This is how we roll

When we roll, we do so through a gate and past a guard station. But this ain't no Checkpoint Charlie--there are brass dear frolicking in a fountain, and tasteful concrete benches for poetry writing.

When we chill, we do so in a mansion. Our mansion is not big enough nor clean enough. This is the tragedy of California--you have to hire Mexicans to do what Eastern Europeans can do so much better.

When we roll, we roll in a Lexus. Please do not roll down the windows. There is a fire nearby.

I intercepted this myspace.com transmission from a cousinster to an honorary cousinster.

It's brutal. I can't stop saying it in my head.

I'm wactose intolerant.

Which made doing my job last week difficult, as child welfare is fundamentally wack. I had two big DCFS meetings in which people who had never met the children not only diagnosed these children but then made idiotic claims about what should be done to help them with the disorder we had just decided they had. Like therapy three times a week to address "attachment issues." Seeing as we had just removed this boy from his home before Christmas because, basically, his people are street-level West Siders, I was thinking that a good first step, beyond attachment centered play therapy, might be to give the child a fucking home. But that's just me. I'm not the head of DCFS clinical, and there is a reason for that: I am not a complete tool.

During the other meeting I admitted to my client that the whole thing was a set up to make the system--including, bless my heart, me--feel much better about steamrolling through childrens' lives. She suggested that she enter the room and yell "My caseworker thinks y'alls talking some bullshit!" and oh, I wish she had. Because they were talking some bullshit, asking this poor baby, all dressed up for yet another meeting about another foster home, to "tell us what you want out of this." She wants, if I may speak for her: to not have a crack addicted mother, to have not been placed in a foster home with a rapist, to have just one of the people who promises to be her mother actually be her mother. And these meetings, if they involve a teenager, always have this skin-crawling moment in which a caring adult makes stern eye contact and says that this is the time to make the choice to turn your life around. I hope you slept better after that completely useless speech, wackass. Does anyone really think that she has never heard that before? What if the life you are turning around is debased and shaky and badly in need of some gentle love?

My rage is righteous and justified. I will also mention, for full disclosure, that my rage is prideful; during both meetings there were allusions to the idea that the children might require more effective therapy. This is a knife in my heart. I don't think I can do any better than I am doing right at this moment, care anymore, work any harder, and the idea that my work isn't enough, or isn't right, just kills.

There is no way to know, is the problem. The measures they have developed to quantify therapeutic progress complete disintegrate when applied to multi-problem (poor, neglected, and abused) children and families. It's a creepy soft science and I cultivate this doubt, I think it keeps me sharp, a doubt in therapy and a doubt about my ability to do therapy. On the other had, I will not tolerate this doubt on the tongue of some bureaucrat who has hitched their star to the gruesome DCFS thresher.

Oh, the rheatoric. It feels good, it feels really 1998, to get back in touch with the seminal social work rage that put me on the path of poverty and righteousness I currently travel. Sometimes, with all the love and non-judgement and relativism, I forget how good it feels to find some wack bullshit and then just explode it with laser-like rage. In my head. While shaking hands. Polite smiles. Enjoy the holidays!

ONWARD! UPWARD!

I hesitate to describe the exact nature of my upwardness and onwardness, since I feel like, if I were to access those parts of my brain today, my head would explode. Short version: I hung out in Brooklyn with an amazing friend and then I went to a mountain retreat that jacked up my shit.

I mean: seriously. Even unraveling what exactly got jacked up is going to take a great deal of time and patience and, shockingly, maybe some yoga. I had an idea of myself and now I have to inhabit that idea of myself while, at the same time, adjusting some of my core beliefs about me and who I am and what I deserve. It is a blessing. It is exhausting.

My girl is always with me. I was questioning even my affection for Mary after all the mother love and mother pain of the last three years, but there she was, patient and holy, across the street from Kate's house. And when I arrived first for the mountain retreat I went for a walk and she was sitting in the bushes. I thought: If they were crazy people they wouldn't have a grotto.
They are not crazy people, just people like me, broken and needy. I don't know about you: maybe you're fine. Have you heard the Leonard Cohen song "Anthem"? I heard it a lot on the mountain. While "So Long, Marianne" is the better tune, you can't beat this:

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in

It's the perfect place for me, really, except for the nature all around. Everyone shows their saddest parts and angriest parts and tenderest needs, and you get to be there with them. If only there were more buildings around, super trendy people, and loud music: it would be heaven. In fact, I got a lift back to the city, but first my ride wanted to stop at the Outlet Mall. St. Renegade the Blessed gets exactly what she needs: the opportunity to touch Prada shoes and Dior dresses with no worries about Pretty Woman-type sales people because it's an outlet mall staffed by bored teens. It was the sickly sweet cherry on top of my Enlightenment Sundae.

The idea of moving to Brooklyn occured to me, and continues to do so. We shall see. I love Chicago like mad but I could return to the mountain and train at the mountain and live with a Dear Friend. Brooklyn itself has nothing on Chicago, except: the chrome fencing. I don't understand how this hasn't moved from Brooklyn/Queens to the South Side of Chicago. It's like rims for your lawn.
Anyway, friends. I hope to be hugging you more when I see you, and seeing more of you when I am with you. At some point I'll have the words to share without head explosion worries.

Stigmata

This is my burn in the shape of a rose. This is my Juan Diego moment; this is when Mary has physically touched my life. Picture St. Renegade's heart all mashed up in her chest, and then imagine letting all the light get in, which also lets all the light get out, and then there was light everywhere and my arms wouldn't stop tingling. The retreat center was MetaphorLand, I was breathing meaning all day, and so many thoughts are jumping from my big heart to my big brain that I feel like I'm coughing up rose petals. I want you to listen to the song "Method Acting" by Bright Eyes. I want you to know that I love you.