To anyone who reads this blog with any dedication please forgive any outstanding delays or gaps between entries that may occur in the coming month, (or may have already occurred). The 'fast-forward' button has been officially pressed on life and the holiday season in our happy little non-profit on the bay is in full swing.

Multiple times a day i am struck with gratitude at the sheer simplicity of children. Their needs are faily uncomplicated: feed me, Love me, play a little, listen, forgive. Ok i know this is a gross oversimplification but compared to adults the difference is vast. Conversations can be so basic as,

"You have a nose...and i have a nose. we both have noses."
"That's right, Jamie." i reply.
"And dogs have noses?"
"Last i checked."
"Does your mommy have a nose?"
"Oh yeah."
"My mommy's at work."
"..."
"Derek?"
"Yes?..."
"i farted."


Their woes are light. Usually nothing that can't be cured with a kiss (in the case of ouchies,) a hug, a crafty diversionary tactic or a few kind words. I've found that when i'm in the 'other room' where i've taken an errant child and they are staging a full-on screaming fit it helps to open the window, pay no attention whatsoever to the banshee and start a conversation with the trees and sky outside.

"Well hello trees! How are you today? What's that? Your friend the wind has come to play? O that's just lovely. And look! Its your friend Mr. Sun!...(and so on)"

This let's the little lung-wringer know that s/he has lost her audience, whereupon she becomes quickly enthralled by my dialogue at the window. From the corner of my eye i can see her looking curiously onward (and even if i can't i notice the distinct lack of blood-curdling wails emanating from her) and i know the power shift has occurred. When i feel that i have sufficiently transplanted the focus i then wrap up the conversation and come away from the window, careful not to make direct eye-contact lest i re-engage the beast within. No no, i simply sit placidly looking anywhere but there. This usually ends up cajoling the little one into approaching me, thereby placing the ball, (triumphant orchestral swell) in MY court! Saved are my throbbing eardrums, my peace of mind, and the mood of the munchkins.

I have also recently tapped into the power of games. Children, it seems, are embodiments of the second law of thermodynamics, namely: entropy. They scatter. They tend toward chaos. They create and revel in it. Grown-ups, however tend to break this law. They are more responsible for order, intelligence and structure. Games are a brilliant fusion of the two. Take for example, 'Red light, Green light'. The rules are simple: children stand in a line at one end of the yard. At the other stands a leader with his back turned who calls out either 'Red light' or 'Green light' respectively, instructing the children to run on green and stop on red (duh). If, when 'red' is called the leader should turn around and see a child still running, stumbling or even ever-so-slightly jiggling from acceleration, s/he must go back to start. The first person past the 'light' wins.
As the light my job is to take what the children have (chaos, 'Green light') and weave it into what i have (theoretically...which is order, 'Red light'). With the four and under crowd the results are varied, to put it lightly, though a good time is always had by all. Actually what most often happens is on the first green light a dust cloud of little people goes zipping by me, often slapping me on the buttocks and thighs as they pass with a sophisticated few managing to notice that i have subsequently turned around and am yelling, "RED LIGHT RED LIGHT STOP STOP STOP!!!" with my hands outstretched. Nobody wins, everybody wins, and they all go back to the start to do it again. If i'm lucky i can sustain this for 5-8 minutes with participants coming and going as they please.

This is the nature of the age. The object is not to win or to lose. The object is not skill or competition or accomplishment. The object is to create a vessel into which the pure energy that they are can be poured and then served back to them in a way that makes it even more fun than just mindless dashing through the yard because you actually have to wait for a few seconds first.

Play time always flies.

On a closing note i had a little bit of apprehension about coming back to work after break, its a natural reaction i think. However a few minutes into it i was helping a little girl with big, soft cheeks and a smile like the full moon put toys away in the playroom when, without even looking back she asked,
"Derek?...d'you love me?"

All apprehensions vanished.

We drove for some time looking for parking along the streets insulated with nice cars, horseback police officers attempting to make sense of the chaos. Meanwhile drag queens on stilts and half-naked people strolled in and out of cars in standstill. Due to a great deal of debauchery and some history of violence the event has become very controlled, heavily policed and alcohol free. What this means is that outside the barricades of the party, many were toting open containers.

Finally we found a space about a million miles away from the party and decided that a space was better than no space, so we piled out: a cowboy, a ladybug, two cats, a fairy and a bumblebee, ready for action. The mood on the streets was jovial, filled with intermittent shouts of 'Happy Halloween', or the crasser alternative, "Happy Halloween Mother******s!" . Our cats were cat-called, our bee was buzzed over and i think i made some middle-aged woman's night by dancing country-style with her in the streets. On the long walk we made enough friends to start a party and keep us entertained as we trudged what may have been up to 30 blocks (much of it very uphill - viva San Francisco). When we finally moved in on the epicenter you could feel the vibrations emanating outward. The social melting pot began to thicken, crowds swelled and the drone of the bass-kick from the music could be felt in the sidewalk. There were police checkpoints along the way to inspect bags for alcohol and weapons. Finally we reached the barricades that defined the party and passed through the picket lines of officers standing guard. I tipped my hat as we passed by and entered much what we expected to enter: shoulder-to-shoulder mayhem. Certainly not for the claustrophobes.
It was much like Mardi Gras in the sheer density of human bodies present, so much that you could almost feel heartbeats as you pushed your way through, (or maybe it was just the music, or the booze, or both). Dance lights flashed through the night. A huge screen flouted some digital eye-candy. A huge stage built like a cage with speakers pumped out the beats. Occasionally you might feel a hand touch you where you normally don't even touch yourself but you would never be able to trace it-the crowds were just too thick. I fairly promptly decided that i need to find a port-o-pot and lead our group like an earthworm through the human soil. Much to my chagrin the pot in question was behind a fence reserved for the musicians and we had to begin making our way in the other direction. On our way something suddenly changed in the mood of the night. The music had been cut at 11pm as part of the attempt to curb the troubles and at that point people were sort of just stagnating in post-dance party stupor. I heard someone muttering something about a fight breaking out and insisted that our crew exit, i had a bad feeling. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something told me that it was time to go- and fast. We made our way back through the barricades past people who seemed to be rushing the other direction, toward the conflict. With the party over our shoulders we kept walking away and subsequently ran into many of the friends we had made along the way. I might have accidentally started a party at someone's house who wasn't having one by dancing a square dance on their porch to the tune of Snoop Doggy Dogg. I ran back into the middle-aged woman who proceeded with an immodest proposal and i politely declined so that our bumblebee could go make friendly with another bee somewhere up the road. While we tried briefly to crash some other parties and deny that Halloween was coming to a close, things seemed inevitably finished and we finally made it back to the car with the taste of sweaty, child make-up on our lips and grins on our faces.

When we arrived home one of the girls immediately got online to find out what had happened. Apparently 9 people were shot at just about the time i said we should really go, in just the area where we were hanging out. We didn't hear gunshots but apparently our angels did. I couldn't help but thinking, what is the world coming to when 9 people are shot in the city of Love and Peace at party central on Halloween?

Readers of this blog should be aware of the fact that in my time i am only able to provide a sliver of the goings on around here though in those nuggets i hope can be found the essence of the whole. There are many layers to this lifestyle. I take care of kids ranging from 1-9 during the day time. At night i live in a house with six women. In our free time we go running around the Oakland/Berkeley/San Francisco area. Whenever possible i try to be a good host to friends visiting the west.

Living out here makes the world as i know it a whole lot smaller. Every Tuesday on our way to buy groceries in the morning we pass by 'Pixar' animation studios, (the fine folks who brought you 'Toy Story' 1 & 2 as well as 'Finding Nemo'). A stone's throw from my house is the birthplace of the Black Panther movement. About 1 1/2 hrs. north is a funny little village in the hills called Santa Rosa where the likes of the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin used to hang out. A friend of mine lives there and we had coffee across the street from the small-town theater where they used to play. This is to say nothing of the great countercultural landmarks that are the Haight-Ashbury, Berkeley Campus and the Fillmore theater to name but a piddling few - all about three train stops away from me.

One modern boast of this city is its celebration of Halloween, a raucous event in which the freak capital of the states comes out in all its plumage to take the streets in hordes with DJ booths spinning dance music and projecting huge screens with outlandish, psychedelic imagery. So naturally, we had plans to join the swell that would be oozing downtown this night even though our schedule permitted little time for pre-party primping. This because we were asked to head into the city ('the city' around here always meaning 'San Francisco') and help out at the homeless shelter where our director used to direct. We drove across the bay into the dusky city where the streets were already peppered with pirates and ghouls and found the shelter downtown. We were lead through the lobby and up onto the roof where, in the panorama of the city, we would help run the show. The roof was set up like a mini carnival with orange and black streamers and balloons draped over the wooden beams built to keep kids off the edges. Each corner and the spaces in between were arranged with games ranging from 'eat the donut off the string w/ out using your hands', to ring toss, the 'fishing' game (throw a string behind the blue blanket and see what you get) and 'pin the tail on the donkey', which was my station. We waited in the chill of night and munched on coldish pizza and soda waiting for the stampede to arrive. At the signal of our leader, a middle-aged woman rotundly dressed in her bright orange pumpkin outfit, we all took to our stations and waited expectantly. When the elevator door opened the bubbly excitement of a little troop of costumed children filled the air with chatter and vibrant energy. The cold night was lit with the hot breaths of a sea of miniature super heroes and dinosaurs and princesses. Ninjas hopped to and fro, one kid strode by who i could swear was dressed like Kim Jong Il. Slowly, a child approached us with a longing in her eyes. She wanted to pin the tail on the donkey, and she wanted candy as a reward for it. Well she got what she wanted, and so did a fairly non-stop onslaught of half-pint supermen, witches, robots, gypsies and fairies. The energy level was through the roof (which was appropriate, us being on the roof) and suddenly the distinct cold of the night was alight with the body heat of kids at the homeless shelter on Halloween, and the moon hung low over the city.

I was dressed as a cowboy, tight blue jeans and pointy black shoes with a most raucous black cowboy shirt and hat. The shirt is beyond obnoxious. Think: embroidered golden cowskulls set against an embroidered goldish desert. This on a honky-tonk black button-up. And to top it off: leopard-print cap, painted black but not completely concealing the print. We then had the privelege of a mini-concert of singalong songs leading up to a visit from the 'real' Mother Goose. Something about the sound of all of those virtually homeless children singing 'the wheels on the bus' with such shatteringly pure enthusiasm - i was looking out the big rectangular windows in the well-lit activity room on the roof as the sound of their voices shone in the dark of that city night and if you told me then that all is going to be well with the world, i would have believed you. Somewhere in that sound was the assurance that even if we fall and fall hard first, we will make it through this night.

So then in a totally different direction we were off with sufficient thanks from the coordinator and pocketfulls of candy as we piled into the mini-van: a ladybug at the wheel, two cats in the back with a bee and a fairy and me the cowboy, ridin' shotgun (of course). They pulled over at the corner store to buy big bottles of beer which we drank pretty promptly, (no mom, not the driver). We then headed down into the thick, where you could see throngs of disguised bodies pumping into the main artery, the intersection where it all went down, the All Hallow's Eve HQ....(to be continued)

Its amazing what children know sometimes. Though they can't articulate it, they are incredibly keen. They know when you are lying, when you are sad, when you are holding back anger (which they often respond to with heightened mischief). Equally they can be masters of charm, twinkling a little smile at just the right moment to save their necks. Beyond even this, sometimes even without their knowledge they can be in just the right place at just the right time.

There is one girl in particular, a little dark-haired girl with sparkling eyes and a button-nose whose warbling, two-year old voice chatters constantly and with conviction about things that would confound even the most cunning linguist. To these things we must respond with almost genuine interest and surprise, (enough enthusiasm can override their lie-detectors). However she has not always been this way. At a very young age (younger than her current 2 years) she was a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of a grown man. Suffering considerable trauma from this, she responded by withdrawing and becoming very dependent on her female caregivers (moreso than the average 1-2 year old). Slowly however, with close monitoring and supervised care she has been able to overcome this experience, emerging as a very social, bright and bubbly little girl. As a male my experience with her has been distinct, at first being very distant and hands-off, (although even during my trial visit last year i had the privelege of her allowing me to buckle her into her little lunch seat). In time though we have forged a relationship of silliness and nonsense that culminated in the following experience.

One day recently i was feeling a bit low, (a rarity for me in this environment,) and did not feel the usual vigor and excitement that accompanies exiting the side door to the play yard and descending into a mass of buzzing children. Shortly, the little girl with the button-nose approached me and for perhaps the first time lifted her arms up in the 'pick me up' gesture. For a short while we stood by the swingset, one arm holding her and the other pushing children interspersed with short bits of spanglish chatter. Now it wasn't often that i was solicited to be held by this girl and what happened next, albeit small, would mean the world. As we stood there in the morning sun she quietly pressed her head against me, nuzzling into my chest. At that moment i forgot anything that might have been bringing me down that morning. In fact i forgot most everything. It was one of those moments where suddenly the earth stops spinning and the universe holds its breath so as not to disturb the arresting purity of the experience. I too held my breath, but even when i decided that it was safe to breathe again she kept her head where it was. I was officially safe to her now and in letting me know that she was unwittingly blessing me with her innocent, tiny power.

I've taken a lesson from Indian thought and begun seeing the children i work with as little gods and goddesses. After all, children if anyone in this world are innocent and any unwanted behavior is surely their little body being inhabited by something that is not theirs, be it anger, obstinacy, deceit or disobedience. They embody certain things at certain times and i find that revering and respecting these things allows me to much more effectively work with them than when i consider them 'behavioral problems'. The truth is that children are not made of sugar, spice, puppy-dog tails or any of the above. Children are made of pure Love and when you get to feel that, even for three minutes in the play yard, your life will change just a little bit.