The Zen Garden

I know that it must seem like my life revolves around issues of health care and insurance, what with my last two blog postings. The truth is, these issues actually play a very small role in my life. Mostly my life is taken up by two things: the zen garden of the Jen’s daycare, and the UU fellowship in Chico.

The daycare grows by leaps and bounds every day. Literally. I cannot believe how tall the plants suddenly are. It’s like I blinked and then suddenly the yard was full of green and growing plants, bright with flowers. Of course the tulips bloomed a while ago. They were the first and Jen protected them like her first born. She was joking the other day how it is sometimes best to occasionally really lose it, like she does with the first tulips of the year. She said that when you do this, the kids help each other remember. “You can hear the toddlers out there saying to each other, ‘Oh man, you just don’t want to even go there! Jen will just lose it!” “Now,” she said, “They don’t even go near them.” Which is true.

The roses started blooming this week. She has the most amazing set of climbing roses, all with lovely scents. The sweet peas are going too. She has a set with strings all reaching up to the eaves of the garage so they will form a nice little ‘tunnel’ for the kids to walk under. She tried to create another tunnel with the bean plants, but the last frost of the season chomped down on that lovely little idea. Which is too bad because one of the toddlers remembered what she had told him two weeks before—he was walking down the path with several other toddlers when he stopped and noticed the tiny sprouting bean plants. He pointed and said, “Those are bean plants. They are going to grow up and build houses for us to play in.”

Jen is hoping that I will absorb gardening from her; she is constantly asking me to look at such-and-such a plant to see how great it is doing. I have no idea what she is talking about most of the time and have to ask her to actually point the plant out. Which she does, with a full explanation of what type of plant it is, how it grows, what it can be used for, and so on. Still, even with my aging brain, the information will eventually soak in, so she isn’t too far off.

The children are blossoming as well. Each season brings new challenges. It is easy to get caught up in thinking, “how many times do I have to say that?” The truth is, every new thought takes days and days, sometimes months and months, of time to catch and take root. Like sharing—a seemingly simple concept, but it is really a very complex and highly evolved idea. Caitlyn likes to grab onto both of my legs and claim, “Mine!” It is my job to patiently repeat, over and over and over and over, “You have to share me.” Then I pry her hands off both legs, give her one leg and leaving the other free for a second toddler to hug and say, “This is your leg.” Well, it is a work in process, and I have to meet them half way.

Even so, you can see progress within the chaotic mash of same-thing-everydayness. That is why we say it is the Zen Bootcamp: we, the adults, have much to learn from our masters—the children—who know just what we need to work on. What is happening right now? What are those nuances? What are the details? So much to learn, so little time!

Besides the Zen bootcamp, I have taken on many more tasks at church, the Chico Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. This past year I have been doing the newsletter, a monthly task. I have also been on the Moderator Committee. We don’t have a minister, so the moderators have to work with varying levels of speakers to put together the Sunday services. If we have a UU minster speaking, there is not as much to do; if it is a lay person, we might have to do everything except for the sermon itself. This committee has been a challenge because before this year it was a committee of one and this very competent lady is having a hard time having faith and letting go a little. Just getting the committee has been a work of finesse and patience.

This spring, however, I have been drawn to do more. I joined the pledge committee, which we decided was really a stewardship committee. Our church is in transition and the changes need to be handled delicately. Our kick-off was last weekend and it went very well (strawberries and champagne). In addition to this, I have joined the Peace Committee and the Welcoming Congregation Committee. They are both committees where I have lots of experience to share, and so how could I refuse? Finally, I am seriously considering being on the board next year.

Finally, Jen and I have been in the CARES program this year. I can’t remember what it stands for, but basically it is a program that pays daycare people for getting more education. We have gone to lots of workshops this year. Lots of things we know already, but there are always some good ideas too. And we get to meet other in-home daycare workers, so it is a great way to network. The highlight of our CARES program this year was going to a conference in Sacramento where the keynote speaker was the Ooey Gooey Lady. She was awesome!

As a connected part of this, I have gotten involved in one of the sub-committees of the Local Child Care Planning Council (LPC), the Quality, Quantity, and Access to child care sub-committee. Out of this, I was just invited to be on the LPC, and I think I am going to do it. They only meet every other month, and it could be useful as well as possibly helping kids.

I have filled up my time with committees and work. I am meeting fun and interesting people while also doing good work. What would I do with my time if not this? I would watch TV and play computer games. I figure I might as well being doing good. My mind doesn’t really need the extra clogging.

Differing Perspectives: Health Care Take Two

I had two very different medical appointments today. The first was a birth control consult at Planned Parenthood so I could get another pack of birth control to see me through to my annual check up appointment. The second was with my mom’s dermatologist to look at my problematic underarm mole. She had written to him to ask if he would be willing to see me and give me an estimate on costs so I could save up and self-pay for his services.

In the morning I saw a nurse practitioner at Planned Parenthood. She went over my paperwork, advised me to get a mammogram, or at least a full breast exam, and agreed to give me one more pack of pills to tide me over until my appointment. Even though my paper work made it clear, she asked me if I had insurance. I said, “No, I work in daycare.” I say this because I think society ought to know that most of the people who care for our children do not have insurance, and isn’t that shameful? Her response was to suggest that perhaps I get job training so I could get a better job.

Wow.

So many different things ran through my mind. First, that daycare work is not something someone would do voluntarily, which in turn implies that only the desperate, and uneducated would do child care. That implies that I am desperate and uneducated, and while I resent that assumption, I am more resentful and appalled by what that attitude says about how we should care for our children—only the uneducated and desperate should care for young children. Didn’t she realize how important early child care education is? How important caring, knowledgeable, skilled, and effective daycare is for babies and toddlers? How quality daycare forms the building blocks of school success or failure, and thus of adult success or failure, and how that impacts us all when those little children grow up? Apparently not.

This topic is so large and complex that I couldn’t think up a quick response. Instead, all I said was, “I have a Master’s degree. I have plenty of education. And experience. Beside, I like the work and I’m good at it.” She backed off, saying something about how I must have it all thought out, another comment showing she didn’t get it. Then she suggested that I at least buy catastrophic medical insurance which would pay for any large medical crisis that I might have. She said that was what she had and it was cheap.

“What does cheap mean?” I asked, and she answered that she paid only one hundred and fifty dollars a month. “That’s not cheap,” I said. Again, she backed off, but her tone implied that I was being irresponsible in not buying insurance. After all, I was getting free care from Planned Parenthood, wasn’t I?

I shouldn’t be surprised. Our system is flush with the attitude of blame the victim. Of course it is my fault that the insurance system is failing. It is because people like me don’t do our share and pay big chunks of our barely-making-it-as-it-is-paychecks for insurance that doesn’t even cover moderate medical problems, let alone small medical needs. I would be crazy to buy catastrophic medical insurance. Even as healthy as I am, I need that $150 a month to pay for my own minor and moderate medical care needs out of pocket.

For example, take my second medical appointment of the day. The doctor looked at my mole, and did a check for other problematic moles. He told me that he didn’t like the look of one on my arm, and though they probably both were benign, it would be irresponsible of him not to take them off. He told me that, since I was self-pay, he could waive his fees for the office visit and the procedure, but he would have to charge me for the lab tests since that was done out of office. He asked if that was OK with me, and I agreed.

Without further ado, he numbed up the moles, cut them out, and sent them off for testing. He and his assistant chatted with me amiably, keeping me distracted and comfortable. When he was done, he shook my hand, told me the results would be back in a week, and thanked me for coming in. I was in and out in a half an hour.

I walked away from this encounter feeling like a proud fellow professional. His attitude towards my work was not one of charity, but of doing his part for the community by keeping me healthy, as I was doing my part by taking care of the children. My earlier appointment left me feeling like I was a leach for doing work beneath me and that I was taking advantage of the system to support my lazy ass.

Once again I circle back to hierarchical dualism, the dominance paradigm that rules our society, a world view which is based on fear. Our insurance companies have grown bloated and fat off of this fear. Avarice, conceit, and their own fear-based world view have allowed health insurance companies to become billion dollar businesses; businesses that feed off of the pain, suffering and fear of others. They keep health care limited, a scarce commodity, and use our fear of not getting what we need to keep us separated. Divided, we can do nothing, and, thus, nothing changes.

And yet, there is hope. Within this world of fear, there are pockets of resistance. People like the dermatologist I saw today, who value working together to make the world a better, not a scarier, place. Only by working together will we be able to reach across the divide of fear and begin to weave a world of care and abundance. It is slow, hard work, and we often go unnoticed and unappreciated. And yet it is the only way to truly transform the world. In my book, that makes it worth the price.