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What We're Learning: "Ad-hoc caring" needs our support and our improvements.
Hi, my name is  Northfork Gary, and I'm a neologist. I can't help it. New words and phrases get my gears turning and I love hearing what other people think I meant (and often their reactions make your idea even better.)
When I was writing earlier (scroll down) about the new potential of community-scale solutions—caring that relies on people around us who aren't family *or* paid—I proposed the term "coincidental caring" to describe some of the novel approaches many of you were sharing. The epitome to me was the succinctly powerful story from  Amandel describing how she'll call an elderly neighbor before going to the grocery story and offer a ride. She calls it a "small support system" that allows her to keep tabs on the neighbor "without appearing to hover". I love how every interaction comes together neatly: the trip to the grocery story Amandel was already making; the phone call made to sound (or so I imagine) spur-of-the-moment yet on schedule each week; and the subtle opportunity to check in on a neighbor who might otherwise refuse more explicit surveillance of his health.
So, "coincidental caring"? "Pop-up caring"? "Care of opportunity?" What about "ad-hoc caring?" That seems to include a lot of these. I'll hibernate on this and come back.
What We're Learning: Long-distance caring is: A) a hot-bed of new ideas, B) a dilemma many generations have faced, C) improving with technologies and new ideas, or D) all of the above?
(Sorry, I know it's been out for years, but I finally just saw Slumdog Millionaire.) If you've shared a story with us you'll know that one way we're organizing them is through Dialogs, and one of these Dialogs is called ' Caring from a distance'. This just wasn't possible for me many moons ago, when I had to make a big decision. My mother's solitude after my father passed was the only thing that ended my globetrotting ways and got me back to Deepwell. If I could've known she was doing ok and cared for, Northfork Gary might still be SanFran Gary, a fork in life I only barely got to glimpse. Everyday too many people face the same decisions, putting their own lives and adventures and wings on hold to return home and care for someone. Of course many of these transitions are made happily, to care for someone we love, but many are also made too soon, years before that person truly needs dedicated local care. And for those who don't move back or can't, their days are filled with new worries and anxieties for an aging parent or sibling in need—those low-level, back burner, long-term kind of worries that are almost worse than being short and painful.  Knighthawk shares with us another profound and personal addition to our conversation about caring, pulling back the curtain on a typical day with his girlfriend. There's a catch though: you only realize half-way through reading this account that—spoiler alert, as the kids say—the relationship is really long-distance, and the routines described are occurring simultaneously 600 miles apart. Knighthawk distills the distance down to a very important consideration, how to best care for someone when you can't touch them or physically change their condition. I'm going to let Knighthawk's words speak for themselves:
"Communication is something vital to caring, something impossibly important. If you want people to care about one another, they need to know one another. I’ve learned everything there is to know about a person through words alone; we were together for six months before I first touched her in an airport. But if two people can learn to care about each other so incredibly deeply from over 600 miles away using words alone, it should be cake for a town to learn to care when they can shake hands in a bank, exchange a quick high five, or give someone a hug."
Notice anything from that last learning, about caring for random people? " If you want people to care about one another, they need to know one another." I was joking about that idea of personal care instructions, but maybe there was some kernel of something. If you look at those new (notice I didn't say "fangled", since I've been told that dates me) micro-loan sites like Kiva.org, so much of their time and energy is spent telling the stories of people, trying to create some connection through the wires and across oceans with people elsewhere and make them less random. But Knighthawk might be giving us here in Deepwell too much credit...sometimes we might as well be 600 miles apart.
Even Knighthawk's story about the call center that I mentioned last time is really about long-distance caring, from Canada to Hawaii, and to random people. Addlepated shares about her own long-distance, random, and even sneaky act of caring, when " An internet friend conspired with my husband to get my mailing address and sent me a squishie care package - a tiny, beautiful quilted wall hanging with colors so bold and bright and cheerful they just took my breath away." Check out the story, there's even a photo.
Now if you think Canada to Hawaii is caring from a distance, what about from the US to India? Frieda shares her situation of living so far away from her aging mother, unable to travel back as often as she'd like, and the resulting worries about everything from diabetes to an old house to unscrupulous contractors. But Frieda is also looking to take action: " I am thinking of starting a blog for others like me so we can all get together to help out our parents. So for example, when I go to Goa next time I could take care of my mom and parents of other people, and they could do the same for me." I shared this story with the Pande family here in Deepwell, turns out 1) they don't have family in Goa, and 2) India is a mighty big place.
Imagine if this could be scaled: before you'd head back to your hometown of, say, Sheepwell, from your own life and family and needs, you'd first send out an alert asking if other Sheepwell expats need assistance with family back home. In exchange, you could ask for assistance from the network when you needed—a long-distance caring "commons", if you will. If it worked, you could even rotate visits back to Sheepwell with these other expats. But do you think it would work, when it's Sheepwell and not Goa? Krinaldi uses a word that just got my brain a'fevered, as they say, when describing what she listens for during the nightly ritual of calling her husband's mother 1500 miles away. She listen for signals: " ...i feels like our our commitment to this small but meaningful daily gesture nourishes all of us and provides the signals we need to know when something more is needed." Nourishing, and also quite telling: " Those simple, seemingly boring details of daily life have become a kind of barometer of how they're doing, a way for us to notice if there are changes we need to attend to." So what looks like fluffy banter on the surface is really a sophisticated long-distance 'sensor' system that Krinaldi and her husband have created to remotely care for and monitor Mom. Given the choice between family 1500 miles away that calls you every night, or family 30 minutes away that will pick up the phone only when they get an alert from your "smart home" sensor, what would you choose? Granted, that wasn't the most unbiased way I could have asked. But sometimes, as Flemby points out, even a short distance is still too far when someone really needs you, gadgets and groups and even phone calls be damned. " The much greater distance I find myself travelling is the journey from being more or less ignorant of her daily affairs, to being in charge of them." That's on my shortlist for 'most succinct summary of what Ruby's bequest is all about', an award I know you're clamoring for. Anyone got any koans? I'll take haikus.
What We're Learning: Caring for people unknown to us is different, harder, and the future.
Now that everything has a camera built into it (and even some people!) everyone these days is making those 'kindness traps' where they set up a situation and a video camera and record what passers-by do. It's a pretty ancient question and consideration: how much do we care for people we don't know? Those new-fangled brain scanners are showing how our reptilian vestiges react differently to people we know & care about compared to strangers off the street, but I'm not sure the answers—or maybe the right questions—are up there.
But I'm not asking just to fill up the word count. If any of these community caring ideas (see below) are to have any chance of filling in the growing gaps in our care system, then we're gonna have to really figure out how and why and when we care for people we don't know. After all, these new ideas are completely dependent on time and resources from people who aren't our families and aren't paid to care for us. In one man's not-so-humble opinion, the gap between two people who don't know each other might be the largest one of them all.
Fortunately, I'm not the only one talking about this. PinkCloud shares with us a very interesting way to think about this: " To care for someone unknown is a different thing and must be practised." Does that phrase strike you too—practicing caring? For all of our talk about making it easier to provide care, the idea that people might still work to get better at it gives me some hope.
Knighthawk practiced random acts of caring in her own way when she and her coworkers in a Canadian call center would dial random people in Hawaii just to say hi. " I believe that that temporary connection that people feel, no matter how short, can have a lasting impact," Knighthawk told us. " When people feel, not think, but feel they are doing okay, and then things tend to go better."
No one framed this more directly than BKreit (and hopefully you know by now that Deepwell loves us some directness) when he asked, in bold no less: " How we can move from understanding what the people close to us need to helping people we don't know well?" This epiphany occurred to him while learning the 'care quirks' of someone close to him and wondering how and if that could scale to people that weren't. What if we wore our own personal care instructions, like a combination of medical alert bracelet and laundry tag? What would yours say? Do you think have to unlock the mystery of caring for random people if we're to create systems that don't involve money or shared genes? Or maybe, as some of you have suggested (more next time), we have tomake other people themselves less random...
What We're Learning:
Community-scale caring is the untapped potential we need these days.
Insomnia again last night. You know the adage about older people needing less sleep? Not this one. Does that mean I'm officially not old...?
But it did mean I fell into the perfect place to read, re-read, read your stories, ideas, wisdom that you've been generously sharing with Deepwell. Now, I'll admit I have greater tendencies towards the profound anytime past 10:01 pm, but even in daylight I stand by this: there's something happening here, folks. I can't see where it's going but I can tell you how it's starting: from stories and discussions, and soul-testing frustrations, from our highest hopes and fears, or just our TCBs; with fancy gizmos or with warm smiles; and during our loneliest moments and during those times of connection and caring that make us glad we're alive for another day. [Free to take a "screenshot" or print this out or whatever works, because that's as mushy as you'll catch Northfork Gary for a while.] As you know, my corner of this Web is called What We're Learning, where I will do my everloving best to report what Deepwell is learning from your stories. As you'll see below, I'm reading for both the nitty-gritty—specific ideas, in their useful and more 'out-there' varieties—but also the knowledge that comes from looking in-between and around and above the individual stories themselves.
While I always love a good preamble, neither of us wants to just hear me blather, let's get to a real update. When reading your stories one word hit me, like a ton of bricks, from so many of them— community. I'll give you that, as-is, it's not the most descriptive word. But your intentions are coming through loud & clear: there's another scale for providing care that has heaps of un-used potential. And in these days of mile-long waiting lists for the stuff that used to be a given, we need more than just potential. I saw 'community-scale' take so many forms in your experiences: inviting a neighbor before your own run to the grocery store; planting extra food alongside your own, or offering up an empty room in your house as someone's fresh start; or replenishing the care that was there when you needed it once. Community-scale is embedded doctors in neighborhoods so our homes can remain home for that much longer. It's independence made possible by group living and lots of extra eyes. Community care also builds on the care that can go hand-in-hand with faith. Now the big news in Deepwell has been PODCare, actually inspired by your stories (I'm looking at you Marnie and  Piotr) about 'grassroots directories' where people describe what they need/have/make/do and get matched up with needs in the system. Mozsent his ideas after the first meetup and his suggestions almost read like the start of a how-to ( hint, hint). So what are we learning? That people will provide care to a nearby brother or sister in need, in the short run and the long term. Now here's what I'm wondering:
- Can we rely on this type of caring? Can we plan for it? Or will it always have some degree of optional and coincidental?
- What are the incentives for people to care, to join? Can we expand on altruism, with money or fame or 21st-century pats-on-the-back?
- At what size does community-provided caring get too big or too anonymous or too removed from our own lives?
I just signed up for PODCare myself, since my own neighbors aren't as kind as you all and call me before they run to the grocery store. I'll report my experiences back. This is the point where things start to get good, as they'd say on TV, so keep this ball rolling. We're learning a whole lot more, but it's nap time for Gary. I'll post #3 here when I wake up (if you can't wait, it's about being selfish.)
With love, Northfork Gary.
What We're Learning:Deepwell needs all the care-rightingideas it can get. You probably don't have time to read all of the stories arriving here at Ruby's Bequest. For several reasons, I do, and Maddie and her gang gave me room on their Web Site ( suckers) to share what Deepwell is learning from your kind contributions. To understand what I'm looking for when I'm reading, you have to know what Deepwell most needs to learn these days (might also be what your town needs to learn, too). And great Aunt Charlie, do we need to learn a lot—starting by figuring out what caring "right" actually means, since Ruby Wood conveniently forgot to expand on that part before the old bird croaked. But it'd be too easy if that was all we had to do (thanks, Ruby doll). While we're having those deeper discussions we need to start hopping *today* if we're going to get that 'Deepwell Caring Index' ( ask Etta) high enough by New Year's Eve 2015. Today is March 16, 2010, and a lot can happen in 5 years. Here's the real meat of it, fabulous Internet-people: we in Deepwell have to somehow care better/right-er/more-r using the people we already have, the money we already have, and then anything extra we can get with funding from Ruby's bequest before 2015. And we all sure as hell know there's even less time and a lot less money to go around these days, so what's left to make this happen? The stuff that'll never run out—our ideas, hardwork, originality, and a whole lotta fight, if we care enough to muster it. I've fought bigger battles in my life, of all kinds, and I'm not doubting for one second that we can.
So when you tell us your story, and if you have the time, add something in there about what you learned from going through it, what you'd do again, what you'd do differently, what you'd recommend. Think about what others can learn, here in Deepwell and beyond. It's probably more than you think. And keep checking back here to my corner where I'll be trying to make some sense of it all.
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