art and music as healing

I have this bizarre notion that perhaps my purpose here is to bring arts and music to the kids of West Central. I started by teaching piano lessons, but I really only have two students, and they are from families that can afford a piano teacher. The ones I want to teach are the kids next door who's mother could never afford it. I have this dream that this will all expand into some sort of art's-centered after school and summer program here. Kids need something creative and contructive to do to occupy their time.
The fine arts can be incredibly healing. Blues musicians deal with feelings of sadness and depression by writing songs. German expressionist painters dealt with the emotional landscape of their time and country by painting strong broad strokes with intense screaming deep colors. A scream of anguish in a painting, so to speak.
I can think of no better way for children to deal with the fact that mom and dad beat them. Or that mom and dad can't afford to pay the rent and the whole family will have to move. If mom and dad can't pay rent, they sure as hell can't afford a child therapist.
I don't know what I'm doing at all. But I have a few tools to start with. I have a collection of keyboards. I have the internet. I have piano training and teaching materials. I have a basic knowledge of crafts and some basic drawing skills. I am surrounded by people who care about children and West Central. I know a woman who is studying children and art therapy, or something similar. And I give a damn about these kids.
Most of all I can do what I really know how to do. Pray...and keep walking.

Introducing a Stranger

If you look to the right of the page you'll see that I have added Kristin to my list of friends' blogs. Unlike all the other blogs listed there Kristin is someone I have never actually met. I discovered her blog last winter when, due to a lack of contact with my peers I spent hours a day reading people's blogs and surfing the internet. I had surfed over to Jessica's blog and was randomly clicking on HER list of blog friends when I discovered Debaucherous and Dishevelled. I was intrigued by the writing style and she was talking about her soon-to-be-born baby. I kept coming back because I wanted to see the promised pictures of this new little human. Her writing style continued to entertain me. A year later, I still wander over to her blog, only now there are regular pictures of the baby and the dog.

Strong Women

• Strong women race Arabian horses into strong North Dakota winds.
• Strong women wash their laundry with old-fashioned wringer washers because they gave the automatic washer and dryer to charity.
• Strong women spend a couple hours after school in the field hauling rocks by hand with their mother.
• Strong women travel half-way across the country in small cars and sleep by the side of the road because they don't want to pay for a motel.
• Strong women haul small square bales through 3 foot snow drifts in sub-zero temperatures with a homemade toboggan so the cattle and horses will have a warm place to sleep.
• Strong women go out and pitch hay to the horse when the wind chill factor is negtive 60 degrees.
• Strong women respect the people around them and do not use them.
• Strong women dig most of a quarter mile of potatoes on their own, then haul them into the yard with the pickup and wash them with the garden hose on the lawn.
• Strong women get up at 6:00 a.m. to walk three miles before work.
• Strong women survive child abuse, divorce, depression, thyroid disease, multiple sclerosis and much more and still live "normal" productive lives.
• Strong women care for their aging parents in their homes.
• Strong women care for other people's ageing parents as well.
• Strong women journal as a form of therapy.
• Strong women learn to bite their tongue rather than using it as a weapon.

tirade

I used to be enraged by men who disrespected and used women. Now I'm disgusted by women who use men. Have I been guilty of that?

I used to despise Walmart and refuse to shop there. Now I realize that they are simply one of many capitalist corporations screwing over the little guys to make a profit. But refusing to shop at Walmart while living surrounded by people who shop there because they can't afford to shop elsewhere would be utterly hypocritical. Especially when I grew up surrounded by people who shop at Wal-mart because they couldn't afford to shop elsewhere.
I believe in supporting local businesses, but I will occasionally spend a dollar or two at Walmart simply so I can say "I understand" to the girls next door. The third grader said to me the other day, "I know Wal-mart is bad for the world, but when your family is like ours, sometimes you have to shop there."
Her mother is 25 and she and her husband are supporting two girls of their own, plus her sisters two children. I no longer have any patience for those whe "refuse to set foot in Wal-mart" yet are not in solidarity with the poor either. That is hypocrisy. I'm sure I've been guilty of hypocrisy myself many time.

My father actually DEFENDED Archer Daniels Midland corporation on the phone the other day. He pointed out that they are simply another capitalism driven corporation that makes a profit by screwing over the poor farmer and that is simply the way this country works. Yes, but my father IS the poor farmer who is being screwed over by ADM.

I want to crawl in a hole, or run and hide in the jungle, but that will never accomplish anything.
I believe it was Gandhi, or maybe someone else who said "We must BE the change we wish to see in the world."

and now, a word from our sponsor

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-Brak,
Space Ghost, Coast to Coast

Wanderlust revisited

January is the month of "what if's?" and "what next's?" It seems that every day I learn something new and the world becomes a little broader. Even my little car now feels too small for me. So....what next?
My stint with the Westminster House is over at the end of August 2006. I now have a boyfriend in the mix and I'd rather not spend copious amounts of time far away from him, but I don't want to feel as if I'm trapped in the city of Spokane either.
What next?
Short term staff at Holden Village again?
Another trip to Europe?
Volunteer ministry at The Shelter, a youth hostel in the center of Amsterdam's Red Light District?
Move back to North Dakota for a few weeks?
Bum around, come and go and be ever on the move?
When does Wanderlust end? When does one settle down? And where does one settle down?

I have a magnet that I bought at an art shop in Taos, NM. It has a photo of a rusted VW beetle and it says "If you can't find it where you're at, where will you wander to find it?"

This has always been my moto.

24

If 24 continues as it started it will be much much better than 23 was. Not that 2005 was a horrible year for me, seeing as how the last four months of it involved starting life in a new city, meeting a really great person and falling in love with that person. But 2005 also involved enduring a stressful children's ministry and even more stressful "servant staff" position at a Lutheran Bible camp and retreat center. I began 2005 feeling enormously depressed. I was depressed to the point where I hated getting out of bed in the mornings and didn't want to speak to any human being because I was convinced I had nothing of value to say to anyone. My body showed physical symptoms of this as well, but I was in central North Dakota, had little money and didn't know who to talk to.

Since I've moved away, I've found people who seem to value me as a human simply because I exist and I started talking with someone who has a PhD in psychology. I've also recently discovered that bearing the weight of that much stress can quite literally destroy your back. I've started intensive therapy sessions with a chiropractor here in town. Hopefully three daily therapy sessions with head and shoulder weights and cervical traction will strenghthen my spine and restore my back and neck to their natural function. (All those time I fell off of my horse didn't do much for my neck either.)

All this to simply say that age 24 is starting off with much more hope than 23 did. Last but not least was my birthday itself. I did my daily therapy session, got some financial help from my mother, and took myself downtown to find a nice outfit. I only intended to get a skirt, but I fell victim to a really nice sales clerk and a clearance rack at Macy's. When I left I was outfitted top to bottom, shoes and jewelry included. Then Jon took me to Mizuna's for supper and it was wonderful. We watched a movie together and I ended the day at home watching The Constant Gardner and crocheting with my housemate and her boyfriend. And then I did my therapy before bed.

True Peace

But the wisdom that comes from Heaven is first of all pure, then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.

James 3:17 (NIV)

17But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no partiality and is always sincere. 18And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of goodness.

James 3:17 (New Living Translation)

James 1

Be doers, not hearers. Be quick to listen and slow to speak. James knew what he was talking about.

January

I'm really glad that Jon is back. It was good to see him at the airport on Saturday night. This is the main little flame flickering in my current January dark. Of my three piano students, one has decided she is too busy for lessons and other can't take lessons this month. This leaves me with decidedly less income with which to pay some impending doctor fees. crap. Therefore the job search is back on again. In the meantime I've been hanging around the house due to the cloudy weather and my lack of finances. (And lack of boyfriend being in town. I'm really glad he got to go learn about how God is at work in Colombia though.) Hanging around the house has not been all bad. Here's why:

• I've started refinishing a five-drawer dresser. I'm an eighth of the way finished removing the paint from the first drawer. No, maybe I'm a tenth of the way finished.
• I'm currently in the middle of three crochet projects. One is a scarf, another a belt and the third is some sort of rug or something I'm making from plastic grocery bags cut into strips.
• I cut an old pair of jeans into triangles and I'm learning how to quilt....by hand.
  

wow

The school where I went from Kindergarten to Grade 11 has a website.

Urban Survivor

Take four intelligent capable post-graduate people. Put them all together in a house in the poorest neighborhood of a city. Make them live in community and work together. Watch them grow into young adults, each committed to a relationship. Will they actually spend time together? Will they flip out and want to kill each other? Will someone be voted out of the house? Only Ellie and Howard truly know the answers, and they're respectively feline and aquatic. Ellie meows occasionally. Howard just hides under the leaves of his fake water lily. They ain't talkin' that's for sure.

New Year

So I've learned a few things.

• I'm compulsive. If I have to compulsive about something, I choose to be compulsive about buying things that are healthy for me.
• Working out at Curves is a good way to get in shape and enjoy the company of other women
• Not all men can be trusted. Some of them will try to stalk you for six years.
• My last name is NOT Frankhauser and I choose to live my own life.
  
• I have a tendency to build resentments.
• I want to destroy any man who I ever see hurting a woman or hurting me.
  
• I dislike control
  

Beauty in the Breakdown

I just finished watching Garden State. Yes, there is Beauty in the Breakdown. Go watch the movie and live your life.

Those who grow...

Perhaps True Love means that those who can be irreverent must learn to become more reverant.
I only know that January is the month for hibernation.
January is the month when growing things rest quietly.
To that end, I'm putting my blog to bed for awhile.
Rest well.
Sleep easy.
I'll catch y'all on the flip side.