Yesterday, I was finally able to get out of bed and function a bit. It's been a trip doing school work all week with the plague, but I've had a lifetime of practice at functioning while not feeling well, so I got through it.
That said, having more than a few minutes of time to myself, even if I was miserable, gave me a modicum of time to do some convalescing contemplating.
There is so much anxiety and fervor in my country right now. And anger. People seem to be just waiting until November. I know people who aren't traveling out of state until after the election, people who are holding off making life decisions until they see what happens, and people who are writing off people because of their politics.
It harshes my vibe. This is definitely not the scene I grew up in, but at the end of the day I know I can do nothing about it nor do I have any control over it.
It's definitely a strange scene.
I was also thinking about how cultural norms have shifted so much during my four decades of life as I shucked corn yesterday afternoon. My friend was bringing by some ham and many bean soup for the evening's repast, so I thought I was feeling well enough to whip up a batch of cornbread to go with it. (Side note, I had to sit down a bunch, it was super lame). Anyway, as I blanched and added a couple cups of fresh corn and roasted Hatch chilis to the cornbread batter, I found my train of thought meandering through my social work training.
For years social work, and most of medicine for that matter, has taken the one-dimensional approach to care. Now the multi-dimensional approach is the thing to do, I find myself wondering a bit about the underlying premise of it all.
Now, I am super excited that the Biopsychosocial community is embracing a more holistic approach to helping humans with their myriad of issues, but something that has been bothering me as I progress through my learning is the underlying philosophy they have derived the practice framework from.
If everything is subjectively relative, how do you effectively treat anything?
I get customizing modalities to a client based on their unique individual experience and needs, but can you truly help an individual if there are no boundaries or work requirements based in the rules of objective reality.
It's apparently dangerous when I craft cornbread.
But, I don't have the time to spend in the depths of contemplation, at least as much as I would like. Although I would like to ensconce myself in the yurt at times for a good sabbatical from the noise, just for a bit. There's just too much work to do.
Endless paperwork, potatoes to harvest, veg to can, garlic to plant here in a few weeks, firewood to chop, mom things to do for the offspring, college paperwork to fill out for three of us, and bakery business recipes to develop just to name a few things.
So, after thinking upon that a bit, it seems I have plenty of awesome living to do! I mean, here in a little over a week I am going to be celebrating my 25th wedding anniversary with the hubs on the banks of The Clearwater River for three days of just us. Next month I get to be a glamorous cat lady as a character in a murder mystery production at the library my friend runs, and a bunch of us are taking the Hubs on his first ever trip to Scarywood.
So yes, the current vibe of the entire world is a bit meh and madness, but there is so much good too, waiting for us all just beyond the screen.
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's not capable of contemplation but very capable of being coated in cornbread crumbs iPhone.
