In Orbit

Aware of it or not, everyone manages to establish and maintain their preferred, comfortable distance, emotional and physical, between themselves and others. Exactly how much and when varies endlessly with cultures, circumstances and personalities. Years ago while visiting the Middle East as a merchant mariner, I was struck by how communication between west (us) and east (them) could break down before a word was uttered. Egyptians stood and talked much closer, almost nose-to-nose and with lots of touching and handholding. We Americans were forever backpedaling and the Egyptians wondering what they had done to offend.

This obvious example aside, the dynamic referred to here has more to do with people in longer-term relationships such as family members, couples and personal friends. Preferences for closeness can range from shared identity and physical inseparability (In Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut called the two-as-one couple a karass, never to be mistaken for a grandfalloon, or a false karass) to marriages of convenience on the other.

Wherever on this spectrum a particular relationship falls, each has its own formula, a unique balance between individual needs for closeness and intimacy that allow people to stay connected and the relationship to last. Conceptually it is not so different than the physical forces combining to keep the planets – each so different in size and composition - revolving around the sun. Too much pull and it plunges into fiery oblivion; too little and it drifts off into space, its identity as a planet and membership in the solar family lost until who knows what and when.

The example above might be metaphorical, but the dynamic qualities it illustrates back home on Earth and Penikese are little different. For good reason, many of our students are connection-avoidant, having lost, been let down or hurt by the most important people in their lives. After a while they learn that it’s better to not get their hopes up, safer to assume the worst, easier to not expect much from people or, above all, never let anybody expect much from you. No wonder our students make the crazy, senseless choices they do.

Getting students to risk connection one more time so late in the intervention game is about as steep a challenge as they come, but the rewards for doing so open a new universe of possibilities. With connection comes belonging, followed by identity, purpose and self in relations to others; with that then comes self-motivated treatment, choices that mean something, and lasting, internalized change.

Sounds like a miracle, a magic bullet, but the process, even when wildly successful, is never that simple or easy. Often the biggest barrier to successful connection with difficult-to-connect-with people isn’t them, but us. Our natural human tendency is to judge others’ relationships by our standards, understand their connections through our own perspective and, often without thinking, impose our values and expectations. This is particularly troublesome in treatment when we set goals and grade progress according to our judgments and criteria, often without asking the student what they want. In spite of our innocent intentions, our students end up feeling unsafe to connect, and pushed away with a deepened sense of futility.

Among our many challenges includes suspending judgment and preconception to allow students to first feel safe enough to be open to connecting, letting the process unfold at their pace and then allowing them to settle in at the optimal distance for them to stay connected and engage in growth and change. Underneath some shells we find a warm and affectionate, hug-starved child crashing about their new world of happy connections like an overgrown puppy. The majority, however, come across quite differently, never entirely comfortable with closeness of any kind, reluctant to reveal what they are thinking and feeling, quick to snap, standoffish, a distant Pluto to Penikese’s sun. Yet, there they are, living and working with you in the community, and goodness knows that if they truly didn’t want to be there they wouldn’t, as they’ve emphatically proved everywhere else.

After graduation it’s difficult to be sure just how connected these graduates remain over time. Astronomers know that distant objects are being held by the sun’s gravity only by noting that they keep returning to the same place in the sky at predictable intervals. In essence we do the same, maintaining gentle persistence and patient observation, inferring what we can. Although our students are far from predictable, they blink out their distant, occasional signals to let us know they are still there, and when we go looking for them we usually find them. And when we reconnect, we can see at least some different quality to their lives.

It might not be as much as we hoped or would want for own selves, but remember, this isn’t about us. For our students and graduates, any added measure of connection, belonging and purpose translates into a life that much more worth living, and better choices that much more worth making. Faint though this force may be in the far reaches of some graduates’ lives, we continue to discover new evidence of Penikese’s gravitational tug, keeping yet another lost boy in orbit.