A social worker in politics?

Prior to choosing politics as a career, most people have some sort of profession. Most, not all, because there are certainly those trust fund babies out there that we’ve voted in - you know, the ever-patriotic politicians  that have “made their own way” by opening a bunch of failed businesses starting with six figure “loans” from their parents. Ahem.

Most politicians, though, start out as lawyers or large-scale business owners. It’s easy to see why. Lawyers are educated to find information that fits whatever pre-existing narrative they are defending or prosecuting, focused on discounting any information outside of that narrative. It works well in politics, because arguing a political position involves minimizing any information that might justify an alternative perspective. This is true on both the left and the right.

As for the business owners - that’s fairly obvious, as well. Successful business owners and CEOs see the government as a business, and are therefore motivated by profit - which is one reason we’re always caught up in someone else’s damned war. Intelligent people who are economically motivated recognize that war of any kind is always a boost to the national economy as well as to things like cultural unity.

You know what there aren’t that many of? Social workers. And that’s a shame. Honestly, more social workers in politics would create a more successful country, and I do mean from all angles - from the economic to the sociological. Why? Allow me to explain...

Social workers can be divided into three categories: macro, micro, and mezzo. Macro social workers often do back-end work for non-profits and government agencies focused on human well-being. Their professional lives involve marketing, grant writing, communication, and coordination between businesses and non-profits. So, they’re much like those previously mentioned business owners, only instead of being motivated by monetary profit, macro social workers are focused on cultivating successful, financially viable systems that serve humanity as a whole.

Micro social workers are clinical social workers. A licensed clinical social worker is someone who practices psychotherapy with individual clients and possibly groups. So how do they differ from other types of licensed clinical counselors? Like its macro counterpart, a micro social worker’s clinical focus includes systems. This means that when a client is depressed, for example, a clinical social worker will both see the client for therapy but will also do things like find concrete solutions for existing situational problems. That might mean hooking them up with a way to get a job, education, food, health care, and other necessary community services.

And that leaves the mezzo social workers, which do some combination of both of those things. That could translate to managing a bunch of other social workers, or it could mean something like what I do: school social work. I see individual clients for therapy as well as facilitating focused group therapy, but I also coordinate alternative learning experiences for the high school behavioral program and work on connecting the program with local businesses and nonprofits. 

In more concrete terms, a social worker is likely to be a believer in universal healthcare, but s/he is also likely focused on how to best create a financially viable way of implementing it. I think about things like this on a local level. I see, for example, that Vermont has excellent state-sponsored universal healthcare, and that they are a rural state similar to our own. That makes me want to research how they accomplish that. When Tennessee made the first two years of any post-high school education at a state school free to all graduates of Tennessee high schools, I wanted to know how they did that and whether we could make that work in Maine or even within towns like Belfast and counties like Waldo  that have satellite campuse of universities (The Hutchinson Center) along with adult education programs and a technical school. 

And that’s perhaps the biggest difference between social workers and other politicians. We see problems and we want solutions, but we don’t automatically have a position or an answer - and we want one, or many. We research. We talk to people. We consider how what works in Tennessee or Vermont might not work exactly the same in Maine, and we allow contributions from all sides to be involved in the path to creating something that works in Maine. We don’t decide what the solution is and then focus on selling it. We see a problem and then we listen to people to work toward gathering all of the information in order to find a solution.

You want a country that’s fiscally doing well that also takes care of its people? You want a country where everyone works hard at their respective jobs and their needs are also consistently met? Vote for social workers.

Four state park passport stamps down!

I love the Maine state park system. And I really love living in a state with so much natural beauty. I know it’s difficult to have a tourism-based economy. We do have lobster and potatoes, of course, but those are seasonal, too. But people here are survivors. To look at the positive side of a tourist-based economy, one only has to look at the number, not to mention the variety, of gorgeous state parks.

Everyone gets all hot and bothered about our Acadia National Park, and sure, sure, it’s beautiful. We try to take a family vacation somewhere near it every year. I love it. But in some ways, Acadia’s reputation simply eclipses many of the Maine state parks, making it so that some people will just never know the true extent of our beautiful state parks.

I’m okay with that. Because, see, when I go to a state park in the summer, it’s almost like an escape from the people from away. Don’t misunderstand me - I do appreciate the tourists. But while I may appreciate them, it’s nothing compared to how I feel about people who live here and especially people who are from here. Those are my people - yes, even that guy with bumper stickers that I disagree with. He’d pull over to help me if I was stuck in the snow, and I’d do the same for him.

It’s like I tell people, when they learn I’m from Houston and remark on my lack of an accent: I was supposed to be born in Maine...but nobody remembered to tell my parents that!

So, taking advantage of our annual vehicle pass, for the first time this year both of my kids are old enough to be interested and engaged by the Maine state park “passport” program. We are determined to go to every single one eventually. Did you know that you get a magnet after you’ve gotten stamps from eight parks? Add eight more and you also get the next prize, a patch. Eight more gets you a water bottle. For whatever reason, thanks the prize that got both of my kids’ ears all perked up.

If you get stamps from all 48 state parks, your next annual state park pass is free!

I would love to see Belfast do something similar, perhaps with pages for stamps for every city park and also local businesses. And I’d love for that to extend to the north, south, east, and west sides of the city - a stamp at the city’s boat launch onto Goose River, a stamp at the Rail Trail, a stamp at Darby’s...the possibilities are endless. I’d definitely participate!

And participate we have, at the state level.

We’ve got four stamps so far, the furthest away being Peaks-Kenny, outside of Dover-Foxcroft. One side effect: both kids informed me that next time we go to that one, they want to stay the night. Well, we’re tent camping at the Lake St. George state park this weekend - so, next year, camping at more parks will be a goal.

Let the rebuilding begin

When we began looking for a house to buy in Belfast, we were very careful to look for something we could afford. One that I fell in love with, in Stockton Springs, was huge and old and beautiful, but while we could afford the mortgage, the heating bill would have bankrupted us - which is why it was on the market. My husband and I learned a lot about affordable housing in the area, and we decided to buy a little house in Belfast’s East Side (capitalization for cultural identity emphasis!). The East Side is strange by other states’ suburban standards; there are mobile homes falling apart with trash all over the yard right next to well-kept trailer parks and at least one huge farmhouse with a turret overlooking the river. There are also quite a few houses like ours - World War II era track housing, built for functionality rather than aesthetics.

Moving in here was disorienting and chaotic, because we had a month-old infant and were completely sleep deprived. I readily admit that I purposefully did not look inside of the cabinets as I shoved my kitchen stuff haphazardly into them. I was too tired to think about fixing anything. Then I had another baby, eventually a new job, and then another new job...

And now I am finally ready to look inside the damned cabinets.

They’re gross. But sometimes in this world, we all have to pull our heads out of our asses and take some responsibility for the gross truth in order to start the journey toward making it better. And we can’t do it without help! So in our family, I’ve managed to take all of the cabinet doors off their hinges, remove their respective hardware, and transport them into our garage. After consultation with our expert friends at our local Aubuchon, James and I donned gloves and opened the garage to begin stripping the paint.

Man, this stuff is caustic. One drop on my skin and it's a chemical burn. I made James take a break during the chemical pouring after that; once it gets to a certain point of solid absorption, it’s safer for him to help me putty knife all the crappy stuff off.

During this process, we’ve seen all of the half-ass patching and repairs previous homeowners have done to this. No one has ever gotten down to the naked bottom layer in order to fix it correctly and make it actually nice, because it required too much work and time investment.

I have energy, though, and so does my best helper, James. And we have a vested interest in making things good around here, not just making them LOOK good.

It’s how I feel about Belfast, too. It’s beautiful here, with so much potential for wonderful growth. My East Side is a significant part of this town, and we, too, have much to contribute to the unity and development of this town and it’s further beautification.

I’m invested. I have energy. Here we go!

My first city committee...and the real reason why I quit

When I first started considering running for some sort of office, I started this blog and I also filled out an application to be considered for one of the city’s committees - specifically, since I’m committed to finding a safe solution to the number of at-risk pedestrians on my road, I chose the Pedestrian, Hiking, and Biking Committee. I went before City Council to explain why I wanted to be on it and was accepted. 

And I was really excited about it, too. At my first meeting, I was so happy to discover that my established, senior committee members were kind, welcoming, wonderful people. The meetings weren’t at the most convenient time for me, but I was always happy when I attended. The committee was very supportive of my pet priority, which would be some sort of pedestrian solution on Swan Lake Avenue in Belfast. However, I began to feel like I couldn’t make much of an impact, despite the moral support of the committee members. City Council, it seemed, had been happy to spend $10K to have a traffic analysis done of my road...but  were also happy with no solution being forthcoming. And my committee didn’t really have any power to push for a solution. So while I truly admired their commitment to making Belfast more pedestrian and cyclist friendly, I quickly realized they didn’t have the ability - despite the desire - to push for extending that friendliness to Ward 5. Swan Lake Avenue’s pedestrian problems were simply too big.

I also began to understand that if I wanted concrete solutions, I needed a backend understanding of the bigger picture of everything from the city’s budget to what needs might be neglected in any of the five wards. I needed to understand what other challenges the city was facing in order to be able to more effectively lobby for the east side.

To do that, I really needed to collect my thoughts and mental resources and prepare to run for City Council. And between that realization and the feeling that I was spending two hours once a month feeling politely useless, I just...let it go. Onward with my quest toward usefulness! 

When did it become unacceptable to be unsure?

We use words to describe well-regarded political figures that simply baffle me. We use words like “grounded,” “consistent,” and “trustworthy,” all in the same description, all with the implication that we really value our political representatives’ abilities to know everything without having even been exposed to a fraction of the information needed to have an informed opinion. We applaud politicians who “stick with their principles,” and “know what they stand for.”

This is stupid. It’s incredibly limiting, and it’s also probably the biggest chunk of what’s wrong in the political sphere. We apparently are more comforted by a politician who claims to know everything than we are by one who might be tempted to say, “I need to learn more about that.” I have sympathy for the most recent Libertarian presidential candidate because he got raked over the coals for admitting he lacked knowledge on something. Is there an SAT of current events that every candidate for office has to memorize? If so, that’s flawed - rote memorization doesn’t teach one how to think and ask questions. No wonder we have so many rank-and-file party-dominated politicians. They have no idea how to possibly come to an individual conclusion outside the hive mind. They’d pass that history quiz with the names and dates of events, but they’d fail the research papers - where the real learning happens.

I want politicians who have lots of questions rather than all of the answers. I want someone who will take the time to analyze potential solutions for the needs of the constituents. Confidence and narcissism create great theater, along with a great deal of chaos and a long list of poor decisions. Answering a constituent’s questions or even accusations with a defensive, two-dimensional answer accomplishes nothing. Even if a mind is already made up, it should be able to change if new information is presented.

But no, our society supports the predictable ones, the people with the black-and-white answers who seek only information that confirms their already established biases. We can’t have someone changing their mind - if they do, they’ve obviously been bought and paid for by a corporation, lobbyist, or other wealthy entity.

We will ourselves to remain blind to the fact that their ideals and decisions have been bought and paid for since the very beginning.

I don’t give a damn which political sign you stick in your yard or which box you checked on the voter registration card - whatever category you’ve allowed yourself to be sorted into, don’t let it confine you. Take those blinders off. Recognize the value in not knowing everything, and search for candidates who possess a determination to learn as much as they can about their constituents’ issues, needs, and priorities, and who is committed to a search for solutions rather than for a way to prove their first solution is the best one.

I’m running for Belfast City Council. I don’t know everything. Hell, I even struggle with what party defines me - because the truth is, none of them do. At the moment my political affiliation on my voting card reads “undefined/undeclared” because I originally chose a political faction thinking I could make a difference by participating in primaries. I know now that my vote didn’t count when I did participate, so any impact I decide I’m going to make in the future is not going to happen via that route. So - I got more information, gained some experience, and changed my mind. See how that works?

I do know some bits of knowledge that will not change. I know that I care about individuals. I care about my community. I care about finding solutions that work best to fulfill individual and community needs. I live on Belfast’s “East Side,” and I’m tired of there being a “side” at all. We’re all Belfast. And we all deserve community representatives who want to learn.