Modern Mormon

So I am the youngest person in my office, younger than one of the receptionists by a little over a month, youngest of the attorneys by 6-7 years. And that's two of them, most could be my parent... if my parents had gotten to having me in their teens or twenties instead of their 30s. But anyhow... So one of my coworkers, because of the age difference, jokingly refers to me as very "modern." "Sarah has an ipad, because she's the most modern one in the office," (of course other people have ipads and tablets, but nevermind.) Anyway, apparently the other week she told another lawyer in our office, "Sarah might know, she's modern." Whiiich was misheard and resulting in him poking his head in my offioe and saying, "So, you're LDS?" Of course my very PC response was, "GOD NO. What?"

Enfianced

The day before the Super Bowl, my main squeeze and I decided to get married. If you’re reading this blog and didn’t already know that… well I have a much wider audience than I guessed. Anyway, it’s fun and exciting and also the same as before except I am working on driving myself crazy already thinking about this awesome party happening probably 15-18 months from now. It’s been fun to share the news. It’s also been funny. Both of my parents suspected we’d already gotten married. Not true. Most people ask for the “story.” The story is something I never really thought I would have. You know how there’s some things you picture in your future and some things you don’t? Falsely accused of a crime goes in yes, “story” of engagement goes in no. It has long seemed strange to me that this huge life decision would be anything other than a conversation. It confuses me, women who claim to be surprised. Why would you agree to be married to someone if you hadn’t considered it before? The cultural expectation is so confusing, the man is supposed to ask, the woman is supposed to be surprised. A lot of those themes are addressed in this post about women proposing to men.

But there have been other interesting things. A week later I was out with some female friends from work and some friends of friends, most of them married, all of those wearing diamond rings. One of my friends mentioned the engagement and the friends of friends immediately looked at my naked left hand. I laughed, but also felt compelled to explain, “it’s at the jeweler.” It’s such a funny time we live in, where women keep their names, walk themselves down the aisle but are proposed to and wear diamonds. Or not.

There’s a lot of pressure. I resisted for a long time and I don’t think the decision to get married was caving, I do think it can from a place of wanting to be married to Charlie and go through a public dedication of our relationship. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I am tired of calling him my boyfriend, of trying to explain his significance in my life without a more serious title. Of husbands and wives who have known each other for half as much time as we’ve owned Gus or our house being taking more seriously. And it’s apparently impossible to get the storyline that everyone expects out of your head, since Charlie didn’t propose does he really want to get married to me? That Sunday, driving home from dinner, I asked him whether that was true… again. Do you want to get married to me? “Yes, are you going to ask me that every time you have a few glassess of wine?” No, I suppose not.

Then about 10 days ago I got the ring back from the jeweler. It was my grandma’s, she took it off her finger and gave it to me the last time I saw her in the summer of 2009. She was fading and I’ve kept it in a safe deposit box, in case any family member didn’t think I should have it, because I didn’t know what to do with this diamond(s) ring that was a titch too small. But becoming engaged, it seemed appropriate to take it out. To get it checked and sized and appraised and insured. And I did and I got it back and now I’ve been wearing it. It makes me feel uncomfortable because diamonds aren’t really “me” and it’s large and in charge and I spend all day working for poor people and my politics don’t really jive with diamonds or looking owned by a man who puts a rock on my finger. Just as I felt the need to explain there WAS a ring, I also need to explain-- this is an heirloom!

I guess this is all just dipping my toe into this wedding world that is frought with cultural weirndness and excess and, at least for me, guilt and discomfort. I still feel embarassed to look at white dresses. It feels goofy and fake. Like a little kid putting on too much eyeshadow from the Tinkerbell makeup kit. That’s cute, she thinks she’s a grown up. How do you stay genuine and “you” while doing something you’ve never done before and hopefully will never again? Stay tuned. I’m working on it.

Balance

So last week one of my clients went missing. I actually first read about it on Twitter (where apparently I get all of my news, like road closures and my dad’s release from Rwandan jail.) And I was instantly so startled and surprised myself how disturbed I was. He’s a really nice guy, so is his wife and I felt so sad for how scared she much be and worried about his safety. Long story short, he has returned home and it was something of a false alarm. But I thought of him a lot over that week, it had a much bigger effect on me than I would have expected.


This morning I learned a former client died. In this line of work, I guess, it’s not that unusual. I mean, many of my clients have drug and alcohol abuse issues, all of them are poor and have the difficulties taking care of themselves and their families that go along with poverty. But this woman was young, 23 and had an involved family. She had been in college at one point. From what I saw, there were some serious substance abuse issues and seemed to be a lot I didn’t know about her family, her past, why she numbed herself so often. So, sadly, it’s not surprising. Upsetting, sad, but not shocking.

In November my coworker and friend was hospitalized for a few days. I was covering some hearings for her and to each client I’d introduce myself and explain their attorney was in the hospital. Maybe one out of five asked a single thing about that—is she ok? What happened? I hope she gets better. And after that I was basically feeling like, “you jerks! We spend all our time and energy trying to take care of you, to help you, worrying about you and you don’t even care!” Shortly after I got pneumonia and was home for a week and only dragged myself to one hearing where actually the client was very grateful and concerned I was sick.

There was an article about public defenders and trauma that I posted on facebook a couple of months back. Some people took it to mean I was struggling with the issues in it at the time, I wasn’t, I just related to the story and thought it was interesting and important to share. It talks about secondary trauma, hearing the stories of client who have had horrible traumatic things happen to them. But there’s this other trauma, which is what they are experiencing in the system while I’m representing them. And I’m the one who hears that their pregnant wife and kicks are getting evicted because dad is jail. Or that they hitchhiked 85 miles in January to get to court so they didn’t get a warrant. Or that they didn’t have gas money to get to court, so they got a warrant and then got arrested and lost their job while they were in jail. Or things directly related to the case, that are horrible and traumatic and I am sometime inadvertently complicit in making happen, just by being a player in the system.

I guess my point is about the balance, the elusive balance between being able to be a compassionate and zealous advocate and being able to leave your work at work and not let the sadness and trauma of it leak into your home time. And that’s the thing, you can’t stop caring. I have immeasurable respect for a coworker who has been doing this 35 years and will get as righteously indignant as anyone about how someone is treated, the hijinx he sees the police pulling. I hope I can keep that feeling alive, without becoming burnt out.

So then there is also a balance between caring about clients and… everything else. Caring about myself, my homelife, my friends, my family, my DOGS. Lots of balance, lots of balls in the air.

deTOX

So, last Monday we started the Whole Living Cleanse. This is three weeks of no added sugar, no processed foods, no caffeine, no alcohol, no dairy, no gluten. The idea, at least for me, is to kind of reset and be more mindful of what you’re eating. The first week was fruits, vegetables, nuts and oils and wasn’t really as tough as I expected. What was tough was that I was bone tired so much of the week. I also lost 10 pounds. In a week. Obviously this isn’t sustainable for a variety of reasons, but it did make me feel like how I was eating was very off to have that kind of effect after a week on the cleanse. And then there’s some unanticipated side effects—like two people only eating produce for a week is dirt cheap! And if water is all you’re drinking, you drink a lot of it! And I haven’t had a headache in a week. I don’t know the cause (caffeine? Alcohol? Gluten? Dairy? Everything I love?) but I have realized how unusual it is for me to go a week without one. I haven’t had the blood sugar crashing shakes like I sometimes get, I haven’t even gotten really hungry and have been satiated with little.
It’s so far also made me realize how much I associate some food with activities. Like I have actually done ok without the caffeine, but Saturday morning listening to NPR in the kitchen would have really suited a nice hot cup. Or a chilly Sunday morning at the dog park, a fellow showed up with a Starbucks cup and damn I’ve never wanted a latte more. And how food is one of the best parts of being alive, how sad it would be to never eat all of those things again... In moderation, but still.
So, so far so good. This week (as of today) we added back in legumes and fish. The protein boost has helped my energy level a lot.
Lastly, the smoothies are awesome. We bought a new blender/juicer/food processor ninja which works awesomely and smoothies may become the breakfast cure I’ve long been looking for. Plus I feel like I’m getting a leg up on the day when it’s 7:30 am and I’ve already had like 4 servings of fruit.

New Yearsish I

2012

Last Saturday-Monday I was camping near the relics of an old fort and stage coach stopover in the Mojave National Preserve in California with Arizona friends, including temporarily, the mysterious Sophy the boy. The weekend before that got to have RadioKBLA and her trusty sidekick, Spiderman, at my house for a few days to celebrate Christ. Tomorrow I head to New York for meetings and, incidentally, more quality time with some of my dearest and not-so-very nearest. The end of 2011/beginning of 2012 is going great and I just have to reflect from time to time on how amazing my life is. Not like, regular trips to Bali amazing, but like also booked a ticket to South Africa at the end of December, amazing. No resolutions, just trying to do the best I can for the most people (including myself) as many days of 2012 as I can. Happy New Year.

Black Balloons

Shortly after I turned 11, my dad published this article. I've just re-read it, it's not exactly what I remember reading probably most recently 15 years ago (the internet is amazing.) But I thought of that article today. I had a different kind of day with some parallels. Today is my kindness son, Johan's, 4th birthday. It's also the day my client was sentenced to ten years in prison.

Johan is a remarkable kid. Cute as a button, but also funny and thoughtful and with a stellar mind of his own. And he has his whole life ahead of him. A life I think and hope will be long and filled with loud adventures and quiet nights, with near boundless possibility and great people he already knows and all those he's going to get to meet. His mom and his dad and his village have done a great job.

My client has been in and out of prison for most of his adult life. And now he's going back and when he gets out, he'll be in his early 60s. It's what we were expecting, but it's also a long time. A long time for something that isn't that serious and when no one was hurt. But it is also a product of the system "working," more or less. That is how it works. This is a 50 year old man who has been addicted to drugs his entire adult life started treatment for the first at the jail in September... unfortunately about a year too late. This is now most of a life, wasted sitting in prison. This person turned 4 at one point, with his whole life ahead of him. This is how it works. And thinking about it very much is terribly, terribly depressing.

But it is all not as grim as the article-- no one is dead. But the contrast of today makes me sad.

Franklin Che Steve Doughty