Feelin' It

I'm turning forty this year and let me tell you, I am feeling it. I don't know why, since I don't generally consider myself vain or one of those people who has some idea about "youth and beauty." I know this is stupid because I have lots of friends who are over forty (and well over 40) and I never think about that unless they say something about it. I didn't know that I was feeling it until I realized that lately I've been giving some friends of mine a hard time about being in their early twenties (21, 23, and 25, respectively), and then I thought, "Where is that coming from?"


I wonder where this 'turning forty = over the hill' thing comes from? At the very least it's out of date; with all these Boomers around, "50 is the new 30," you know. I feel like I'm at the beginning of so many things - and on my third career (or maybe the second round of my first career). Maybe I feel like I should have accomplished "more" by now, but "more" of what? I'm busy being a good member of my community and my family, and that doesn't come with any titles, promotions, or raises, and little recognition in the wider world. But being a good member of my community and my family is something that never slacks off or ends - there is no "hill" here.


I had my first birthday celebration at Knudsen's Ice Creamery last week with about a dozen friends. That afternoon I had walked up to the 99-cent store and got a couple of candles to use all year, and put them on the banana split that KT's aunt and I shared. When it arrived, the Trained Killer started the singing of "Happy Unbirthday to You." Afterwards Miz Jinkins offered that JayBear could be my birthday party mascot.



If it didn't require continuous bleaching, I would keep my hair purple. I don't know if it makes me look younger, but I think it makes me seem younger. Not to mention that I think it makes me look really hip. A cute guy flirted with me last night at a bar while I was with KT, No, Dre, and some other friends, starting off with telling me my purple hair was fabulous and ending with kissing my hand. Vanity, it's all vanity!

What was Odyssey?

Recently I've been thinking a lot about my Camp Odyssey experience, which was transformative at the same time that it was difficult. Without comparing Odyssey to Peoples Temple, seeing that movie about Jonestown and reading Raven (which I got from the library) has me thinking about my own experience with "trying to change the world."


Camp Odyssey was an immersion diversity training for youth and adults. When I was on staff, I (and others, obviously) worked with youth entering 10th through 12th grades and examined all the "isms" - racism, sexism, heterosexism, prejudice against immigrants, ageism, and even touched on classism (when I moved back to California we were thinking about working more class issues into the curriculum). Everyone who attended was split into ethnic groups according to their identification, into gender groups, and into sharing circles which were carefully balanced for ethnic identity and gender. Each group would meet with each other group to talk about stereotypes and then the sharing circles would meet to process the experiences of the day. It is very difficult to explain, and it was really really intense.


One of the things I believed was that Odyssey was led by some amazing, fabulous, dedicated people who saw things clearly. I also felt like a lot of the "regular" staff people were pretty amazing as well - Odyssey consisted of two demanding weekends and one really demanding week each year and we all worked very hard during those times. Ironically, the person who was the Camp Director was not someone I believed was any of those things. He and I didn't like each other, and I thought it was because I was in the not-straight group and the only strongly-identified bi person in Camp for the time I was involved, which was about two years, I knew it, and he knew that I knew it. Also, I have a memory of heated disagreements between us, including at Advisory Council meetings when I was in the leadership circle.


I don't know where the curriculum came from, though some of it came from other diversity programs and some of it grew out of the work that had been going on. When I got involved in 1996 Odyssey had been around for about three years (it only lasted maybe two years after I left). There were several two or three day adult trainings a year, but Odyssey was really focused on the Camp for youth which lasted for one week in late June. After Camp in 1997 I "forgot" to turn in my script/agenda/curriculum and while I haven't looked at it in years I haven't been ready to shred it.


Hard as it was, I loved Odyssey. I thought the things we did were important and there are lessons I carry to this day. I wonder what the people who were 14 to 18 years old at the time think now of that experience (some of them are as old now as I was then). We had some guidelines that were posted on a banner in the main hall, and I have found them pretty good guidelines to live by, some of which I see now are woven together for me:

Be honest

Take risks - a hard one for me, being naturally risk-averse.

Respect others

Close the loop - it's not always easy to follow up when I think I've offended someone or when someone has offended me, but working it out means I don't have to fret about it anymore.

Take responsibility for Self - this ranges from going when I need to go to the bathroom to being responsible for doing something stupid or hurtful.

Use "I" statements - I joke that my favorite "I" statement is "I feel you are a jerk" but I've noticed I get heard more easily if I really do say "I feel X when Y" and "It's been my experience that..."


There's more to write about Odyssey but not today. Odyssey was hugely important part of my growing up, even though I was 27 when I got involved. I don't think I would be the person I am today if I hadn't had that experience.

My Patron Saint

For my birthday in 1994, some friends gave me, as a silly little gift, a small plastic figurine of Wonder Woman. Six weeks later I had broken up with my girlfriend, arranged a new place to live, and gotten a new, even-higher-responsibility job as a Crisis Intervention Counselor at Harry's Mother, where I had been working as a Residential Counselor. Talk about a Saturn Return!

My office was my car, a briefcase, a pager, and a cell phone, and I worked twelve-hour shifts on Wednesday and Thursday nights, and twenty-four hour shifts starting on Friday night. This was in the days before everyone had cell phones, and ours were old then - the old three-pound-brick style phones, which, by then, only held enough charge for 15-35 minutes of conversation. I routinely warned my clients that the phone might cut out while we were talking, extremely frustrating when doing crisis counseling!

When I started working CIS, I myself was in crisis. Everything in my life had changed suddenly, even if it was at my behest, and the friends my girlfriend and I had had pretty much stayed her friends and not mine. I was lonely, confused, angry, sad, lost, et cetera et cetera. But every evening I worked I clipped on my pager and figuratively put on my Crisis Intervention costume. It didn't feel like Clark Kent in a phone booth; it felt like Wonder Woman's bracelets.

Eventually I put the Wonder Woman figurine in my car, taping her to the dash, since most of the physical part of my job was driving to the Harry's Mother office or to the shelter, to juvenile hall, or to pick up a youth who had run away or been thrown away. My favorite thing to do was stroll into juvenile hall and spring a youth, but I also had great conversations with teenagers trying to sort out their relationships with their parents and stepparents, schools, and boyfriends or girlfriends. I'd had enough training to listen reflectively and provide solution-focused therapy, and if necessary I got kids into the program and families into HM family counseling. I knew that I was helping some people.

There's a lot you can do by listening. I learned how to cope with my own catastrophes - with Wonder Woman's help.