A Companis Journey - Connections

My Companis journey began as a series of connections.  It started with Donna Beth Blythe, of all places.  The Sunday I became a member of Seattle First Baptist Church (which houses Companis), I read a piece I wrote about my grandmother from the pulpit.  Craig Darling, the Pastor for Call and Vocation and Executive Director of Companis, approached me after the service, and I learned that he had known my grandmother.  That spurred our conversation about Companis, and me becoming a Companis worker.

When I met with Craig and Gary, we talked about my goals as an educator.  How I had learned I needed to be somewhere where I would build long-term relationships with students, the environmental piece could be put on hold for now.  I wanted to work with older students, not elementary aged anymore.  I wanted to get back to the demographics of Fraser kids, at risk youth who need the extra level of support and guidance, because for many reasons related to systematic oppression, that support is lacking elsewhere in their lives.  I mentioned Seattle Education Access (SEA), because I had learned about it from Charlie (my friend from IW), but we weren't sure if it was the right fit yet.

When we looked into it and realized it was actually the perfect fit, Craig and Gary had me come in to SEA with them for a meeting with Anthon and Sarah.  Everyone was looking at my resume when Sarah's eye caught the educational experience section, and I learned that she was also an Earlham English major.

Family, IslandWood, Earlham; I felt there were pieces of my life nudging me along this path I was leaning into curiously.  I started to sink into that feeling of being exactly where I was supposed to be.

That was the beginning of my journey, noticing and receiving the connections.  Now I'm three months in my year of service with SEA.  In my opinion, SEA is a gracious space, a term we've been talking about from Bill Graves book, Sharing the Rock.

SEA logo www.seattleeducationaccess.org

To me, SEA is a gracious place, because it is a place where we practice saying yes.  At SEA, students hear, "Yes, you can go to school.  Here's how..."  SEA is a gracious space, because it is a place of genuine checks-in and debriefs.  I hear the honest truth about others' lives, and share how I am really feeling, through the positive, and the hardships.  SEA is a place where the powers that be spend more time figuring out how to support the people under them, than how to milk them for capital value.

SEA is a place where people see the value in things that can't be measured.  I've had conversations with my bosses and co-workers about how part of our job is to show up and be present.  This means sitting at a drop-in site for weeks before the students feel used to you and ask for help with homework, this means sitting patiently through the silence with students as they work through decisions.  These moments of building something is important work.

My time at SEA is going to be split 50/50 between admin work and tutoring.  The tutoring has been a scary and exciting experience. I've spent the last two years focusing on large group management.  The curriculum I've worked with has either been for 5th grade and younger, or has been after school workshops.  Sitting down with adult students to show them how to do algebra, geometry, calculus, or write a paper was a terrifying feeling at first.

Although I don't remember calculus yet, I really love tutoring at the middle, high school, and even college levels!  So far, my tutoring experience at SEA is helping me realize I do want to be a teacher someday, and I have what it takes to teach math, science, English, maybe even history at the adolescent age level.

Chickadees in the Trees

October 8, 2011 10:00a.m. Low 60s and partially cloudy

Last night, the cloud cover in Seattle finally parted enough that the moon shown through.  Then I woke up this morning to sunlight streaming into my room for the first time in weeks!

I made some tea, bundled up, and went outside.  The only patch of sunlight I could find was across the sidewalk, under the Cedar tree by the curb.  I heard the Black-capped Chickadees first, then saw one flitting around the front door, perhaps attracted to the bird feeder Emily Jane puts out in the tree by the porch.

Until now, I've only seen and heard the chickadees by the side of the house, further away from the road.  This was the first they've appeared during my morning front porch sit spot.  From what I could tell, there were two of them.  The first one was pretty bold.  It hung upside down on one of the lowest panels of the house.  Then it flew over to the cedar tree, and perched all over the trunk, upside down, right side up, and finally settled in a branch.  I "psh psh"ed at it and it moved a branch closer.  Its friend bounced around a little further back.  Whenever a car drove by, or someone walked by with their dog, they both flew high into the Cedar where I could barely see them.

I have noticed many naturalists and environmentalists in this area are deeply curious how people got started naturalizing and building a relationship with the environment.  Some naturalists' stories start with a place-based experience, growing up in a rural area, having woods nearby to play in as a child.  Many others stem from having mentors and teachers who were enthusiastic nature lovers.  I've been thinking about my journey as an environmentalist, and am grateful to my creepy memory for the clear moments I can hold onto from when I first naturalized.

I think the Blythe Spirit, our cabin in Colorado, had a lot to do with starting me on this path.  One of the first summers in La Veta I can remember was when I was about 7.  The family was hiking to the meadow, and one cousin wanted a break before we passed the stone wall that supports the hill next to the cabin.  I wanted to keep going, probably mostly to argue with 4-year-old Jack, so Uncle David walked with me.  We walked to the meadow without stopping once, except for a moment around the bend while Uncle David explained his different questions about how the creek had once formed the cliff we were standing on and the one across from it.  At the time I did not understand the concept of rock being shaped by water, and did not immediately absorb the idea he was presenting.

When we got to the meadow, we kept going a little way through the trees at the other end.  We looked back at one moment, and Uncle David asked if I saw a bit of color.  I got excited because I did see a bit of red, it was Aunt Gretchen's shirt and the rest of the family had made it to the meadow!  Before we started back to meet them, Uncle David pointed out the color he had been referred to, which was a butterfly he had seen instead of Aunt Gretchen.  I shrugged off that moment, because again I was eager to brag to Jack and Laura Beth about how fast I had walked.

Photo by Carol Blythe

What's interesting to me about those two moments, Uncle David pointing out the ravine and the butterfly, is that although at the time I am sure I acted disinterested, those tidbits have remained with me to this day.  I vividly held on to that hike, and my perception of natural areas has probably been formed by it.  My favorite thing to do in my free time is to sit quietly in the woods, looking for butterflies or other creatures.  When I am in the woods with other naturalists, I love to talk about how features of the land came to be the way they are.

Experiences like these give me hope as an educator.  I have probably gone for hikes with hundreds of kids, ages six to sixteen.  I have heard more than my fair share of whining, complaining, seen plenty of eye rolls, had kids anxiously ask for "lodge time," to go home, to get out of the woods, to not have to stand quietly for one minute, to not have to listen for the birds, to not have to stop hiking to learn about the plant or tree.  Maybe they will never look back on those hikes again.  But maybe they will hold the full meaning of my lessons somewhere deep inside that will guide them for years to come.  Either way, my journey as an environmentalist allows me to feel blessed to share the potential of this path with others.