January 31, 2008

Talking to Myself While Driving

There is a hospital near my place of employment that offers valet service. There is a panhandler just down the way from there with the cough of consumption. He hasn’t seen a doctor in years. Maybe if he had a car to valet?


I bought a shopping bag at a big box store--the canvas, reusable kind. It was only 99 cents and seemed sturdy. While I was digging for change to cover the tax, the cashier placed it in a plastic shopping bag. Who bags a bag?


I often have lunch at a great, little place located next to an abortion clinic. Anti-abortion folk are always outside with gruesome pictures blown up as big as their pick-ups. They have a new sign that says, “All Michael Vick did was kill some dogs.” Didn’t God create babies AND dogs?


A neighbor down the road has a house back a long drive. It sits next to an open field. Deer gather there in the early morning by the dozens to graze. This neighbor put in a mud hut by the driveway. Why hunt when you can just shoot?

Posted by Ohio Girl at 04:11:03 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

January 11, 2008

The Resolute of the New Year

It is dark, cold, and raining. We all know how I feel about that. I am soaked, having just come in from an interview.

 She was a lovely young woman. Just finished college. Smart. Willing to do the work despite the awful pay. Only thing is her Dad stabbed her Mom last month. She has to testify next week. Her Mom is not speaking to her because she’s thinking about forgiving Dad. She wants so badly to help others, this young woman, the way she couldn't help her Mom, I suppose, but I think she is too close to it. I think it would eat her alive.

I paused from the monotony of grant reporting yesterday to have a bit to eat. I had been thinking about my granny smith apple smothered in peanut butter all morning. As I ate I opened up msn.com to catch up on the news.

 I think the grim reaper must be freelance writing these days. All of the headlines were straight-up death. There was the man that threw his four, small children off a high bridge. The new details about the finals days of the missing hiker. There was the blogging soldier who posted a piece about his death. An if-you-are-reading-this-I-am-dead blog. And then there was the Prime Minister of Pakistan blaming Benazir Bhutto for her own assassination.

 "She should not have stood up," he said, referring to her waving out of the sun roof of her car.

Damned if those headlines did not ruin my granny smith.

 What are we to each other? It feels like a new question, but i think it’s just that I have not asked myself in a while. At some point in my social work career I suppose I felt I understood some of the more unfathomable triggers of human behavior; some of the ways that love turns to hate and vice versa. I have felt insulated by that understanding; protected by the distance of perspective.

 A client came around drunk and bleeding the other night. She stumbled around numb leaving a blood trail through the building. A smudge on the pole of the porch, a little pool where she almost fell in the entry hall. She was trying to find her bed as 9-1-1 was called. She just wanted to get some sleep. Her mess was still evident the next morning like a CSI scene.

She made it to court after the hospital. Not yet showered. Still wearing her injuries. Her right shoe--a white one--had gone all brown. As the Advocate stood with her she smiled and waved at the man who tried to kill her. She smoothed her hair and wished she had gotten a chance to clean up.

Who in the hell are we to each other?

Today was a parade of meetings; another sort of man-made misery. At 9:30 it was about getting disabled victims of violence service access. At 11 AM it was about managing volunteers. At Noon it was something about a new policy. At 2 it was a client case review. At 4 it was that lovely young woman who wants to help so badly.

Maybe I SHOULD hire her. It may eat her alive, but it may eat her alive anyway, no matter where she works. And I get the impression she would rather stand up and be shot down, than not stand up at all.
Posted by Ohio Girl at 04:00:12 | Permanent Link | Comments (3) |