I'm still in Oak Park and haven't made a post since I got here...we're going on 5 weeks here, people. And I'm torn, because part of me feels horrible, and the other part thinks, "I'm going to blog when I want to! I don't need a deadline..."
But the thing is, co-op only comes every six months, and it only lasts for three. And it's not like nothing is happening, I'm just having difficulties writing about it.
But here I am, finally bringing myself to doing an always-pertinent public internet confession: My feelings about my new life have teetered between misery and gratitude ever since I closed my car door to begin the journey here.
After my first couple of weeks, I had met most of my co-workers and spent a few work days in an office space provided for me by a partnering sustainable community development organization called Seven Generations Ahead. The people working there were generous enough to give me the space, and I appreciated the efforts put forth by so many to bring me there. And at the same time, I had difficulty acknowledging my true feelings about being in an office...
My desk faced a pale blue wall. I sat in a wheelie chair for five hours, glued to a computer screen. My fingers typed words and phrases like "outreach", "touch base", and "I just wanted to check in with you about..." Reading back over my communications felt as if I was reading something written by a totally different person. I was even sending template emails written by someone else. I felt exhausted, and I wasn't even moving! The energy was so different from the open skies and endless fir tree-covered mountains that accompanied me every day during my last co-op in Washington state.
And I was still processing my new living situation. I'm renting a basement in a home stay for international students that is owned and run by a couple of sweet empty-nesters. Of course, after having been at Antioch for a little over a year, my cultural-sensitivity senses were on high alert right from the start. I felt very separate from these people and was too critical of the intended and established roles in the household. Tending to the sneaky soft-core rebel that dwells within me, I certainly was not about to fit anyone's mold.
I didn't know how to write about this for a public audience. My employers would most likely read it, and potentially my host family. I would hate for them to think I was not appreciative of the time, energy, and efforts they had been putting into me being able to be here.
I expressed this struggle with my co-op advisor, Brooke, over lunch a few weeks ago while she was in Chicago to scope out jobs and check in with her advisees.
Brooke listened thoughtfully and summarized: "It sounds like good material for a book."
A book.
Me? Write a book? What is a book anyway? No, only authors write books. I don't know anything about writing. A book...?
So I left our lunch meeting in a dazed limbo. I began to imagine myself in a different medium, from a character's perspective, my experience coming alive through a whisper into their fictional ear. The thought of these uncomfortable situations became a source of creative energy for me, and when I got home, I didn't want to write - I wanted to draw. I wanted to make faces, speak in different voices, write music. All of these talents that I've stifled for so long began to emerge, and it suddenly became easier to express my conflicting feelings of misery and gratitude. It even helped me feel less miserable, and more grateful.
And I mean, what's wrong with being honest and saying that you feel miserable? Everyone can say that they've felt that way at some point in their life. When it comes to expressing the simultaneous feeling of gratitude, people can't buy it. It seems that in our culture of absolutes, it is all too easy for people to not accept mixing two opposite sides of an emotion spectrum. But it must exist within others - one can feel miserable living out the same, mundane routine day after day and still love their job, right?
I any case, I know the feelings exist within me, and I'm no longer worried about sharing it. I do love what helping organize an environmental film festival is assisting - to move towards a more sustainable world by spreading ideas and sparking change within community members. And I'm getting paid, which is great!
So, as I mentioned before, most of my reflections and creativity lately have been channeled to private journalling and sketching. I recently wrote to my good friend and fellow kick-ass Antiochian, Lillian, who is co-oping in Chile, "It's an interesting and challenging exercise, to talk about real shit without sounding really shitty."
Dear Self, thank you for powering through this post, and embracing the conflicting feelings of misery and gratitude.
Panorama of my basement space
My office. And the view from the window (The Lake Theatre is across the street)
My little ukulele playing group that meets every Thursday night
Inside the Garfield Park Conservatory
From my stroll at the Morton Arboretum
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