Winter Session, Week 3

So, I didn't fulfill my deadline of Sunday evening for this post. So to make up for it, I have pictures!

On Sunday afternoon, Mitch and I jumped in the lake. Because we decided, for the sake of a good story for all our winter session compatriots, there needed to be a January swim. This was the lake we jumped into:

Note the thin layer of ice on the surface. And here we are, getting ready for the plunge:

Unfortunatley, I don't have any pictures of me actually in the water as of yet (these 3 were stolen from Kelley's facebook album), so you'll just have to trust that I did actually make it into the water. It actually wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. It was incredibly cold, but I warmed up quite quickly, all things considered, and there was no hypothermia or frostbite. I do, however, have all these mysterious cuts and bruises on my legs, which I'm pretty sure are from the ice- Mitch has them too. The experience overall was actually incredibly refreshing- it made me feel alive. We're now starting the conversation around a February swim :).

There is a lot more to say, to be sure, but I was up talking last night until 4 in the morning and desire SLEEP, so I'll give you the actual Hannah and community update tomorrow.

Sleep well, my wonderful comrades...

-Rat

Winter Session, Week 2

Alright, so I haven't exactly stuck to the plan of blogging 'once per week', as it were. But Tuesday isn't too late, I hope, to report on last weeks happenings. And I'm choosing to forgive myself for this wee transgresion, because it really doesn't amount to anything anyway, and I plan on getting better, so that's that.

First of all, I can't believe that the heading for this entry is 'winter session, week 2'. Honestly, it feels like I've been here, at the VERY least, 4 weeks. It's hard to get over this fact. I feel like I've been here forever.

This past week was intense. Wow. I'm kind of really glad it's over, to tell you the truth. It's hard for me to explain the intensity, because it really had nothing to do with the interactions between people and had everything to do with how each person was internally processing being here, and being together, and doing the work that we're doing- but that internal anxiety was totally palpable within the group.

In terms of community cycles, we were definitely having a 'control' week (backstory: there's this one model of community life in which there are three stages- inclusion, control and openness. The short description of these three, as aptly described by my mom, are 'pseudo-community', 'community chaos', and 'real community'. So last week was a 'community chaos' week for sure.) This is when people begin to really question their roles within community, and wonder about the boundaries of the community. This is when all the intense questions come up, like 'what am I doing here?', 'who do I want to be here?', 'what's my role? Is that the role I want to have?', 'who do I want to be interacting with?', 'what do I need?', and other such things. So I know I was certainly asking those questions, and feeling really disjointed and not sure what was happening, or where I stood- but not in the sense of concrete things that we were doing, the confusion was deeper than that. And talking to other people, it seemed they were experiencing the same sort of feeling- this undifferentiated nervousness and anxiety and confusion that went to very, very deep places.

Within all this, one of my biggest confusions is that I haven't really seen community happening yet- that sense of having a group of people that is more than just 13 individuals interacting with one another. A group that is cohesive, that is bound together by a shared culture of care and openness that fills the spaces between bodies. It still really feels like our group is just 13 individuals, and any expression of any individual is just the expression of that individual, there's not that sense of being held by a community. I have had the experience of being held by certain individuals- I have been supported and cared for by specific people, and for that I am deeply grateful. I have also had the experience of finding beautiful things in each person here. But there has been that continuing oddness of not feeling like we are connected in a Naramata-way, which is something I have found really unnerving, given that that was something I had assumed was just a part of the landscape.

Also, I came out, which was really weird. I don't think I was ready for it, but I did it because one of our assignments was to "tell our lives in 3 parts" (ie: share 3 stories which demonstrate our lives)- and I knew that if I were to be honest, I would need to include a coming out story. So I had to choose between comfort and integrity, and I chose integrity. I mean, everything was fine, and I'm okay, and everyone has acted with either support or neutrality, but still it was kind of a jarring and uncomfortable feeling to share before really being ready within myself to do so. However, I know that if I didn't I would be dealing with other issues far worse than feeling a little bit weird, so overall, I'll say that it was better that I did than that I didn't.

I feel like this is a very negative post. Things have been better so far this week, just to let y'all know, but you'll have to wait till the weekend to hear about what's happening now :)

I love you all so, so much, and I hope that each of you are well :)
-Rat

Winter Session, Week 1

Hello all!
So, the first week of Winter session has happened- only technically it has yet to reach 7 days. But the first 5 days of programming have come and gone, and now I'm going to give an abbreviated account of how things are going for me. *

Since being driven to Naramata from the Penticton bus depot, I've felt as though I am home. Just being in the physical surroundings of this place have immediately transported me back to where I was at the end of the summer, so everything from the smell of Alberta Hall, to seeing the office staff, to walking down Ellis Road again have been very grounding for me. However, given this context of feeling like I'm 'back here', it's been incredibly odd to have the community in which I am living and the things I'm doing and the role I'm filling be so different from what they were in the summer- odd and rather disconcerting. So it feels like there's been this grand period of adjustment this week to try and figure out what is the same and what is different, and separate those things in my mind in a way that is healthy (it's a process that has made me very aware of the way that my reptilian brain immediately associates 'same physical place' with 'same emotional, social, and spiritual place'). As for the technicalities of the community, there are 13 winter session participants here, most from Alberta, and I think I'm the most well-connected participant here given that I knew 5 of them before arriving. There are also 2 leader/ facilitator people, who are both awesome and incredibly good at what they do. There seems to be a good age spread within the prescribed 18-25 age limitation (Vanessa claims to be 87, and I have yet to find out what this translates in to. Actually, for Hermit and Nomad, this Vanessa is the same Vanessa that was one of our CITs during our first year at camp. Cool, eh?), which I am glad for as it adds a good diversity to the group.

I'm getting sick with cold, but at the moment it's a muted, Cold FX cold so it's not too bad, but I'm wary of what it might turn in to once I finish the 3-day run. Bleurgh, it's 2 minutes to midnight, which isn't very cool. So I'm going to say toodle-oo for now. I hope that all of you are feeling well and enjoying life (if you're not, that's okay too. But one way or another, I want to hear about it :)). LOVE! LOVE! LOVE!
Bon Nuit,
- Rat

*FOOTNOTE-ED! So, my plan is to be disciplined and write an entry each week, on the weekend (there are no sessions on the weekend, see, so I've designated saturday and sunday to be my 'outside of Naramata connection days'). I'm also going to try being pithy, so that the thought of 'my weekend blog entry' dosn't seem so daunting, thus making it more likely to be completed.