Of Empty Nests And Phish (And Wingsuits)

It's the question that's been bouncing around in various forms since last May:  "Are you ready for the empty nest?" "Looking forward to having an empty nest?" "How are you coping with the empty nest?"

(I wrote the first draft of this post in September of last year, I believe.  At that time the eldest was just starting her senior year at college and the younger was just leaving for her first year.  Since that time the eldest has graduated and the youngest has successfully completed her first year away.  I'm glad I left this piece to marinate awhile.  My feelings have grown so much bigger and richer.)

I think I'm ready to answer the question.

When the eldest daughter left for college it was certainly an adjustment, but I felt so proud of her for striking out on her own that it offset much of the sadness.  She was in a different city, different state, but I knew she had family nearby.  And even though she was in the big city (Chicago) her campus seemed like a sheltered oasis.  I had little anxiety on her behalf and I still had her sister at home to keep me occupied.

I honestly didn't know how I was going to feel making that drive to Chicago to deliver the younger sister to a different school in a different part of the city.  I sensed it would be momentous somehow, but I didn't know how I'd react.  Would I cry?

The drive out was a good diversion.  I tore part of the heat shield off the bottom of my car when I hit a piece of truck tire in the road, so that provided excitement.  Then we listened to Beyoncé's latest album in the car while we were driving and I can honestly say I now know more about her personal life with Jay Z then I ever wanted to.  And we capped the day with a lovely visit with my dearest cousin and her awesome family, so it was all good.  The harder part was the next day.

But here's the thing, I felt remarkably OK.  Tom met us at the dorm and we actually found places to park. (A good omen in Chicago!)  It only took a couple of trips, maybe 3, to get all our daughter's stuff to her room.  As we were hauling the first load, Tom turned to me and said something along the lines of how some people might say that our job as parents was over now.  He left to return to Ohio, I was staying overnight to make sure Miriam was settled.  Still good.

Once we'd arrived at the dorm Miriam's concentration turned to meeting the roommates and getting her space set-up.  Tom had left and I was sitting in the corner trying to stay out of Miriam's way when I noticed a feeling, a rising tide of a sort of panic.  When I left Chicago this time to return home I'd be leaving without her.  I would be leaving her in the city.  Granted, she'd still have family nearby, especially her sister, but her campus was less self-contained and much more urban than her sister's had been.  Less reassuring for a mother.  It was the closest I came to freaking out. I don't think it was even big enough for Miriam to have noticed.

Finally it was my turn to drive away.  Sometimes I think I react to things in slow motion.  It takes me awhile to process my emotions because I have to think through what just happened and how I'm feeling about it.  As I left I was perfectly calm, but had that "something big just happened" feeling.

What, you may be asking yourself by now, does this have to do with Phish? 

I was a relative late-comer to The Grateful Dead party, but I sorta came in on the ground floor with Phish.  I spent one semester as a temporary night supervisor of The Student Union at Oberlin College, which meant overseeing Dionysus ("The 'Sco" to any self-respecting Obie), the dance club/concert venue on campus.  Phish was one of the concerts that semester and I swear it was one of the last of the small shows they ever played.  I've only ever seen them in arenas and outdoor pavilions since.  But back then I had to tell them they couldn't keep their dog in the lounge we were using as a green room.  I mean, I ACTUALLY TALKED TO THE BAND.  I TOLD TREY ANASTASIO AND MIKE GORDON THAT THEY HAD TO TAKE THEIR DOG BACK OUT TO THEIR VAN.  So I've always felt something of a bond with them.

As legendary storyteller Ron Thomason from The Dry Branch Fire Squad bluegrass band would say, "Told you that to tell you this..."

So I really love their music and because we are in the same age cohort I always feel I can relate to their lyrics (strange though they can be) because we are products of the same zeitgeist.  We are going through the same life passages.  When I first heard the song "Joy" from their album "Joy" I thought "hey, I bet Trey [lead singer, frequent songwriter] has a teenaged daughter" because the lyrics spoke to me about what I was going through with mine. (We want you to be happy/ don't live inside the gloom/ we want you to be happy/ come step outside your room...)

Turns out he'd actually written it about his late sister's struggle with cancer.  Oh well.

So let me set the scene: I'm getting a late start leaving Chicago to drive home.  I'm in a strange frame of mind.  My eldest is a college senior this year so who knows what's coming next?  My youngest is striking out on her own and isn't looking back.  I'd lost my job not long before that and now was faced with the prospect of no longer being able to hide behind the "stay-at-home-mom" excuse.  Who knew what was ahead for any of us?

Then I heard The Song.

When Phish releases a new album I generally listen to it over and over until I've practically absorbed it through my pores.  Different songs or lyrics will grab me depending on my mood.  So I'm driving along, feeling pensive, and suddenly the words coming out of the speakers are a sonic hug, speaking to my condition.

 

Steal away, let's steal a car

 

Ok.  Not those ones so much.



 

You'll never win a major only shooting par

Step outside, feel the sun

It's only you; be you, 'cause you're the only one

And it feels good, 'cause it feels good...

 

Yes.  Oh yes.  

 

All three of us were facing major transitions regarding what we wanted to do with our lives and who we wanted to be.

 

 

Nothing lasts, nothing stays



We're caught in this procession of unchanging days

What's new is old, what's old is gone

You're pushed up to the edge, so put your wingsuit on

 

Put your wingsuit on

(and it feels good)

 

I could see it in my mind's eye - the three of us standing on a precipice, holding hands, preparing to launch into our futures.

 

And gliding away, you fly where you choose

There's nothing to say

And nothing to lose

 

TO MY BELOVED AMELIA: You've always been the cautious one.  This past academic year FLEW by and you reached another edge.  But you put your wingsuit on and you flew!  I can't tell you how proud I am.  I wish I could tell you that it will never be hard.  I wish I could tell you that nothing will go wrong.  But I know you can do this, and, even better to me, YOU know you can do this.  You are already a success because you are setting out on your own and trying to follow your dream.
 

TO MY DARLING MIRIAM: Fearless and headstrong, the one I've sometimes wanted to slow down a little.  I wanted you to put your wingsuit on, but also make sure you'd read the directions carefully and understood how to assemble and use it before taking off.  I need not have worried.  It was your turn to launch and you've nailed it, displaying a level of independence and maturity I only wish I'd had at your age.

 

Steal away, paint the sky...

 

As for me, I feel I've been doing a pretty good job of moving on.  This empty nest thing isn't so horrible. I can wear what I want to around the house.  I like having the freedom to put nuts in my brownies or cook beef for dinner.  And I've come to realize that my expectations have changed more than my actual daily life.  Between school, work, softball, and her friends, Miriam wasn't home a lot during her last year in high school.  So in many ways the only difference now is that I can while away an afternoon without thinking about who needs picked up when and delivered to where.

 

My time is back to being my own now.  I don't necessarily know where I'm heading and what I'm gonna do with it, but I'm enjoying the glide. I feel like I've already accomplished something big.

 

We're all gonna be all right.

 

Time to put your wingsuit on

Time to put your wingsuit on

Time to put your wingsuit on...





 



("Wingsuit" from the album "Fuego".  Song written by Anastasio/Fishman/Gordon/McConnell.  Published by Who Is She? Music, Inc. (BMI).  Yeah, like this will keep me from getting sued for copyright infringement.)

 

 

And how are you?

It's Like Nothing Has Changed, Only Everything

I lost my dad Tuesday, January 20th.

I've noticed that I tend to follow this up with a disclaimer, that this is not necessarily as personally devastating a loss as it is for some people.  I'm the youngest of a litter of 6, so by the time I came around my parents were a little worn out by the whole parenting thing.  And by the time I turned 5 the older kids were starting to hit their teen years, not to mention the fact that it was the 70's, man, and parental attention was, of necessity, generally being pulled elsewhere. 

This is all said without rancor.  I wouldn't call my relationship with my dad close, but it wasn't hostile, and he was definitely paterfamilias (which was transmuted into our family nickname for dad - Podder), an influential force even if not directly involved.  In fact, temperamentally I think I turned out very much like him.

I really didn't know how I was going to react when the moment came.  He and I didn't really talk much.  Over the years Dad's natural personal reticence (he never really liked talking on the phone, for example) morphed into an insidious type of dementia that stole his emotions and behavior more than his memory, and reduced our communication even more.

I can confidently say I'm well into middle-aged hood, so I'm no stranger to loss.  I've come to realize it's a very idiosyncratic thing.  There's no "better" way for it to happen, just different.  One summer I knew 3 different couples that lost spouses: one married 10 years, one married closer to 20, and one married over 50 years.  The grief of losing someone too soon, of feeling robbed of a future, is a terrible thing.  But so is the grief of losing someone who has been part of daily existence for a majority of one's life.  My elderly neighbor described how she still talked to her late husband because she was just so accustomed to him being there.

So, like I said, I didn't know how I was going to feel.  I live in a different state, and our interactions were not frequent, so it wasn't going to have an immediate impact on my daily routine.  His health had been failing for some time.  In fact, it had gotten to a point where it had become somewhat agonizing for us, his family, as well as, I imagine, for him.  Towards the end there were multiple emergency room visits, a place he disliked.  His condition was not fixable.  He didn't like the intrusions of tests and therapy.  In the end all he really wanted was to go to bed.  There was a certain relief in him finally being able to go and be at rest.  In peace.

But I lost a parent.

I feel like lately I've been writing a lot about Life's Big Moments,  those reality bending moments of Things Will Never Be The Same.  Although I'm quick to tell people that I'm doing all right, and my grief appears muted, I'm feeling the weight of this moment.

It's one of those times when life strips away the comfort of the mundane.  We are pleasantly (sometimes unpleasantly) distracted by the details of day-to-day living until something catastrophic - a crime, an accident, a death - breaks in to remind us that there are no guarantees that bad things won't happen.  That loss is inevitable.  There is no life without death.  We must learn to dance in the face of this shadow.

I'm also slowing piecing together the impact my dad had on my life.  For one thing, I'm now acutely aware of how many of my recent conversations with my mom and siblings revolved around my dad, how he was doing, and how we were all coping.  Now it's just us.

I'm aware of how little I really knew about the guy, his story and what made him tick.  I have questions that will probably never be answered, the dementia having made sure of that years before.

But mostly I think about glaciers.  Some time ago I was impressed to read a description of how glaciers move.  They don't slide downhill willy-nilly like giant toboggans.  Their movement is painstakingly incremental.  New ice builds at the back of the glacier and the old ice at the front edge gradually melts or falls away.  I see generations as being like that.  I lost my grandparents right at the time I was having children of my own.  I felt the nudge, my shift from being a daughter at the back of the glacier to being a parent in the middle ice.  Someday I'll need to be prepared to be the matriarch, the leading edge.  I'm not there yet but I feel it shifting a bit closer.

The other thing about glaciers is how huge and heavy they are, and how they completely shape the land that they move over.  Mountains become rounded hills, soil and rock is scraped away and re-arranged, and the sheer weight of the ice carves a footprint into the very bedrock.  That's how I imagine all those prior generations molding me.  Who I am has so much to do with who they were.

Like I said, I recognize a lot of my dad in me.  My sense of humor.  My love of theater and seeing life as something of a performance.  Intellect.  An appreciation of all things English.  A curious affection for trains.  I'm aware that I am a legacy of who my father was.

And I'm feeling the loss.

As Larry Penn's song "Time to Go" so perfectly put it: "The whistle on the midnight train sounds sweet tonight... and every time the whistle moans it says to me 'I'll take you back to where your soul is free.'"

Enjoy your rest, Podder.

Rethinking the Joy Thing

Some clarification is in order.

Earlier I wrote a great piece about how despite all the bad things happening locally, personally, nationally, and internationally, I was giving myself permission to feel joy.  A good sentiment.  A really good thought.  But I think I completely had this whole joy thing wrong.  I made the mistake of thinking joy = happiness.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I tried.  I really did.  I tried hard.  I wasn't going to let the little things get to me.  I was going to be happy.  Cheerful, even.  Bad things were still happening to people I know, the world didn't disappoint in its ability to produce tragedies, but it wasn't going to get to me.  No siree.

But you know what happens when you try to force yourself to feel happy?  You feel even worse.  I felt a certain pressure.  Sad things normally make me feel sad, but suddenly that wasn't OK.  Suddenly that was failure, and I was letting people down.  And a sense of failure does not make spirits bright.  And my kids were totally noticing it.  One even commented on my "determination not to be happy".  Really didn't make me feel any better.

And little things kept gnawing at my mood.  A bad day at work, for example.  The feeling that I've been (barely) fending off a sinus infection.  One particularly bad night that involved a 6 year old who would not sleep and a Christmas party gone horribly wrong.  That was the night I felt the snap.  That little flicker of joy?  It was gone.  Over.  Spiritually I cried "uncle".  I'd had it.  Pardon the expression, but joy be damned.  So I updated my status to state that I was giving myself permission to be as grumpy as I wanted to be, causing some concern that I'd crossed over to the Grinch side.

But you know what?  That's not really it, either.  I'm feeling no animosity towards the holiday.  In fact, I'm still eagerly looking forward to be big day, Christmas itself, when the preparations are largely over and the focus is just on being with my own little family and enjoying each others' company.  And that moment is going to come, ready or not.  And I truly believe that it will be wonderful.

I've come to realize that permission to feel joy does not mean that I don't have permission to feel anything less than wonderful.  I just have to feel what I feel... and that's OK.  The "real" Christmas story, after all, is hardly a laugh-fest.  As people are fond of pointing out, Mary was the original unwed teen-aged mother, which was not exactly cool at the time.  Most women I know would probably agree that giving birth outside, among the muck and smells of a stable, would be no picnic.  And even after seeing her precious baby, the host of heavenly angels, and the visit from the magi, Mary had a strange foreboding that this story wasn't going to end particularly well.  The holy family had to flee the country for their own safety, and there's the whole Slaughter of the Innocents thing.  Good times, eh?

Some years Christmas just resonates on a whole different level.

I distinctly remember a Christmas that I think was 2 years ago.  I was working at the shelter and worked the day of Christmas Eve.  I left at the end of my shift but had some stops to make on my way home.  The first was to deliver food, presents and medicine to a young mother whose daughter was sick with a bad cold or some such thing.  The apartment complex she lived in would best be described as "sketchy".  The sun had gone down but it was a warm night and rather foggy, so all the outside lights bathed everything in a weird, orange glow.  As I was leaving her building I heard shouts and what sounded like the makings of a drunken fight a few buildings over.  While I was driving to the next home to make another delivery, the Christmas music on the radio was interrupted to bring me an Amber Alert.  A child was missing and feared to be in danger.  Never had I felt so deeply how very broken our world is.  But that night I had the opportunity to sing "Silent Night" by candlelight, and it was beautiful.

My kids just asked me this evening what they could do to make me happy.  It's hard to explain, but I just want to tell them to let me be.  Not in the sense of leaving me alone, but letting me be who I am feeling how I feel and just going with it.  If I can acknowledge sorrow and frustration I can let it go.  I can stay open to the possibility of joy knowing that I won't know exactly when and how it will happen, and that it's not for me to manufacture.

One last thought.  I follow the "Cracked" page on Facebook and lately they've been hitting it out of the park.  I believe that humor is a great vehicle for conveying truth in a way that it can be heard.  And they had a great piece about the "real" meaning of Christmas that goes way beyond the biblical story.  Once upon a time this was a seriously scary time of year here in the Northern climes.  Not just the darkness, but the onset of cold, and if you hadn't adequately planned ahead for things like food or fuel you weren't going to be around to welcome the spring.  So the writer pointed out that the great thing about humankind is that we could take this nightmarish scenario and decide to throw a party.  We turned our bleakest moment into a time to celebrate love and generosity, and created pretty lights and such for the sole purpose of being pretty.  And, you know what?  That's a wonderful thing.

Did I say I don't care about Christmas?  That's not true.  I haven't given in to Grinchitude.  I've given in to reality.  I'm kind of emotionally exhausted, but I'm willing to go through the preparations because I know it's going to be worth it.  Just let me take it at my own pace and don't expect me to necessarily have a smile on my face the whole time. 

Feeling better already.  Let the holiday begin!

Hosanna, Lord; My Pre-Christmas Letter

Oh, man.  Here we go again.  Or as Joni Mitchell so famously put it, "It's coming' on Christmas, they're cuttin' down trees...".  It's that time of year.  We've passed Thanksgiving, it's Advent at church.  Time to get my holiday on!

Only I'm so not feeling it.

It's not that I feel hostility towards the whole Christmas thing, it's more of a detached indifference.  I see the decorations going up around me but it doesn't occur to me that maybe I should be getting ready, too.  And there's plenty to do, believe me.  But I have a bad case of Holiday-Spirit Block.

I have a vague recollection of thinking that I wasn't going to miss 2013, that 2014 had to be better.  Only it wasn't, really.  And lately I feel God has really been throwing kidney punches at people I know and love.  Friends and family alike.  Against a backdrop of civil and international unrest.

But it's the personal pain that's getting to me the most.  It seems just about everyone I know is going through a dark time.  Maybe it's a season of life thing.  Growing up and launching ourselves into the world was such a heady time.  We celebrated each other's accomplishments, rejoiced in the finding of true love, welcomed the arrivals of new life into our families.  But now we've gone through all those positives and the news is now sadder.  Now we commiserate over untimely losses, failing health, broken relationships, financial reversals.  There will be joy again in grandchildren, successful retirements, and making peace with our lives, but right now it seems to be all about the sorrow.  And there is plenty of that to go around right now.  So, yeah, I'm feeling a bit down.

But here's the thing.  If I sit back and look at my immediate day-to-day life it's not too bad at all.  I grouse about my house but feel blessed to have a home.  My children are healthy, relatively happy, and surviving college quite well.  I'm married to a guy who loves me and always has my back.  I'm enjoying my new job, mostly.  I should be able to focus on the positive and just forge ahead.  But I've had a revelation.  That's not me.

It's hard for me to be happy when others are unhappy.  In psychobabble terms that would probably be called having weak boundaries.  But it's who I am.  I would be the aid worker who would feel too guilty to eat in a famine zone.  I know and am related to people who are facing really tough stuff right now.  Life-threatening illness.  Sudden and unexpected passing.  The indignities and sorrows of watching a loved one slowly decline.  For the sake of brevity and privacy I'm not going to name you all.  But if you are in my social sphere and know that you're going through it, I want you to know that I care.  Very much.  And I wish I knew what I could do to help things feel better.

So I've made what is, for me, a radical decision.  I'm going to give myself permission to feel joy.

It feels a little wrong, like I'm ignoring what my loved ones are going through.  But I've come to realize that the opposite of joy is despair, and despair is a paralyzing agent.  Despair makes it hard to get out of bed in the morning.  Despair is the little voice that says don't even try calling my friend because nothing I can say can make it any better.  Despair says don't bother.  Too much is out of my control and I can't change it.

Our secular version of Christmas makes it one big party from Halloween through January 2nd.  I'm coming to appreciate the liturgical church point of view more and more.  The season of Advent is not about the party.  It's about preparing, watching and waiting for the Christmas party.  My preparation this year is going to be finding and allowing joy.  Joy energizes.  It cares.  It shows someone in darkness that there is light.  I can't fix the problems but I can look someone in the eye and give them a genuine smile, and for that moment that person feels better.  But I can't share it unless I have it.

After tonight I'm going to take a deep breath and dive in.  Time to make the Christmas cards!  Write the letter!  Shop for the adopt-a-family!  Make cookie dough!  Break out the eggnog and start watching cheesy Christmas specials.  I will only do for the holiday what I will enjoy and I will enjoy it all.  

In my heart I will be saying hosanna.  (Were you wondering about the title yet?)During Lent last year I learned that the original meaning of the word was not a cry of joy, but a petition, a cry for help.  The Hebrew hoshana refers to rescue or saving.  It's become my favorite prayer.  Hosanna, Lord, hosanna.  Be with those who are in pain and darkness.  I am not helpless.  I can perform a small act of kindness.  I can make my small voice heard speaking truth to power, even if it's just an e-mail to an elected official.  I can reach out to the loved one who is unhappy.  And when it all gets too overwhelming, I can say hosanna.  Lord, please come and help.

OK.  Onward and upward.  Those Christmas cards aren't gonna make themselves!

I've Lost My Sense of Direction! (Have I tried Hare Krishna?)

(The title is my favorite running gag from the original Muppet Movie.  WARNING:  Read farther only if you can stomach self-absorbed whining.)

My baby graduated high school last month.

Instantly I was transported back to my high school graduation.  Our high school gym was having asbestos removed so the ceremony was held outside with no back-up plan for rain because the senior class voted not to use the gym the next town over, our sports rival.  The day dawned sunny and fair, turned cloudy as the morning progressed, and started dripping rain as we processed to "Pomp and Circumstance". As the ceremony progressed it turn to a steady shower.  Water dripped off our mortarboards.

I clearly recall sitting on the stage and feeling the enormity of the moment.  I was being launched into the world.  It's one of those moments in life when you look around wondering when the grown-up is going to show up.  The world was an open book, the story still unwritten.

Terrifying.

It only recently occurred to me why the ghost of that feeling haunted my daughter's graduation.  My role as school mom was over.  I'd recently lost my job.  Come fall I wouldn't have the daughters around occupy my time.  The world is an open book, the story still unwritten.

Still terrifying.

And worse.  Infinitely worse.  I've always been deeply envious of people who have callings, who know where they want to go and what they want to be.  My picture has always been fuzzy.  There was theater, but it didn't take me long to realize I didn't have what it takes.  Ditto with singing.  Psychology was my fall-back because I've always had a fascination with people.  I did not, however, share the same passion for statistics and computers which came dangerously close to tanking my college career.

I've tried out multiple jobs and each time I went through a phase of thinking "this is it". When I first worked at the shelter I contemplated an MSW (nope).  When I worked at the law office I contemplated law school (nope).  When I worked in the kitchen of a nursing home I contemplated getting certified as a dietary supervisor (nope).  Once I was back at the shelter I was contemplated becoming a licensed practical counselor. 

You know, getting fired is really a kidney-punch to the self-esteem.  Especially, I think, in this case.  It was not a "gee you're a great person but the money just isn't there" sort of thing.  It was personal.  It was because of me, who I am and what I did. I have a slight problem with authority in that I recognize it but expect to be respected in return.  If I perceive that I am not being respected then I don't really care who you are.  This has led to some bridges being burned, torn-up, and pulled down.

I think I've previously mentioned that I've likened my work history to unsuccessful romantic relationships.  As I recently told a friend of mine "I really thought this job was the one".  I was terrified to return to the shelter but I picked it right back up.  It ignited my passion, gave me an identity, allowed me a measure of financial security.  But that demon burn-out was snapping at my heels having been given a head start 25 years ago.  And I threw it all away.  I blew it.  I did it.  No one else to point to but me.  I feel like a toddler who's had her favorite toy ripped out of her hands because she wouldn't stop bashing it against the back of the driver's seat.

So here I sit.  Most people my age are probably approaching the pinnacles of their careers.  I'm looking over the scorched remains of my employment history.  Every time I pull money from the ATM I'm painfully aware that it's not going back.  Solidly middle-aged with a bizarre interrupted resume.  Not sure I would want to hire me. 

Terrifying.

Even worse, I'm sliding into the unemployed slump, exacerbated by the fact that it's summertime.  I sleep late because, hey, no place I need to be.  No need to dress up for anything.  I have lots of house projects to work on but, hey, I got lots of time.  Nothing but time.  It stretches like taffy.

I know it simply means that there is something better for me out there.  But I would love to have a clue, a plan, a leading for what I should be doing right now.  I should be enjoying this last summer with my daughters but it's hard when there's not an end in sight.  Just another day of rolling out of bed, having my coffee, figuring out what to do.  It's like The Talking Heads said "Heaven... heaven is a place...a place where nothing... nothing ever happens..." 

My, I'm a bundle of joy, aren't I?  Well it's not so much fun to be living it, either.

I've lost my sense of direction.  Does anyone know where to find The Reverend Harry Krishna?

Square Peg

It's true.  Today is my birthday.  I'm officially kicking-off the 50th year of my existence.

When you're a kid that seems so old.  As one ages it becomes progressively younger.  Thanks to the miracles of modern medicine and the persistent immaturity of the post World War II generations, 50 really has become the new 30.  Thirty used to be the time for a person to sit back and think, "Gee.  What am I doing with this life thing anyway?".  Now that era of life is about paying off those student loans, trying to establish the career, popping out the kids ahead of the biological clock.  Not much time for reflection.

I also had the advantage of having a mom who came into her own later in life.  Having 6 kids will do that to ya.  I always told myself I had time.  If I didn't have a Master's Degree until I was 50, that was OK.  I'm only now going to be launching my youngest into the world this fall.  The new chapter is just beginning.

I think I've written about my work history before.  I liken my job history to people who repeatedly find themselves in unhealthy, unstable relationships.   The combination of having bills to pay, a fairly low boredom tolerance, and feminist guilt make being unemployed really uncomfortable for me.  As a consequence I tend to jump into the first thing that comes along, then am somehow surprised when it all ends badly.

First it was the DV shelter right out of college.  I got that job because I'd been an intern there my senior year.  The director at the time was incredibly lazy about hiring people and credentials were never a factor.  She hired me because, hey, I was already there. The director was actually pretty lackadaisical about every aspect of running the program, so at the ripe old age of 24 I was completely burnt out.  Tom and I had taken a month-long vacation (no children yet) and I had the opportunity to remember what it felt like to be relaxed and happy.  I knew I had to quit, and did.

This was followed by a stint with the Oberlin College food service which wasn't too bad.  But I was young and thought maybe I had gone to school for a reason.  So when the next offer came along, I jumped.

One day an attorney I knew in town asked me to stop by his office.  Since we were both very involved in the same church I figured it had something to do with that.  You have to picture the scene:  I had recently returned from vacation and had a friend who had corn-rowed my hair for the occasion.  I strolled into the office, my hair beads a-clinking, rocking a tie-dyed dress and moccasins.  I was the only one there who did not know that I was gong to be offered a job as a legal assistant.  Another boss who didn't really care about credentials. 

That job actually lasted 9, at times, tumultuous years.  But then the firm's partners underwent what was an essentially ugly business divorce, and I took sides in the client custody fight, and it wasn't with the guy who hired me.  We actually got into yelling matches.  I literally walked out one morning.

Back to food service.  Got myself hired at a quality local restaurant.  I was the oldest person there.  I also had small children and spotty childcare, especially since my boss refused to put me on a regular schedule.  We took an instant dislike to each other.  I took a lengthy vacation with very little notice.  I was not fired, but neither was I ever put back on the schedule.

After a brief fling with childcare, I used another personal connection to get a job in the kitchen of a nursing home.  (Yay!  Food service!  My years at Oberlin were not wasted after all!).  It was the physically hardest job I ever had.  I also learned I was not cut out for it at all.  I had great rapport with the residents, but I overthought everything I did which made me slow.  One year, right before Christmas, we had a staff meeting and learned that the dietary department had been outsourced and we were all working for a new (horrible) company.  I mean, these people were bastards.  It was clear that they wanted to run off as many of the higher-paid, veteran workers as they could.  It was all about how fast you could work, not how well you could work.  I was working with people who needed this job to support themselves.  I was doing it for the luxury of a 2nd income.  So I decided to go out in a blaze.  Once again I was having yelling matches with my superior.  The breaking point for them was when I hung signs in the break room and by the time clock saying what the new company was doing to my fellow employees and suggesting that the other departments unionize.  Once again, I wasn't exactly fired, just never put on the schedule.  My supervisor, the woman I knew who had been my connection with the job, was told that if someone called off SHE would be expected to cover the shift and NOT CALL ME. 

On my own again.

This led to another and much longer childcare stint.  I didn't stay home with my kids when they were babies and that may have been a good thing.  I loved the child to pieces, still do, but it takes infinite patience and a high tolerance for boredom and mindless, repetitive games to make it with children without going insane.  Plus the fact that little charges grow up.  My kids were finally big enough to be pretty independent and I felt I was done with my child-rearing days.

Now what?

I came full circle.  Through a chance encounter my husband had with the director of the new improved DV shelter I found out that she would be willing to hire me.  I knew her from the old days.  In fact, I had trained her when she was the new hire at the shelter.  Even though I never, ever thought I could do that sort of work again, I fell back into it.  After some initial terror, I even liked being back.  One of my strongest skills is dealing with people, all sorts of people, and it was like riding a bicycle.  I hopped on the seat and took off.  It felt like I'd finally found (re-found, actually) my calling.

But it's also stressful.  So stressful that not long after I started the director, the woman I knew who had given me the job, resigned.  Despite staff misgivings a woman who had previously been a manager of the shelter returned as director.  I had no history with her so I was willing to give it a shot.  And, I thought, we clicked pretty well.

But it's stressful.  It's painful to witness the inadequacies of what we call "the social safety net". Poverty is ugly.  People suffer.  Life is unfair.  People sabotage themselves.  And aging parents require attention.  And bad things happen to people I care about.  Sometimes it feels like it's coming atcha from all sides.  Then I started getting in trouble for not performing my job adequately, I wasn't meeting requirements I didn't even know I had.  I felt like I'd been set-up for failure.  I started to seethe.  I started ranting to co-workers.  I decided the healthier, saner, thing to do would be to express my frustration directly to the director.  I wrote her an e-mail and I didn't pull my punches.

And I was fired. 

Happy birthday to me.  It's my 49th birthday, the beginning of my 50th year on the planet.  No, I don't have my Master's degree.  I don't have a job.  Just a strong feeling of "here I go again".  Too spacey for waitressing, too slow for physical labor, too hard and hot-headed to swallow my pride for a boss.

It's a bittersweet birthday.  I do feel a sense of a weight being lifted.  I'm really not as upset as I expected.  But I have kids going to college and it's a bad time to lose what had been a pretty good income.  And if God slammed the door I'm having trouble seeing the window.  A window I can fit through, at any rate.

Feeling very much like a square peg who just can't bring herself to wriggle into those round holes.

And The Leaves That Are Green Turn to Brown - Another Autumn Meditation

Yet another Paul Simon song title.  That man was a poetic genius!

Fall is drawing to a close.  The Holiday Season is fast upon us!  But before I close this chapter I want to share something I've really appreciated this autumn.  Something that has been hiding in plain sight until my eyes were opened to it.

The color brown.

Brown is SO underrated.  To us it's the color of poo.  The color of rot.  Beige equals boring.  Brown shoes don't make it.

Supposedly Inuit people have hundreds of words for snow.  I wish I had that many for the browns I encountered.

Brown is beautiful.  It's chocolate.  Coffee with cream.  Hot cocoa on a cold day.

First I was struck by the grasses and weeds.  At the edge of town there's a park I have an affinity to.  It's mostly grassland being allowed to return to its feral state.  That's where I first discovered the palette.  There were swales of grass that still clung to its green undercoat, but was topped with beautiful silvery brown stems.  The whole field reminded me of wild rabbit fur, and looked just as soft.  Here and there it was punctuated with stands of now cinnamon-hued weeds, and dark chocolate branches with whimsical spiky seed pods, and the soft oatmeal color of the towering plumed phragmites.  A symphony of brown.

Then there were the trees.

The divas of autumn are the maple trees, which go out in blazes of fiery red, luminous yellow, and day-glo orange.  Some turned a startling deep pink like undiluted frozen pink lemonade, or the inside of a ruby red grapefruit.  Because the season has progressed in fits and starts I've noticed trees of multiple color, a crown of red fading to gold that transitions to green at the bottom.  I saw what I think were hemlocks that were a mind-bending golden red against a crisp blue sky.  And sweet gum leaves do some pretty amazing things with magenta and yellow.  But my favorites by far this season have been the oaks.

One thing I've learned from having fashionista daughters is that dressing well is not about flash and sparkle.  Someone in the know can spot a quality piece of clothing by its clean lines and good tailoring.  It's tasteful.  Less is more.  Think Jackie Kennedy and her Oleg Cassini suits.  Oak trees are the Jackie Kennedys of the woods.  Classic and refined.

Their transition is far more subtle than the show-off trees.  Some imperceptibly shift from green to bronze.  I examined an oak that looked olive  green at first glance, but was really composed of leaves that were still green, some that were soft brown, and some burnt orange.  I drove under some oaks whose individual branches were two-toned: harvest gold on top and rich dark brown on the bottom.  Some of the golden oaks had individual leaves lined with brown, looking like nothing so much as slightly over baked sugar cookies, which are the tastiest after all.

Again, I'm amazed by the variations on a theme and I struggle to describe the  colors.  Oak leaves have such an understated beauty.  Some as dark as milk chocolate, others the soft brown of buckskin.  A few turn the deep purple-red of Bing cherries.  A stand of trees can be a wonderland of chestnut, mahogany, and bittersweet - each slightly different from the other.

Oaks are also loathe to drop their leaves, so the color lingers.  While driving to work I noticed that the distant tree lines that are normally the smokey gray of bare limbs wore a distinctly russet tone.

Usually in February or March I start to rail against the monochromatic world, impatiently awaiting the green of spring.  Maybe this year I'll stop and remind myself that it's brown.  Like cinnamon-sugar toast and cappuccino.

Simply beautiful.