Mild Mannered Reporting

"I can't stand to fly. I'm not that naive. I'm just out to find the better part of me." Five for Fighting 

Cheri posted a practice reminder recently suggesting we imagine what we'd ask Superman to do for us, if we could. For some reason this tickled a place of childish delight inside me, and has excited all my pleasure centers, to the point that I (almost) don't remember the second part of her practice reminder which was to see how much of that which we were asking of Superman we might be able do for ourselves. Luckily, my heart rushed in with the answer before my head could intervene and talk myself into world peace. "Plenty of money," was what I would ask for. Now I don't know how the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound, or x-ray vision yields the ability to provide this, but that is the joy of awakening a child within, now isn't it? 

I suppose the plenty of money would cut out a lot of conversation in my head, ostensibly anyway, regarding what I can and cannot do with my time at this stage of my life where I find myself at a crossroads by dint of being out of work, yet too young to retire. So what *would* I do once I had this plenty of $$$? I'm almost too excited to contemplate, the thought seems so joyous. Off my stepdaughter would go to the college of her dreams, and so too my daughter to medical school following college. John could stay at his hourly job not one minute past when his heart tells him it's time to leave, and not knowing whether we would or not, we could stop the chatter surrounding the endless futile speculation about when we'll go back to a decent income level.

Assuming I had the time, (maybe Superman can do several things for us and longevity could certainly be added to the list), I could spend it on further learning in a new field, and ever so casually resume looking for work in my current field. 

The 2nd part to the question was to ask which of those things we could do for ourselves. This was also interesting and in some ways even more fun to think about. Remembering one of my first 'hooks' into practicing sitting meditation and studying with Cheri was hearing her underscore that all anyone *ever* wants is a certain feeling-- I think that I'd like to be able to provide the means for what I project is a fulfilling feeling that our girls would receive by making their educations just happen. In many respects this was a feeling I enjoyed by virtue of my own parents' generosity.

The other items fall into the category of a sense of urgency-- John needing to believe he can let go of his job when he needs to, me believing I can't stay out of traditional work and those things are so subjective, unless I am in the throes of believing the tug of war in my head. "What about benefits? What about money?" on and on. And of course there is validity to those concerns, but what gets lost sight of on a regular basis by me and I suspect others- is that those things need not become fuel for self-battering as they can be made to become by abusing 'voices' inside. 

As the Superman game suggests, facts can be laid in their place alongside a healthy sense of wonder and imagination with a result that might be something far greater in the real world than ever imagined. Right now I am just loving going about my day with a schedule all my own and knowing it's always going to include time to craft and lunch at home with food I had plenty of time to prepare. Maybe 'the next thing' will include income enough to make sure I always have that time and that personal space as well as the ability to pay the bills.

I have not been served wrong by taking the opportunity to wonder aloud or to myself 'just for fun,' that's for sure.

"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm."

Emily Dickinson
Copyright 2010 Celia M. Feret All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be used without permission from the author who can be reached at celia.feret@gmail.com.

"You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step." Martin Luther King 

I'm avoiding writing in my blog. I'm not sure why but part of my Zen practice is to commit to something, almost for the sake of seeing who you 'become' (what lesser known part of you appears) when you don't want to keep, or can't even remember (!) your commitment. I committed to the blog this last time to take note of the feelings that arise as I relinquish food and eating patterns to excess, and I can't say why I'm turning away today from writing about it.

I suppose there is a part of me that wants to think my urge to overeat doesn't exist when I'm not struggling with it, and of course in Zen practice that is absolutely the truth. Suffering cannot exist in the present because when we are present we are attending as fully as possible to our thoughts, feelings, and sensations. Though those might not always feel good or in sync, we are usually able to take them for what they are and not so much see them as an enemy tide sweeping us into whatever unpleasantness conditioned mind would have us lunge toward.

Wishing there were more food on my plate is not in and of itself a crisis. Believing I "deserve" more and that I can't resist the call toward more tips the balance of contentment and pain toward suffering. And the endless debate of "I know I shouldn't but I can't resist," is the ultimate stronghold for suffering because we can spend a lifetime believing that that debate is something other than a pointless sham, designed to pull us out of present awareness into an unresolvable, futile conversation-- a thinly veiled, if very compelling, "damned if you do, damned if you don't".

I now write down what I eat each day and email it to my sponsor. Some folks commit to what they are going to eat ahead of time and send or call that in to their sponsors. I chose the former because that seemed more do-able and it has the benefit of helping me really see what I eat and, even more illuminating how. Many things have been predictable, some have caught me by complete surprise. The revelation that I'm not in need of more than 3 meals a day is huge and strikes me as funny all at the same time. I was so sure I needed a snack between lunch and dinner but that snack was a small meal (!). I noticed instead that having an actual snack, in the form of an apple or the fruit, is more than sufficient to last until a dinner at most any hour.

The largest surprise has been the depth of what I am forced to call affection for food. I am at turns grateful for the realization and embarrassed that something inanimate and eventually deadly when abused can have become an object of adoration for me when I have so much love in my life and within myself. Seeing all of this clearly, without what's called a food fog, is more than anything joy producing because I no longer feel led down the garden path of delusion that eating out of control will solve some sort of emotional deprivation in my current or prior experience and that feels like the way out of emotional bondage. I suppose it's not unlike being in an abusive relationship and then 'one day' waking up to the knowledge that you do not have to keep participating and the future though not certain, is sure to be brighter than the past with this knowledge.

Avoiding writing these things down provides another decoy to really seeing, which of course is the path toward true freedom. Both my 12-step program and my Zen practice speak of 'the key' as willingness. While those keys abound, I figure I'm good.

"It is not my experience that we are here to fix the world, that we are here to change anything at all.  I think we are here so the world can change us.  And if part of that change is that the suffering of the world moves us compassion, to awareness, to sympathy, to love, that is a very good thing." Cheri Huber

Getting Even

"I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish." — Anne Lamott

If my internal world had a patron saint, it would be Anne Lamott. I had her book about writing, Bird by Bird, alongside my computer as I worked on my first user manual when I was taking classes to be a technical writer in 1996 (Fun Fact: we insiders referred to the Internet back then as 'the web' and we dialed into it!). Her way of describing every day struggles to remain motivated each day as a writer are laugh out loud funny and I find, with the above being one of my favorite sentiments (you saw this was coming Cathy B, didn't you?) that she describes thoughts I didn't even know I had, with much more hilarity.

Another favorite example is her meeting with a therapist for the first time and assuming that when there was a pregnant pause following her description of what was on her mind that she was certain this was so the therapist could subtly reach around with his or her foot for the secret button in the floor that would sound an alarm somewhere to signify that this person was dangerous and needed serious restraint, stat.

Pointing closer to home, I'm faced with my last week at work. Having not lined up another position in house, I will be shown the door, literally. It's the gentlest, most civilized of partings and as stated numerous times in writing and out loud, will afford me the opportunity to forge ahead in reply to a drum I can't stop listening to off in the distance.

The hitch in the giddyup as my daughter enjoys putting it, is that I don't get to choose and I can't stop replaying conversations between myself and various managers and coworkers about the projects we ought to take on and the transfer I 'might want to consider' (You're the only one in your family working right now, right? was the sidebar conversation "man to man" if I was a man that is). That and understanding what COBRA and unemployment really means for our family (it means rushing everyone off to the dentist, oral surgeon and eye doctor before the month ends, STAT) leads me to A.L.'s quote above.

The gotcha of course is, we hardly ever really know in real time that we are being given a solid--a lucky break. It's our hindsight glasses which often as not I use to lament as to reflect with gratitude on a passage, that assist us in figuring those things out, if we ever do. What would the last 10 years have been like if I hadn't taken "Intro to Technical Writing" when I was home with my 11-month old ("hitch in the giddyup" gal about to turn 17) 'just to see' if I could do it or would even like it? And what about all the transfers that resulted in the avoidance of getting laid off until now? No need to go into what flex schedules and work at home privileges mean for moms.

I just about have the version of my resume I'm sending to apply for a clinical internship in San Francisco and 2 glowing letters of recommendation (neither person I asked made me feel even for a second like they were searching for the secret button on the floor in reply). Oh, and if you don't have the inclination for a Zen teacher, you really should consider having others write letters of recommendation on your behalf, even if you don't need any-- it's delightful!

I don't have a rock solid plan for income generation at my fingertips, but I have many relevant thoughts in that direction and still plenty irons to fire there (at least in the inner world presided over by Ms. Lamott in sainthood). Even though sad, I manage to have no lack of enthusiasm for saying goodbye and a tremendous thank you to what feels like casts of thousands who have been fellow sufferers, interlopers on my behalf over and over, and the best of buddies. (You know the type-- the ones who know you full well but like you anyway. That's them. Us.)

That brings me to the less humorous but much more relevant quote I discovered when searching for the exact wording of the Jesus cat dish quote, also brought to us by Anne Lamott, "You can either practice being right or practice being kind." I have years of practice being 'right,' I'm all over the alternative.

"The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you." John Southard

Thanks for the fish

'There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.'
-Douglas Adams, Restaurant at the End of the Universe



I do not believe I read any Douglas Adams from which the title of this entry (Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy) comes, inspired the opening to today's entry. I didn't even know DA died at the much too young age of 49 until I searched his name moments ago.



One of the reasons I am slow to blogging is having read a few 'run of the mill' blog entries, I have noted that the contents are of most interest, most likely, to the reader and in many cases, few others. I decided to forge ahead in spite of this because, well, to state the obvious-- I can -- whereas I know I could not last one half of one half-day on Survivor. The closest I've come to that is sleeping in a tiny unheated cabin for one called a hermitage at my Zen teacher's monastery (And if you don't have a Zen teacher, you really should). At that I felt like Rocky climbing the stairs in the Philadelphia Art Museum the first time I used the out house on prem. (The requisite silence of the privileged environment precluded appropriate musical accompaniment regrettably.)



After I posted my maiden entry here on Sunday, and took childish delight in my comments and followers (thank you Dad!), it dawned on me that I won't even write a Christmas letter because I find it an impersonal way to communicate, (though I love to read each and every one we receive) yet here I am BLOGGING effusively and backwards sommersaulting in my mind because, among others, my dear friend BU said she was along for the ride all the way over there in Florida! And speaking of Dad, boy do I owe him an apology for his email accompaniments to his wonderful photographic submissions to friends and family (Dad, they're long winded I have said. That's fine with me, he has replied. And so he should.)



Even before I received word that my job had been eliminated, I interviewed for a wonderful writing job in another company and it seemed as if I got along famously with the team. The hiring manager delivered the feedback that 'there were some problems with your writing samples.' I'm sure anyone reading this can imagine that is like telling a Miss America contestant.... "Miss Minnesota? Your looks? That bathing suit? I don't think so.... " Though she said complimentary things about my personality, I was crushed because I so felt as if I hit it off with her. In fact, I think she did me the courtesy of explaining 'about my writing' because she did like me so well.



She spoke about the writing being multilayered and difficult to tease out that which was original from that which was overlay-- I am paraphrasing but that's what I walked away with. Have I justified my maintaining a blog with this explanation and will I let an HM read it? I don't really know but, as stated elsewhere, I'm in it to see what happens and couldn't be more flattered that my loved ones (and everyone who has responded to me is *definitely* in that crowd) want to read.



Ciao for now,



C

PS: RR- start your blog so *I* can read it!



While I admire the glass is half full type...I'm comfortable with the fact that my glass will always have a slow and steady leak. (author unknown)

First day of the rest of my life- oh gawd

I am the most chatty person you'll ever meet. If it's anything I do well, it's keep in touch over email, often portraying myself in a far more interesting fashion than were we to speak face to face. Yet the notion of a blog somehow terrifies me (which in and of itself is odd if you consider what a person has to do these days to navigate the sea of blogs to find one worth reading).



So why am I blogging? Frankly, I just saw "Julie and Julia" for the second time in a month and I can't think of a direct application between blogging a journey through a classic cookbook for a year (though one of Ina Garten's would be my choice I'm sure!) and quilting-which would be my equivalent source of joy and comfort to that of Julie Powell's.



All I know is right now I sit here on the cusp of ending 10 years as a technical writer for a Fortune 100 company in Silicon Valley and I just know that in one year from this date my life might not look (probably won't look) a thing like it does right now. And I don't want to miss it- so writing about it will give me something to do and if I pick up a reader (or cajole enough friends to come along for the ride)-- so much the better.

Why is my story unique? I'm 45, which maybe the new 35, but it's not the new 25 in the job hunting world, that's for sure. As everyone knows we are in a 'down economy,' my husband has been unemployed by a combination of choice and chance for the prior 4 years, and to complete the picture I've been turning toward career change for quite a while now.

I trained as a clinical social worker and have been inching slowly toward returning to that field and have just found the courage to start mentioning that when people ask how my job search is going.

Wish me luck,

C

"I have met the builder and broken the ridgepole. I shall not build that house again."

THE BUDDHA, UPON HIS AWAKENING