Every Time

Sometimes it feels like we live in perpetual transition. Waves of change crash over our heads and knock us to our knees, right when we think we’ve found our balance.

I big wave literally knocked me to my knees yesterday. 

Standing in Cook Inlet, at the mouth of the Kenai, a red salmon hits my net and I turn to shore to drag it towards my family and friends on the beach. Nick sees me walking towards him and realizes I don’t see the wave coming for my head. Next time he looks up I’m gone, completely under the sea. 

For a second I’m a kid again, getting pummeled by waves on the Cape. I taste the salt water in my mouth as the crest of the wave breaks above me. No fear, only the oddly comforting silence of life under water. 

I find my footing and push myself up so I can breathe. When my eyes focus, I see Nick pause in his step towards me now that he sees I’m ok.

His next thought: I hope she still has the net. 

I never let go of the the pole when the waved crashed over me, so I continue to drag it out of the surf. And sure enough, a big beautiful salmon thrashes about on the beach.

And I feel like a god damn dip-netting queen-- soaked to my core but standing on the shore with dinner caught by my own small hands.

At home today, we unpack from fishing, as we also pack up and move everything from the downstairs so we can lay coils for our soon-to-be heated floors that will be poured this week. Our makeshift kitchen will move to the porch.  The upstairs balcony that overlooks the someday living room acts as our dining room table’s temporary home. Elias moves to the guest room. In a few weeks, when the gypcrete cures, we’ll move everything back down. Until we move it all again to lay down floors. 

Slowly, piece by piece, this heartbreaking house becomes more and more our home. 

Despite the heat and flies and the tedious exhausting ladder work, Nick perseveres diligently changing the outside from plain T1-11 to a redwood stain. Both grandfathers helped when they visited earlier in the month and now Nick persists, one project on top of another, never ending change.

And then there’s a major shift happening for me as the nasturtiums and lilies bloom.

I worked my final day at Spring Creek Correctional Center as an Education Coordinator on Thursday, leaving a job I strangely loved, before I felt even close to finished with the work. 

Only one opportunity could pull me away and its a job I’ve practically stalked for over ten years waiting for the beloved woman who held it to retire —and I’m still a bit amazed that next week I will step into those enormous shoes. There is only one school counselor position in Seward and when August turns the Firewood red, I will be the high school (and new this year middle school) counselor for the community. This has ben my dream job for so long it does not seem real or possible that what I imagined came true.

So much possibility and change in our worlds, and yet even when we choose transitions they still arrive with a plethora of feelings. 

Thursday night, I read a card that a number of the prisoners signed for me and found myself in tears in our unfinished house. One man’s words in particular imprinted my heart with his message-- he wrote about how when he heard I wanted a prisoner with children to help me teach a parenting class he volunteered for selfish reasons.

And then he went on to say: "You taking that chance on me changed my life in more ways then you will ever know. I never knew my story could help so many people. Thank you!"

Time and time again I return to the power of storytelling.

I wrote my graduate thesis on the role of stories in our lives. I believe we are all stories in action waiting to be told. We need to reclaim our stories and not follow the script written for us by others.

And in every good story, the characters change. Transitions happen. The protagonist gets knocked to her knees by waves of tragedy but rises again with a glittering salmon in her net. He falls down again and again but stands up each time fingers clutching his prize.

(Picture shows the surf yesterday and the waves just kept getting bigger.)

Since I am not finished with my work at the prison, I will stay connected in my new role as a volunteer community liaison with a program called Spring Creek's Restorative Justice Initiative. I’ll meet monthly with prisoners and staff who are working towards positive changes and ways to bring the offenders, victims, and community together. And in the summers I’ll return to offer storytelling workshops, combining creative writing and public speaking.

But now its time for a new chapter, one that made Elias’s whole face light up when I told him. 

“Guess who’s going to high school with you next year?” I asked him on the day the principal offered me the position.

“Who?”

“Me. I got the school counseling job!” Elias could not contain his excitement in his bony muscled frame and he bounced upon his cane before hugging me.

Now he tells everyone he sees, after he tells them he’s going to high school next year, “And you want to know the best part?... My mom is going to school with me!”

There is so much about my new role that excites me, a return to advocating for adolescents, work with innovative compassionate educators, increased involvement with this fabulous community, back on the same schedule as my children, all those summer days….

…and yet transitions still knock me to my knees, every time.

Comments

[Audrey]

So much love for you and amazing the lives you are
Touching by being you and living your passion. Inspiring 💚💜💙 congrats Christy. PS your house is beautiful 😍

[Kate]

So excited for you about starting your dream job and can’t wait to hear about it. Glad that the next stages of building your house are happening too. I really enjoyed reading about your work in the prison so glad you will be able to continue that as well. Transitions. Always so hard.

[Valerie Demming]

Wonderful! Good for you...Valerie

[Pat Yankus]

Great news!

[Carol Jane Rea]

Whoa, Christy what a great story, and I am so excited you will be at the high school. I know so many Seward students have 'made it' due to Martha's hard work. I think yours are a rare pair of feet that can stand up after the wave while clutching a salmon filled net and also fill those incredibly big shoes Martha recently left. Congratulations to you and Yay! for all the high school students.

[Greta]

That's the best god damn dip-netting story I've ever heard!

[MelissaC]

Congratulations on your wonderful new dream job. I found myself becoming teary eyed by Elias' heartfelt response to your good news!

[fleming]

You did it! and you deserve it. You are good for all the people that you work with but how nice that it will be near your kids. I hope your new schedule leaves more time for you and your home - which is really taking shape!

[Julie A]

Haven't touched a keyboard in weeks and was glad to see your family update---I love your writing!!
Happy that you are excited for a job long hoped for---keep up your good work at the correctional facility---the world needs people like you there too :-)