Little Cat in the Big World

I promised you all this week that I would write more about my experience at St. John’s Kitchen. I have been putting this off for many reasons, but mainly, I'm having a really hard time articulating my feelings towards the experiences I have had there. When we were initially told that we had to choose an organization to volunteer with in KW - one which we have never been involved with, and one which involved working with marginalized groups - I had this expectation that my experience was supposed to be so far outside of my reality that blog topics would be spewing from me. I chose St. John’s because I had never been involved with an organization that was exclusively involved with addressing issues of poverty. This was supposed to be outside of my comfort zone; I assumed I was supposed to feel alienated and detached and oppressive etc. Well I definitely failed on that one, because besides my existential crisis about the guilt associated with using service work as a means for self improvement; I haven’t found myself feeling negative things. I keep waiting to be shocked by the things I’ve seen there. I keep waiting to feel like I couldn’t possibly understand where these individuals are coming from. But I don’t feel like that at all. In fact, I find myself doing quite the opposite. In some circumstances I even find myself getting rather defensive of the things that go on there, regardless of whether they are considered “socially acceptable” or not. I hesitate to get into specific examples of this, because I feel like they aren’t my stories to share, and that without context people may make judgements or assumptions about these individuals, and this is the last thing that I want. But I will do my best to try and honour the experiences of others, while still sharing my own for the purposes of illustrating my point.

I am going to start with the story of my day yesterday, which will seem random, but I promise to bring it back to St. John’s. My day yesterday got off to a rather unexpected and frustrating start. I am one of the coordinators of the UW Women’s Centre, and as such I often times get dragged into the ridiculousness of student politics on campus. I can be rather diplomatic, and I know how to play the game when I need to, but dealing with bureaucracy is probably my least favourite thing about any position (paid or volunteer) that I’ve had. There is one particular issue that we are dealing with currently at the Women’s Centre that has been causing a lot of contention, and there are some who feel that the Women’s Centre should take less of a stand on this issue, because it is making certain individuals uncomfortable, and might reflect badly on others. But of course the political game requires that no one ever come right out and say any of this, instead everyone tip toes around one another and uses carefully crafted emails so as to not offend, but to slightly intimidate. Gotta love the political game – fakeness, lies, and red tape: what’s not to love?!...*sigh*. Of course, all of this nonsense yesterday morning made me frustrated, and upset, and all I wanted was to not be near UW people – which unfortunately I have come to associate with not so nice things. So, my solution was to head to St. John’s earlier than usual and try and distract myself. I figured I would still be angry underneath, but that being in an environment, like that of St. John's, would force me to at least pretend to be fine. Well, it did a lot more than that. After about 20 minutes of being there, I completely let go of my frustration. I of course was even more frustrated once I went home and received what seemed like a million emails about the same ridiculous issue...but for about 6 hours of my day, I was frustration free.

It’s hard for me to articulate why I can let go of my frustrations at St. John’s, but I am going to attempt to do so. There is a great deal of comfort that I feel while I am there, and it isn’t for the reasons that I think people would expect. I am not filled with gooey feelings of warmth because I think I am doing a good thing – in fact I still very much feel the same guilt that I did when I initially started there, because I know for a fact that I am getting more out of this than I am giving back. But I feel good about being there because it is an environment that makes sense to me. All the mindless social crap that we are expected to fit into day in and day out gets checked at the door. I don’t have to deal with politics, or diplomacy or red tape – I can just be. There seems to be this thought that if you go to university you are somehow higher on the invisible social hierarchy ladder – we are the leaders of tomorrow, the smartest of the smart, the “civilized”. I for one think this is absolute garbage. There is nothing particularly dignified or civilized or smart about bureaucracy and politics – which is a reality if you move up the ladder. To me, I associate this sort of thing with dishonesty and a lack of integrity – which even a 5 year old child can tell you are bad things. But there is this expectation that we be diplomatic so as to not offend, that we be fake and hide what we really think, no matter how much you might just want to cuss out that person who just mindlessly makes inappropriate comments. And I am guilty of doing it – like I said, I play the game when I need to, but I am frustrated by the underlying suggestion that somehow doing these things makes you “civilized”. To me, there is something so raw, and so honest about St. John’s Kitchen, and the people who use the service. They may not be diplomatic, or what most would consider particularly dignified/refined, and sure some of them may even lie or steal, but you can trust them to be human - to feel emotion and pain, and to react to it in a real way. And it’s this innate sense of honest humanity that just makes me feel comfortable there. I will give you an example. The last Wednesday of every month is when patrons receive their social assistance cheques. And often the last Thursday and Friday of the month you tend to see some patrons come in really drunk or high. It’s easy to put two and two together on this one, and it’s probably easier to make superficial judgements about this sort of thing – they are responsible for their own poverty, they are just lazy and refuse to work hard, they deserve to be where they are. I don’t see it that way however. To me, underneath all of this is just a lot of pain. It is a manifestation of a life lived in poverty; a manifestation of structural violence, and for whatever reason, it clicks with me (not in the sense that I can relate based on my own lived experience – my intention isn’t to marginalize their experiences - but just that I can understand where it comes from). It saddens me to see this sort of thing, and I can’t say it doesn’t frustrate me at times, but my frustration lies in the fact that it is incredibly shameful that poverty is a reality that we allow and accept as a society. I also get frustrated that we look down on this type of behaviour and call it “uncivilized”. But those who live in poverty often react this way, because that’s how they have learned to survive – what’s the excuse for those of us who don’t? We lack integrity and lie so we can get ahead, consume, oppress? I for one am exhausted by it. So I spend time at St. John’s Kitchen. I go as much as I can during the week, because most of the time I would rather spend time with honest strangers, then with dishonest people I know. The atmosphere at St. John’s is so different from that at UW, that I can let go of my frustrations because they aren’t relevant there. When you are being present in a place like that, what matters is giving a smile, and making connections, not diplomacy and politics. It makes sense to me, and I feel like I fit there. I was expecting to be freaking out and be really out of place, because I was working in a new environment with issues I had never dealt with before. And that discomfort is what learning involves, right?! But it’s not like that at all - no disasters, or reflections, or huge revelations. And so I don’t write about it. Perhaps because it scares me how much I do identify with it there – kinda puts a wrench in those life plans – or because I know that people I have talked to about it don’t seem to get it. Or maybe it’s because I feel like I am cheating a little, because being at St. John’s is not so much challenging as awesome. Perhaps it all of those things, who knows. What I do know, is come May, I am going to be rather sad to leave St. John’s. But I hope that Nairobi offers the same sense of comfort for me.

Cheers,
Cathleen

I’m going to come clean with you folks. While I have been honest in my posts thus far, I certainly haven’t been pushing myself outside of my comfort level. I typically only share things on the surface, and nothing more. These superficial things still bother me in a general sense, but they only last a day or two and I get over them. It’s those things that have cut deep that I don’t talk about, and I essentially do everything I can to ensure that I don’t talk about them. Well, my intention for this week’s entry is to try and break this habit...a little...baby steps (and thank you Lara for the push that I needed).

This past week was reading week, and I had a million and one things to do, because all of my midterms and major assignments are scheduled after reading week, and March at the Women’s Centre is event madness. My good intentions towards productivity fell through however, when on Sunday I developed some sort of unpleasant stomach sickness which lasted most of the week. Not to get too graphic, but I spent most of my week curled into a ball on the couch with a bucket on the floor beside me. And even after the worst of it subsided, I was still not able to do a whole lot – surprisingly things become a little more challenging when you haven’t been able to hold anything down for a couple of days and the room is spinning all around you.

I am no stranger to stomach illness in general. I have spent the past 10+ years going through bouts of what I experienced during reading week – some lasting much longer than a week, and sometimes more intense than that too. I like to tell people I have the stomach of an 80 year old man, or that I am just high maintenance, but I joke because it’s easier then telling people that I have struggled with my health for a really long time, or even worse, that I don’t dream the same way I used to because I know that I am limited by my health. It’s not really something that people pick up on with me because I seem pretty healthy – I am physically fit, I eat fairly well, and I don’t make a fuss when I’m sick (most of the time I just grab a magazine and wait for the worst to be over). But truth is, I don’t feel well all the time. Every moment of every day I have a stomach ache. I can keep it at a manageable level when I avoid eating/drinking certain things, getting enough sleep, avoiding stress, and taking lots of Tums etc. but it’s always there. And sometimes it’s definitely worse than others. My third year of university was probably the worst it has ever been. I spent 16 hours a day sleeping because I had no energy. I was so nauseous that I couldn’t eat, and when I did I couldn’t hold anything down. On top of that, I was losing my hair. I struggled to walk around the block most days, and I had to give up driving because it became too unsafe. I ended up dropping my on campus classes and moving back to Ottawa after a week of school. From then on, I was at the hospital at least once a week, and I had every possible test imaginable; always yielding different diagnoses – internal bleeding, stomach/pancreatic cancer, and at one point I was even accused of being a heroin addict (to which I responded with laughter, something they very much didn’t appreciate – gotta find humour in something though). In the end they never did figure out what it was or why it had gotten so much worse that year, and I was told there wasn’t anything that could be done. They extended the list of things I couldn’t eat, and I was sent on my way. I continued to make the jokes and shrug things off around friends and family because I could see how hard they were taking things, but truth is there were moments I was just as deflated by the news. What I had didn’t have a name or clear symptoms – which to me meant it didn’t have a way for me to fight it. I knew that this stomach thing, whatever it was/is, would forever be the defining thing for me in my life.

Eventually, I stopped feeling sorry for myself though. I decided that things could always be worse and I was going to stick it to those doctors who said I was stuck. I did everything I could to get things under control, and after many months my system finally started to level out. And for the past 2 years I have been pretty good, but that being said, my health still dictates a lot of basic decisions I make in my life – I avoid group meals or going out to dinner with people, I don’t go out to the bar often, and when I do I never have a drink in my hand, I always make sure that I have Tums on me, and a (vegan) granola bar in the event that I get stuck somewhere I can’t eat, I avoid scheduling things after 8pm because being out after this time guarantees me stomach pain, and I usually have the quickest way to the bathroom (or at the very least a garbage can) figured out no matter where I am. Besides making me the worst date/least fun person ever, these things are a small nuisance compared to being curled up in a ball unable to do a whole lot. After my third year, I know what it means to be “healthy” – I’m not at 100%, nor do I think I ever will be, but I have come a long way from where I was, and I can tell you for certain that I don’t want to go back to that. And this past week was a nice reminder of that. Well not nice, it was a rather unpleasant reminder...but you get what I’m saying.

So, you are probably wondering what the point is to this lengthy (and somewhat narcissistic) story, and how this relates to Beyond Borders. Well, here goes. I am absolutely terrified of going to Nairobi. And not because I think that I can’t handle the culture shock, or that I will be lonely and homesick, or even that I will be robbed – these are all things I know I can deal with, and have the support of many to help me through. I am terrified because I know that this trip is going to be incredibly challenging for my physical health. I won’t be able to control what I eat to the same degree, I will be tired and worn down and stressed, I will be exposed to nasty microbes which my weak stomach is more susceptible to, and I won’t be able to stay physically active to the same degree either. When I can’t be in control of these things, bad things happen – potentially third year bad...maybe worse. I keep telling myself that it will be ok, a little stomach sickness is easy peasy, and there is a part of me that still legitimately believes this, but I also know that there is a huge difference between a week of feeling gross in my cushy western home, and feeling like death in a foreign country where I know no one and they don’t know anything about my medical history. I got my physical this week and my doctor cleared me for the trip, but I know that the people who have been with me through the worst, who have helped me up stairs when I was too weak, held my hair back as I was sick, and watched helplessly time and again as I whimpered doubled over in pain, are not at all supportive of this trip. I signed up for this program knowing my health would be an issue, and knowing that this was a risk I was willing to take, but at the same time it still really scares me. Because if I can’t complete this placement, something I have wanted for a really long time, then whatever this health issue is, it has won. I know that not trying isn’t the answer, because there is a good chance that I CAN make it through the summer without things being a total disaster, but there is still a possibility I can’t. And it’s that “what if” that still has me extremely worried. Unfortunately for me, the only way to tackle that “what if” is to make it to the other side. It’s moments like this that I wish I had a crystal ball....

So there you have it, the band aid has been ripped off, and a little piece of myself put out there for the blogging world to read. I don’t particularly enjoy sharing this part of my life with others, but I’m hoping that owning it will make me a little more at peace with it. In any case, thanks for coming along for the ride. I promise to talk more about St. John’s Kitchen next week.

Cheers,
Cat

This is my last year at the University of Waterloo. After 5 long years of hammering through my degree, I have finally made it to the home stretch. I always imagined that somehow my last year would be the most amazing year ever. I truly thought it would be the year where I would be encouraged to fully engage with the material we were learning, and be intellectually challenged. But to tell you the truth, it’s not like that at all, at least outside of the Beyond Borders program that is (that's not me sucking up - that's the truth!). In all honesty, my entire experience at Waterloo has not been like that in the slightest. In my first three years, I assumed that you needed to learn the basics before you could really engage with the material, so I wasn’t all that concerned about the lack of intellectual stimulation. Instead I just memorized those facts and spewed them out on request; wasting time until my 4th/5th year where I believed things would be different – I would finally be challenged in a way that was designed to foster original thoughts and creativity. Let me tell you, I am still waiting for that to happen. When I was in high school I was a bit of a misfit (not so shocking for those of you who know me, I’m sure) and I was always told by teachers that university would be the place that I would finally fit in. It would be the place where I would get the challenge that I needed and where I would find people who had the same desire and drive for knowledge. And I really did believe that would be true. But now that I am almost done, and I have time to look back on the past 5 years, I feel like it’s been an incredible let down. I was having a discussion with a friend of mine last week, and we were chatting about how regurgitating information on tests can hardly be called learning. And I had said to him, that besides the Beyond Borders class last term, and WS 205 that I took in my fourth year, I literally have learned nothing of value in any of my classes. Many would probably call that an exaggeration, but I don’t think it is. None of my classes have really made me think, or reflect. None of my classes have encouraged me to move outside of my comfort levels. And none of my classes have inspired me. And are these things not what education is about?! In fact this week, in one of my classes (which is mostly discussion based) I found the exact opposite happening. Students were being rewarded for giving superficial answers, rather than discussing the problem fully, and expanding on their understanding of issues of oppression. It was a rather frustrating experience for me, because when I tried to raise a point that the professor didn’t agree with, I was shrugged off as if what I was saying didn’t matter or have any validity (which I would like to point out is fairly contrary to the “personal is political” model that WS always preaches). In any case, while I was certainly being challenged in this class, it was neither my intellect nor my boundaries that were being put to the test – it was my patience. How is any institution supposed to create the best and brightest of our future if we don’t allow anyone to learn and explore new ideas? Over the past couple of years I have learned more from discussions with students in the Women’s Centre or patrons at St. John’s Kitchen then I have from my fancy textbooks and lengthy lectures. So what am I doing here? I realize that the piece of paper I will get at the end of this term will being meaningful in society, but I am having a hard time seeing the value in it. Don’t get me wrong, I value education, quite a bit actually, and I think that is why I am so frustrated. I want to be challenged! And I don’t think that is unreasonable to expect that from an institution of higher learning. Something is definitely wrong if we reward mindless memorization over creativity and ingenuity. The Beyond Borders program has been amazing, and I have a lot of passion and excitement for what we have been doing over the past 6 months, but it’s pretty difficult to find an entire degree program that operates in this manner. I know that realistically for what I want to do after this degree, I will need additional schooling. But if this is the experience I can expect next year, I am not sure that I am all that interested. I remember a time when I used to be really excited about school – where has that intellectual inspiration gone? And how do I get it back?!

-Cat

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