Flash Lightning and the narrative

Someone I work with ... is the superhero Flash Lightning. In this once-upon-a-time, I am CloverGirl. Guess I'm supposed to be a kind of talisman, bringing luck, life, growth ... all while driving a souped-up New VW Beetle ... I can't help but smile. Yeah, maybe I'm just playing into someone's delusion - but then again, just maybe this is that person's narrative therapy. Good time for me to think hard about transferences and countertransference I suppose. But meanwhile ... Flash wants to protect everyone - including CloverGirl - but his one tool is lightning. Powerful yes, but all too ephemeral. I'm watching the lightning in the clouds to the north tonight, the vanguard of a midnight storm bringing fresh, cool air southward. The beauty of it stops me in my tracks, but it remains in the clouds far above where neither you nor I nor anyone else can stop it. Probably none but the very fastest camera could even capture the pale ghost of an impression of it, while a long exposure would capture the glow but none of that here-and-now, of the moment zing of it.

How like this psychotherapy work. I know I'm reading a lot more into that "narrative" than "Flash" does - or at least more than "Flash" is aware of. But it's there in the narrative. There are those who constantly verbalize the belief that these are patients of Sisyphus, that they will never get better, that they will never gain any "real" insight, that they are too far gone to the voices in their own heads and the weird fantastical invisible visions of their minds to grasp concepts in therapy. Plenty of times, I'll admit it, those people are probably right. But for all the moments that's all true, there are these moments - lightning arcs across the horizon, one or two or a handful of the people in the group "get it" - sometimes they can even see one another humanly past the misunderstanding and paranoia and distraction, just for a split second. They can't name it, but then again it's seldom I can even name that fluttering, shimmering, ephemeral butterfly's wing that starts to unfold when this caterpillar (my self) thinks the world might be coming to an end.

what is it with me and my blog...

Good: LSU and the Saints both won. The Saints even won handily!

Bad: Apparently I just cannot get it in gear to be where I know I need to be on Sunday mornings. I think this will change eventually ... but right now I'm feeling both really guilty about not being there, and really good about the fact that I'm making use of my Sundays to get laundry done.

Indifferent: I'm not sure, but I think maybe I should try cultivating the feeling that I just don't care about work, about what gets accomplished or not, who appreciates anything I say or do ... Yep. Picked a great time to pick up this book about how "Evil is boring. Cynicism is stupid. Despair is lazy. The truth is that the universe is inherently friendly. Life is a sublime game created for our amusement and illumination, and it always gives us exactly what we need, exactly when we need it." (Rob Brezsny, Pronoia Is The Antidote For Paranoia)

Soooo ... um, I guess I don't need affirmation or companionship or self-sufficiency right now *confused look* ...? Something will work out. I think. Kinda has to, right?

Wake me up when September ends...

So here we are again in the middle of September. Why is it that so much has happened in September? I try and fail ... remember, and forget ... forgive, yet still rage ... I am insightful but still just as much an idiot as I was last year, four years ago, ten years ago ... just please don't back away just yet. Somebody's still not finished - I think ... ?

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
wake me up when September ends

like my father's come to pass
seven years has gone so fast
wake me up when September ends

here comes the rain again
falling from the stars
drenched in my pain again
becoming who we are

as my memory rests
but never forgets what I lost
wake me up when September ends
-Green Day, 2005

you know it's quite bizarre...playing midwives to an egg!

Am I pushing? Am I really "trying too hard?" Am I "driven," and is that such a bad thing? I wish I knew. This must be where the "use of self" gets really thorny ... ok. Yeah. Hi, I'm me, and I'll be the midwife of your psyche for the next 45 minutes. How can that not be intimidating? I love the maieutic aspect of being a social worker, and it scares the crap out of me. I've been hearing that I must learn to be comfortable with and accept ambiguity, equanimity, the now and the not yet ... what does that really look like when I'm standing in front of, or sitting with, a bunch of folks whose tools for living are spread out on the table or floor in front of all of us, rusting, rotting, or broken, and I have the job of believing - and just maybe, on a good day, helping them to believe - that those tools can be repaired or replaced, that they can and will rebuild lives worth living, lives in which they just maybe could again love and work. Darnit, there I go being hopeful again!

"The Jesus of my journey will never say to me ... 'You were too reckless, you confided in Me too much, you trusted beyond reasonable limits, you hoped too much of Me. You should only have played with My word, 'Have confidence in Me,' rather than foolishly acting it out."
-Brennan Manning, Lion and Lamb

returning from the far side

ok, so I'm only returning from the "far side" just long enough to type on this ... and say that I apparently ain't much better of a blogger than I am a journal-keeper ... Yep, I'm a frustrated brainiac - by the time I get done with work, if I'm lucky I still have a couple brain cells to rub together long enough to get home and remember that I wanted to check e-mail! At least I've got a job, I know ... but geez. *sigh* oh well - good night, going back to the dark side of work - they have ... um ... sugarfree fat-free cake? Where the hell are my damn cookies!?!? lol