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