Scott says I need to lighten up, but I just can’t

You know me. I’m about as upbeat as they come. Once, when I perkily approached a somber teenaged peer sitting on the steps outside the auxiliary building during a break from youth group activities, he glumly turned towards me to ask, “Are you ever NOT happy?” It’s in my bones.

But Scott informed me that, in the blog, I’ve sorta been a downer lately.

Nothing has changed about my optimistic wiring, I assure him (and you). It’s just that I find myself yearning to get messy and uncomfortable in the murky depths of junk. ALL SORTS OF JUNK. Bring it, Junk!

Injustice, bring it.
Racism, bring it.
Violence in young people, bring it.
Social isolation, bring it.
Opioid epidemic in this country, bring it.
Mental health, bring it.
Technology addictions and imbalance, bring it.
Homelessness, bring it.
Bullying, bring it.
Suicide, bring it.

I’m not scared and I’m not in denial about You which impair us and pose obstacles for us, Junk. I won’t be off-the-grid Pollyanna. I will be in-the-weeds Wonder Woman - looking at you in the eyeball head-on (with my dreamy voluptuous breast plate on, too).

This does not mean I won’t go out for a think-free night from time to time with friends and talk about sitcoms and home decor and Spring fashion.

It does mean, Junk, that you are tucked in my cranial recesses pretty much all the time, and I refuse to ignore, keep quiet, or numb myself to you.

I also refuse to vilify You; You don’t deserve that kind of power. 

You, Junk, are simply a Road Block. And all of us Wonder Women and Wonder Men are strong. We’ll simply get you out of our way.

Last I checked, a smile on the face was not a requirement for super-hero strength.

A La Carte

I won't bore you with the minutia of details surrounding the cable snafu we had back in the Fall. To sum up, it went something like this: Call to report internet is down, troubleshoot over phone with one rep, problem fixed for a couple days, call to rehash the downed internet story all over again, troubleshoot over phone with a difference rep, then a different one, then a different one. Once case got bumped to the "SEND SOMEBODY" category, we got to be delighted by the charm of one, then two different technician dudes in our home. Then a third. It was like "Sliding Doors" meets "Cable Guy."

Whoops. I just bored you with the details of my cable snafu.

End of story: After regurgitating my cable sob story a solid dozen times and the passing of a solid dozen months (SIKE: two), the original problem got fixed.

I know that you know this story from personal experience, or a variation of it, well. But when I reflect, here's the confounding part: Every Xfinity employee - count them seven - involved in epic Arthur-Cable-Crash-of-2017 did his/her job and did it well. I wanted to be frustrated with Wanda, Brian, Sherry, Malcolm, Jerry, Jason, AND Greg, separately. Believe me, I did.

But it wasn't any of these workers who failed me... they weren't to be blamed for delaying my hard earned TV drama binge habits. In fact, they were quite honestly top notch.

It's the model that failed me. 

So a la carte. So specialized. So small picture. So cog in the wheel. So work-up-to-the-boundary-of-job-description-paramaters-but-no-more. So "Take a number, please." So Left Hand Doesn't Know What Right Hand, nor whole body, Is Doing. So Big Business... 

Have you ever watched Grey's Anatomy? I was obsessed for a solid decade (and will never get those hours back). I remember a scene featuring an exasperated parent whose kiddo had been through the ringer - years and years of medical problem after medical problem unresolved. In they march to the hospital and this time Mom means business. She turns to Meredith Grey after an emotionally charged moment (cue tear-invoking music) and says, "I need you to be more than his doctor. I need you to make him your Number One Problem. Make him your person." 

I'm sure you experience no dismay when I tell you there is a happy ending. Grey stays up all hours, cracks the code, and exits the episode a hero to the child and family.

Hollywood medicine? Yes. Does this scene help me thread my point? Shamelessly, def.

Let's talk about medicine's model and whether it has a tendency to march to the same beat to that of cable companies...

Another true story: Our eight year old Sullivan starts exhibiting tics at school and home. Tics blow up to impairing proportions. Parents take Sullivan to primary care doc. A lovely woman, believe me. Primary care doc listens, exams, asks questions. Primary care doc writes referrals, sending parents and Sullivan to four different specialists, some to rule out scary shit, some to get more questions answered - then recommends a follow-up appointment with her office in a couple weeks. Sullivan and parents head home to begin the specialist-appointment-making assignment (and subsequent insurance company rigamarole - nuther topic for nuther day). Primary care doc types up post-visit report, snaps shut her laptop, takes a swig of Diet Coke, then goes on to her next appointment. Primary care doc spends zero seconds thinking about Sullivan's case from the moment she closes his online chart.

Primary care doc and I get along great. As far as pediatricians go, she's a gem. Been in the business for decades, seen it all, and cuts to the chase. I've gotten to the bottom of many problems with primary care doc's discerning eye.

And, to drive this point home again, she is absolutely doing her job and doing it well. 

I don't feel icky towards our pediatrician. 

And if you're guessing what I do feel icky towards, YES, it would be the model.

I do sometimes fantasize about the old model. You know...the Laura Ingles model... when the town doc comes to visit when you've empaled yourself with a pitchfork or when you are experiencing symptoms of sedentary or when you're swept up with worry over the development of a strange, growing rash. That doc knows your symptoms, yes, but that doc also knows YOU. That doc doesn't have a patient every 25 minutes, nor the mind-numbing chore of oodles of paperwork and, rather,  leaves your house with you on her mind all the way back to the office (on her horse). She might even make a courtesy call that night. And maybe even the next day. And beyond.

You are her problem. You are her person.

This phenomenon crosses over into the way we educate today... teacher time with kids split up into tiny little slivers. One year at a time. And, in upper grades, 55 minutes or less each day per year at a time. I was a teacher. I'd like to think I developed trusting relationships and had a pulse on my students. But, I admit, I lost track of most once they left me. I was not there beyond my one year to catch a trend change, a behavior shift, a broad strokes pattern forming. And the next year's teacher doesn't have the context of the year before and the same problem with the year after... one year sometimes isn't enough. Despite all the conscientious colleague collaboration and communication that I know goes on beyond the scenes (and beyond the job description), teachers are limited by the model.

Laura Ingles and Anne of Green Gables, in their one room school houses, I bet got the full experience. Not a thing could slip through the cracks of their teachers' tight knit oversight and long-range-sight. Serving at max the pupils that could fit in one small room at a time and for multiple years, a teacher of that prairie school makes each student her problem, her person.

If there are any internet technicians, customer service reps, doctors, or teachers who haven't kissed this blog entry goodbye already, I PROMISE what follows has been worth the drudgery. I'm gonna perk up my thus-far Debbie-downer one-sidedness. Oh, yes. Perk. Up. I. will.

GUESS WHAT? My fantasies about the glamor of the-good-ole-days are wrought with all kinds of trouble. (P.S. Ignoring the trouble is what makes them fantasies. A girl is entitled.).

I don't want my kids attending a prairie school, without the resources for a kick-ass International Baccalaureate program or foreign language offerings or a Chess Club, Theater Club, or - heck -My Little Pony Club, and where they don't get exposed to a rainbow of diversified teaching styles and mentorship. I don't want a one-stop-shop, small-town doctor working on something as unusual and neurologically complicated as a tic disorder. Hands off, generalist! And, as long as it took to get shuffled from one Xfinity rep to another, I cannot imagine the additional inconvenience that would stem from bagillions of teensy mom-and-pops cable providers, all operating on their conflicting and limited homegrown grids.

Our population has grown. Our knowledge of the human body and what can go wrong with it has grown. Our opportunities have grown. And our businesses and their impact have grown.

I don't want to go backwards.

I just want to go forward with more intentionality.

Because I'm me, I've brewed up a plethora of ways to "go forward with more intentionality" and absolutely all of them are altruistically motivated and absolutely none of them make sense economically. Business majors would roll their eyes at my scheming.

How can we make stubborn, relentless, loyal, holistic, big picture, follow-through caring profitable?

How can we make stubborn, relentless, loyal, holistic, big picture, follow-through caring in everyone's job description?

Thank my stars, visionaries with far bigger brains than mine in for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations around our globe who look to answer those two questions are popping out of the altruistic woodwork. I do my happy dance. Thanks, Millennials. Your cause-caring is paying off.

I'd say let's let this rub off - in more ways than it already has - on how we do business systematically, too. With medicine. With education. Let's blend a little of the old with the new we've got now. Sounds like a yummy stew of possibility.

Make new friends. Keep the old. There's something to be learned from both.

I'm not here to talk about guns.

And I'm not here to talk about failed security measures. I'm here to talk about nests.

When something like Florida happens and something like Westerville, OH happens (which happens to be the tight-knit community where my alma mater is nestled), there is definitely a need to talk. It's just that I don't want to talk about the stuff of lawmaking or the stuff of breakdowns in safety protocol.

For now - at least - what I want to talk about is nests.

We have had a lot of them in our home recently. 

Since we moved in to our house, we've had a mouse problem. They would come and they would go with seasonal changes. And, despite significant cash being blown on varmint control services, the sneaky little devils found ways to enter, visiting for short whiles to crunch up some crumbs (PLENTIFUL HERE), and exit at their own free will. This past Fall, we did some remodeling to our kitchen. Knowing that their main entry point from outside was behind the existing 1950s cabinets meant that I WAS A MADWOMAN about having our contractor patch... patch...and then patch some more the walls once the old cabinets went Bye-Bye. Seriously... a mad woman. Lots of boards, plaster, foamy stuff, then more boards, plaster, and foamy stuff... Lowe's loved us. And, better yet, it worked! Our house was like Fort-freakin-Knox. 

Except that then we had a couple rogue furry friends trapped inside Fort-freakin-Knox. 

How do I know this? 

When a mousy has no home to return to in its natural outside environment, mousy makes one. When Tricia stumbles upon it (say: in her scarf and hat basket), he skitters out, makes a mental note not to return to that territory and then proceeds to scout out a spot for another one (say: in one of the kids' drawers of trinkets) and so on. 

You get the idea: Mice need nests. 

Fast forward to now. We finally found and captured our two little mouse inhabitants after awhile and all was peaceful and nest-less in our home.

Then, this week, our 5 yr old forgets to secure the little door clasp on his hamster cage one evening and the next morning... no Harry the Hamster. 

I'll go ahead and spoil this story by telling you that there is no happy ending for his owner: Harry is still lost (sad for Anderson), likely doing trapeze routines from one 2x4 to another in the inner structure of our home (happy for Harry). But while, in the first few days, we were still fervently on the hunt to uncover Harry's whereabouts, the first thing I told Anderson was that we were looking for clues other than a siting of the small, furry critter itself. Fresh off of the newly acquired Mice-Behavior-Crash-Course I said, "The very first thing an animal knows to do when it is newly in an environment is to make itself a home - a nest - to serve as his safe place." I then described the string and shredded paper and fuzz and carpet threads to be on the look-out for that might compose a hamster home.

As I said, no dice.

But when I listened to my unscripted description of animal homemaking instincts, I instantly realized that one could replace "animal" with "person." 

We humans are built to need nests. To need shelter. To need home. 

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs teaches us it's at the top of the list... We seek physical safety and protection above all else.

Yes yes. A physical nest is a requirement.

There's a another kind of nest that I argue is right up there with sticks and feathers and yarn and 2x4s and shingles. Our particular brand of animal - our human species - requires the social and emotional nest just as desperately. (You knew I was gonna do that whole figurative thing, didn't you?)

Where do you find your social and emotional nest? I go to mine to contemplate and to process and to disagree and to cry and to giggle and to drink and to gain perspective and to gripe and to get on soapboxes and to be humored and to be put in my place and to be listened to. I go to mine to feel loved, to feel sane, to feel safe, to feel my realest of real selves. I get the willy nillies even contemplating a life where my social/emotional nest doesn't exist. Actually, to get real with you, I get nauseous in my belly.

And, so here's what I want to talk about.

Why are so many people lost? Why are so many people hurting and confused and rage-filled and desperate and deranged and perspective-crushed and hollow and disassociated and isolated and departed-from-wholeness and... back to the crux of it... LOST?

Why are so many people eating next to us and driving next to us and grocery shopping next to us and working at the desk next to us and living next to us and coming home to a home every night like the rest of us... yet without a nest?

Why are so many socially and emotionally homeless? 

And how are we not seeing it?

Guns - the place they have in American society as it stands now - are a problem. Security measures, particularly in schools, have room for improvement.

But today I want to talk about healing people. And the most on-the-ground way I can think to do that in my I'm-a-normal-person way is to look around. Put on my sensitivity goggles and look through those lenses so hard that the socially homeless...the emotionally bankrupt...the "nestless".... do not go unnoticed or untended to. At least not by me.

But I can't do it alone.

As American society rebounds from our cultural abandonment of the work of intentional nest-making, I hope fleets of people will be on this same lookout... I hope that we will return to believing that we belong to each other, that we are in this together. I hope that at some point nestlessness will be not only a rare thing, but a forgotten epidemic altogether... something in our distant memory. That there will be not one soul left shivering in a dark corner, hungry and alone and scared. And by that point, I would hope that guns and safety and the work of dodging worst-case scenarios would not need to be talked about at all.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* Know that I know there are reasons bigger than social isolation which bring people to a deranged state. I omitted diagnosable mental health from this conversation on purpose... In part, because I think the two are connected... those with mental illness know best the experience of being disenfranchised from social nests - sometimes by choice, sometimes not. The other part of the reason I left mental health out is because it's so damn complicated and, admittedly, above my pay grade. But know that I know that it is there and it is big.

* Know that I care deeply about the very things I didn't want to talk about today: legislature to change gun laws and protocol to keep our kids and police officers safe during the day. I do not intend to come off as flippant or "above" those very real issues. I just didn't want to talk about them today. (Maybe tomorrow.)

* I can't. I just can't. That's the reason this entry positions itself a distance away from the anguish and heartbrokenness of the actual events I cited. I don't get close enough to it in my writing to do what I've been doing for the past 5 days: crumble and cry. For those of you directly connected to these deaths, my heavy heart sits with you in your grief.