Community Connection - Reflections on the Pandemic

This piece was recorded and posted on-line here, by KTOO-Public Media on April 14, 2020.

Every Friday for the past year, our cafe’s pastry chef Stephanie has crafted triple-risen brioche donuts, with flavors like sugared plum glaze, raspberry pistachio and the Elvis. These pillowy delights have developed a sort-of cult following. But are donuts essential? Should we maintain this tradition, in light of current events?

Three weeks ago, the Governor ended all dine-in service in restaurants and the next week, CBJ shuttered all non-essential businesses and implored residents to hunker down. As nearby workplaces and schools have moved on-line, our ice cream and coffee shop’s core customer base has melted away.

This pandemic could easily destroy our family business. At first, I was so overwhelmed by this possibility that I froze. I was unable to make decisions, however small, even as events happened faster and faster. Since then, we’ve painfully had to lay off one part-time worker, and reduce hours of the rest of our small staff. With take-out and curbside delivery only, we’ve added take-and-bake dinners to our menu. Each week, we’ve augmented our safety practices, closely following CDC guidelines.

Perhaps the biggest decision my wife and I have had to face is whether or not to stay open. The government has declared us and other take out and delivery restaurants as essential. But are we really?

Frankly, we’ve been on the fence. Our Friday donuts are surely not a staple, like rice and beans. Hand-crafted ice cream isn’t a survival food. But then, a customer posted all the things she was grateful for that week. She listed our cafe first, describing the donut she had for dinner with a glass of wine.

Now we have an on-line system for donut orders and pickups, to prevent crowds. The reaction has been gratifying, especially seeing the pictures posted of our customers sharing their rare treat with others. One thanked us for making Friday sweet and delicious, in spite of it all.

Our mission has always been to make people happy by offering delicious, handmade products with Alaskan hospitality. No longer a gathering spot, though, our cafe feels hollowed out. We mourn not seeing our regulars and we light up greeting the remaining few, like our Coastie friends. So far, it feels like we can still achieve our mission. Thanks to donut and dinner sales and gift cards thoughtfully bought by our community of supporters, we’ve been able to make payroll and pay our rent, so far. Our business model might look a little different, but we can still bring a little happiness, and brighten the days of many.

So as long as we can operate safely for our employees and our customers, we’ve decided to stay open. We’ll be there for the workers who are still going into the office or driving the bus every day. We’ll be there for the double-duty parents who may need a little help putting dinner on the table. And we’ll be there every Friday making something you can’t get anywhere else. Because in these troubling times, don’t we all need something to look forward to?

Alaskan Hospitality

When I moved to Denali Park from Louisiana 25 years ago, I was deeply moved by Alaskan hospitality. I was used to Southern hospitality, which makes shopping in the grocery store pleasant. But here, Alaskan after Alaskan invited me into their homes, offering a warm meal and sometimes even a bed for the night.

The impacts of Governor Dunleavy’s line item vetoes fly in the face of what I know to be Alaskan hospitality. In Alaska, we feed and house the homeless, because we’ve all been sheltered in times of need. In Alaska, we search for our neighbors when they are lost, because we all may need rescue some day. In Alaska, we share our catch with our elders, because that’s how Alaskans treat our elderly, since time immemorial. In Alaska, we decorate our homes with beautiful objects, hand-crafted in techniques passed from generation to generation. In Alaska, we grow what we can with the soil we have, and share our bounty with our neighbors.

The Alaska legislature must stand firm and reinstate the funds cut by the Governor’s anti-Alaskan vetoes. If not, homeless shelters will not be able to feed and house all those in need. If not, public broadcasting stations may close and towns across Alaska may be without vital information and emergency alert systems. If not, our elders will suffer in loneliness and privation. If not, our arts community will wither and more and more of our art will come from outside commercial interests. If not, our last working dairy in the state may have to stop milking. Contrary to what some claim, donations from Alaskans cannot make up the difference to fund these vital services.

In Alaska, we don’t stand by while our friends and neighbors lose their livelihoods. Seven years ago, I was laid off after a long career in Alaska’s non-profit sector. If you haven’t lost your job, you have no idea of the trauma caused by losing your means of support. In fact, losing your job is next to losing a loved one in terms of traumatic lifetime events. If these budget cuts stand, thousands of Alaskan families will be needlessly traumatized. Recent studies show that the trauma of job loss even produces negative health outcomes, including an 83% increased chance of health problems like diabetes, arthritis or psychiatric issues.

rhubarb farm in the Matanuska Valley

These dire circumstances are not for-ordained. We are one of the richest states in the union and we pay no individual state taxes. We can afford to educate our children well, and keep them here through college and beyond. We can afford to support our public broadcasting stations, and bring vital news and emergency services to every town in Alaska. We can afford to have a vibrant arts council, which leverages state funds to access thousands of dollars from private and federal sources. We can afford to fund a thriving agricultural bureau, and make sure we preserve the rich agricultural history of the Matanuska Valley and expand farming across our state.

These are the services that define who we are. These are the services that reflect how we treat each other. These are the services that embody Alaskan hospitality. The question isn’t whether we can afford these services. The reality is that we can’t afford not to.

Opening Coppa

This story was told at the December 13, 2016 Mudrooms event in Juneau, Alaska at the Northern Light United Church (audio file here)

How about that Julie Coppens? You know of all the good things that Ken Leghorn has done for Southeast Alaska, I think it’s fair to say that importing Julie was your highest contribution.

And how about that 100% organic Sentinel Coffee? I think the man who roasted it is right here in the audience, the multi-talented Dave Thomas!  I’d also like to give shout out to our barista, Hal, who brewed those pots just for you. She’s here with many of our staff from Coppa. I love each and every one of you.

I’d like to thank my wife Jessica for letting me tell this story. I know the past three years haven’t been easy. Thank you for standing with me through it all.

Making ice cream is my jam. If I were an artist, cream, milk and sugar would be my palette. You can do anything with ice cream. But I’m not going to bore you with tales of making caramelized onion (still Aurah Landau's favorite) or herring roe ice cream tonight.  I’m going to talk about what our little family business has grown to mean to me.

In May of 2013, I was going through a traumatic layoff. I was losing my twelve year old career in the youth mentoring field, all because a solipsistic Texan moved my job to Irving. Suddenly, my friend Clint told me that the Seong’s Sushi building was being renovated and the landlord wanted to put in a coffee shop.

Shazzam. That’s what I was going to do next. I just knew it in my bones. I was going to run a coffee shop. And we would also sell ice cream, because that’s what I liked to make. In fact, I started making rhubarb sherbet commercially right here in this kitchen. Jessica was out of town on her first sea kayaking trip in a decade. So my idea had plenty of time and space to take root.

When she returned from Seymour Canal, I began my relentless lobbying campaign.  Wasn’t it going to be wonderful? Just think of how much money we can make off of those $4 mochas! After 20 years of working for non-profits, I was eager to make some real money.

But Jessica was a tough sell.  She was wise enough to see through the mirage of easy money through coffee. Eventually though, my persistence wore her down. By late September, we were open for business.  Building plans, electrical work, plumbing, equipment purchased, two baristas hired, all in the span of four months. Yes, you guessed it, I was not of sound mind.

I hadn’t been trained in coffee making. And all of my ice cream knowledge was self taught and gleaned from home cookbooks. But that didn’t matter. Right?

Katie, our first barista

Thankfully, we had some early customers like Chris Knight who came every day and put up with my bad milkfoam and my inconsistent espresso shots. And my first two baristas, Nikki and Katie, had a magic touch with the customers. Nancy had spent hours and hours testing recipes and got our bakery up and running. Our friends like Barbara came over and over because they liked us and they wanted us to succeed. Kim Rivera even knitted me a Coppa hat, that first fall. I was so touched I put it on display and wouldn’t even wear it.

Then winter rolled around and I started losing employees and I was working 60 or 70 hours a week and I wasn’t sure if we were going to make it. I had blown through my severance package and we were going to have to make it on what the business could produce and Jessica’s salary.  Thank god for her health insurance. I was trying to be a co-parent and found myself falling asleep in the middle of games of Life with Ferguson. He would have to wake me up each time it was my turn and I would spin the dial in a half daze.

We persevered though, and learned a lot by trial and error. My management style of making it up as I went along somehow didn’t run us out of business.  

Chef Isaac and his winning bacon ice cream recipe

We made some key kitchen hires. Kerry and Isaac dialed in our bakery, lunch, and ice cream offerings and added a professionalism that we were missing. Thanks to a grant we won, I finally took a barista class and we even sent our barista India to barista camp. The business started to feel solid, like we might actually make it.

Kerry's savory spirals have gained a cult-like following over the years

Then Dylan Roof brandished the confederate flag and murdered nine people in Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church. I remember coming to church that week and imagining the same thing happening here at Northern Light. The Mississippi flag on Egan Drive had always bothered me, with its symbol of institutional racism. So I got together a group of like-minded individuals, and we we started working to get the flag taken down. We had our meetings at Coppa. I suddenly realized that I had a great resource. Coppa could be a convening place for organizing in the community.

And we prevailed, thanks to the support of 300 community leaders, including our entire Juneau legislative delegation.  But along the way, I got singled out. It was my picture in the paper, on the front page and the back page, and the hate poured right at me and right towards Coppa.  

The internet trolls struck, and they hit hard. I didn’t even know what a troll was before this happened. They started threatening me and talked openly about boycotting our business. They posted terrible reviews of our business on social media, threatening our four star ratings.  It shook Jessica and I to the core. Especially when a woman threatened to make up anti-Coppa bumper stickers and distribute them around town. I seriously expected we would get a brick thrown through our large glass windows.

But then a beautiful thing happened. Our customers and our friends rallied around us. They wrote glowing reviews of us on social media, drowning out the haters. David Katzeek performed a Tlingit ceremony in our shop and placed a protective devil’s club branch above our doorway. Folks came in and mentioned that they were making extra trips to support us. And when the local paper did its annual readers survey that fall, we were ranked Best Business in all of Juneau.

Love overcomes hate. It really does. As I’ve grown into the business, I’ve realized that Coppa isn’t all about making money. Believe me, no one in Juneau is getting rich off of those $4 mochas.  But it’s fine.  I’ve come to realize that this business I own is an extension of myself. It’s an expression of me and my family’s values.

We love being a gathering place for the community.  We love hosting artists, sometimes having their first show. We love sponsoring events like the kids open mic event a few weeks ago. We love giving away gallons and gallons of ice cream for one day every year. And we love budgeting our advertising dollars for youth drama programs and high school sports teams and public radio.

Seeing friends have a chance encounter at the cafe still gives me a tingly feeling. The other day a couple came over to celebrate with their kids just after adopting them at the federal courthouse. Our customers often tell us their joys and their sorrows. Sometimes they even break down in tears right there at the counter. We listen and try to help, even if it’s just with a smile or a hug or a free cup of coffee. And they give back, bringing us their homemade sausage, the nagoonberries they’ve picked, or their prized plum cake recipe.  On one day last week, they even donated close to $2000 to help cover one of our barista's emergency medical bills.

The night the election happened, I texted my employees. I told them no matter how they felt about it, they had to try and shake it off. People would be struggling the next day and we had to be there for them, be their smile in the morning, be that little spark of light for them. And I wanted to be at the cafe from open to close. I wanted to see all of our customers and hug them if they needed it, and get their hugs back.

Saralyn Tabachnick from AWARE with some Nas-Tea Woman ice cream

I’m not worried about expressing my values in my business anymore, well maybe just a little. My wife and I were so angry about the recent misogyny portrayed in the media that we decided to make a Nas-Tea Woman ice cream.  We knew we might get some hate, but we felt our customers would appreciate it, and we could help the AWARE shelter at the same time. New women customers came to the store in spades.

We’re now three years in.  I no longer worry about whether we’re going to make it.  I’m sure there will be financial ups and downs in the future, but we will be okay. There are more important things than money.  Like the promise of youth, the strength of community, the hope for equality, and investing in your employees, even though they might not be with you more than a year.

I love this town. I adore my wife. I cherish my kids.  And I love myself. Like my arms and my feet, I love this other extension of myself, this little business called Coppa.

Paris

My friends know that I've always been a trusting person. Like when I "loaned" a complete stranger $100 during my junior year in college. Full of my belief in the basic goodness of people, I used to do a lot of hitchhiking, too. I gladly entrusted my safety to complete strangers and enjoyed the random adventures that happened along the road. One time, this trust in strangers put my safety in jeopardy.

When I was 24, I went hitchhiking in Wales with my then ex-girlfriend. Soon, we realized that exes didn't make the best travel partners. So I headed on my own to London, on my way to Italy. There, I made the split-second decision to take a bus to Paris. When I got to Paris around 10 pm, I didn’t know where I was. I didn't have a guidebook, I didn’t have a single franc, and my French was limited to what I had picked up in elementary school. So I wandered the streets of Paris looking for a place to change pounds into francs, unsuccessfully.

Around midnight, desperately tired and lost, I started scoping out a park for a place to sleep for the night. It was well-lit with no obvious place to hide for some shut-eye. About then, a man approached me and asked if I needed a place to stay. I said sure and followed him up to his small musty apartment. It was up several flights of stairs in an old building. When we got in the room, he locked the door with a key, offered me a glass of water, which I accepted, and something to eat, which I declined. Next, he offered me a place in his twin bed. I declined that as well, thinking French men were just more comfortable with their bodies than Americans.

I bedded down in my sleeping bag in the middle of the small room, next to his bed. As I was trying to fall asleep, the man turned over several times, seeming to have a hard time getting comfortable.  All of a sudden, I felt his hand on my crotch. I bolted upright and said no. He said (in French) “oh, I thought American men liked that sort of thing.” I said that no, I didn’t like that sort of thing. He promptly removed his hand from my crotch, settled back in bed, and fell asleep.

I lay there paralyzed, my mind racing.  What was I going to do?  Was it safe to stay with this man who had just groped me?  How would I be able to leave?  Where would I go? I felt so stupid, for trusting this stranger in a strange country where I barely spoke the language. And I felt powerless, completely at the mercy of this man.  I just lay there, all night, my mind racing, unable to sleep or to summon the courage to somehow open the locked door and leave.

When the man finally awoke, I rolled up my bag, got my stuff together and said goodbye. He wasn’t interested in any conversation and let me leave without a glance.

I felt dirty and ashamed by what had happened. Was it my fault? Did I somehow unconsciously invite this man's advance toward me? Was there some cue that I had missed that this man was interested in sex? Why was I so stupid and careless with my safety? I had to get out of Paris. It was my first time there, but I wanted nothing more to do with the City of Light. I got some francs and took the first train I could. I decided to go to Lorrain, the place of my ancestors. As I walked the streets of Metz, I saw the image of my Maman in the faces of strangers, and started to feel somewhat at home, and a little more comfortable in my own skin.

I have only told this story to a handful of people over the last 20 years (and finally just told it to my mom) and I haven’t set foot in Paris again. I still remember the smell of that room and I still feel the sting of shame, stupidity, and self-blame for putting myself in that situation. And now that I hear more stories from my female friends about being sexually harassed and assaulted, I am encouraged to tell my story. I was luckier than many in that when I said no, the man heard me and stopped. I wasn’t raped and I never had to see this man again, lurking in my workplace or hassling me as I went to school every day. But I have some small inkling of the powerlessness and violation and shame that victims of sexual assault feel. And my trust in humans is now tempered by the knowledge that people commit horrific acts, and no prayers to a higher power will ever stop evil from happening.

This month, I traveled with my daughter to a big city. When I left her on her own one day, I tried to drill in her the importance of never going somewhere with a stranger. Whatever you do, I said, don't. get. in. the. car. I hope my daughter can learn from my mistakes. And I hope that more people can feel safe in disclosing their stories of sexual assault. We will never stop it from happening if we don't talk about it as a society and if we don't listen with compassion to those who have been violated.

Coppa

Yesterday, I announced to the media a big life change for me. My recent departure from Big Brothers Big Sisters of America has created an opportunity to start something new.

My wife, Jessica, and I recently started a small business and are planning to open a coffee, tea, and ice cream shop highlighting local ingredients.  It will be housed in the newly renovated space across from the Federal Building at 917 Glacier Avenue.

the front of the coffee shop in the last days of construction

This really is a dream come true for me.  I've always had the day dream of owning my own food business.  And on dark days in the office, I've fantasized many times about being a barista. But I've often thought the drudgery of work would spoil my passion for making people happy through food and drink.  My recent experience selling homemade rhubarb sherbet though my food truck (rather food bike), changed my mind about that.  I discovered that making something with my hands, making people happy, and making money - all at the same time - was tremendously rewarding.

So, when the chance came to rent a space in the newly renovated building right down the street from my house, the thought of taking my ice cream business to the next level grabbed my imagination.  We took our time as a family to decide to take this next leap, and I am extremely grateful to Jessica for standing by me in this new adventure.

I'd also like to thank Nancy DeCherney, the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council, Rev. Phil Campbell, and the Northern Light United Church for the opportunity to launch my sherbet and ice cream business this summer.  Without their support, I wouldn't have had the courage to take this step.

We're calling the shop “Coppa” (pronounced Cōp-ah), which means “cup” in Italian, playing off the store’s initial offerings of ice cream, coffee, and tea. It also refers to the trophy given in sporting events (e.g., the World Cup), a nod to the store’s quest for excellence.

This is a "coppa dell'amicizia," (friendship cup), used in northern Italy by a group of friends
 to drink coffee and grappa together, a nice symbol for our shop

I love using an Italian word in the store's name; I first developed my love of espresso and cooking when I lived and worked in Italy during college.  I'll never forget the gelato shop down the street from the orphanage where I worked in Naples.  The flavors were so vivid, it tasted like you were eating an actual lemon in your cone.  The kids would make that cone last all the way back to the orphanage, even though it was more than a mile walk.  And I still remember the first time I had an espresso macchiato, at the bar on campus in Bologna.  It was a perfect marriage of espresso and ephemeral milk foam.  When Giorgio taught me how to make a lasagne bolognese from scratch, I knew I was hooked on Italian food forever.

At Coppa, we're going to embrace the Italian spirit of good food, good coffee, and easy hospitality.  We want to make it a place where everyone and all ages feel welcome.  We'll feature my handmade ice creams, including rhubarb sherbet and sorbet, as well as unique varieties made from local ingredients, like my new Alaskan Brewing Company Smoked Porter brownie ice cream and my limited-release nagoonberry sherbet.  We're going to use coffee roasted by Seattle’s Caffe Luca Coffee Roasters, a classic Italian-style espresso roaster founded in Italy more than 20 years ago, and hand-crafted, small batch artisanal teas from Portland’s Steven Smith Teamaker.  I'm excited to source all of my baked goods from Nancy Hemenway and other local bakers.

Paul Voelckers and his partners have done a beautiful job renovating the old Sturm’s Cold Storage building, which now houses Seong’s Sushi Bar. I am thrilled by the opportunity to open a business in a neighborhood I love doing what I love to do – making people happy through food and drinks.

Finally, I'd like to thank all of my friends and family that have helped us get to this point - helping us plan the store layout, helping us buy equipment, helping us move in, helping us vet the store name, and giving us moral support.  Without our incredible network of people in Juneau and beyond, this store would only be a wink of an idea.

Doug and Chuck helping move chairs and equipment

I hope to serve many of you a "cuppa" at Coppa very soon.  We hope to be open by mid-September.

Last Day

Today is my last day at Big Brothers Big Sisters.  This has been a really emotional week for me. I'll write soon about my upcoming plans, but for now it feels like I am stepping into the abyss.  It's hard to leave a movement you've worked in for 12 years to which you've given so much of your mental and emotional life.

Here are a few pics from my tenure at Big Brothers Big Sisters.  Below I have pasted an email I sent to colleagues yesterday.

my first day at BBBS, with Natalie, Jenny, and Amber
November 1, 2001

selling gumbo to help BBBS in New Orleans after Katrina,
with Karen and Valorie

Tisha, a longtime mentor to me at the National office,
here with Ferguson in Seattle recently

my awesome team at BBBSA, Kristin, Salem, Sandra and Carly

***

The week I started at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Juneau, my sister gave me a little box that said "A Little Box of Courage" on it.  It was November, 2001, and I was walking into my first job as a manager into a business I didn't know.  I had been a grassroots organizer for a conservation group.  What did I know about running a social service non-profit for youth?  I walked into the office with Natalie, Amber and Jenny (with Scott running a remote office) and was scared. I was clearly in over my head.

Luckily, I was able to learn from my staff and my predecessor, Tony, and many, many of you at the National office and beyond.  And I had that little box of courage that I would peek at every now and then.

Please accept my sincere thanks for all that you've taught me and shared with me over the last 12 years.  I am who I am for having known and worked with all of you.

I'm sorry, but tomorrow (August 1) is my last day, and this is my swan song, so I am going to list a few of the highlights of my career with Big Brothers Big Sisters and give some parting words.  You can scroll down to the bottom and skip all this to get to my contact information:

With seed money from an earmark from Senator Ted Stevens, we opened offices in Hoonah (Tlingit village of 1000 residents) and Ketchikan in 2002.  These offices are still open and staffed by two of my first hires, Sally and Gretchen, and still serving kids in a meaningful way.

I first got a taste of data and fun with Excel formulas when I helped Mark Taylor develop the original Metrics Workbook.

My mom and sister were able to be with me in Indianapolis in 2006 when I won an award at the BBBSA National Conference. I cried like a baby on stage in front of hundreds.  Hopefully the videotapes have all been destroyed.

We tried to adapt the Amachi model of mentoring children of prisoners in Alaska. It was a great honor to host a visit to Juneau by Rev. Dr. Wilson Goode.  I'll also never forget my first visit to prison to recruit Littles for the program. I met a woman there who had just lost visitation rights for her 6-month old baby.  While we never perfected the model, we served a lot of children of prisoners, and I will always have a place in my heart for these children.

Through Betsy's fine work, we executed a MOA between the US Coast Guard and the Juneau School District and agreed to support the local USCG Partnership in Education program through our Bigs in Schools program in 2007. The partnership continues to generate numbers of quality volunteers for the local program.

I worked with many fine staff as Executive Director, which culminated when my management team was so strong that they organized meetings without me.

Somehow, my peers elected me to the Nationwide Leadership Council, where I first got a taste for helping children across the US.  I was energized by thinking about helping youth across our entire country, in places I knew could really use our programs. When Judy Vredenburgh asked me to be part of a strategic planning committee, I was thrilled.  Working with Bridgespan and members of the national board and staff was incredible. I am now a total believer in data-driven strategic planning.

After many years of hoping and planning, we executed a merger and created BBBS of Alaska in 2007.  We made our share of mistakes, but the organization that Peggy, Taber, Annette and I helped create is still serving youth in many communities across the state, even through some severe fiscal challenges.  I wish the organization had been able to retain all of the talented staff that it started with and I still grieve for all of those that were lost.  Despite our missteps, I look back at the job of VP of Programs as the best job I’ve held during my 12 years of BBBS service.

Thanks to the encouragement of Tisha, I attended the most impactful week of professional development of my career when I attended the Summer Institute of Youth Mentoring.  I never knew there was all this research about youth mentoring.  I met Tom Keller, Tim Cavell, Michael Karcher, Renee Spencer and Carla Herrera and got to ask a million questions about how and why mentoring works.  I encountered the research bug and it bit me.

Through Tom's help, I was awarded a Distinguished Fellowship from the WT Grant Foundation. I got to spend an amazing six months at Portland State University and took PhD classes in Social Work.  I also got to know David DuBois through the Fellowship and began a collaboration with him and Tom that continues to this day.  I was able to help complete a meta-analysis of school-based mentoring RCTs and they even let me be first author of an article that we wrote that got published in a pre-eminent publication (and it only took us 100 drafts to finalize).

In my tenure at BBBS, I had two long-standing aspirations.  One was to be CEO of BBBS of Alaska.  When that job opened up, I applied for it and didn't get it.  The board wisely chose Taber, who has shepherded the organization through some tough times.  The other was to be VP of Programs for BBBS of America.  That job doesn't really exist anymore, but at least I got to work for the national office, starting in 2011.

While these last two years haven't always been easy, it's been an honor to work with some of the finest staff that I've ever worked with, helping youth across this great country.  I've worked on an amazing team with Sandra, Kristin, Salem and Carly and have been part of some thrilling work, including helping develop and test two new community-based models of mentoring, helping author the national report on youth outcomes with infographics, and helping create a tool for agencies to use to create their own infographics with their own outcome data.

I'll never forget when Lisa, then a Match Support Specialist, asked me why we raise money by talking about some of the life-changing matches we create, when the average BBBS match doesn't really look like that.  With Lisa's inspiration and all that I've learned about research, it's been my passion over the last few years to help more of our matches look like the ones we talk about in fundraising and increase the quality of our average match.  I am encouraged that so many of you share that same passion.

If had a magic wand to increase the impact of our programs, I would invest deeply in staff development at our very front lines.  I strongly believe that the quality of our programs and the depth of our impact are directly related to the strength of our Match Support staff.  We need to develop these key staff, pay them well, and encourage them to stick around.  Every office needs a senior Match Support Specialist with a depth of life and BBBS experience to advise the younger and less experienced staff.  I would also encourage a deep investment in parental engagement.  We need a culture shift within BBBS to start thinking about our parents as key partners whose support is crucial for the development of our matches and our Littles.  Too often we discount our parents and view them as obstacles, rather than supports.  Finally, I would invest deeply in our internal evaluation.  We have a wealth of data that can be used to study our matches and improve the outcomes we produce in kids’ lives.  Investment is needed to mine this data and learn from it.  Without such an investment, our large sources of data are an untapped resource.

For those of you continuing in this work, please take care of each other.  We help youth to build relationships with adults, but we can only do it through authentic, caring relationships with each other.  You will also each find your own little box of courage.  It's right there inside you.

Keep in touch,

Marc

Restoring Goodness

Steve Merli is a healer. I first got to know Steve during an expedition of the Landmark Trees Project. I was with him, Richard Carstensen, John Caouette, and Sam Skaggs on Sam's former boat, the Arcturus.  We were coming back from Upper Hoonah Sound, where we had cataloged one of the last major swaths of large Sitka Spruce forests on the Tongass. Steve watched me as we rounded the southern shores of Admiralty Island and asked me, "Marc, do you get headaches? Do you have one right now?"

I did have a headache, so bad I thought I was going to start crying. And I had been having headaches almost daily since adolescence. As I told Steve about my headaches and the TMJ that caused them, he nodded.  He told me that he had found that people like me that clenched their jaw were storing a lot of energy there for a reason. There was something that needed to be said to ourselves or others that we were holding in. He did bodywork at the time and said he could work on me. But I would need to be in a safe space, because once he started working on me, stuff would start coming out. And I would need to be prepared to deal with it.

I filed that information away and soon forgot about it. Months later, I was totally fed up with grinding my teeth and night and waking up every day with an eye-watering headache. I thought I would try acupuncture. I went to see Suzy Cohen who she deftly needled my jaw and head. I had never had acupuncture but I was intrigued by its potential to relieve my pain. Sure enough, I felt relief afterwards from my tension. But I was also flooded by the blackest of griefs. I would go back to my home (which was coincidentally Sam's sailboat, the Arcturus) and weep. Jessica, who I was then dating, had no idea of what to do with this. And I didn't either. It just came and came and was so raw and elemental I couldn't even name it.

Months later I remembered the conversation with Steve and decided to go see him. He worked on me, giving me massage and working on some of the points in my head and jaw.  And he would let me express my emotions.  I would be there on the table, moaning and weeping, and feeling a bit strange about the whole thing. But in time, the headaches lessened and the emotional ballast gradually fell away.  I still get headaches once in a while, during times of acute stress.  And I wear a  mouthguard at night to stop me from grinding my teeth to dust. But I feel like my body has said what it needed to say and there is much less tension in my jaw.

Recently Steve told me he left doing bodywork and now works with trauma victims. I was intrigued. Steve was such a good masseuse. I knew he must be onto something good if he left his old work for something else. He told me he'd been working with something called Somatic Experience (c). I started to think maybe he could help me again. I ran into him at Costco one day and started telling me about my experience on the Juneau Icefield. He said he'd like to read my story. I sent him my blog. After reading it, he called me and said he thought he might be able to help me.

Steve Merli, in his studio on Seward St.

I've now seen Steve three times. I'm not exactly sure what happens when I see him, but I know it is powerful. I feel like I am coming into myself gradually each time we meet. We've talked a lot about the theory behind his work.  And every session, he lays hands on me, and he helps my body deal with the traumatic response that it is still holding withing itself.

It's only recently occurred to me that I've had several instances of trauma recently, many of which I've written about in this blog. The accident on the icefield, the injury to my shoulder, and my recent surgery are all traumatic experiences. My body did what it was supposed to do in those situations, and triggered my traumatic response.  Now I need to let my body know that it is okay now, and that everything is all right.

Steve loaned me the book of his teacher, Peter Levine, titled "In an Unspoken Voice: 
How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness." I've only just started reading it. But I am fascinated by Levine's theories of how the body naturally responds to trauma and how we can work with our bodies to restore a normal state, or goodness.

Steve has explained to me that it shouldn't be called PTSD, because it's not a disorder.  What happens to us in trauma is natural.  We just need to understand how to unwind the state our body goes into during trauma to unlock the pain and suffering that has been labeled a "disorder" by our medical community.  

Steve has told me it's our brain stem that takes over during traumatic experiences. Our reptilian brain, the stem is responsible for regulating our metabolism, breathing, and kicks in when our lives are threatened. When we go completely out of our comfort zone, like I did on the icefield, our natural response is to freeze, which is exactly what happened to me. It's a good response in a potentially fatal situation, and often works to save our life. But then, if we don't let our body release, it still thinks that it is in danger, and holds this state of freeze for potentially a long, long time.

So I've been working with Steve on talking with my brain stem. He's helping me learn to get back into my body, to connect to my body's relationship with physical objects. He's helping me practice being alert and relaxed at the same time, something that is challenging for me. My body's proclivity is to fall asleep when I'm relaxed. But a few times, working with Steve, I've come into this clarity of experience, where my mind and body feel together in an alert yet restful space.

The human body is an amazing animal. I feel mine changing through this work with Steve. I feel more grounded. more in touch with myself than I've felt in a long time. And just knowing that what happened to me on the icefield was a natural response has been greatly empowering. I had always wondered why my mind and body slowed down so much during the rescue. Understanding that by brain stem did what it was wired to do has brought me comfort.

I'm looking forward to working more with Steve after he gets back from sailing from Hawaii.  I do feel the goodness being restored.  And for that I give thanks.  Thank you, Steve.