Sunday Meditation

Snow swirls around cars in the parking lot visible through the glass wall of our local recreation centre, the swimming pool area to be exact. I sit inside on a bench, watching four grandsons learn how to swim, all in different classes and in different areas of the huge swimming complex. The fact that there were lessons scheduled to accommodate all four in the pool at the same time was a marvel and a stroke of luck, but there they are, bobbing around in their various classes.

My own kids were swimmers. Ongoing lessons and in one case, swim club made the pool a weekly, sometimes biweekly event for several years. My youngest spent her early months inhaling chlorine as she slept peacefully in her car seat while her older brother and sister swam. That’s her, out there now, with the youngest grandson, who, at not quite three, is not yet old enough to be in the water by himself. He boldly retrieves ping pong balls and rubber ducks, spins, claps, blows bubbles and tries to float. He is safe in mommy’s arms for now but before long he will be swimming on his own.

The next grandson, at four and a half is at home in the water. He loves fish and right now is probably pretending he is one. He does what is required and then explores along the edge of the pool. His instructor calls him back regularly but he is experimenting – stretching his fins in the direction of independence.

Our six year old guy is with his instructor in the corner of one of the big tanks. He is the only one in his class, a necessary allowance for a little guy who wants to swim like the others but who wouldn’t thrive in a class with the distraction of other students.

And the oldest grandson is off with his eight year old peers. He tries very hard but he is nervous – wants so badly to succeed but he’s isn’t able yet to relax enough to let his body trust the water. He may or may not get his badge this time around. He will be disappointed if he doesn’t make it and I make a mental note to tell him how many times his uncle, who he admires and who eventually became an excellent swimmer, took to pass the beginner level. Looking even further back, I will share with him that it took his grandma several tries as well.

I go back to watching the youngest and his mom – they are having a great time building trust, building a mom/son relationship so important in a single parent family. The mom is doing an admirable job with these boys – it’s hard to be everything for everybody and I admire her love and strength. She has been given such an enormous responsibility and she meets it daily, head on.

I am there because I want to be. I am thankful for this opportunity to enjoy the pool – the smell of chlorine is friendly, familiar. The air is moist and warm – a good place to be on a cold winter day.  I am the guardian of the towels, the waver, the person with the thumbs up after a successful jump or dunk. And afterward, I manage to keep four little fishies, changed back into rambunctious boys, from leaving the building while their mom gets dressed.

When they are over, I will miss these lessons and the opportunity to spend time in this warm, humid atmosphere.  It’s a peaceful half hour – a good place to let thoughts wander on a Sunday morning.

Dear Alison,

I hope you don’t mind me calling you Alison…you are such a breath of fresh air I feel like I know you personally. I am so pleased that more money is being spent on education and services for those in need. Your quick and direct action in that direction is a valuable and admirable first step toward making our province a better place to live for all.

However, there is a “but”. It’s a big “but” and a personal “but” that could be expressed by many first line workers across the broad scope of social services. This funding is set up to help those in need at the expense of the first contact workers that administer that help. What good is this extra funding if it must go toward the training of new employees, administration, and reorganization?

Picture a young woman who works for an agency that depends on government funding to run its programs. She and her peers have recently been told that their nominal calculations have to be at 100% to prove that they are earning their wage, that they aren’t wasting the taxpayers’ money.

 Good thought, but there are many duties that are disallowed in the calculation of these figures so as caseloads increase to impossible, excellent case workers with valuable experience and education are being forced to leave jobs that they love and clients that depend on them. They are burned out, can’t cope with the internal pressure, but more importantly, they no longer have time to give their clients appropriate service so leaving the position becomes a moral decision as well.

Now on the personal level, last week my daughter, one such caseworker, was diagnosed with a severe case of strep throat. She was extremely ill and spent the past week unable to swallow or eat. She was seen by a doctor and was subsequently sent to the urgent care centre in our community to receive intravenous antibiotics and steroids to eliminate the rampant infection and swelling in her throat. She was encouraged by her supervisors to take time to recover, to not overdo and to not return to work until she was well.

But these same supervisors have reiterated that if her nominal figures are below 100% in any given month, a letter of reprimand will be placed in her file (as would happen to anyone whose figures did not meet the standard for whatever reason.) She covered her time off as best she could, took a personal day, then used up vacation days to cover her absence. However, this has no bearing on the fact that the organization still expects a 100% outcome. If this is not reached, a threat to end employment has been made.

Today she is recovering, still cannot swallow and the strong antibiotics she must take are making her nauseous but she’s back at work because she has to be. There are people that depend on her and she doesn’t want to lose her job. 

So Alison, is this the way this initiative is intended to play out? I can’t believe the intention is to create a whole new group of victims among the first contact caseworkers, so maybe it’s time the method of assessing work hours is evaluated and more importantly, monitored, especially concerning work done in private agencies. Thank you for listening.

Yours respectfully,
A hopeful but frustrated Albertan

"I Know What We're Going to do Today"

Does anyone watch the kids’ cartoon, Phineas  and Ferb? To understand what I am about to say, you must watch at least a couple of episodes, not a difficult task because these guys are pretty funny. The brothers, imaginative inventors of all things impossible, meet each adventure head on. They share the show with parents, friends, a pet platypus/secret agent, a benignly evil villain, and a sister.

It’s the sister, her boyfriend and their relationship that fascinate me. Candace is, to say the least, high strung. She lovable but insecure, her insecurities arising from the fact that no matter how hard she tries, her parents are oblivious to her  brothers’ escapades.  She is obsessed, can’t get them out of her mind, and coincidentally (as is the nature of cartoons) they are always right there in her face. She wants to “bust” them, expose them mainly to her ever-distracted mom, get them in trouble and mostly prove that she isn’t crazy for seeing the things that she sees.

She is a little bit loud, a little bit full of herself, but she is also a caregiver. She worries about her brothers and doesn’t want them to meet with the disaster they always seem to be headed for. She cares about her friends who are constantly trying keep her calm in the face of her many crisis. No one can call Candace irresponsible. She’s a little high maintenance but mostly she’s a kind, caring and deeply concerned young lady. I love Candace, I love her cranky/sweet nature and I love her vulnerability.

And then there is Jeremy, Candace’s boyfriend. Too good to be true Jeremy. He is the anchor in Candace’s stormy life, a voice of reason, her soft place to fall. In Candace’s words, Jeremy is perfect. He stays with her regardless of her paranoia and the predicaments she gets into. He likes her for who she is. He’s proud of her, but most of the time doesn’t understand what all the flap and fuss is about. Candace feels insecure as she tries to have deep and meaningful conversations with him but he drives her to distraction with his calm acceptance of almost everything. Certainly Jeremy must have faults, but the only obvious one is his stereotypical male nature.

Episode after episode, Phineas and Ferb do something totally impossible, Candace tries to stop them, the scheme comes to an end before she can involve her mom and their lives go on. So why am I writing about this? Darned if I know.