Tis the season

Modern observations of the holidays are such a backwards view of their original intent. If you follow many of the Eastern Traditions that observe the body and soul as a parallel system of the natural cycle and order of things, winter embodies a quiet, slow pace. Yet our contrivances turn it inside out and upside down. 

Needless to say, thanksgiving break kicked off a hell of a last couple of weeks. I don’t even know how it got to be half way through December already. 

I have more or less come to terms with having to pick and choose my battles and have temporarily given into the celebratory crazies for the sake of our service. I indulge and exert only because I know there is a marked turning point in the near future. I cannot wait to be down in Florida with my beloved soul sister Lauren and her kids, doing true restorative work to prepare for a major self-healing journey when I return in January. 

But for now, we party-hardy!

The Open Gym was able to score a “tree” this year and we spent the first day after the break untangling light wires from its odd bendable branches and enjoyed the kids’ enthusiasm about the ornaments. I brought in a craft project for paper ornaments which a couple of the younger ones really latched onto. There is one new girl in particular who has been quite the fan of my crafts and games; I have become her go-to person when she is “bored” at the gym so the pressure is quickly gaining to have tricks up my sleeve. 

Our simple festive flair at the gym was only the start to a crazy string of events. That week, I prepared for two large events simultaneously: Our second annual talent show and a Girl’s night lock in at the Teen Center. We had decided to try and incorporate global holiday traditions as a girl’s night theme and had been coming up with so many ideas that I had the brilliant thought that we should make it an all-nighter. So we did and I quickly realized my brilliant thought was really insanity in disguise. The night was fun no doubt. And I was impressed with how much of the planned holiday stuff we could incorporate given that the girls were way wired on sugar and we had plenty of goof-off options and movies to occupy them as well. We did start the night with a showing of ‘Frozen’ which really meant 20-girls-in-a-room-acting-out-the-entire-movie-verbatum. It was pretty groovy but I definitely did not get to watch the film for a second time as I’d hoped. After that, there was some more chaos but eventually the energy level calmed to a point where Ellie could share a St. Nicholas tradition of her family’s. She had told the girls to set out their shoes at the beginning of the night and then we’d gone and filled them with candy as the tradition goes. She told the story that went along with it and then I segued into a reading of Herschel and the Hannukah Goblins which seem to go alright, although I felt some things may have fallen flat since I didn’t get to give the full run-down of the holiday. This led into a nice sharing session where everyone spoke of their own favorite holiday traditions and we ultimately put one to the test. Jaydin’s family would always do a Freeze-Dance session where they dance with the lights off and then someone would turn on the lights and everyone would have to freeze. So we decided to blast music and played the game until eventually, people were just so into the dancing that we weren’t freezing anymore.

Made the kids Latkes for Hannukah

The girls had endless reserves of energy. Ariella sewed a massive amount of stockings to decorate and the glitter got pulled out at one point. There were more games, more snacks and more movies until finally we decided to have a forced lights-out at 4am. They probably could have pulled and all-nighter no problem if we’d let them. The next morning, I drove Ellie and Lydia home, sharing in dazed, sleepy conversation. I’m still cleaning glitter out of my car. 

While I didn’t nap (I’m not good at those) I did have a fairly relaxed saturday until I had to venture out to the firehall for Packwood’s Santa sitting and tree lighting. The event piggy-backed a spaghetti dinner and I flitted about the tables, visiting with all the families and community friends I knew. It was a nice noticing of how I’ve integrated into local life here. Last year, I was simply a helper at all of these events. Now I was more fully a part of it all. A few days later we had the Randle santa visit and with a lot of the crafting and helping covered, I mostly socialized with families and checked in with a student who is a dear friend of the one student I would do anything for if I could. Last year, she was a rock of defiance but by the end of the year, I could tell that she had begun to want to open up and be more responsive with me; she needed someone to talk to. This year, she had blossomed and I’d become a welcome face to see.That night, we caught up with her school life a bit, wrote silly santa wish lists together and took even more ridiculous portraits with santa. At the end of the night, she invited me to her holiday band recital and told me she wished I could stay around for years to come. 

Over the last few weeks, comments such as her’s have been tossed my way. One student een surprised me by saying he wanted to be “An AmeriCorps” when he grew up. It’s both a really uplifting, esteem-boosting thing to hear and a comment that inspires a lot of thought. What have a brought here and what will they lose? What kinds of messages and strengths will I leave and what will get forgotten? Have I left lasting tools that can be used effectively? What are they? 

As I’ve stated time and again, I’m not good at imagining what has not yet come to pass so I can’t begin to fathom what it will be like to not live here and to not have these kids in my life. There are certain kids that I’d want to keep in touch with, track and be able to be a resource for but I know that life carries people away and that reality could get lost in the whirlwind. Yesterday, Kerissa shared that she wanted to create a “new” second half of service when we get back from break and really make it what we want and I think I’m going to try and get a comprehensive understanding of how I’ve been most helpful to kids and parents and how I can further that once I’m gone. 

And on that note, the next event of the week was the return of the Talent Show that I started with Ellie’s inspiration last year! The turn out was quite a bit smaller than last year because we’d been double-booked at the Community Hall and the date and time had to be changed tripple-times over. I think there was a lot of confusion about the when and where. Even so, the bonus of a fundraiser like the talent show is that it costs nothing to put on so we don’t have to worry about supply expenses. We had an impressive array of raffle prizes to give away and a heartwarming line up of child acts to accompany a few professional acts from local musicians. In contrast to his goofy rendition of Eminem last year, Elijah actually mustered up the courage to add a duet with his mom in near the end. A few girls from a new family in town sang a few songs and publicity-shy Mara and her friend “Breezy” did an adorable choreographed dance. Although I was a bit miffed by the small crowd, we all still had an enjoyable time and made a decent amount to put towards Civic Engagement Camp. 

I wrote a little review to the Journal: 

On Saturday December 7th, the AmeriCorps talent show returned for its second annual event in Packwood. Despite a scheduling mishap, a good number of youth and their families managed to turn out for the enjoyable evening of performances. The line-up included a variety of acts from youth and adults alike. The night was graced with songs from returning performers Paul Hanson, Jack Bowers, Autumn Barron, Elijah McHenry and Ellie Spencer. Spencer played a wonderful duet with Hanson before sharing a clever piece of her own inspired by the recent town-wide power outage. Brave first-time performers Lilli Wisse, Seth DeArth Miller, Jayla and the Mara and Breezy duo made equally delightful additions to this year’s show and AmeriCorps member and musician Ariella Hubbard closed the night with a beautiful selection of original works. 

The night also included an assortment of raffle prizes from local businesses and home-baked treats from AmeriCorps members. The proceeds from this year’s show will be going towards funding for Cispus AmeriCorps Civic Engagement Program, a weekend-long camp offered to roughly thirty 7th and 8th graders each spring. The curriculum engages the students in the process of designing, planning and ultimately carrying out a community service project. It is a great opportunity for the youth of East Lewis County to learn valuable leadership skills, build interpersonal relationships and grow a deeper understanding for the importance of having an active role in their communities. If you would like to receive more information on this program, contact Melissa Meiller at 734-904-5292 or melissa.meiller@aol.com

The next week shifted from Holiday work back to a more academic focus. At school, Mrs. Shook’s daughter had finally delivered a baby and so the class was under sub supervision and behaving abhorrently. All of Tuesday, they were taught one simple process: how to divide fractions. They goofed off the entire time and so the next day we gave them a pop quiz. I ended up sitting with half the class at recess re-teaching them the process because they scored below 50%. Actually, most got under 25%. The other half of that day was spent monitoring the hall, trying to track down Principal Vance because one student that is particularly troubled was being so disruptive that we were out of solutions. Finally, I decided to walk him to the office while we looked for Mr. Vance because he’d already chased two girls into the hallway to do work since they couldn’t focus and even then, he was coming out to fart at them every 5 minutes. On the way to the office, he muttered about how everyone hated him and made an remark about dying so I had to report to the counselor. This was a student that had shown swaths of improvement at the beginning of the year and it was so hard to watch the regression but once he was away from the classroom, I could calm down my discipline and just show patience and compassion which I don’t think he feels from a lot of people there. While it was a difficult morning, I think he appreciated my calm attitude and that was neat to see. 

For our last Open gym that week, I attempted holiday colored caramel corn. The Caramel came out thick and dark so it was harder to drizzle and color than I’d hoped and the green looked a bit poopy. Then because I was running out of time and had decided to tackle a cookie experiment on a whim, I turned up the oven temperature for the cookies on my last batch and burned the red corn. So the popcorn I presented to the kids was pretty ugly and my house still smells like I lit caramel scented candles everywhere. At least it tasted good. That night, we also finally got our act together and had our first Book Group meeting. It was only three kids - Lydia, Ellie and Elijah - but it was a great experience. It was a treat to get to know yet another side of Elijah. Although he was the youngest of the group, his inner bookworm arose to the occasion and he and the girls talked non-stop about authors and books they all knew. He was excited and did not show any apathy when it came to book choices. I was pleasantly surprised. They picked Dead End in Norvelt.

Work week done, it was back to the last of the festivities before break. 

On Thursday, I turned 25. I’m not much about birthdays these days but 25 feels significant. I’m actually rather excited for this year. I feel real change on the horizon. I feel a capability for healing and change that hadn’t yet culminated in the way it needs to. It is encouraging and necessary. 

So it was suiting that I spent the day once again with my soul-brother Dusty in Seattle who is also feeling a pivotal shift entering his life. Although the rain and the hectic logistics of parking and navigating Downtown Seattle presented a hinderance on actual activities, I thoroughly enjoyed the best gift of all: his connection and company. We spent the first hour just lounging at his house talking and then ventured to Kerry Park to see the hyped view of the Space needle. After trying to tackle some other downtown sights and getting fed up with the costly, stressful business of having a vehicle to take care of, I needed a place to relax before meeting up with my new friend Bryan for dinner and drinks. I’d learned about a place called “Cafe Mox” earlier and we decided to check it out. The place is half a cafe/bar/restaurant and half a game store with any and every board/card/strategy game you could want. If you sit in the cafe and order something, you can have access to their free game library and bring any game in to play at your table. I’d love to go back and spend an afternoon just learning new games. We played one called “Eight Minute Empire” and thoroughly amused ourselves by the fact that it took way longer than 8 minutes for us to grasp the concept and play the game. But by the end we’d decided it was a lot of fun and would probably play again. The game is in a similar to ‘Risk’ and neither of us had ever been great at strategic games involving armies and conquering and battle, as proven by our fairly non-competitive, equally distributed amount of territory added up at the end of the game. 

For dinner, we went back to Naked City where Bryan and I had ventured a few weeks ago before seeing John Oliver (did I write about that? I don’t think I did? That was a thing! Amazing!) 

Then we took our food and met Bryan at the Cider House. The night ended us up back at Dellitante where Bryan treated to what I think may be a birthday tradition of decadence whenever I celebrate in Seattle now: the epic Mocha Praline torte thing and a chocolate martini. 

With barely a pause, the next day had more partying in store. Last night was our team holiday party. After helping Ariella with the Children’s theater and having to wait until 10pm for the party, I wasn’t sure how much fun it would be but it was actually one of the best we’ve had yet. I finally felt like the whole team was vining as a family. We also played secret santa and Ainsley had tried her hand at raw and vegan to make me a surprise birthday treat. 

I came home to these! 

There is just one more party to make it through tomorrow and then I’m bound for warmth and relaxation with a beautiful woman (and a visit from mom) in Florida! And a new healing phase and a rejuvenated second half of service.