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This week in my WS 208E class – Women Writing Since the 1900’s – we had to read a short story entitled “The Terrors of Basket Weaving” by Patricia Highsmith. For those of you who haven’t read this story (which I’m assuming is all but one of you), allow me to give you a quick summary. Essentially the story features this married couple, a man and a woman, who live a traditionally successful corporate life. By all appearances they are happy with their respective lives, until one day the woman finds a basket. She fixes the basket, and something inside her is stirred up. A deep connection is made during her basket weaving experience. The woman is unable to explain the feeling, but knows that there is a part of her that feels like she needs the basket weaving to be happy. When she tries to process and have these feelings validated by her partner, he does not understand, and is unable to provide her the support that she desperately is in search of. I won’t ruin the rest of the story for you, but the main point here is that in this story, the woman went through a significant experience – an experience that was very obscure and in a lot of ways not relatable – and she found her experience and feelings being marginalized by her usual support network; although not on purpose. And all of this got me to thinking about support networks...
Trust Falls
As bizarre as the story was to read, I really found myself identifying with it – or at the very least projecting my latest existential crisis onto it. Over the past 5 years at Waterloo, I have done A LOT of flopping around on dry land trying to figure out where I fit, and more importantly, will be happy. I have switched programs, picked up new ones, and taken up almost every hobby available in the name of self exploration. The only things that ever really truly clicked for me though were running and ASL (American Sign Language). It’s not like I didn’t enjoy any of the other things I was doing, like I said before as long as I am learning I’m pretty content, but nothing else had that “I can’t imagine my life without this” feeling to it. That was actually true until I started at St. John’s Kitchen. While my first blog entry about this focused mostly on the guilt I experienced after being there, there was also a large part of me that was definitely feeling really connected with the work I was doing there. So much so, that I have been using essentially all my free time during the week volunteering there. I don’t know what it is about that place, but I feel like I need to be there. And I felt this way ever since I started there, in spite of the craziness and adjustment of the first day. And while there is still a lot of guilt wrapped up in it, I absolutely adore St. John’s. I found myself really wanting to share this excitement and energy with someone, but whenever I went to try and explain it, I was at a loss for words; or at least words that my friends/family understood. Like the woman in the story I was reaching out to my support network, and though this wasn’t their intention, I felt like what I was saying wasn’t being acknowledged in the way that I needed it to be. And this was really tough for me, because I really was having a hard time trying to figure out where to go next. It was like doing one of those trust falls, and being dropped on the floor. Harsh! It wasn’t until I started reading some of the blog entries, and talking with other members of the program/Joanne, that I began to realize the importance of having a support network during this journey. Being the huge introvert that I am, I rarely feel the desire to bounce ideas off other people, preferring to work it out in my head instead. But there are times, when I do need that second or third opinion. And I find with the stuff we are dealing with/will deal with in this program, I am going to need that 2nd opinion a little more often then I'd like to admit. When I read some of the blogs, and chatted with Joanne, I definitely started feeling more at peace with the whole situation. I didn’t have any more answers then when I started, but I knew it was ok, because there were 11 other people who have the capacity to understand where I am coming from, and some of whom are even going through the same things. It's not exactly the place that I was expecting to find comfort, but I am definitely appreciative.
Riding Without Training Wheels
Today while at St. John’s, I was told by the usual head of this wonderful service, that I was in charge of the kitchen for the rest of the day, because all the other staff members were busy working on something else. Truth be told, I was a touch terrified. Ok, more than a touch, a big heaping spoonful of terrified! I had only been there 3 times before, and had pretty much relied on others to tell me what needed to be done. There is a system there, and the last thing I wanted to do was disturb it. But, obviously someone thought I knew enough to be in charge, and didn’t really give me much of a choice. I was given the order and that was that. The training wheels were now off, ready or not! Not going to lie, I’m pretty sure Joanne’s voice popped in my head and told me to pretend like this was Nairobi – why not use it as a learning experience?! Well you win Joanne, I did. I avoided the urge to curl into a ball, instead opting to just push through it the best I knew how; accepting that I would make mistakes, and feel pretty confused the entire time just like I’m sure will happen 10x over in Nairobi. And oh boy did I ever! Ultimately though, lunch was served, and the kitchen didn’t burn down – a pretty successful day overall, if you think about it; although this really didn’t occur to me until later on. As we were cleaning up at the end of the day, the regular head of the kitchen came back after completing her other tasks. She and I were chatting, and she asked me “you didn’t think you could run the kitchen by yourself did you?” My response was obviously “definitely not!”. To which she replied “but you did, and I knew you could”. I was pretty taken aback by this comment, because it made me think about Nairobi. I applied to a program that is essentially going to plop me in a foreign community, with its own set of rules and language and everything!, and I am expected to take the lead and teach women how to sew. It seems like an outrageously scary thing to do. And I have doubts about my ability to do it. But obviously someone thought I had the ability, or else I probably wouldn’t be in this program. Just like someone thought I had the ability to run the show today. I guess the point of me sharing this, is that I am amazed at where I am finding the most support this year. It’s not in the people I would have thought/hoped and it’s not in the ways that I expected, but it’s there. And it is absolutely humbling to see the ways that we can make connections with others. I am determined to keep this in mind while in Nairobi. I know there will be times that I feel like I can’t do it, and where I will probably want to quit. But I know I have a support network out there all over the world (psst...that’s you guys!) and I think that is one of the most important aspects of this program. Fostering connections and truly creating a community abroad and right here at home.
That's it for this week!
Cheers,
Cathleen
Trust Falls
As bizarre as the story was to read, I really found myself identifying with it – or at the very least projecting my latest existential crisis onto it. Over the past 5 years at Waterloo, I have done A LOT of flopping around on dry land trying to figure out where I fit, and more importantly, will be happy. I have switched programs, picked up new ones, and taken up almost every hobby available in the name of self exploration. The only things that ever really truly clicked for me though were running and ASL (American Sign Language). It’s not like I didn’t enjoy any of the other things I was doing, like I said before as long as I am learning I’m pretty content, but nothing else had that “I can’t imagine my life without this” feeling to it. That was actually true until I started at St. John’s Kitchen. While my first blog entry about this focused mostly on the guilt I experienced after being there, there was also a large part of me that was definitely feeling really connected with the work I was doing there. So much so, that I have been using essentially all my free time during the week volunteering there. I don’t know what it is about that place, but I feel like I need to be there. And I felt this way ever since I started there, in spite of the craziness and adjustment of the first day. And while there is still a lot of guilt wrapped up in it, I absolutely adore St. John’s. I found myself really wanting to share this excitement and energy with someone, but whenever I went to try and explain it, I was at a loss for words; or at least words that my friends/family understood. Like the woman in the story I was reaching out to my support network, and though this wasn’t their intention, I felt like what I was saying wasn’t being acknowledged in the way that I needed it to be. And this was really tough for me, because I really was having a hard time trying to figure out where to go next. It was like doing one of those trust falls, and being dropped on the floor. Harsh! It wasn’t until I started reading some of the blog entries, and talking with other members of the program/Joanne, that I began to realize the importance of having a support network during this journey. Being the huge introvert that I am, I rarely feel the desire to bounce ideas off other people, preferring to work it out in my head instead. But there are times, when I do need that second or third opinion. And I find with the stuff we are dealing with/will deal with in this program, I am going to need that 2nd opinion a little more often then I'd like to admit. When I read some of the blogs, and chatted with Joanne, I definitely started feeling more at peace with the whole situation. I didn’t have any more answers then when I started, but I knew it was ok, because there were 11 other people who have the capacity to understand where I am coming from, and some of whom are even going through the same things. It's not exactly the place that I was expecting to find comfort, but I am definitely appreciative.
Riding Without Training Wheels
Today while at St. John’s, I was told by the usual head of this wonderful service, that I was in charge of the kitchen for the rest of the day, because all the other staff members were busy working on something else. Truth be told, I was a touch terrified. Ok, more than a touch, a big heaping spoonful of terrified! I had only been there 3 times before, and had pretty much relied on others to tell me what needed to be done. There is a system there, and the last thing I wanted to do was disturb it. But, obviously someone thought I knew enough to be in charge, and didn’t really give me much of a choice. I was given the order and that was that. The training wheels were now off, ready or not! Not going to lie, I’m pretty sure Joanne’s voice popped in my head and told me to pretend like this was Nairobi – why not use it as a learning experience?! Well you win Joanne, I did. I avoided the urge to curl into a ball, instead opting to just push through it the best I knew how; accepting that I would make mistakes, and feel pretty confused the entire time just like I’m sure will happen 10x over in Nairobi. And oh boy did I ever! Ultimately though, lunch was served, and the kitchen didn’t burn down – a pretty successful day overall, if you think about it; although this really didn’t occur to me until later on. As we were cleaning up at the end of the day, the regular head of the kitchen came back after completing her other tasks. She and I were chatting, and she asked me “you didn’t think you could run the kitchen by yourself did you?” My response was obviously “definitely not!”. To which she replied “but you did, and I knew you could”. I was pretty taken aback by this comment, because it made me think about Nairobi. I applied to a program that is essentially going to plop me in a foreign community, with its own set of rules and language and everything!, and I am expected to take the lead and teach women how to sew. It seems like an outrageously scary thing to do. And I have doubts about my ability to do it. But obviously someone thought I had the ability, or else I probably wouldn’t be in this program. Just like someone thought I had the ability to run the show today. I guess the point of me sharing this, is that I am amazed at where I am finding the most support this year. It’s not in the people I would have thought/hoped and it’s not in the ways that I expected, but it’s there. And it is absolutely humbling to see the ways that we can make connections with others. I am determined to keep this in mind while in Nairobi. I know there will be times that I feel like I can’t do it, and where I will probably want to quit. But I know I have a support network out there all over the world (psst...that’s you guys!) and I think that is one of the most important aspects of this program. Fostering connections and truly creating a community abroad and right here at home.
That's it for this week!
Cheers,
Cathleen
Ahh I feel the same way! Strangely I'm finding comfort in reading the blogs - and I definitely wasn't expecting that. They've become the replacement to our weekly discussions - yet in a way much better, because we get to talk about how we really feel rather than specific topics that we have opinions about. It's really important that we share this stuff about ourselves, because really, that's what is going to get us through the upcoming months! Just know, I will always support you Cat :)
Cathleen,
I see the same support network building, and growing. I like I should welcome it, embrace the comforting feeling, but a part of me still feels the fear and has a guard strong enough to fend of hungry lions. I really want to let down, and believe in the hope and support all of you have to offer! I am sure in time, this fear will turn into embrace and confidence.
Also, I will NOT let you give up and stop believing in yourself in Nairobi!
Nev :)
Hey!
for someone who didn't think they could reflect "out loud"... look at you go!
A comment about St John's and ASL - it seems as thought you've found your "fit". that is a wonderful experience, kind of like a deep breath.
And about support networks - I have found that people are wonderful. That is my nature and we differ there, but really, ask for the help that you need and most people are more than willing to give it. I am learning alot about "taking" from the community, but I am finding it very validating and comforting to know that that support is there.