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112 JUNE 2008
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REFLECTIONS

Meeting Carla

Thom Garfat

So, it’s spring. I’m not sure why I say that. This being “twilight reflections” and all, I think I should be talking about the fall, but things just don’t always work out that way. One thing might be expected and then, bingo, another pops up, unexpected, but nonetheless, welcome.

Like when I went to visit Mary and Carla, a now-single mom and her daughter, living in a slum settlement a few miles out of town. Oh, I know that no one called it, formally, a slum settlement, but that’s what we all really thought “it was one of those “wrong side of the tracks” shanty towns that, yes, it’s true, like it or not, do exist in the North American countryside, especially close to larger metropolitan areas. “Trailer parks” is the typical image of them in North American imagery “and of course, the obligatory and accompanying reference to “trailer park trash”.

What does it mean, this term? Well, usually it refers to a group of people who, either because of choice or circumstance, end up living according to a set of values different than (and perceived as lesser than) the majority of the town. It doesn’t really mean that they are different than the rest of us (although we like to pretend that they are). Usually what it means is that they are caught up in different circumstances than the rest of us “but we prefer to think it is about “them” and not about circumstance, because then we can tell ourselves that “such a fate” will never happen to us; that it is because of who they are that they find themselves living as they do. Ah, if only that were true. But that’s a story for another day.

Their house was poor, of course. Run-down and looking rather as if it deserved to be ploughed under to make room for something else “anything else. Peeling paint, steps sloping dangerously towards a rotting foundation, windows cracked, a roof that looked like it would lift off and fly away in the next storm. But contrasted with this slum landlord exterior was a clean walkway lined with early flowers, sparkling laundry snapping in the wind, and the outlines of a vegetable garden, prepared and waiting, on the side of the house. I rapped hesitantly on the door, fearing that too much force might knock it from its hinges.

The door was answered by Mary “dressed for the occasion in soft colors, warm, clean and balanced. She invited me in with more courtesy than I normally receive in the better parts of town. I followed her to a small living room, sparsely furnished, but with taste “obviously as well done as she could afford “so clean it seemed to reflect the light weaving in through clear glass. She invited me to sit, and offered tea and biscuits “fresh biscuits, likely made that morning as she waited for me to arrive. I accepted the offer of course.

Accepting offers like this is more than simple courtesy: it is a powerful act of joining with other “of connecting. It says, I accept you, I am like you, I appreciate what you have done. So often in the early days of my work someone would have a pot of tea on the table and ask me if I would like a cup, or would I rather have a coffee. And I, centered in my indulgent self, would ask for coffee. I wouldn’t think about how that might say “I am different than you” or “what you prepared isn’t good enough”. Perhaps it’s age, or perhaps experience, but now I think that accepting other, and the efforts of other, is more important that satisfying self. Simple thinking. But important?

There were just the two of us in the room. Carla was off somewhere else in the house. I didn’t ask for her. After a moment, Mary told me she wanted to talk with me alone before I met Carla. I thought about it for a second and told her that if that is what she wanted, it was fine with me. Again, in the past, I might not have accepted. I would have espoused some theory, grounded in my most recent training, which argued that everyone had to be together all the time; that a “real” systems approach demanded it. Now I think differently: that we can only truly enter a system if we follow the path offered by those who manage that system. Now, with age and experience, I realize that if I had insisted on my own approach (that we all be together all the time) Mary might feel rejected, devalued, overpowered; that she might withdraw and important information and opportunities would be lost.

We sat, we sipped tea, enjoyed the biscuits and talked. Not yet about the things the referring system might consider important “Carla’s behaviours. That would come. But for the moment we talked about things that seemed important to Mary “the quality of her biscuits (they were awesome) and how she tried to make as much as she could herself because then she could know what was in everything; how she was preparing the garden for the same reason; how she liked to walk down to the river not too far away; how she had made the choice to not work so that she could “create a home” for Carla, something Mary had never had as a child. We shared gardening secrets, recipes and ways of preserving food. It was like I had dropped in on a new neighbour. Sharing ourselves, getting to know each other a little.

I know there are a lot of people, especially “professional therapists” who might argue I was wasting valuable time, that we should get right to the point, make a plan and intervene swiftly. I used to believe that, but I don’t now.

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that people we see are people in pain and that we should move to help them resolve the issues in their life as swiftly as possible so that they might get back on track and live with less pain. But now I remember that these are just that, people in pain, and like the rest of us they need to experience caring and comfort, they need to feel valued, they need for us to connect with them as caring people ourselves. In spending time this way, I was not only creating opportunities for connection but also learning important things about Mary “what she valued, what she believed in, what made her happy, what made her sad. And I was also getting ideas, about how to talk to her, about things she liked to “do”, about possible activities. Was it valuable information? I guess that depends on your orientation towards change.

I asked her to show me the garden.

God, I can hear my old family therapy supervisor screaming at me across the miles ““Get to work, Garfat. Quit avoiding the issues.” And in my head I am yelling back to him, “We are. We are.” I hope he hears me. You see, I haven’t forgotten all the stuff I learned. I have just found a different, and for me better, way of using it, in a different place. I am in her environment, not mine. I am approaching this from a Child and Youth Care perspective. But I am not forgetting what I learned about systems, alliances and coalitions, joining, strategic interventions, etc., etc., etc. I am just using it all differently. The “what” is the same; it’s the approach that is different.

We discuss the garden, the work involved in preparing the soil, what will be planted where, and why. As we talked we crouched down together and each took a handful of soil, to feel the consistency, the texture. And as we were down there, dirt crumbling in our hands, running through our fingers, each of us looking at the earth, I asked, “Does Carla garden with you?”
Mary glanced at me, questioning in her eyes. “She used to. And she was good at it,” she said. “But she hasn’t this year.”
“I wonder why not,” I say out loud.
“Me too.”

We were silent for a minute, feeling the earth, looking at the soil, and then she asked if I wanted to go back inside, to have another tea. “Yes,” I answered, “that would be nice. And I was wondering if I might meet Carla now.”
She was the mother and I was asking her permission to meet her daughter. It was the path, I thought, the way to go. You never know until you set out.
“Alone?” she asked.
“What do you think would be best? I don’t know Carla.”
“I think maybe I should ask her to join us. We can talk for awhile and just see how it goes. Maybe then she’d be willing to meet with you alone “if you think it is necessary.” There was a question in that last phrase.
“Okay, sounds like a fine plan to me. And as for meeting alone, well, we won’t know until we meet together, I think.”

There was a time when I would worry about how much I was letting her “control” what was happening. My thoughts would have been about the need for me to control everything. The “struggle for structure” and all that. But I think differently now. I believe that people need to experience themselves as “being in control” even in a helping relationship “perhaps even especially in a helping relationship. After all, if most of your life feels like it is out of control, might it not be nice to have a place where you feel supported in exercising some control over what is happening. And besides, one might wonder, when one allows other to be in control, who really is? But that’s a theoretical discussion we can have some other day.

We went back inside. Mary poured tea, waited until we had both taken a sip, and then went to call Carla. And I reflected on what had happened so far. Waiting. Wondering. Thinking about what might come next.


This feature: Garfat, T. (2005) Twilight Reflections: Meeting Carla, Relational Child and Youth Care Practice, 18(1), pp. 51-53

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