponder and I just might write about it all right here.  Today’s title is from a song called “City Song,” you can find it here. Thank Megan for that gem.

The first order of business is that nature betrayed us all with a snowstorm before Halloween (climate change? Anyone?) That’s a northeast first for me. Well, not quite. It has often snowed in Massachusetts before Halloween, but not an actual storm with measurable inches.  Exciting stuff. My family was without electricity for WAY too long. My school had no heat for a week (unrelated to the snow fun, something was wrong with the furnace).  Nothing like seeing 11 year olds trying to study in down jackets, mittens, gloves, and hats.  Apparently the problem is fixed now. I know because all the boys had to take off their ties on Thursday because it was too hot and our program coordinator was concerned about fainting. Figures.

It has been a very JVC-oriented couple weeks, what with a 5-day visit from our esteemed program director  (We idolize her. I’m not being sarcastic), complete with community activities, shadowing, meetings with our supervisors, and one-on-ones, and a day of reflection on community with the West Harlem community at Flat Rock Brook nature center in the quite familiar Englewood, New Jersey.  It was wonderful to be outside in fresh air and away from the sounds of honking, sirens, and swearing.  All this JVC time was important, too, as a reminder that we’re all in this for something greater, not just for the day to day figuring out of the job and of the household. That can get extremely difficult to remember when you’re cooking and cleaning and working and planning. Sometimes you need a few days away to remember the big picture.

This week several of us also got the chance to attend an “Occupy Harlem” meeting. I had no idea what to expect, given the fact that I am conflicted over the Occupy Wall Street movement and all, but it turned out to be a fascinating and fruitful experience. After the first few awkward moments when we were essentially accused of being members of Occupy Wall Street come to overtake the meeting, we really got a chance to hear from people in the community, and from a variety of groups, on some of the issues confronting the area. One major issue is gentrification and housing rights, as I touched on in my last post. And some of the most interesting people there were members of a group called “Occupy the Hood,” you can learn about them here (excuse the fact that it’s HuffPo, it gives a good little overview), who had some great things to say about the fact that Harlemites don’t own their neighborhoods anymore. They described gentrification as a cycle. You take the money from developers so you can move to a better neighborhood for your kids, gentrifiers build up your neighborhood, you want to move back to your own neighborhood, but now you can’t afford it. Their major point is that people who live in the hood need to stand together and make their own neighborhoods into what they want them to be.

The things I heard about the neighborhood have really stuck with me this week as the time change and time of year have seriously changed my and my students’ experience of our school neighborhood. My building is on the east side of Harlem, an area with a median income of $18,000 (learned that at Occupy Harlem), and while it is a pretty sweet little neighborhood during daylight hours, things have been happening lately that make me uneasy, and show some of the issues underlying the neighborhood. I.e. the arrest of 19 people just a few blocks from the school in a gang case , and a shooting outside a local school. Students are now allowed to leave at either 4:30 or the usual 5:15. Honestly, though, both mean students are still traveling in the dark hours. This point was brought home to me the other day when I left school at 5:15, only to find one of my students, a tiny sixth grader, wandering back towards the school. He had left at 4:30, but his brother hadn’t met him at the train on time, and he was feeling sick, so he had started walking back to the school.

He was so pitiful and seemed so alone and sad in this busy and loud neighborhood, that it broke my heart a little bit. His head hurt and he started crying. When I asked him if he wanted a walk to his train, he said yes (a shocker, the boys are always trying to prove their independence). The walk (and the walk back, during which I was briefly lost) was overwhelming, and showed the neighborhood “in transition” quite clearly. Two homeless men were having a very loud argument ,  a mother swore at her small child, people were smoking pot on the street, and the lights were bright and glaring, the police on the corner almost menacing. Though most of that is par for the course no matter the time of day, it took on a new scariness in the dark. For the first time in many weeks, I felt unsafe, a stranger to the neighborhood.  I returned home, still thinking about my student walking that way every day, rattled enough for my roommates to ask if I was all right.  Perhaps it was evidence that Occupy the Hood is right. These are neighborhoods that need to be reclaimed by their families, protected by unity.  I hope that there’s a way to make that happen.

I guess the point is, the city called me. JVC called me. So, I came.  I just don’t always know what it’s saying to me. Ugliness and beauty are so intertwined here, so one, that untangling my feelings about both seems impossible. Maybe, for now, I just need to take it all in and keep recording it, a true observer. And when it’s time to question, I’ll know it. I hope so.

P.S. On a lighter note, the possibility of leaving earlier and the craziness of everything that has to get done at school, have meant that writing club has been really difficult. I make all these plans, just for someone to ask me to do something else during that time, or for half the students to leave less than halfway through. Any suggestions on that or generally on dealing with 11-13 year old boys, are welcome, as always.

“Watch out, the World’s Behind You”

Okay, before you say anything, I know I have not blogged about anything in FOREVER. I promise I will try to do better! This post’s title courtesy of the Velvet Underground.

Now that I am finally posting, I want to start by addressing something I said I would address a long, long time ago. That is the big question of gentrification—maybe one of the biggest issues Harlem is facing right now.  When I told family and friends that I would be going to Harlem this year, I typically got one of two responses: A) slightly shocked look and a wry comment, bring pepper spray, can I follow you in a car everywhere, etc. or B) Harlem’s really up and coming! It’s the hot new place.

Frankly, both of these responses pained me, but both had a certain level of truth to them. Harlem is an area often described as being “in transition.” This is a nice way of saying that rich people are moving in and poor people are being forced out. There’s evidence of this phenomenon everywhere. Not so much in this neighborhood, where there is more public housing than brownstones, but further downtown, where St. Al’s is, brownstones are constantly under construction and there is a surprising number of quite pricey organic-heavy food stores. From block to block you can see the old becoming the new, and the neighborhood changing right before your eyes.

There are a number of opinions of gentrification, and they vary greatly. Some say that it saves neighborhoods, infrastructure of cities, the history of neighborhoods, and  the valuable architecture. I can’t deny that this is somewhat true. Who doesn’t want unsafe places to become safer? Rundown places to be restored? History and art to be taken care of? HOWEVER, poor people deserve to keep their neighborhoods and their homes.  At this rate, everyone under a certain pay scale will be pushed out of Manhattan. What makes cities amazing places is that they are areas that bring people of all different backgrounds and incomes together, and gentrification ends that. Maura and Sabine would both have much more enlightened things to say about this.

I’ve tried to explain the following concept to a few people on the phone, and I’ve never quite been able to explain it (so obviously, I’m going to try again).  The tension between the old community and the new people moving in is something you can feel.  As the white young people living in the neighborhood, we are often viewed with a certain level of suspicion (suspicion you can feel as you walk past people on the street). The changes between 135^th and 145^th, seem awkward and uncomfortable. Though I’ve read a lot about the effect of gentrification on cities, I’ve never witnessed it so palpably before, and it’s both fascinating and disturbing. Sometimes I think we all wish we could carry a sign that says “We are not here to change your neighborhood! We have no money! We’ll be out in a year!” Given the ridiculousness of that idea, I suppose we’ll all just try to prove ourselves through relationship with the neighborhood and our neighbors (though we don’t get as many opportunities to meet them as we’d like).

It’s  a subject I’m sure I’ll have much more perspective on by the end of the year. In the meantime, if you’ve spoken with me, you’ve known my school is experiencing a lot of turmoil, it’s getting cold in the apartment (meaning we’re all walking around in our coats already), we’re stretching to make ends meet as usual, and I have a writing club to straighten out, visits home and to Holy Cross to plan, Christmas presents to knit, and loans to get deferred. I’m reading Persuasion again, and it really takes on a different feel when you read it on the subway. The fall weather is beautiful, but I miss my New England leaves! Raise your hand if you’re ready for Thanksgiving…

“The Fear That You Feel is What Will Set You Free”

For those of you who aren’t huge fans of Newfoundland band Hey Rosetta! like I am (that’s just a shame, check them out here), the title of this post is a line from a song called “Psalm,” which I often think of when I’m scared of  lacking any understanding of where I am or what I should be doing (see the lines: So it’s cautiously into the dark/ but you’ll see before long that your eyes will adjust). And yes, I do hunt down advice for every stage of my life in song lyrics

So, in case you couldn’t tell from all this pre-information, the past few weeks have been a bit of a struggle. That does not mean they’ve been bad. Just that they’ve definitely been challenging me to accept some things about the JVC experience, my job, my living arrangements, and perhaps most importantly, my own limits.

I finally started my actual teaching assisting about a week and a half ago, and I love it. I get to spend a lot of time working with all three grades, in the classroom and out, after school and during. I even get to start my own writing club (first meeting Thursday, cross your fingers). I already find the kids hysterical, charming, interesting, and passionate (as well as exasperating, difficult, and unmotivated from time to time). I love knowing all the boys by name, and getting to know who they are, slowly but surely.  If you have talked to me in these past few weeks, I have probably glowed about how this is the perfect job for me and how happy I am.

All of that is true. But, a lot of what I’ve been feeling in the past few weeks is rising panic and anxiety about how little I really know. My job feels like a constant one-woman improv show, my ability to actually teach these kids anything seems negligible, and I feel lost and flustered about 85 % of the time. Not that that’s unusual or not simply the way it should be, but it’s overwhelming.  As I find myself getting really attached to the kids, the thought that I have to leave all of them in a year is both daunting and depressing—something I didn’t even think of in my grand plan.

Meanwhile, JVC has continued to offer a wealth of awesome experiences—whether it’s bringing loved ones from across the area into the JVC fold, picnicking in Central Park, seeing amazing musical acts for no cover charge at the incredible Shrine, finding out my personal heaven is actually located at 12th and Broadway, flea market hunting, philosophizing on our still fabulous roof, the simple pleasures of walking, learning the interminable ropes of NYC public transportation, brunching, bar crawling, $2 egg and cheese. And some not so awesome—a broken faucet, a dead mouse, unhinged men yelling at babies on the subway, men yelling anything in general, and driving the school van through New York City traffic. My feet are covered in blisters, I’m sick of honking outside my window, and I’m tired absolutely every minute of every day.  Walking down (the pretty fantastic) 125^th street the other day, I thought, within a few minutes, both, I could collapse right here, and GET OUT OF MY WAY.

And then there’s the fact that we have no money. The whole simple living thing is a challenge. I can’t deny it. Most of the time, it is kind of a fun game. How little money can I spend at a bar when I stay for more than 3 hours? (answer, $5),  how little can I spend on school supplies (answer, $0, it’s all too expensive). It turns out buying a $.50 key chain can be just as satisfying a souvenir as a $15.00 t-shirt, and a $2.00 meal is far more satisfying just by virtue of thrift. But there are moments when the game gets dull—it’s been a long week and it would be really great to get a slice of pizza instead of boiling up a pot of lentils and rice, you realize the commute to and from work would be made a lot more pleasant by a halfway decent briefcase, you see something at a flea market that is just so perfect and would be well-priced by any normal standards, that it’s kind of painful to leave it there.  To sum up: living within a strict budget is quite valuable but also very stressful.

But none of that, though it certainly put me to the test, was what sent me over the edge. It was trying to figure out what I’m doing with my life after JVC and when.   You probably know me pretty well, so you probably are all too aware (yeah, I know, the planner’s scary), that I’m a woman who likes to have a plan, and then to follow that plan. I like to know what I’m doing, to be prepared, and to do the right thing by everything and everyone. When I fail at that, it’s pretty much like the world is ending (HYPERBOLE, Carrie). Trying to figure out my whole life plan and freaking out about the passage of time, was essentially my need to have that plan worked out (the last time I had a similar freak out was during the discernment process). But as several wise people (not excluding my lovely and infinitely supportive housemates) told me over the past few days, I need to chill.  This whole new JVC life thing is a big deal and it takes a lot of energy, and I need to accept that. So I’m trying to step back from the planning and preparation at least for a month or two, to let myself be present to the moment, and to lean into the fear, both of the unknown that lies within this year and the unknown that lies beyond it.  (If you ask me about the future I will not hesitate to put my fingers in my ears and sing loudly). It’s terrifying to walk into the dark like this, but Hey Rosetta! keeps telling me my eyes will adjust. I just have to work on believing it.

JVC: Unchanged Since 1984

Two of the cookbooks here when we moved in are Mollie Katzen’s The Enchanted Broccoli Forest  and The Moosewood Cookbook. These are the same cookbooks my dad used when he was in JVC in 1984 (we have the copies at home to prove it), including the recipe for tofu nut balls that Dad swears destroyed his community. To me, this says that the general tastes of people who join JVC hasn’t changed in about 27 years. Little weird. Just sayin’.

Hello Harlem!

So, this is my first try at blogging regularly.  Which is my way of saying, please don’t start reading this with high expectations, because they’re certain to be dashed. This blog will be my attempt to give my world this year, in JVC, in New York, in Harlem, in community, in solidarity with the poor, to you (those I love and want to share it all with) in the most direct way possible. I’m working on it, okay?

There are about a million things I could start writing about. We’ve been living here for less than two weeks, but it already feels like so much has happened, and there’s so much to feel and experience, that it’s pretty overwhelming to put it into words like this, so I’m going to start with the basics—the things most people seem to be wondering about.

We moved into this rectory almost two weeks ago. No, we do not live with priests or nuns, no we are not at all involved in the church. And, no, no, absolutely no, we are not training to be nuns ourselves. The building is really interesting, and serves all 7 of us quite well.  It is, by far, the most enormous apartment most of us will ever have, certainly in this city. We’re living in intentional community. Basically, we spend our time together bonding on a deeper level than sitting around with our computers out, we dedicate two nights a week to developing community (community night and spirituality night, this might be a reason I can’t hang out with you a particular day), and we make group decisions about the household, with everyone taking on an equal amount of responsibility.  It’s not always easy, but it’s going quite smoothly so far! Mostly because we all really lucked out on being with an amazing group of people, a 7-person house would not work out so well without such lovely human beings!

We spent a few days in local orientation, being driven around the city, meeting up with FJVs and other JVC communities (West Harlem, Brooklyn, and Newark), and being given a lot of free food and kind guidance, as well as visiting all of our sites as a group, so that we would have an understanding of the work that each of us would be doing. Everyone is working in amazing places, and I am so excited to hear the stories as the year goes on.  We’re still working really hard to get to know the neighborhood. We’re asked all the time if we’ve met the neighbors, and the short answer to that is no. The long answer is to explain that our immediate neighborhood consists of a church, a charter school, and several public housing complexes that are pretty closed off to the outside street.  We’re working really hard to find things in the neighborhood or just outside that we can enjoy, and be part of the community. Any suggestions? We’re at 151^st street. Post below or get in touch with me! That goes for general city suggestions, and cheap/delicious recipes, too J

That’s all for now. Next time, I promise, a real post! Photos forthcoming, but check out Facebook for now.