3rd House Journal

Spout

[Rain spout, Belmont MA; 4/4/12]

A potential long-term project surfaced yesterday, releasing a torrent of details to think about and decisions to make: hourly rate I choose vs willing to accept depending on contract length or project size, whether to accept W2 work or 1099, whether the potential project will come through or simply vanish, whether to accept freelance work from former employer, whether to use my own name or my old freelance company name or rename it and do I have to re-register it and what about bank accounts, whether to learn new software and buy new software for a project, whether it's worthwhile long-term, whether I want to spend my days working in said software program or stick to what I'm good at and find someone else to do that part, whether working under my old business name even for a short time precludes getting unemployment compensation from my last employment, what to do about business cards, whether my back (neck, elbows...) will hold up and if not how will I survive, and where's that pilates book I bought years ago and never used, and on and on.

But it's almost the weekend. I'll be going into the city tonight and away from all the things left undone. Sunday is Easter, resonant with new beginnings. Nothing is permanent, even wrong decisions and costly mistakes. The magnolias flowered too early and turned brown when the freeze came, but the trees will drop the ruined blossoms like a burnt batch of cookies and move on to the next task of sprouting their greenery. Unstoppable, spring continues to blossom all around.

[Pear tree, Back Bay, Boston; 4/1/12]

Transitional

[Pear blossoms and brownstones, Back Bay, Boston; 4/1/12]

I'm still at that stage where I've been cut loose from the dock I was tied to all too long but I'm still trying to regain my sea legs. Of course I'm still in safe harbor. I signed up for unemployment compensation yesterday, and my two-weeks severance pay will come later this week. I spent the last week contacting former freelance clients and following up on other leads, with another call scheduled today and one on Monday. As D says, I have several hooks in the water, so now wait and see what bites. I have more lines to cast, too, but I thought I should take a little breather while I can, gather strength and ready the ship -- or at any rate clean the house.

[Nature Center at Habitat Wildlife Sanctuary, Belmont MA; 4/3/12]

I have such a backlog of things I want to do, things I've given short shrift because of the demands of my job. Besides much needed house cleaning (not just the surface stuff, but tackling piles and boxes of stuff that needs to be sorted and gotten rid of), there's writing, walking, exploring, seeing friends, seeing art, reading, and thinking -- none of which should be rushed or done half-heartedly in a state of exhaustion. I haven't come down to that level yet.

We were busy over the weekend. We walked over to the South End for dinner at a friend's place on Saturday night, which was fun but I wished I was feeling more relaxed and less tired. On Sunday, we met up with Lorianne and J at the JFK Library to see our friend Teju Cole accept the PEN/Hemingway Award for his acclaimed first novel, Open City. (See Lorianne's blog post.) It was a lovely event, with readings by Teju and Yannick Murphy, winner of the PEN/Winship New England award for her novel, The Call, as well as a keynote address by novelist Andre Dubus III. But loveliest of all, as Lorianne says, was the chance to catch up with old friends and bask in the joy of a well-deserved honor for one of them.

[Teju Cole at the PEN/Hemingway Awards event; 4/1/12]

---

It occurs to me that I haven't had a vacation in a long time. An occasional long weekend, yes, but not a good long break from work. That might have helped my ability to cope at work! Stupid not to have taken more, I guess, but hard to get the time off. Vacation is not encouraged here in the US. So I'll try to take some now. Starting today, after my noontime business call. It's shaping up to be a sunny, warm day. Time to open the windows.

Find Your Own Bit of Sanctuary

[At Habitat Wildlife Sanctuary, Belmont MA; 3/26/12]

I discovered Habitat, the Audubon sanctuary in Belmont, soon after I took on a full-time job here after having my own freelance business for 13 years. That first year, I commuted 45 miles each way from my condo in a semi-rural town, where I used to take long walks every day past acres of farm land and woods. Although Belmont is a lovely town with some well-appointed homes (Mitch Romney lived here when he was governor), most of the area, even in Belmont, is more densely packed and urban than where I was living. But after languishing as a single woman out in the hinterlands for so long, I craved the urban life with all its culture and activity. I soon grew tired of commuting and, after a year, the opportunity to move close to work arose and I emptied my condo, rented it out, and moved to the big city, or at least near the big city. Still, over the years, Habitat has offered an antidote to urban overload and has also provided a haven from the stress of my job, a place where I went to grieve my mother's passing and other heartbreaks, to delight in nature, and to ground myself in the natural world. Just a 20-minute walk from the office, its woods and meadows a hidden treasure.

[Bits of nature, at Habitat]

Habitat was the first place I went to on Monday after getting laid off from my job. Yup, although I have been looking to leave for a long time, they beat me to it and booted me along with six coworkers on Monday. Since then, I've been busy letting my former freelance clients know that I'm available again, updating my resume and LinkedIn profile, and fielding lots of emails from former colleagues, both those still there and others who have gone before me and find themselves happier than ever. I still have to go into the office tomorrow to bring back my keycard and sign paperwork, but otherwise it's over. I do feel freed, although of course there is the issue of money to worry about.

[Turtle Pond, at Habitat]

Walking around the trails on Monday afternoon, I realized I didn't have to rush. I could stay and enjoy it as long as I pleased. There was noplace I had to be. There was also a strange sense of having been uprooted from my home and deposited, or maybe chewed up and spit out, washed up on this strange shore, not sure where to go but at least with my feet under me again.

Dehiscence

[Dried flower or seed pod (?), Belmont, MA; 1/5/12]

Dehiscence is the opening, at maturity, in a predefined way, of a plant structure, most commonly fruits, anthers, and sporangia, to release its contents... A similar process to dehiscence occurs in some flower buds.

The years living and working from my condo in the country were quiet, especially so when work slowed down and my clients were laid off and scattered to the winds. But it was a germinating time. The work that did come in gave me knowledge and experience that turned out to be valuable in the long run. It led to a full-time position, a move near the city with all of its cultural riches, a more active social life, and my relationship with D. The change has been all for the good, but I'm still sifting through the harvest to weed out the excess and retain the valuable fruit.

I had lunch this week with a former colleague who mentored me through career growth in the distant past. He's survived the past few years of layoffs and unemployment and job changes, and he was kind enough to share his observations and advice. It was a real boost, just what I need right now as I look to make my next transition. Still, the amount of work yet to be done is daunting. Would that I could have a retreat to work through the transition process instead of continuing to work full-time while undertaking a job search. It's like the trees I saw this warm fall and winter putting out new buds while their foliage was still turning and dropping. Sometimes life is just spilling over.

Slowing Down

[Outside Winston Flowers, Newbury St, Boston; 11/27/11]

This is the last day of NaBloPoMo and, while I've enjoyed the experience of blogging every day, reminding me of why I started and why I continue to blog, I'll be happy enough to slow things down again. It has eaten a bit into my allotment of free time outside of work and other obligations. I've not read any books, nor have I kept up very well with my friends' blogs, both of which I'd like to do again.

Lately I keep getting the message to slow down. This isn't easy for me for several reasons. I'm not a slow-moving person by any stretch. I recall once watching how slowly a friend of mine moved  when I visited her, slowly lifting herself from her chair, slowly walking across the room, slowly picking up the kettle to pour more tea, etc. I'm more like my mother was, always jumping up, fidgeting, making beelines from one place to another. My mom would get bruises from bumping into things in her hasty movements. While I've heard that fidgeting actually burns calories, being keyed up too much of the time cannot be healthy.

Then there's the job. My job is not only deadline-driven, often with deadlines too tight to do justice to the work and get any sense of satisfaction from it, but also schedules and work hours are set by others. But then most jobs have fairly rigid work hours. It's as if we're on punch clocks doing factory work. I just came across a series of articles on the tyranny of modern time: "Today, in the United States, the punch-clock economy has faded. Why, then, are we still holding on to its time-logic?" Not only the punch-clock mentality, but all of our technologies keep us always in a state of urgency. As the author suggests, why not just opt out of it periodically and slow down:

"...how about just slowing down?... As you go from your car to the office, walk slowly. As you walk from the elevator to your desk, move slowly. Simply slow down. Opt out of our culture's principle, and now antiquated, time-logic of speed and efficiency to see what happens."

So I've been thinking about all my self-imposed urgencies. I still have work deadlines, but how effective am I if I feel such urgency that, as I did this summer, I put my back out and then cannot do anything for weeks? How much better can I work if I relax and think things through instead of flailing away with that deadline ever in mind? I also don't have to take that mentality home with me and check off every mental to-do list in the evening: laundry, check; dinner, check; dishes, check; squeeze in a couple of pages of reading, check; watch one of the many TV shows I've DVR'd, check; do my back exercises, check...

Fortunately, D is generally on a much more relaxed schedule so my weekends are a break from the workweek pattern. We sometimes do a lot on weekends, but there's usually no schedule. We almost never leave the apartment before noon and we're generally home relaxing in the evening as well. I don't know how long I'll be in this job, but my worklife in general will only be sustainable if I'm not so frequently stressed out. Maybe looking at time another way, bending time a bit more, is the key.

Counting Blessings

So many blessings, so little time to count them all!

I didn't find time to post my annual blessings count last year, so the last one was in 2009 (they go back to 2005). Though I don't have the hours to refine them as I did in the past, I'll attempt a quick list this year. Here they are...

1. My love, healer of my heart
2. Still earning, still learning
3. My apartment, coccoon of creature comforts
4. My brain, mostly in gear
5. Muscles mending
6. My elder enduring, forebear bearing up
7. New (and improved) toy to take in the world (thanks to #1)
8. Beauty everywhere to point-and-shoot at (see previous)
9. Occupiers' fresh energy to speak for the preoccupied
10. This luminous morning, a bright start

Happy Thanksgiving to all celebrating today, and thanks to you all!

Thanksgiving Preparation

[Grateful porch pumpkin, Belmont; 11/3/11]

I'm neither traveling (except locally) nor cooking for Thanksgiving this year. I'm not sorry for the former and a bit wistful, albeit relieved, for the latter. We'll be going to D's cousin's house for the feast tomorrow, then we'll be free for the rest of the long weekend.

My company released us early from work today, and I took advantage of the free time by doing laundry and a major sorting out of my closet and drawers, ending up with a large bag of clothes to donate -- inspired, in part, by a recent decluttering article in the NY Times. The simple recommendation is for three piles: Keep, Donate, and Discard, avoiding a fourth for Undecided. Now I have only the good stuff -- the stuff I actually wear, and that fits -- neatly accessible in my closet and drawers, other people will get some decent stuff that I don't wear, and the rest is in the trash. Halleluiah!

The other good article I saved from the Times this week is one on gratitude. It's timed for Thanksgiving, of course, but a welcome reminder of the healthy benefits of an "attitude of gratitude." Just recently I went searching for information on gratitude because I was feeling resentment bubbling up in me where benevolence and caring should have been, and I didn't like it. There's a lot of mean-spiritedness around these days, a product of lean times, a tipping point of wealth inequality, and extreme political division. But that doesn't mean it has to take over our personal feelings. Gratitude offers an antidote to stressful times, including the upcoming dysfunctional family Thanksgiving and other holiday events.

Safe travels and a healthy holiday, everyone!

 

Willpower

[The Hungry I, Charles St, Boston; 10/30/11]

Exerting willpower... requires the brain to use a lot of energy in the form of glucose, which it may not have if you are hungry or not able to metabolize glucose as efficiently due to lack of sleep or stress. 

A friend and I were just talking about willpower the other night (while swilling margaritas at the end of a busy day at the end of a busy week - okay, just one marg each - willpower!). The author of a new book called Willpower has been making the media rounds, so it's been in the news. Willpower is a predictor of success in life. That's the message. The author apparently provides suggested techniques for boosting one's willpower. But most interesting is how willpower gets depleted, for example, through overuse of willpower all day at work, or stress, or low glucose.

Some of which may explain why I did not do any work last night as I'd intended when I left the office, driven all day by that looming deadline. I left about an hour later than usual, but given the time change it felt more like two. I came home and made stir-fry with the chicken and veggies I bought at Whole Foods on Saturday, poured myself a glass of wine, and enjoyed my dinner. Then I did dishes, checked my various social networks online, fired up Spotify and put on "Twelve" by Patti Smith, which made me curious about what year it was recorded, which led me to an interview with her on Charlie Rose some time back and I watched the whole damn thing. It was getting late. Too tired to think anymore, I turned on the tv and did my PT exercises (well, only the minimum, but - willpower!), and then I was utterly maxed out and went to bed, after properly flossing and brushing.

And so starts another day. But I'm up an hour earlier than usual - no, not willpower, just taking advantage of naturally waking up on Daylight Savings Time.

Rivers and Bridges

[St Johns River, Jacksonville, FL; 10/21/11]

 Last week I flew to Florida for a professional conference, spending most of Wednesday traveling (paying for myself, so flying cheap meant no nonstops). I did opt to shell out $20 extra per night for a riverview room, and it was well worth it. A bit creepy that the 15th floor sliding glass windows opened all the way, with just a little railing across, but it made for great views of the river and a few of its 7 bridges. The guy doling out wine at the hospitality suite that night told me that Jackonville is the largest city in the US area-wise, although well under a million in population. I also found out that nobody walks in this city. In Boston, New York, other Northeast cities, everyone walks everywhere, but in a sprawling place like Jacksonville FL, everyone drives.  I noticed almost a complete absence of people when I took a walk along the lovely Riverwalk from the hotel on Thursday afternoon, though a few more were out on Friday at lunchtime when I strolled down again - a handful of people in the cafes at Jacksonville Landing and a few more walking, though mostly those were visitors on break from the conference.

[Bridges, Jacksonville, FL]

I arrived back in Boston on Friday night and D drove over to pick me up at the airport. I'm still wondering about this woman I met fixing her makeup in the ladies room at the airport who nervously confessed to me that after 25 years of (apparently failed) marriage she'd just flown 500 miles to meet some stranger she met on the Internet. Alas, D was waiting and stalling an airport cop trying to hustle him off, so I didn't have time to watch the scene unfold.

It was good to be home. We hung around the city on Saturday, then took the T out to Jamaica Plain for a party at friends' new place followed by a trek over to the JP Lantern Festival (Universal Hub picked up my photo). And then Sunday was the Head of the Charles Regatta, which somehow I've missed for one reason or another every year. Unfortunately, the weather suddenly turned quite chilly on Sunday, so we only got as far upriver as the start of the race, but not to where the exciting finish happens 3 miles further upstream near Harvard Square. We had no idea what was going on, but it was fun anyway.

You can see more photos of Jacksonville here and more from the Head of the Charles here.

[Charles River, Boston, MA; 10/23/11]

[Rowers, train bridge and BU bridge, Boston/Cambridge]

As for the conference, it was fun and informative and I came back buzzing with ideas and new contacts, but I'm still unsure of my direction. I guess to some extent I'll have to float and see which way the currents take me. But in the meantime I have committed to work on a certificate from the professional organization, with one credit under my belt from a workshop I took at the conference. It's something.

[Note these 3 teams are all headed in the same direction]

Up in the Air

[Fort Point, Boston; 10/15/11]

The skies were beautiful on Saturday just before dusk -- heavy clouds bluffing more than threatening, blown eastward out to sea while the sun headed downward to the west. The sky as future, as possibility, unsettled and dynamic, up in the air, inscrutable. Later this week, I'll fly above the clouds to spend a couple of days at a conference, a little professional development and networking. More ideas to toss around. And in between, air time, perspective.

We drove over to the Fort Point Arts Open Studios (driving because we were coming from my place, but we should have parked at D's and taken the T - between an unexpected Occupy Boston march and the Boston Book Festival, we couldn't get back across the city, sigh). We didn't stay long, stopped to visit friends and popped into a few studios to see some interesting work. It occurs to me now that good contemporary art is just as unsettling and disruptive and inscrutable as that sky. It's why I go, to shake up my brain, see where the pieces land and make new connections.

 
[Parking lot art]

[Crossroads, Summer St and Congress St - Fort Point]

In the meantime, here on earth, there's all the preparation and anxiety, trying to nail control what can be controlled before turning it all over to the great Whatever Happens.