Almost out the door

I’ll be spending the morning and early afternoon with the wee ones over at the Crisis Center today. Haven’t talked about that in a long time, but I’m still quite involved. It can be a challenge at times. Little kids, while we like to think of them as ‘resilient’, aren’t all that resilient. The internalize much of the violence that they live and see. It goes deep. They shut down. They stop trusting. They close off. They act out. It’s easy to forget when I walk into a room with a bunch of these little kids that they are not like other little kids. Normal ways of dealing stop at the door when I walk in there.

But they are good little kids and they want to be safe, which is what I can provide for them for a specified period of time. It’s not enough, but it’s a start. To teach them how to trust again. To help them understand that not all people are violent and that there are still a lot of grown ups out there who do not respond to stress or anger with violence. But the other side to that coin is that they push every button they can think of to see if they can elicit an angry response or a violent one. Because, in their world, that’s how normal looks and they know how to deal with it even if they are afraid of it, don’t like it, wish it would go away. It’s what they know. It’s what they expect to happen. And being quite human, myself, a few of hours of intensive button pushing does tend to wear one down.

So, I’m sitting here sucking down my last cup of coffee before I head out the door. Fortifying myself. Gonna do lots of art projects today. It’s a safe place and one where they lose themselves to the creativity. They let a lot of things out with their drawing, painting, sculpting. Not your average kid art, believe you me.

Well, think of me a few times. Send some good vibes. They’d be welcome.

And, meanwhile, if you have a few spare moments, wouldja think about contributing a few dollars toward the disaster relief in the several countries hit by the tsunamis on Sunday? I heard on the radio this morning that upwards of 40,000 people have perished and the toll is still climbing. That’s an unbelievable disaster. So many people gone, so many many injured, so much loss. Forty thousand people would make two of my town. Gone in an instant. It’s hard to grasp the enormity of it. Dig deep, if you can.