Sunday morning

I spent most of Saturday hung over, intermittently going over to the yoga studio I work for, signing folks in for class, laying on the couch and then signing people in again.
When I finally got home for good I laid in bed with my computer and eventually went to sleep. For 12 hours.
Needless to say, I was up at 6:45 am.
My body felt creaky and my stomach, cramp-y. I was convinced I had colon cancer.
But I proceeded to make some eggs, coffee and a berry-mango smoothy. I cleaned our old-fashioned sink reluctantly, followed by our dirt-speckled window sills. They are white now.
While the thought of calmly reading crossed my mind coupled with the thought of driving to my favorite yoga class that I could actually be on time for this morning, I did something wholly unproductive instead.
I stewed and re-played painful memories of the last year at my job. I wrote mock emails to managers and directors in what I thought was a compassionate tone. And I did this with good intentions. I wanted them to know what was happening under their noses. I wanted some form of justice. And as I read and re-read these emails something didn't feel right.
Yes, I wanted justice. But I also wanted recognition. And this is pride. This is arrogance.
Sure, should the director know about the favoritism and all the under-the-bus throwing going on? Sure. But this is not the best way to go about it and the truth is he probably already knows. My complaints will, at most, make me seem exactly what I am. Prideful. And, at worst, a tattle-tale.
After an hour and some change, I've done nothing with my morning but stew in my thoughts, in my pride and in my pain with little to no results. Those emails will just sit in the draft folder of my gmail account until I rediscover them again in a year's time when none of it will matter any more.
Maybe some day I'll be in a more centered and balanced position. And I'll be able to tell these folks from a more calm and less judgmental place just how hurt and undervalued I felt. 

"So we have to be idealists in a way.....If you don't recognize a young man's will to meaning, man's search for meaning,  you make him worse, you make him dull, you make frustrated, you add and contribute to his frustration....If you presuppose in this man--in this so-called criminal or juvenile delinquent-- there must be a spark for meaning--let's recognize this, let's presuppose it and then you will elicit it from him and you will make him become what he is principally capable of becoming" 

So it's that time again. 

Every year around this time I write a sappy entry/poem about the crisp air and the earth tone palate of the fall. I usually try to describe the season by talking extensively about the insatiable desire for tea and all things pumpkin around September 21st. I get upset when the cool fall air is delayed by summer-like heat on September 6th. I get angry when the leaves delay turning orange because dammit! It's October, and the season might end before I can go on a few runs in the Gordon woods, host a poetry reading or two, knit, fill the kitchen with the smell of apple cider and cinnamon, go to an Apple Orchard in Ipswich, reminisce about my childhood, read Annie Dillard by a fire (in someone's house with a fire-place) and pretend that I like squash. 

Love, 

Ms. Sap

P.S. I'm so excited that autumn is upon us! 

Welfare Part II

"And what gets me so angry is those people in the welfare office who don't speak any English. Here I am actually needing the services and these people just live off of the system," she told me through tightened lips while punching her fist into her hand.
I searched through my rolodex and sticky notes for landlords that might have an apartment for her and her family.
And yes, I still use a rolodex.

"Well, good news! This landlord has an apartment in Lynn that is opening up in a few weeks."

-Oh, I don't want to live in Lynn.

-Okay....
I stare at her leopard-print bag.

We embark on one of my absolute favorite conversations to have.
"Yeah..," I say. "It's tough." "Some of these families are coming from the Congo, escaping wars, hunger, famine. Or some of the Haitian families escaping the devastation caused by the earthqu"--"Oh, well not them. That's understandable," she interrupts. "Most of them are--"
-"And some of the women fleeing domestic violence. I just saw a woman yesterday who's husband was beating her and she was coming to the welfare office in search of an alternative to the violence at home. She was from Dominican Republic and certainly doesn't speak English."
--Oh, yeah...not--
"And...I work with the Spanish-speaking clients and all of them want to work but can't learn English quickly enough to get a job, so it becomes this perpetual road block to getting a job," I interrupt.
"And of course, I have one client who totally admits to using the system."
--Yeah! It's ridiculous!
"But, you know, she grew up around people who were also on the system and did not know anything beyond livelihood outside of it. So yeah. I hear you. It's hard."

This woman came into our offices after having gone to the welfare office to apply for Emergency Assistance. Her house had been foreclosed on and she, her husband and her kids were living in a tent behind her mother's house. They are over-income for any of the State benefits and are very upset about the fact that they have too much income to benefit from the system. However, they are picky about location, what the apartment might look like--"All of the places we've seen for the past few months are either run down, they won't take us because of our credit, or won't take us because of our dog."

What I wanted to say was, "Well lady, for someone who is upset about living in a tent, your list of requirements for an apartment sure is long. Sounds like you might be a little bit entitled, no?" Secondly, "What part of Annery Miranda didn't you hear?  What did you expect for me to tell you? Yeah, those Spanish speakers really ride the system don't they?"

What actually came out of my mouth is, "Here are five different options for you to explore. I really recommend following through on Mahogany Properties (not the real name). They really take care of their properties and are great landlords. You want to ask for Lucinda (not her real name)"

-Thank you so much for your help. Finally someone helps us!

-Good luck on your search ma'am.

Take "I can't" out of your vocabulary?

This afternoon, after sorting through dozens of pages of repetitive paperwork, I found myself wandering through blogs in search of a motivational quote or two.  One particular blog post stood out, but not because of its motivational qualities, but because I think I disagreed. The blogger said that in order to be happy you must take the words "I can't" out of your vocabulary.

Hm...

The things is that my recent history has taught me that the words "I can't" can actually be powerful vehicles for transformation and self care. This is also coming from a person who heard inspirational phrases like these all of her life. "Never say 'I can't!" "You can be anything you want to be." "Sky is the limit."  My optimistic Cantabridgian teachers sewed seeds of ambition and pushed me to take Intensive Geometry in High School, for example, as opposed to a class I was actually prepared for.  In the name of "I can do anything I set my mind to" I studied for Intensive Geometry, went for additional tutoring in the mornings and sought help from my classmates, but I still got a D. The following year I enrolled in Algebra II & Trig., a class that was way more suitable for my math level. The class looked less impressive on a transcript, but I got an A.

This little math scenario, however, was not enough to dispel the myth that "I can do anything" is a full proof motivational tool. I went on to take even more ambitious classes, to increase my load of extracurricular activities from 6 to 8, to working two jobs while going to school full time and living off campus without a car.  "I can't" was definitely not in my vocabulary. I did all of these things in the name of the very ambition that was instilled in me as a child.

In the last few years I've come to realize very slowly that it is not enough to believe that you can do anything you set your mind to. You must also be aware of what tools you have to work with, what limitations you are up against, the nature of the challenge you are undertaking and what exactly it takes to succeed at whatever it is you plan on setting your mind to. How many of us have failed exams we stayed up all night studying for? Received D's on papers with five page-long bibliographies? If school taught me anything it was that hard work and setting my mind to something was not enough to get me the desired result.

In fact, it was only when I started saying "I can't" and understanding my limitations that I was able to accomplish the things I set out to do. For one, I stopped trying to please everyone around me by saying "yes" to every favor people asked of me. You will never satisfy them. Secondly, I started to tell people "this is what I have the tools to do and this what I need in order to get better at the task you are asking me to complete."  It's not that I was inherently bad at math. The problem was that in addition to my right-brained disposition, I didn't have a lot of rigorous math in grade school. The building blocks were simply not there. To tell me that if I put my mind to it I could understand geometry at an intensive level in one year was impossible. Now if you told me you were going to set me up on a plan to find out the exact places where I was missing vital math concepts, and you told me you were going to tutor me on the side and help me build those blocks in order to undergird my pursuit of an intensive geometry class, that would be a bit more possible. But to tell me that if I put my mind to rocket science I could accomplish it is simply foolish.

Obviously, the cliche exists for a reason. Some people don't know their potential and need to tell themselves "Yes, we can."  But what many of us need is to cultivate the ability to say to the people, activities and things that are screaming for our attention, "No, I can't. But if you really want me to do this you're going to have to provide x, y and z."

So maybe we can modify our equation a little bit, and instead of saying

 "I can do anything I set my mind to"= success

perhaps we can say,

 "I can do anything I set my mind to" + knowledge of what it takes to complete the task + knowledge of my current capacities + resources to get me to the place where I have what it takes even if I don't have it now = success. Or...something like that.

Eh? Eh? What d'ya say?

A Week of Welfare

I've been working at the welfare office for a few days now, conducting pre-eligibility screens for a new program available to homeless families in Massachusetts. The welfare office, as it is commonly known, or the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) administers food stamps, TAFDC (the official acronym that describes the benefit people are referring to when they say "you're on welfare") and is responsible for placing families in shelter when they are homeless. It is the haven for many of the benefits we know as "entitlements" and that is exactly where most of the controversy lies, in the thought that these people feel "entitled."

"They come knocking at your door with all of their problems and just lay it on you, expecting someone else to just pick it up for them," says one of the workers.
She goes on to say, "What were you thinking when you had that child? That things would be easy?"

And I hear my colleague's concern: One of the women who came into my office today looking for shelter because she can no longer pay her rent was being very specific about what kind of shelter placement she would like and what part of the state she would like to go.  She does not work and sees her way towards progress as securing a Section 8 voucher, a program that allows low income people to pay 30% of their income towards rent.  Whereas some of us see our way out in terms of employment, she sees it in terms of a benefit the State or the Federal government provides. Upon hearing this, many a "Worker" would at least think, if not say, "You are not in the position of being picky about where you are placed, honey, if you can't pay your rent." Does this woman feel entitled to benefits she does not deserve?

Last week Tea Party senate-candidate compared welfare-recipients to raccoons looking for the easy way to get food "if we let them." Although in-articulately, like many Americans, Jon Bruning takes issue with the fact that welfare programs "do not incentivize people to work."

Here are some thoughts: 1.  Since when do people--poor or rich--intentionally look for the difficult way out? And why should we make it difficult for people to access the most basic of goods? Are Bruning's comments suggesting a sort of masochism--to make getting food stamps hard for the sake of making it hard? Is it the State's job to teach these people a lesson?
In the same week, Warren Buffet accused the United States government of coddling the rich as though they were some sort of endangered species. He reminds us that many wealthy people are also taking the easy way out. Because they can!

If you ask me, I think that the poor are not the only ones who try to get their needs met the easy way. 

2. It's a myth that everyone on welfare is just coasting along easily without a care in the world. The amount people get is hardly enough to live on and there is a time frame in which they are allowed to receive it. Folks cannot be on TAFDC forever. It's simply not allowed. Specifically, you get 24 months.

3. Throughout the hundreds of cases I have seen these last two years, seldom have I come across a person who is just ducky about being a welfare recipient. In fact, people feel a lot of shame around it. So much so, that the first thing many of these families will say to me when they walk into my office has to do with why they are unlike the other people in the waiting room at the DTA.

4. While I agree that we need to incentivize people to work, we talk about it as though welfare-recipients don't want to work. Many of them don't work--not because they are happy sitting around their respective houses all day--but because they are part of a generational cycle of poverty in which opportunities for higher education were not just handed to them. And the mention of "higher education" here is not to be taken lightly. For example, in a study released by Metro Boston Housing Partnership they found that in order for families to be successful in some of these programs that provide rental subsidies education is a huge factor.  . 

Barriers to HPRP Participation

•  The median income of families participating in MBHP’s HPRP 

program is $762 a month, or $9,144 annually. This is only 18 

percent of the income needed to support the average $1,238 

monthly rental and utility payment ($49,520 annually) and  

17 percent of the income needed to support a two-bedroom  

Fair Market Rent of $1,357 ($54,280 annually). 

•  Even if every HPRP participant is able to secure employment, 

only those with at least a bachelor’s degree can expect to afford 

the $54,280 in annual income necessary to support a $1,357 

fair market rent, as median annual earnings in the Boston- 

Cambridge-Quincy MSA for someone who has completed a 

bachelor’s degree was $53,495 in 2009, compared to $30,518 

for someone who had only completed high school.14 Only  

9 percent of HPRP participants had completed a bachelor’s 

degree, while 29 percent had completed some college,  

50 percent have completed high school only or have earned  

a GED, and 12 percent had not completed high school. 

Now, don't get me wrong, I agree that we are doing people a disservice when we give them fish instead of teaching them how to fish. I have witnessed how disempowering it can be and how it weakens their abilities over time. And I do think we need programs that help low income people access educational and career opportunities (something we're not really investing all of that much money, time or energy into). But the issue I'm taking up in this particular post is that welfare-recipients don't seem to me like a different class of people. They seem to be acting logically to illogical circumstances.

Furthermore, this week has made me think about other ways in which all of us feel entitled. Is it far fetch to diagnose our bitter rants in which we covet what others have as entitlement?   Welfare-recipients might feel entitled to food and to a few hundred dollars a month provided by the state, but what do we, folks with college degrees, job security and parents who gave us resources feel entitled to? What do we complain about not having that we think we should have?  

Research

"When I was a child, all the kids in my elementary-school class had been part of an ongoing psychological study. We got used to being subjects in a room with a one-way mirror, although unknown to our observers we could sometimes see their shadows through the glass. Once that awareness took hold, there was nothing for us to do but play to the audience." 


I remember working with DYS-involved youth a few years ago, asking many questions about social services, after-care, re-entry, recidivism and research--mostly research. I followed my time at this organization by interning for a small think-tank in Roxbury that was taking on youth in Boston as its primary subject. Simultaneously, I was taking a course in Research Methods at BU and had a deep suspicion that our subjects were often tempted "to play to the audience." Whether sub-consciously or consciously, it would only make sense that if people were always studying you--sometimes for years on end--you were going to develop an identity around this. 


I remembered the kids I worked with, the questionnaires they filled out and how familiar they were with the questions. Once I asked one of the kids, "Are you going to the Part of the Solution meeting tonight?" He responded, "I'm not part of the solution, I'm part of the problem." I chuckled because I knew he had been prepped to answer that way. 


What would happen if we turned the tables around and selected those who are always the subjects of research and made them the researchers? What if we took these DYS-involved kids and gave them the tools to research suburban non-DYS involved kids? Or urban non-DYS involved kids? What if we helped them to answer questions about what suburban non-DYS involved kids fear, how they use their time? Do they get in trouble with the authorities? What does drug use and possession look like in these areas? Is the illegal activity matched by court involvement or is the illegal activity disproportionate to the amount of court involvement and imprisonment? 


What would happen if instead of being the (loyal) subjects of research, the became the ones with the power?