Effective but Wordless Chant

So I did look at one SF apartment ad today. It was through my old employer, a property management company, which is how I got my sweet deals on my SF and Oakland apartments. Granted, it wasn’t a handout-out, I worked well there – maybe not that hard, but it wasn’t that challenging or enticing, and eventually I found myself overcome by the Ugly Cries (maya's accurate term) in my car at lunch one Friday on the phone with a friend having another job existential crisis.

That day I gave my two weeks notice, that night I threw my 1st pre-Valentine’s party, the following day, I went blonde. This was almost 3 years ago now. My boss wasn’t pleased, but he knew I wasn’t happy – that I wanted to do something creative, anything.

So that began several months – two, to be exact – of job hunting. I remember I didn’t even tell my parents I’d quit my job and was looking for work cuz I just couldn’t face their “Are you kidding me, in this economy??” spiel. It was hard then – I had notes all over my SF apartment – "This is a world of grace and abundance and I am letting go."

A friend afterward told me to change to wording to “--and I allow myself to receive” – more “open.”

Two years before that, I’d been “downsized” from a corporate real estate firm, my first long term gig in SF, and was on unemployment for the full 6 months. The first month? Awesome - yay paid vacation. By the end of six months? I was desperate. I began to answer every ad. The very week my unemployment was going to run out, I had two job interviews one day, and I’m driving to one of them, out somewhere near Bayview, and I’m in my car and I have this mini-epiphany: I had every single thing I needed at that moment. I had eaten breakfast, I had coffee in me, I had gas in my car – I didn’t need anything else at that moment – no money in my hand, nothing. For that moment, I was completely taken care of.

I forget what it was now, but I even began this little chant while I was on my way to that interview. Something about being content and caffeinated, or something? That afternoon, I had my other interview – at the property management firm. And I got that job. The woman I was replacing happened to be out sick that day (she was going on maternity leave), and so I interviewed with the owner of the company – and we got along fabulously. (A big part of me feels that had I met the woman instead, I wouldn't have made it through the door.) The mug that I’m drinking out of now, he gave to me because he got tired of me using the one that had a photo of his kids printed on it for my coffee (it was the biggest mug!, What?). The one he bought has sort of colorful swirls on it, and he said it reminded him of the tattoo on my wrist.

So, yeah, he wasn’t pleased when I left my job with them, but, obviously still liked me enough to let me have parties in my SF apartment, and to move here into the Oakland one on a slight deal.  – actually, it’s a really good deal, i should be (and am!) really grateful – the rent isn’t that much cheaper, but I didn’t have to pay security deposit, or pet deposit, so that’s quite generous.

Reminds me the theme of today’s CITO is generosity …

But, back to grace and abundance, and letting go – or “receiving” rather.

I quit that job with the property management, and spent two months looking for creative work, again. And finally what happened was I woke up one morning and asked myself, still groggy from sleep and receptive to the universe, What else am I interested in?

The reply came, Well, I like being Jewish.  … So I typed "Jewish San Francisco" into Google, and applied to every position there was.

I got one of those positions. (Actually I applied to one I didn’t get, but my resume got passed along to someone else in this Jewish education non-profit, and I got that job – for which I was surely more well suited.) ... 

Then, on a not so whimish been-looking-at-the-college's-website-for-three-years whim, I apply to the MFA program, and get in. (Note, there: I actually intended to apply to the Master's in Literature Program, but didn't have a current academic paper, and am pretty sure none of my professors from college remember me ... but the admissions coordinator for the English Department told me that the MFA program, I just needed 15-20 recent poems. How many did I happen to have recently? 16.) Nudgey McNudgerson, you sly Universe, you.

I dunno. I guess I’m feeling reflective about all of this – about all of my “being taken care of” and steered into a more ... "Molly" direction -- because I have no clue what’s going to happen when school is over in May. I quite imagine that it will work out well – and I also imagine I’ll freak out a bit anyway.

But, if any of the above isn’t evidence that I’m being gently but firmly guided, I don’t know what is.

So, Universe, Let me be receptive to the strange and unusual nudges you have to give me. I sit here, in a heated apartment, with food in my belly, electricity running, December rent paid, and I’m chanting the tune to that chant whose words I no longer remember. Amen.