Friday Night

I’ve never been much for going out on Friday nights, most likely due to the fact that most of the standard activities that occur on the first night of the weekend are ones I don’t partake in. But over the years it’s developed into a pattern that Friday nights are mine to be quiet and relax after a long week of classes, work, volunteering…etc. It helps to explain why I never really got involved with IVCF during my time at UVic, they met at 4:30pm on Fri afternoons. By that point I simply wanted to go home. Last semester I tried going (actual) dancing on Friday nights. I went to Club Salsa a couple of times and Swing City once and while I did enjoy myself a bit, it always felt like the wrong time to be pushing my comfort zones. I felt as if I was battling against myself.

The year prior to last semester my Fridays were pretty much decided for me every 2 weeks as I would go down to the Mustard Seed and help with Street Cafe. I started with serving food (and still did so on occasion) but the majority of the time I would take the job that no one wanted to do, dishes. Street Cafe was built on the premise that everyone has the right to feel valued, even if it is at a once a week dinner. The homeless people who show up are called in by name, waited upon, given a choice of food/drink, and there’s usually live music. It allows them to feel like ‘Joe Normal’ for at least a little while. I agree with the premise of the project in general terms, but at a specific level found it difficult. I’m not the best self-starting conversationalist at the best of times, especially not when I’m interacting with people I’m not overtly comfortable with. I never knew how they were going to react. The interaction required to make these people feel valued was challenging to begin with and only became moreso as people would  become very picky with their meal, sending food back, and lying in order to get seconds. On a purely intellectual level I can’t blame them for this as I’ve never been in their position and thus don’t know the situational factors that might influence their behaviour. Sending food back/being picky might be the only time that day or week that this particular person has been able to exert control over their circumstances. And lying to get more food could simply be a biological need overriding one’s personal ethics. But at a visceral level I couldn’t equate my expectations and the actual behaviour. It bothered me and sort-of soured me on the group as a whole. I suppose I expected homeless people to appreciate a meal that’s more than hot dogs and be a bit more thankful for the 20-somethings giving up their Friday evening to serve it to them. Now I shouldn’t generalize to all the patrons as many were very pleasant, but there were enough that it made me not want to be on the front lines so to speak.

Thus the dishes, a quiet retreat where I could still contribute, freeing up those that are more social and less cognitively dissonant to work up front while I cleaned in the back. I could chat with my washing or drying partner if I felt like it or, on nights like last night where he wanted to do dishes because it was Friday and he was tired, simply work away in silence, comfortable in my role and reflection while the rest of the crew buzzed around us. Friday night dishes became a time when I could turn my brain ‘down’ due to the monotony of the task at hand and reflect on the week and kind of cognitively float. It wasn’t until I went back last night after 4 months away that I realized how much I missed that time. Not necessarily the place, the work, or the people; just the almost forced decelerating of my life for a few hours. I’m not sure if I’m going to continue to go consistently as Fridays start with a very early ride out to the hospital for me, but at the very least I’ve remembered the value of putting myself and my (at-times insane) need to be constantly moving and busy on pause.

An Unintentional Aside

I love those instances in which things just seem to fall into place perfectly. I was looking for a little picture of hands washing dishes to put at the start of this post and the first google image result was linked to a blog entry which talked about pretty much the exact same thing as I had here (albeit more eloquently).
http://blog.loukavar.com/2011/11/04/quotidian-mysteries/

Some of you might see these sort of events as coincidence or (secularized) karma … etc, others might go completely bible-school and call it ‘God’s Providence’. I do neither, the former is a bit cold and gives entropy far too much credit, and the latter might make me laugh if I said it outloud. Plus I certainly hope God has bigger things on His mind than reaffirming a blog post of mine. I prefer to smile quietly at the little reminders of the fact that there is a plan in place, which can often times be invisible, but every once in a while everything clicks together perfectly.

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19. If I had a friend who spoke to me in the same way I sometimes speak to myself, how long would I allow this person to be my friend?

I tend to have unrealistically high expectations of myself so finding someone who would hold me to the same standards as  I attempt to achieve myself would be impressive. I prefer honesty, blunt if necessary, but would be lying if I didn’t engage in some self-deception and ego-stroking whether I’m consciously aware of it or not. How long a person would remain my friend if they spoke to me as I do to myself would very likely depend on how well they could navigate my moods. I’d like to think that the majority of the time I’d hear them out if they came with (constructive) criticism, but there are times when I don’t want to hear anything from anyone, including myself.

20. Which activities make me lose track of the time?

Ah flow experiences; activities and interests that present the optimal balance between challenge and ability. A state in which we are intrinsically (innately) motivated to strive towards completing tasks. Or simply things we very much enjoy and are engrossed in. I used to space out with books (fiction mostly) and the rest of the world would drop away, although my current abundance of textbooks and the more ‘serious’ books I tend to read now have begun to leach the enjoyment away from the printed page. My first all-nighter was due to losing track of the time while playing a recently purchased real-time strategy game (Age of Empires II expansion pack I think…). Up on Quadra being out in nature took precedence and on off days when the sun never set, it seemed like you could hike, kayak, or canoe for hours. The most recent activity to occupy this spot is, well, this. Writing posts is something I very much enjoy doing as they mimic the journal I kept for over 2yrs at camp before the time requirements became too much, plus it’s very freeing. And this made me think about all the journalling quotes I looked up for my psyc boss for his page on online journalling. I’ll only include 2 as there were over a dozen.

I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.

– Joan Didion

Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted.

– Jules Renard

I highly recommend it, public or private, keyboard or notebook, it really doesn’t matter. I never ‘read’ this, but it would seem to be a fantastic way to get started.

http://www.amazon.com/Wreck-This-Journal-Keri-Smith/dp/039953346X

Sadly the cluttered way I’ve currently made up my life requires that I frown upon activities that make me neglect the clock. That might be something to remedy…

21. If I had to teach something, what would I teach?

Definitely something that I enjoy, and to a smaller group, big groups make me nervous. I remember loving teaching kayaking and outdoor living when I was up at Homewood and, with proper training, would love to do again. I still chuckle every once in a while at the fact I learned to kayak on youtube having never picked up a paddle before and ‘taught’ kayaking teachers for the summer the following day. The fire building was a fantastic journey back to when people were far more self-sufficient, plus the kids loved seeing tangible results of an applicable skill. If I ever get into med school and graduate…etc I could see myself going back and teaching that as well. Other than those more cut and dried things I think I prefer observational learning. Things like reffing or now tour guiding I prefer to bring people along with me, have them watch the way I do things, tell them to take what they like from it and then go figure out how they want to do it. Watching other staff members stumble through a script that had become second nature to me at outdoor living cemented the fact that everyone has a way they’re comfortable doing things and when they try to do it someone else’s way, the results usually aren’t very good.

22. What would I regret not fully doing, being, or having in my life?

I should probably put some kind of fulfilling God’s plan or some other kind of spiritual milestone here, but that really isn’t my way (and by this point if it was expected I’d be surprised). Let’s put this into concrete terms: if I died tomorrow what would I regret not having done? On an unexpectedly shared bus ride upisland last year a friend and I made bucket lists to pass the time and after looking at mine I realize that much of it is a bit superfluous. I think that more than anything I would regret not having the opportunity to raise kids of my own. Objectively speaking it’s a little interesting that I put kids ahead of spouse, but I suppose that could be understood given my extensive positive experience with the former and complete lack of experience with anything approximating the latter. I realize that not everyone receives both or either over their lives, I simply hope I’m fortunate enough to be twice blessed.

~ by ambientnoise1 on January 22, 2012.