Families. Families are really important. Families are especially important to young people. Housing becomes home (or doesn't) based on the support and love created by a family.
Yesterday I was privileged to spend the morning at the White House Conference on LGBT Housing and Homelessness at Wayne State University (here in Detroit). As I sat and listened to the panels - first, a panel made up of four high-level members of the Obama Administration (HUD and HHS in particular) and the SE Michigan US Attorney; then the directors of three programs whose work focuses on providing housing and wrap-around services to homeless LGBT youth - I was struck by just how important it is that we meet not only the immediate needs for shelter among (in particular) young people, but also the emotional needs.
Queer youth make up about 7% of youth, nationally, yet a full 40% of homeless youth are LGBT-identified. At least half of those are homeless because they have been directly rejected by the very support network that is supposed to play a positive role in human development - family. Often, queer youth are further victimized within the systems that are set up to serve them, pushed into the adult shelter system at 18 or 21, frequently lacking, as the director of the Ali Forney Center attested, some of the developmental skills that a lot of us get more-or-less by osmosis. The trauma of rejection is compounded by having to navigate systems just to have needs met. I don't begin to know what this is like. Every family has internal dynamics, of course, but I never had to fill out paperwork to get face time with my folks or have an ID to be granted entry to my house at night. Nor have I ever been told that 40F isn't actually too cold to sleep outside, as is the case in many cities without cold weather laws.
And to be clear - for some youth, leaving home is life saving, preventing either further abuse or contemplation of suicide. But that lack of a supportive home space with people who love them (whether it starts at the point of leaving or long before) has long-lasting impact.
Fast forward to last night and the Grace in Action monthly immigration movie night. We watched Under the Same Moon (trailer), a movie that follows a mother and son who have been separated for four years, because the mom lives and works in LA and the son, Carlitos, lives in Mexico. They, too, are separated, albeit for different reasons than many LGBT youth are separated from their families. After the film, we had a small discussion of the situations presented. During the conversation, a woman I've spoken with a few times at other events spoke up: "Yo me identifico mucho con la mamá en la pelicula - tengo nueve años de no ver a mis tres hijos mayores." (I really identify with the mom in the movie - I haven't seen my three oldest children in nine years.) A ton of bricks doesn't begin to describe. And none of her kids is even my age - the oldest is just younger than Ella.
In talking with her and her husband afterward, I learned that they are from just a couple hours away from Suchitoto. We were talking, laughing, sharing memories and stories and she asked if, whenever I'm there next, I would visit her children. Another ton of bricks. I hope to be able to do this, but it made me once again SO aware of the privilege I have as a citizen of the US. I can come and go as I please, but she cannot nor can her husband. And so they are separated. And their older kids have three siblings here whom they have never met. Separation.
In the film, one of the older characters reminds Carlitos, in a moment of deep despair, that nobody chooses to live this way - everyone has a reason. Usually that reason is a child or a parent.
We have to start and keep having conversations about the situations that push people to make unbearable decisions and live in unbearable situations of separation. We have a role to play in remaking our immigration and housing systems. At the intersections of policy, faith, and community education, we need to plant ourselves and invite others into conversation about how deeply separation hurts individuals, families, and society.
La Misma Luna and the White House Conference did not, at the surface, seem to have a lot in common. Yet there was a common thread throughout the day of the damage done by rejection and family separation, and the important of building loving networks of support around those who, for whatever reason, have been separated from family. Let us continue to be about this as the seasons turn.
Showing posts with label Detroit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Detroit. Show all posts
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
On Being in Detroit
Krista Tippet's show, On Being, featured Grace Lee Boggs and Detroit this morning. Dr. Boggs is my neighbor - she lives and runs the Boggs Center just a short block from our house here on the East Side of the city.
You can see the episode entry on the show's blog and listen to the podcast if your interest is piqued. I think two of my coworkers collaborated on the pocket park pictured at the bottom of the page. (That is, they worked with five others on a pocket park and I think it's the one pictured. In my searching to confirm this, I also found this great article that mentions both Kate and Lindsey: http://michigancitizen.com/artists-take-local-food-message-to-the-streets-p10724-1.htm.)
You can see the episode entry on the show's blog and listen to the podcast if your interest is piqued. I think two of my coworkers collaborated on the pocket park pictured at the bottom of the page. (That is, they worked with five others on a pocket park and I think it's the one pictured. In my searching to confirm this, I also found this great article that mentions both Kate and Lindsey: http://michigancitizen.com/artists-take-local-food-message-to-the-streets-p10724-1.htm.)
Friday, January 20, 2012
Looking out
Forget this business of Detroiters not watching out for each other.
My life was just saved from getting squashed by a bus by not one but to of my neighbors a block down. I was running and nearing the end of the block when two people - not together - both yelled for me not to cross the street. I figured it was because one of them had a dog that was clearly a bit interested in what I was doing. But as I got within 10 feet of the intersection, I saw that a bus was hurtling down the way. (A bus that I have waited an hour for to no avail, by the way.)
They had no idea that I was planning on stopping and turning around at that very point to end my run. They thought I was about to die and they both hollered for me to stop. I count that as two lives saved.
Let's multiply this.
My life was just saved from getting squashed by a bus by not one but to of my neighbors a block down. I was running and nearing the end of the block when two people - not together - both yelled for me not to cross the street. I figured it was because one of them had a dog that was clearly a bit interested in what I was doing. But as I got within 10 feet of the intersection, I saw that a bus was hurtling down the way. (A bus that I have waited an hour for to no avail, by the way.)
They had no idea that I was planning on stopping and turning around at that very point to end my run. They thought I was about to die and they both hollered for me to stop. I count that as two lives saved.
Let's multiply this.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Useless
I just spent an hour with a man who has been kicked out of or attacked in most of the shelters in town. He will sleep outside tonight. January 17. It's been an unseasonably warm winter, yes, but it has been cold and rainy all day. And incredibly windy. He needs to get to a different state, where he has a job lined up and family. But he can't get there and no one has funding for transportation vouchers.
I called around and got kind people, but didn't end up with anything. In the end, he ate a bowl of chili and went to check out the church across the street. And I couldn't do a damn thing to change the situation. It isn't a shock - I have a lot of privilege, but no magic. But I felt so helpless. I, who could at any point look down and see the keys to my home, felt helpless. I, who who have been neither raped nor beaten during a period of homelessness as this man had, felt helpless. I, who would easily have a place to stay in this new city of mine or would be whisked home by my parents if the need arose, felt helpless.
What business do I have feeling helpless? I am home now. The heat just kicked on in the living room as I type this. My clothes stay in a dresser, not a garbage bag - which is not an ergonomic way of carrying things, let me tell you.
Why am I writing this? Processing? Yes. "Awareness-raising"? Maybe. I'm not really sure. But I spent an hour feeling useless. This guy spent yet one more, of what I'm sure have been many, hour hearing from others that he was. Fuck. I don't know. But something has to change.
I called around and got kind people, but didn't end up with anything. In the end, he ate a bowl of chili and went to check out the church across the street. And I couldn't do a damn thing to change the situation. It isn't a shock - I have a lot of privilege, but no magic. But I felt so helpless. I, who could at any point look down and see the keys to my home, felt helpless. I, who who have been neither raped nor beaten during a period of homelessness as this man had, felt helpless. I, who would easily have a place to stay in this new city of mine or would be whisked home by my parents if the need arose, felt helpless.
What business do I have feeling helpless? I am home now. The heat just kicked on in the living room as I type this. My clothes stay in a dresser, not a garbage bag - which is not an ergonomic way of carrying things, let me tell you.
Why am I writing this? Processing? Yes. "Awareness-raising"? Maybe. I'm not really sure. But I spent an hour feeling useless. This guy spent yet one more, of what I'm sure have been many, hour hearing from others that he was. Fuck. I don't know. But something has to change.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Never again - All the time - November
November seems to be the time for recommitting ourselves to building a creative end to violence.
Last year around this time, we were celebrating Dia de los Difuntos and remembering the massacres at Copapayo and the Central American University. This year, as has happened every year since the 1989 killing of the six Jesuits and two of their colleagues, there was a major demonstration at the School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, Georgia, where the UCA assassins were trained.
Closer to home - far closer to home - more commemorations. November 20 is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. It is an annual day to remember and celebrate the lives of those trans sisters and brothers who have been killed. At a worship service on Friday night, we lit 270 candles to remember the trans people who have been killed throughout the world in the last year. (And those are only the deaths that are known - many murders of trans people go unreported due to fear or police involvement.) One of the angels we remembered was Shelly Moore, who was killed in Detroit last month. This was a brutal act that my mind and soul are still working to comprehend. I avoided posting any articles to facebook for several days because I couldn't find the right words to accompany them. Then I realized, there are no words. But while there is a time and place for powerful silence, this is not one of them.
Shelly's mother was one of the speakers at the commemoration on Friday. We had read through a third of the names, lit a third of the candles, at the point at which she got up to speak. And the first thing she said at the lectern was, "God is good - all the time," to which the congregation replied, "and all the time, God is good." Forget everything else she said - every other powerful word Ms. Nelson spoke about her daughter and her pain. That she could find that profession in the midst of her grief amazes me.
How can a woman who is sitting in the depths of hell be so bold as to proclaim the goodness of God? Last November at the community mass at the Suchitoto cemetery, on the Day of the Beloved Departed, Padre Carlos talked about Mary. Too many of the people gathered remembering their loved ones were there to honor people who had been killed at the hands of the government. Padre Carlos reminded them that Mary and Joseph understood that grief profoundly. In this case, too, I find myself again seeing Mary is a mother who lost her child because she pushed boundaries and frightened people by speaking truth. A mother who can say "God is good - all the time" in the midst of anguish. I find myself without adequate words again, this time from awe.
But I do have "nunca mas" - "never again." How do I bring together "never again" and "all the time, God is good"?
Friday, October 14, 2011
Words
For some reason, adult illiteracy hits me so much harder when I'm in the US than when I was in El Salvador. I don't like what that says about my assumptions. But something like 40% of adult Detroiters read at less than a 9th-grade level. Ariana has run into this often when she's out helping folks apply for Bridge Cards. Our systems are so set up for people who read - not only read, but understand fairly complex legal and financial terminology that sometimes gives her (and me, when I look at it) trouble.
My last day in El Sitio, I sat with María as she was practicing her writing assignment - writing the numbers 0-20,000 by fives (!) and my thought was, "Rock on! You delivered two babies in a refugee camp while raising the four you already had, while your husband fought with the guerrilla, and now you're in your late 50s and learning to read and write. Amazing." And now I'm doing data entry on some ELCA member surveys and several of them so far have been written by folks who seem to have struggled pretty greatly with reading and filling out the survey. And it has me psychologically clothes-lined.
My last day in El Sitio, I sat with María as she was practicing her writing assignment - writing the numbers 0-20,000 by fives (!) and my thought was, "Rock on! You delivered two babies in a refugee camp while raising the four you already had, while your husband fought with the guerrilla, and now you're in your late 50s and learning to read and write. Amazing." And now I'm doing data entry on some ELCA member surveys and several of them so far have been written by folks who seem to have struggled pretty greatly with reading and filling out the survey. And it has me psychologically clothes-lined.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Cars and Confessions
(or, Two Wheels, Four Wheels, Red Wheels, Kor's Wheels)
I have a confession to make. Early in our time here, a new friend was giving us a quick tour of different places in town and mentioned that she made it until mid-October taking the bus to work and then it became just too much of a headache - it was proving to be a huge cost emotionally as well as time-wise, so she asked her parents to drive her car to Detroit from California. Here is the confession part: While she was telling us this, I was having some judge-y thoughts. I, the city girl who has navigated life thus far without relying on my own car, would certainly do better. I don't get stressed by the bus but rather find it relaxing and quite a good time, meeting neighbors and having good conversation.
If we've been in any communication in the last couple weeks, you're probably already laughing at me. My dad will arrive in town later tonight driving none other than my new car, bought from a dear friend in Minneapolis. So this is me, eating my judgmental thoughts, eating my words, and feeling both excitement for the mobility and wider access this will afford me and a deep sense of loss and confusion.
I love riding the bus. My rainy day commute often includes some great conversations with people at the bus stop, at the station, and between the stop and work/home. I've seen and greeted neighbors outside of the neighborhood that I met at our bus stop, which is a big deal for a person newly arrived. But my rainy day commute also takes almost four times as long as my dry day commute by bike. Or sometimes it takes 1.5 times as long. There's just no telling. (Once it took 2 hours to get home, and home and work are only four miles away from one another.)
One thing I'm learning is just how well I'm used to things running and working out for me. From buses to how much national organizations/church bodies actually care about my town, I have lived in some places that were clearly pretty top-priority and now I am in a place that is decidedly not a priority for anyone outside of here. In El Salvador, the buses ran all the time, because everybody had to use them; in the Twin Cities, it's easy to assume that the whole ELCA has its business together. It's a lot harder to see privilege than it is to see its opposite, especially when you live surrounded by privilege. It's easy to assume that the way things work for you are the way they work for everyone. These are all things I knew theoretically before, but coming face to face with their reality on a daily basis is demoralizing. And I've only been at this seven weeks. After an especially long, soggy trip to work one day, I was talking with a volunteer* and I mentioned the hassle of busing here. He said that he liked it, since it made him get out and walk around more. My response (which thankfully stayed inside my head) was, "NO! That just doesn't pan out if you have to get your ass to work every day!" Or drop of your kids at daycare. Or get groceries, or go to the bank, or any of the many, many daily activities that don't go on within walking distance of your home. (Which, when you don't live in downtown or Southwest, is a whole lot of things. And I will also admit that I often wish I lived in Southwest - it is the Seward/Longfellow/Corcoran of Detroit, for sure.) It is really frustrating, though when I'm looking for humor in it, I think in terms of "I fought the buses and the buses won."
None of this is to say that I am not excited to have the vastly mobility of a car. Now I'll be able to join the choir at the Y, which will be good for my soul; I will have a lot more possibilities as far as church-looking goes. Plus I get to see my dad! It's just hard to get around the fact that this one more thing that I can do, while a lot of other folks don't have that option. Maybe I should focus less on getting 'around' it and just live in it. I want to write a set of commitments for myself as a car owner. I'll put them here if I get them into any polished state. In the meantime...happy trails? (I'll keep working on my sign-off.)
*In this guy's defense, he's young, here working as a farm volunteer, living next to the church, and an incredibly hard worker. So his current situation is perfect for taking time to walk around and take in the city, which is a thing I love to do, too, and don't begrudge him for a moment. The comment just caught me at the wrong time.
I have a confession to make. Early in our time here, a new friend was giving us a quick tour of different places in town and mentioned that she made it until mid-October taking the bus to work and then it became just too much of a headache - it was proving to be a huge cost emotionally as well as time-wise, so she asked her parents to drive her car to Detroit from California. Here is the confession part: While she was telling us this, I was having some judge-y thoughts. I, the city girl who has navigated life thus far without relying on my own car, would certainly do better. I don't get stressed by the bus but rather find it relaxing and quite a good time, meeting neighbors and having good conversation.
If we've been in any communication in the last couple weeks, you're probably already laughing at me. My dad will arrive in town later tonight driving none other than my new car, bought from a dear friend in Minneapolis. So this is me, eating my judgmental thoughts, eating my words, and feeling both excitement for the mobility and wider access this will afford me and a deep sense of loss and confusion.
I love riding the bus. My rainy day commute often includes some great conversations with people at the bus stop, at the station, and between the stop and work/home. I've seen and greeted neighbors outside of the neighborhood that I met at our bus stop, which is a big deal for a person newly arrived. But my rainy day commute also takes almost four times as long as my dry day commute by bike. Or sometimes it takes 1.5 times as long. There's just no telling. (Once it took 2 hours to get home, and home and work are only four miles away from one another.)
One thing I'm learning is just how well I'm used to things running and working out for me. From buses to how much national organizations/church bodies actually care about my town, I have lived in some places that were clearly pretty top-priority and now I am in a place that is decidedly not a priority for anyone outside of here. In El Salvador, the buses ran all the time, because everybody had to use them; in the Twin Cities, it's easy to assume that the whole ELCA has its business together. It's a lot harder to see privilege than it is to see its opposite, especially when you live surrounded by privilege. It's easy to assume that the way things work for you are the way they work for everyone. These are all things I knew theoretically before, but coming face to face with their reality on a daily basis is demoralizing. And I've only been at this seven weeks. After an especially long, soggy trip to work one day, I was talking with a volunteer* and I mentioned the hassle of busing here. He said that he liked it, since it made him get out and walk around more. My response (which thankfully stayed inside my head) was, "NO! That just doesn't pan out if you have to get your ass to work every day!" Or drop of your kids at daycare. Or get groceries, or go to the bank, or any of the many, many daily activities that don't go on within walking distance of your home. (Which, when you don't live in downtown or Southwest, is a whole lot of things. And I will also admit that I often wish I lived in Southwest - it is the Seward/Longfellow/Corcoran of Detroit, for sure.) It is really frustrating, though when I'm looking for humor in it, I think in terms of "I fought the buses and the buses won."
None of this is to say that I am not excited to have the vastly mobility of a car. Now I'll be able to join the choir at the Y, which will be good for my soul; I will have a lot more possibilities as far as church-looking goes. Plus I get to see my dad! It's just hard to get around the fact that this one more thing that I can do, while a lot of other folks don't have that option. Maybe I should focus less on getting 'around' it and just live in it. I want to write a set of commitments for myself as a car owner. I'll put them here if I get them into any polished state. In the meantime...happy trails? (I'll keep working on my sign-off.)
*In this guy's defense, he's young, here working as a farm volunteer, living next to the church, and an incredibly hard worker. So his current situation is perfect for taking time to walk around and take in the city, which is a thing I love to do, too, and don't begrudge him for a moment. The comment just caught me at the wrong time.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
From drowned rat to high and dry
I am sincerely hopeful that I've cashed in my bad bus karma for a good long while to come, all in a day's commute. This morning it rained steadily, not a downpour, but strong enough to soak. My bus stop has no shelter or trees nearby, so it was pretty much me and my coffee mug standing there waiting on the bus to come, which it did - 5 minutes late. Those five minutes made the difference between catching and missing my intended transfer at Rosa Parks Transit Center.
Missing the 21 bus was no big deal, because the 29 also runs by my work from the station. Fine - I hopped that but and arrived on time, soggy, but on time and in decent spirits.
Fast forward to the end of the day. I had calculated yesterday that if I leave work at 4:57, I can be home by 5:30, whereas leaving at 5:10 has me home after 6pm and waiting quite some time for my transfer in between. So I headed out at 5 'til 5, caught my bus (again, a few minutes later than scheduled, but in Minneapolis I frequent the 2, so I'm no stranger to wonky bus punctuality), and got to the station at 5:10 for my 5:15 bus home. 5:20 rolls around and still no bus. 5:40 comes (the departure time for the next bus) and still nothing. 6pm (the next departure time) and nothing - and all the while every other bus is rolling in and out like nothing has happened. By this time there are about 40 of us waiting for the #31.
At 6:20 (70 minutes later and 40 pages further in the book I'm reading), I hopped a bus that runs down a parallel street about a mile and a half south of our house. I took that bus to our cross street and walked up to the house.
The walk was good for me in several ways. I was able to settle my frustration a bit, just being in the cool air, seeing the few fallen leaves and the handful of people who were outside along the way. At the same time, I stayed frustrated at the fact that there were still 40 Eastsiders still waiting for their bus. I have no idea what happened to cause the (at least) triple no-show, but the other folks I was waiting with didn't seem too surprised. And there are any number of reasons why someone would have chosen to keep waiting rather than take the bus I took - having small kids, lots to carry, not being comfortable walking through the area between Jefferson and home, mobility issues.
So I'm frustrated, puzzled, unsurprised by this. A small part of me is glad that I was able to re-craft my plan on the spot, but that's a tiny victory (and mostly proves I can read the marquee on the front of the bus). And as goofy as it sounds, when I got home I was exhausted, just from that experience of waiting and not knowing when the bus would come. I had left work with grand plans of cooking up some of the beautiful produce we were given yesterday. But by the time I arrived at the house, I was beat. I warmed up leftover soup and sat down to President Obama's speech.
Like I said in reference to the 2 bus in Minneapolis - I am no stranger to waiting for buses, even in the bitter cold. But this has me thinking. What are the justice implications of 40 people from the poorest parts of Detroit just getting left at the bus station during afternoon rush hour? If any had to pick up kids from day care, they're looking at extra fees. If any had to meet with a parole officer, they could be looking at jail time. And shoot, if there were any others simply looking forward to cooking and relaxing for the evening, they lost that chance.
It's late and I'm tired, so I'll leave it there, except to say, on an entirely unrelated note: I have decided that the Rosa Parks Transit Center is probably the most aptly-named tribute to any person that I'm aware of. It's the polar opposite of naming an airport after Ronald Reagan. A transit station named after Rosa Parks. Hmm... I want to be the person who thought of that.
Missing the 21 bus was no big deal, because the 29 also runs by my work from the station. Fine - I hopped that but and arrived on time, soggy, but on time and in decent spirits.
Fast forward to the end of the day. I had calculated yesterday that if I leave work at 4:57, I can be home by 5:30, whereas leaving at 5:10 has me home after 6pm and waiting quite some time for my transfer in between. So I headed out at 5 'til 5, caught my bus (again, a few minutes later than scheduled, but in Minneapolis I frequent the 2, so I'm no stranger to wonky bus punctuality), and got to the station at 5:10 for my 5:15 bus home. 5:20 rolls around and still no bus. 5:40 comes (the departure time for the next bus) and still nothing. 6pm (the next departure time) and nothing - and all the while every other bus is rolling in and out like nothing has happened. By this time there are about 40 of us waiting for the #31.
At 6:20 (70 minutes later and 40 pages further in the book I'm reading), I hopped a bus that runs down a parallel street about a mile and a half south of our house. I took that bus to our cross street and walked up to the house.
The walk was good for me in several ways. I was able to settle my frustration a bit, just being in the cool air, seeing the few fallen leaves and the handful of people who were outside along the way. At the same time, I stayed frustrated at the fact that there were still 40 Eastsiders still waiting for their bus. I have no idea what happened to cause the (at least) triple no-show, but the other folks I was waiting with didn't seem too surprised. And there are any number of reasons why someone would have chosen to keep waiting rather than take the bus I took - having small kids, lots to carry, not being comfortable walking through the area between Jefferson and home, mobility issues.
So I'm frustrated, puzzled, unsurprised by this. A small part of me is glad that I was able to re-craft my plan on the spot, but that's a tiny victory (and mostly proves I can read the marquee on the front of the bus). And as goofy as it sounds, when I got home I was exhausted, just from that experience of waiting and not knowing when the bus would come. I had left work with grand plans of cooking up some of the beautiful produce we were given yesterday. But by the time I arrived at the house, I was beat. I warmed up leftover soup and sat down to President Obama's speech.
Like I said in reference to the 2 bus in Minneapolis - I am no stranger to waiting for buses, even in the bitter cold. But this has me thinking. What are the justice implications of 40 people from the poorest parts of Detroit just getting left at the bus station during afternoon rush hour? If any had to pick up kids from day care, they're looking at extra fees. If any had to meet with a parole officer, they could be looking at jail time. And shoot, if there were any others simply looking forward to cooking and relaxing for the evening, they lost that chance.
It's late and I'm tired, so I'll leave it there, except to say, on an entirely unrelated note: I have decided that the Rosa Parks Transit Center is probably the most aptly-named tribute to any person that I'm aware of. It's the polar opposite of naming an airport after Ronald Reagan. A transit station named after Rosa Parks. Hmm... I want to be the person who thought of that.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Labor Day
The Spirit of God is so often likened to the wind and on this, the coolest day that I've felt in almost 18 months, with a lively breeze that invited me out to the back porch for an hour or so, I do indeed feel as though I've been kissed by the Spirit. It is Labor Day in the US and a day of rest at Spirit of Hope. So it has been a morning of slow, paced cleaning, reading, music, and coffee drinking. Like I said, the wind called me outside and spent the last hour reading under a blanket out back. I'm closing in on 100 pages left in Kathleen Norris' The Cloister Walk and I very much recommend it. It is simple and beautiful, full of poetry and the wisdom of people who lived ages ago but still rings so true I can almost feel the reverb in my feet.
It's Labor Day, and in an hour or so, President Obama will be speaking in here in Detroit about jobs, I would imagine. And workers. I have such difficulty knowing how to feel about his time as president. I can pretty easily convince myself from one way to the other in a matter of moments, which gets exhausting sometimes! Maybe I ought to let myself live in the frustration - or better described, the discomfort - of not being sure. Leave the door open. Leaving the door open does not preclude living with expectations, however.
It's Labor Day, meaning that this weekend is the Detroit International Jazz Festival. And international though it may be, I still get to see some hometown talent, since the Steeles are in town performing this afternoon as part of the festival. I'm excited to go downtown to see them - and equally excited that the outing will require a scarf!
Things continue well on the work front. My supervisor is great. We have a new turkey - a ladyfriend for Uncle Bob, whom we are calling Auntie Roberta. (Yes, those are my dad's name and my mom's middle name. No further comment, except to say I had nothing to do with the names. :) Casa Yusef Shakur continues to cook good food, listen to excellent music, see interesting speakers and fun movies, and get to know the D. Tomorrow my supervisor is giving me a walking tour of the neighborhood surrounding the church, after which I can start going out and having conversations with folks about what they need in the way of HIV services and how Spirit of Hope and play a part in meeting those needs. I'm really looking forward to that.
It's Labor Day, and in an hour or so, President Obama will be speaking in here in Detroit about jobs, I would imagine. And workers. I have such difficulty knowing how to feel about his time as president. I can pretty easily convince myself from one way to the other in a matter of moments, which gets exhausting sometimes! Maybe I ought to let myself live in the frustration - or better described, the discomfort - of not being sure. Leave the door open. Leaving the door open does not preclude living with expectations, however.
It's Labor Day, meaning that this weekend is the Detroit International Jazz Festival. And international though it may be, I still get to see some hometown talent, since the Steeles are in town performing this afternoon as part of the festival. I'm excited to go downtown to see them - and equally excited that the outing will require a scarf!
Things continue well on the work front. My supervisor is great. We have a new turkey - a ladyfriend for Uncle Bob, whom we are calling Auntie Roberta. (Yes, those are my dad's name and my mom's middle name. No further comment, except to say I had nothing to do with the names. :) Casa Yusef Shakur continues to cook good food, listen to excellent music, see interesting speakers and fun movies, and get to know the D. Tomorrow my supervisor is giving me a walking tour of the neighborhood surrounding the church, after which I can start going out and having conversations with folks about what they need in the way of HIV services and how Spirit of Hope and play a part in meeting those needs. I'm really looking forward to that.
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