Mercury is in retrograde until April 4th. It started on March 12th and this occasion is notorious for screwing up anything involving technology, communication, transportation, and legal matters and drudging up problems (or people) from the past you thought were gone for good. And while any Mercury retrograde is sure to wreak havoc in these areas in some way -- big or small - for everyone, it also affects each of us a bit differently, depending on our sun sign.
I'm a Gemini and and though I adhere to the theory that the "best laid plans of mice and men often go awry," this current run of bad luck has been driving me crazy. Then I read the astrological forecast for Gemini during Mercury's backward dance: "... on the 23rd (of March) it moves into your professional sector and a work project could get totally screwed up. Patience is key." And here's what happened:
I'm launching the first project for the Youth Volunteer Corps (YVC) this weekend. 50 kids will be volunteering their time to work on a community service project they had voted on during our last workshop, but unfortunately it will not be the project I organized months ago, since that one fell apart late last week.
After meeting with representatives from the two Rotary clubs on the island several times since January and meeting with the Principal of one of the primary schools, I had arranged that the YVC would paint the stage and mural at the school, paint the breezeway and the walls surrounding the school, and work on the agricultural area behind the school. It was to be a partnership between Rotary, Education and the Department of Youth: Rotary would provide supplies and supervision, Education the site, and the Department of Youth would provide the kids, lunch and refreshments.
Friday morning it started. Rotary won't work on government properties unless government provides the supplies - in this case Public Works needs to supply the paint. Public Works won't supply the paint because the Principal of the school didn't give them enough notice and besides they're not on the list for paint this year. Agriculture already has a "plot" staked out at the school and they have authority over anyone else so we can't do agricultural work at the school even though the plot is nothing but a pile of dirt last I looked, and finally Rotary won't get involved with agricultural work anyway unless the school has their own supplies, which they don't. So no on the paint, no on the agriculture aspect, no on the school. Back to Rotary.
As a secondary project on that same date, we were supposed to help Rotary plant trees along a section of the road by the Port that one of the Rotary groups had adopted to care for, but when I asked my contact for the logistics of this plan so I could rethink how to organize the kids for Saturday, I was told that the trees aren't ready for planting. So no Rotary.
Between yesterday and today I put together a last minute project to clean up one of the beaches, and it is something that needs to be done no question, but it is not the kind of project I wanted the kids to experience as a first time effort. The school would have allowed them to actually see the impact of their efforts for a long time, the beach will be dirty again as soon as the fishermen come back on Monday morning. Nonetheless, I didn't want to lose the energy we have created with the expectation of this weekend launch, not for the kids or for the community; so we'll be cleaning the beach, happy to have a project to get us started, even if we have to do it retrograde.
Friday was March 23rd. See what I mean? Hard not to drink the kool aid.
And so it goes on Tuesday, March 27, 2012, eight more days until Mercury gets it right again.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
On Pollyanna, Tortoises and Hares, and Eric Clapton too.
It's not like I don't have anything to share as my infrequent blogging might suggest, it's just that I live so much inside my head these days that I don't realize I'm not staying connected until I run into myself in the mirror; easy to avoid in the cozy cave I call my home with only one small mirror above the bathroom sink. But when it happens, I catch the reflection and am reminded that I'm still here.
Back to the couch, as I catch you up.
A friend from Seattle came to visit last week, someone I've known since I was 14, one of those "you can pick up right where you left off" kinds of friends, even if it’s been years since the last connect. She gets me and I get her and that feels comfortable and safe. We did all the island stuff; beaches, tourist shops, buses and ports and long walks into town. We caught up on kids and jobs and relationships - or the lack thereof, and how it feels to be living in a world where"60 is the new 50", not an unhappy thought, just curiously complex when we consider that retirement is no longer around the corner for either of us. I enjoyed the visit, a lot. It reminded me that I had lived a life long before this one; brought back the many vicissitudes of the lives I've lived actually, and remembering with someone I trusted helped smooth out the wrinkles for the next one that waits at the end of this adventure.
The Peace Corps experience is as much about connecting cultures as it is about promoting service; I know this to be true, and though I have integrated well into the culture here I must continue to work on sharing the experience of that integration with those back home.
In seven months my service here will come to an end. It’s hard to believe that 20 months have passed since I first arrived. During the months of pre-service training, I felt most often overwhelmed, unsure of the commitment I’d made. I looked at the two years that lay ahead as time dangling at the edge of a world, flat and endless. There were so many rules, so many expectations, so much to do with little direction and few resources. It didn’t take long during my home stay to see that the culture in which I would have to immerse myself was one that saw life as the tortoise without the steady focus part when I had always viewed life as the hare without the arrogance to nap.
I let the moral ambiguity of this notion rattle around in my head for a few months and finally decided it was a question of balance. It was up to me to adjust to this new environment and to find a way to make it work. I decided to look at my service as an opportunity to experience a fresh start, to see work and success and the world from a different vantage point, to experience a new way of being. The past was in the rear view mirror and I was about to try a different road.
And that kind of Pollyanna take on the world lasted for about a month or two, but its optimism was excessive and it lacked the balance I’d decided earlier would be essential to my success here.
And then some months in and after many pulling my hair out days of frustration, I decided to do what I do best and reach out to the kids. Get down among them, be part of their experience, find out what they most want, what they think they need. Create projects and opportunities recognizing their value, giving them a voice. It’s where I knew my optimism would find a home and where I would find the best fit.
I learned names and faces and bits about their lives. I asked questions – what made them happy, what made them proud, where they saw themselves in five years - ten years, what did they love, what did they fear, what would they do to change their world if they could; and I answered questions they had for me. We learned to trust one another and I dared to think that during my time here the welfare of the kids could become a practical objective of my work. And I decided that I would do everything I could possibly do to make it better for them; everything I could do, everyday, to make that happen; even if for only the few that stuck, to keep their trust, long after I'm gone.
“If I could change the world,
I would be the sunlight in your universe,
You would think my love was really something good,
If I could change the world.” Eric Clapton
Pollyanna returns.
And so it goes March 19, 2012 on the island of St. Kitts.
Back to the couch, as I catch you up.
A friend from Seattle came to visit last week, someone I've known since I was 14, one of those "you can pick up right where you left off" kinds of friends, even if it’s been years since the last connect. She gets me and I get her and that feels comfortable and safe. We did all the island stuff; beaches, tourist shops, buses and ports and long walks into town. We caught up on kids and jobs and relationships - or the lack thereof, and how it feels to be living in a world where"60 is the new 50", not an unhappy thought, just curiously complex when we consider that retirement is no longer around the corner for either of us. I enjoyed the visit, a lot. It reminded me that I had lived a life long before this one; brought back the many vicissitudes of the lives I've lived actually, and remembering with someone I trusted helped smooth out the wrinkles for the next one that waits at the end of this adventure.
The Peace Corps experience is as much about connecting cultures as it is about promoting service; I know this to be true, and though I have integrated well into the culture here I must continue to work on sharing the experience of that integration with those back home.
In seven months my service here will come to an end. It’s hard to believe that 20 months have passed since I first arrived. During the months of pre-service training, I felt most often overwhelmed, unsure of the commitment I’d made. I looked at the two years that lay ahead as time dangling at the edge of a world, flat and endless. There were so many rules, so many expectations, so much to do with little direction and few resources. It didn’t take long during my home stay to see that the culture in which I would have to immerse myself was one that saw life as the tortoise without the steady focus part when I had always viewed life as the hare without the arrogance to nap.
I let the moral ambiguity of this notion rattle around in my head for a few months and finally decided it was a question of balance. It was up to me to adjust to this new environment and to find a way to make it work. I decided to look at my service as an opportunity to experience a fresh start, to see work and success and the world from a different vantage point, to experience a new way of being. The past was in the rear view mirror and I was about to try a different road.
And that kind of Pollyanna take on the world lasted for about a month or two, but its optimism was excessive and it lacked the balance I’d decided earlier would be essential to my success here.
And then some months in and after many pulling my hair out days of frustration, I decided to do what I do best and reach out to the kids. Get down among them, be part of their experience, find out what they most want, what they think they need. Create projects and opportunities recognizing their value, giving them a voice. It’s where I knew my optimism would find a home and where I would find the best fit.
I learned names and faces and bits about their lives. I asked questions – what made them happy, what made them proud, where they saw themselves in five years - ten years, what did they love, what did they fear, what would they do to change their world if they could; and I answered questions they had for me. We learned to trust one another and I dared to think that during my time here the welfare of the kids could become a practical objective of my work. And I decided that I would do everything I could possibly do to make it better for them; everything I could do, everyday, to make that happen; even if for only the few that stuck, to keep their trust, long after I'm gone.
“If I could change the world,
I would be the sunlight in your universe,
You would think my love was really something good,
If I could change the world.” Eric Clapton
Pollyanna returns.
And so it goes March 19, 2012 on the island of St. Kitts.
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