oh, that again.

So, I’ve restarted my work on relationships with a new mentor, someone who shares the lineage of the woman I’d been working with, which means that this morning, I got to read aloud my entire sad history of relationships and sex. Again.

Good. Times. 

Interestingly enough, though, I was struck this morning about how my avoidance of or aversion to commitment in relationships parallels my aversion to commitment in my career and work-life. 

I’ve said and heard it a thousand times: Romance and Finance are two sides of the same coin. And I knew that working on one would bring about change or awareness in the other. 

But, somehow rereading my pattern — of splitting when things get weird, or choosing partners I don’t want, or not being open to those men who are into me — highlighted what is happening for me in career-land. 

A friend said to me last week that it sounds like it’s time for me to choose a career path. Not a job. But something I can follow through on. 

Eek. I hate that. I’ve always hated the idea of having to choose one thing. But I recounted this all to my mom and told her that it’s similar to how I had to choose theater over music. I miss music. And it’s not like I’ll never play again, but I had to choose to put my creative efforts into theater if I wanted to get anywhere with it. 

I hated that. I hate that I can do and be so many things, and I have “so much potential,” and so many varied interests, that choosing one is incredibly frightening for me. Like I’ll choose poorly, to quote Indiana Jones. What if by choosing theater, I’m turning my back on a fate in music or painting? What about all the other roads my life could take?

And yet. By not choosing one, I take no roads, or follow a little of each, and I feel stymied and frozen. 

Commitment leads to freedom in that way. 

And when it’s going to come to career, I’m going to have to choose. Sure, I could easily and very successfully be: A teacher, a writer, a psychologist, a mediator, a community engagement executive. 

I could be any of these things. Hell, I could even be a doctor or a lawyer or a spaceman if I wanted. 

Well, maybe not a spaceman. 

But I haven’t wanted to choose. Because what.if.I’m.wrong. 

What if I choose something and it doesn’t turn out well? What if I fail at finding "my calling" this lifetime? What if NONE of those things listed above actually make me want to get up and go to work?

What if I put my trust and faith in the wrong career, or -- to parallel -- in the wrong man?

Well, sorry, lady, you gotta eat. 

And you gotta choose. 

Sure, people change careers throughout their lives, but I’ve changed mine so many times before age 30 that I think I’ve played that card out. 

Therefore. One of these things is going to have to be it. Whether it makes my heart sing or not. No, I didn’t want to “give up” music. But I did, and the theater thing I love, even if it’s slowed down for now. 

None of the above professions makes my heart sing, per se. There’s no glow surrounding any of them saying, Pick me Pick me. But each inspires me to help bring others together, to inspire others to heal, to bring unity into the world. 

So, no. I don’t know, still, what I want to be when I grow up. But I am warming up to the idea of choosing one path. And actually moving forward on it. 

Numbers, Indignation, Holding Patterns: i.e. the Usual.

I have the delightful learned ability to read a health insurance coverage summary with a hawk’s eye. 

Post-cancer, I have become acutely aware of watch-words like “after deductible,” “co-insurance,” and particularly, “lab fees.”

Last week, I met with two of the 3 HR ladies I have worked with at the retail company I now work for. The first, Heidi, I met on the day I waltzed into the HR department with no plan and asked if they were hiring. I then had a wonderful impromptu interview and was subsequently hired. She’s great, personable, real. And someone with whom I can be honest. 

To finish up the health insurance thought, I met with another of the HR ladies last week to sign the “permanent hire” paperwork, and to get the particular HR documents I’ll need, and information on eventual benefits. 

I’d assumed, working for a large conglomerate corporation, that my health benefit coverage would be fantastic. More people = less $ from me, right? Wrong. 

This morning, I logged in to see what my options are, as I have to stay with the Kaiser health insurance, since that’s where all my cancer records and doctors are, plus it’s in walking distance of my house. 

I looked at the plan they offered. I saw many watch-words, including all those above. And then I brought out the plan that I’m currently under via COBRA through my old synagogue employer. 

My lord. What a better plan. 

As someone who needs to get lab tests done fairly regularly, I know that I now pay $10 for them to look and see if my blood is still blood, or if some of it has reverted to cancer. 

With the new plan I saw this morning, I’d have to meet a $4,000 deductible… and then I’ll still pay a 20% copay. Besides the hundred or so they’ll take out of my paycheck each month, just to have the plan. 

Now, this may all be boring to you. But, number-cruncher that I now am, COBRA costs me $400 a month = $4800 a year. 

So they’re kinda similar, now, ain’t they? 

How much is a lab test before deductible? I don’t know. A hundred, maybe? How ‘bout the other things I get checked through-out the year that the new plan says, “After deductible” next to. 

Knowing that the plan I currently have is a phenomenal one (having done the health exchange comparison, too), I asked the HR woman last week if they could do something about my pay if I keep my own health insurance. 

She’d never heard of such a thing. ??! 

It is common that if someone is covered by outside insurance, if the company is not paying for it, the employee can get a boost in salary, since the company would be paying insurance, but now can pay the employee instead. 

Again, she’d never heard of such a thing. And said, no, that would not be the case here. 

Enter the second HR conversation I had last week. It was post-holidays, post-working on New Year’s Day, and I was exhausted, upset, not happy. 

This retail, commission, fighting for customers with the other girls on the sales floor thing is not for me. 

I walked upstairs to see Heidi. I told her as much, in quite cushioned, complimentary, grateful words. 

And she said: I figured that wouldn’t be for you. 

But, we love you, you’re one of 2 of 70 employees kept on past the seasonal period. “Give me a week,” she said. 

Give me a week to think of another role for you here. We want to keep you, and let me think about where we can utilize you. I have some ideas already, but I have to check them out.

She knows me, sort of. She got one of those hand-made collage holiday cards. I’d gone in to talk to her previously about expectations for the sales positions, and how much hustle one has to do in that role in order to make a living. A living which would equal the paycheck I left at my non-profit desk job. 

She said last week that she could see I was someone who thought about the good of the whole, that one’s success is all’s success, and that cut-throat retail floors don’t allow for that. 

I later said to a friend, it’s like she called me a communist! But, funnily and astute observed, she’s right. For the good of all! And other Marxist ideologies!

It’s coming to the end of the week she’d asked me for. She was nearly plaintive in her asking me to give her the time to think of something.  — They really like me. 

In addition, I wrote her an email early this week saying that she needed to have all the information: I do theater. And that means nights and weekends. And if we can keep that in mind as we seek out a new role for me there, that’d be great. 

We’ll see what she comes up with. If anything. 

If I land back in front of a desk so I can get to theater rehearsals, so be it. As long as I’m earning more than I was at the non-profit. 

I mean, come on people. You’re an international corporation. I’m not 23 anymore. I have skills. 

Again, we’ll see. Before I go charging off to look for alternative companies, I’ve invested a lot in them already, as they’ve invested in me. 

But, should it look like I’ll be a salaried lady again — I’m asking for the health insurance off-set increase. 

Because screw that noise. 

Meet the New Year, (not quite the) Same as the Old Year.

there’s so much and little to tell you: 

i have to decide whether to ditch work and attend my annual women's meditation retreat next weekend. how to tell my boss when I asked for that sunday off — originally for the retreat, but now for an audition — that I really do need that time. and I’m taking monday and tuesday off for my friend who’s visiting from canada. 

that the couple who were the subject of the "day before christmas" poem/blog came to visit me on tuesday, and took me out for sushi, and it feels like i have this sort of surrogate parental couple right now. even though they live in vancouver. we exchanged all our information, i got a happy new year email, and i’m going to talk to him about mediation. like, becoming a mediator, and what that would look like. another career goose chase maybe, but worth looking in to. 

that my mom is having trouble sleeping, and doesn’t want to change her work schedule even though she could. that she’s having health issues that she could address, but procrastinates on. 

that two years ago, right very now, I was waking up in lahaina, maui, hawaii. in the bed of a school boy whose parents graciously invited me to stay and kicked their son to the couch, so a bald and chemo-riddled me could have a vacation from a cancer. 

i have to call the student loan people so they don’t raise my payment from $67/month to over a thousand, but being my mother’s daughter, i haven’t yet. 

I am excitedly waiting for the indiegogo campaign to end and for the funds to be sent to me, so I can write this final check to my landlord for my back rent accrued while i was sick. and to watch that number in my budget line fall to zero. 

i am looking forward to my first real paycheck from the retail store, but as i’ve figured the numbers, amazingly, i’ll have earned the exact amount i would have if i were working at the desk job i quit in october. 

though i wouldn’t have that back-rent money, because that only came about as i was sitting in a cafe with a friend in november, looking for work, him too, and i mentioned the wanting to art again and the potential art studio upstairs, and the back rent. and he said, you should do a kickstarter. 

so, i wouldn’t have that, or at least not now, if not for being unemployed and sharing with a friend who was also spending a mid-day cafe work-search. 

i have a script to read and a song to rehearse for two auditions this month. 

the first is because a friend from mockingbird suggested i try out for this one company in town, and i said i wasn’t good enough, and he said i was and i should and made me promise. and so i did. you know, just a few weeks later!

it’s a classical play. i’m nervous, as i’ve never done one before. 

the second is another musical. and, i’m nervous! but. i’m excited for the role i’m auditioning for. it could be a lot of fun. 

they would run consecutive to each other, one closing, and a few weeks later, rehearsals for the other beginning. so it could work. but not with this sales job. i think. assume. project. worry about. 

but then, too, i have to remember the whole “from thanksgiving to thanksgiving” thing/blog: to not worry, to trust, to at least notice I’m worrying and begin to try to trust. 

i have all these collage cards i still want and need to make, holiday cards and thank you cards. but with the constraints of buses and bart and standing and … (*breathe*) from thanksgiving to thanksgiving. 

i flaked out on my NYE plans. i think i may have disappointed my friend by doing that. but it was a day off for me. i got loads of stuff done early, and by the late afternoon i was home and cozy, i didn’t want to leave. even though it’s a 9:00pm ball-drop! i had to work yesterday, and yadda yadda excuse excuse. i just didn’t feel like getting all dolled up. though i’m sure it would have been fun and my FOMO-meter ran high. 

instead i stayed home, and it was lovely. i know it won’t always be so quiet. but it was nice. 

i have a lot and same old happening right now. i don’t know if any of it is interesting to you, but today is more a state of the union address:

all is well, amorphous, covered and uncertain. 

i have friends and opportunities and procrastination habits and work issues. 

i have a warm home to leave and come back to. 

and two auditions to get ready for. 

Happy and Healthy New Year, Friends. You rule. 

God Shot

I suppose this could have been summarized as a facebook update, but I thought to write it instead. (On, yes, my very new [refurbished] MacBook Air, so generously given to me as a Chanukah gift from several contributors.

Yes, it’s materialistic [Ooh, shiny!], but yes, too, there are things that I couldn’t do with my old dinosaur that might come in handy — like if I wanted to work from home, Facetime my mom, or watch Netflix on something other than my cellphone!)

Yesterday, I had the day off from my retail job. I didn’t put this on Fbk either, but I had to take 3 days off last week after hobbling from my job mid-Tuesday to my chiropractor, my right ankle swollen and awful. The retail job is hard. The store itself is as large as a city block, and you’re standing most of the time, walking the length of the store others, and there’s no sitting. 

Now, I know when I quit my regular desk job, I said I didn’t want to sit at a desk 40 hours a week, but maybe something in the middle, eh?

And it was with this experience and knowledge, my feet still hurting, but apparently getting used to it, as my coworkers and dr said I would, that I went yesterday morning to a cafe to continue working on my holiday collage cards. 

I wanted to get out of the house, and I didn’t know if I’d get kicked out of the cafe as I spread cardstock, magazines, scissors and a glue stick out on the table. But, I wanted the human connection, too. 

And, lo, I did not get kicked out. I sat there at the large “handicap accessible” table (don’t worry, no wheelchairs rolled in), and I continued cutting and glueing, pasting and maneuvering images. Even used the alphabet letter stamps I’d bought 2 years ago and the ink I’d been given when I was sick. 

I sat there, content, enjoying, a little self-conscious and waiting to be scolded when a family with two daughters (I’d overheard) home from college for the winter break sat down next to me. One of the daughters tapped her family and looked over at what I was doing, and remarked, “Isn’t that cool?”

It was a sweet thing. I finished the card I was making and put it to the side of my over-large table, knowing I would hand that one to her when I left the cafe. 

A few minutes later, her mother turned and asked me what I was doing, if these were for sale or what? I replied, No, these are just holiday cards, my presents to my friends. For fun. And then I handed her the one set aside and said, “This is for your daughter.” 

She took it, surprised and grateful, and we exchanged names and shook hands. And I smiled at her daughter who’d admired my work. (“No one will ever believe I made this,” I heard the daughter say to her sister, amused.)

I smiled. I was glad to give her something. I was gratified that she’d admired something I consider so elementary and basic and fun for me. 

And then, as the family packed up on their way out of the cafe, the mom turned to me again and handed me an envelope with the words Happy Holidays written on the front. I thanked her, and wished them all well, and they left. 

In the envelope was a holiday card in which she’d written, “Thank you for your kindness to my daughter. Happy holidays.” And there was a twenty dollar bill. 

It was one generosity inspiring another. But it was more than that to me. 

I have felt so unmoored during this "job transition” time. Especially since I’ve taken on this retail job and can barely make it through a day with a breath to myself. I come home late, exhausted, and fall into bed. Chores are undone. Dishes unwashed. Groceries unbought. 

I cried Monday morning on the floor of my closet as I got ready for the day, exhausted from the long Sunday hours. I have felt so alien to myself with so little “me” time, so little time to think about or explore what could or should be next. 

I have felt lost, and a bit hopeless on the career/job horizon. 

And yesterday morning, I sat in a cafe, doing something I love to do because it’s fun and creative and easy and whimsical. Because I know people will enjoy them, if even for only a few weeks on their mantle. 

I sat there, and I was seen. My work was seen. And it was appreciated. 

I was an artist and I was rewarded, if that's the word for it. I was in the world and I was given a “god shot” — a moment of, Moll, you’re on a path, we promise. This, arting, is one of them. Being in the world is one of them. 

Go out. Be seen. Create. Give. 

We see you. The Universe and those in it see me. 

It was one moment. One interaction. One family. But it meant more to me than they knew. As lost as I feel, it was a reminder that I’m not a total fool for not toeing the party line. 

This experience doesn’t point me in a direction, but it is a welcome dose of hope when I very much needed to know that what I can give to the world is indeed greater. 

From Thanksgiving to Thanksgiving.

Last Tuesday night as I sat at a rainy Oakland BART waiting for the shuttle to take me within walking distance of my apartment, my friend called.

She’d remembered that it was my first day of training for my department store sales job and wanted to know how it went. I told her, Good. A lot of corporate training-style stuff. Different department managers introducing themselves. Lots of powerpoint presentations about the history and brand of the company. And there were to be 3 days of this.

I told her I was most nervous (I told her I was trying to call it “curious”) about what would happen when I actually got onto the sales floor the following Saturday.

I haven’t worked retail since high school.

She told me we were both having “first day” experiences. She’d just this afternoon signed a contract with a small graphic design firm to be a partner with them, and she, too, was “curious” as to how it would all work out.

She told me that morning, she’d read this story about a guy who’s mentor suggested that he make a decision to not worry for one year. That whenever he got nervous, or tried to “figure things out,” or was anxious about an outcome, he made the commitment that he would simply not worry, that he would trust in the “universe,” and understand that he didn’t have to know the outcome. He just had to do what was in front of him and take small actions.

Needless to say, he had a great year.

As I huffed into the phone on Tuesday night, walking through the dark blocks toward my house, I asked my friend if she wanted to make a pact with each other. That for one year we wouldn’t worry.

And so, we did. We each announced to each other our commitment (middle names and everything) not to “not worry,” but to catch ourselves as quickly as we could, and to remember to “let it go,” and, for me, to have faith in the benevolence of the universe and the unfolding of my path.

When I’m scared of not making my sales numbers, and this whole retail thing doesn’t really work if you don’t. When I’m worried that retail hours and theater hours are the same and how will I be able to do both. When I am concerned that I quit a full-time time to have time to engage in creative project, to find a “fulcrum” job (more pay, fewer hours), and I've ended up in another full-time job…

I've been telling myself this past week, “From Thanksgiving to Thanksgiving.” Because that’s a year for my friend and me. One year of not worrying. Of trusting that it’ll not only be okay, but that it’ll be great.

To trust that if I simply do what’s next, make that next phone call to a friend, hang up that next sweater, show up to that next audition, the world will have a way of working out.

Sure, I’ve been nervous this week -- making calculations, staring wide-eyed at rehearsal schedules, wondering if this position will be temporary or not -- but I’ve been remembering that catch phrase, whispering it aloud, and it’s helped.

Today will be my second day on the sales floor. I am scheduled with them through the start of January with an option to extend. I have an audition set up for late January for a great musical. And I have COBRA payments to starting this month.

But I'm not going to worry one bit. ;P

“Finding His Way”

Today will be my first day of training for women’s clothing sales at Neiman Marcus.

I never imagined I’d write that, but I’m not ashamed of it either. Nervous? Yes. Worried I will have to be aggressive to make sales? Yes. A little trepidatious at having to learn all new things about brands and quotas and sales targets? Yes.

Grateful? You bet.

An interesting thing happened the other day. I was asking a friend about a guy we both know, who I'd just met: What does he do for a living?

“He’s a server. He dropped out of law school. He’s finding his way.”

Aren’t we all, I replied.

And I noticed something. Although I still believe that pursuing our passions and earning a livable wage are ideals for me in my own life and in the life of a potential romantic partner, when I heard what this notably attractive man did for a living, I accepted it.

This, is new for me. Call me a snob, and perhaps I have been, but because of my own vicious drive to “do something” worthy in my lifetime, because of my own aching need to “move the needle of human progress forward” through my employment, I have been judgmental of my own jobs. And of others’.

But I noticed that I didn’t have that same snobbery come up when told about this guy’s job. Perhaps, I have gained – or been brought down to – a level of humility around what people are doing in and with their lives.

Which means, perhaps I am finding that same compassion and acceptance for myself. Perhaps. Maybe. Surprisingly.

Do I still want to do work that enlivens me and helps others on their own path? Yes. But I am accepting where I am today for the first time in a long time.

Partly, it’s because I’m taking action outside of my “regular work hours” to engage in activities like acting, and singing, and getting ready to make this video-ask to help get an art studio. Perhaps now, for reasons unknown to me, I am beginning to call those other hours worthy, enough, more than enough. And they begin to settle the aching gnaw of “WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE???” that dogs my every step.

Perhaps, although this new work could be considered not “high” employment (working toward a greater good and utilizing my skills and talents), perhaps I’ve just become grateful to have any employment at all. Or at the very least, employment that doesn’t sit me behind a computer screen 40 hours a week.

I am delighted and surprised at this internal shift. This loosening of the noose around myself and others’ over how they pay their rent. Obviously, it’s none of my business what others do for work, but it’s a question we all seem to ask nonetheless. And in its answering, we begin to categorize and label people according to a caste system.

Maybe it’s realizing I’m part of the caste of people who are bright, creative, and longing. I am one of those “finding his way.”

I have found a compassion and acceptance of this place. (Though the shrewd part of me wonders if that means I’ll now move into the “found” category because of my new "achievement/enlightenment"… And I can offer a wry smile to that "never good enough" part of myself.)

To finding our way, be we server or CEO – Humans, all. 

The Truth Will Out.

(A quick note before I run off to our full-day tech rehearsal. To Kill a Mockingbird opens this Friday!)

On the heels of the “Don’t forget your North Star” blog yesterday and contemplation this week, I went to have a voice lesson with a former castmate. We spoke afterwards about my job transition and how he’d realized what his North Star was years before, and sure, he had to jump through hoops to get there, but it was and is worth it. 

He was telling me we have to listen most of all to ourselves, not to others, and to not let their voices drown out our own. But I replied, Their not giving me their ideas, they’re asking “What do you want to do?” and I keep on answering, “I don’t know.”

But I sat with that for a moment, and I corrected myself: No, That’s not true. I do know: I want to perform; I just keep dismissing it.

That, performance, is my North Star.

I went last night to see a friend of mine perform at her CD release party. The talent was phenomenal, but beyond that was the brilliance of her pieces. Honed, practiced, cultivated brilliance. That’s beyond, “You’re talented.”

I sat in the audience, and during one of her songs, I was brought to tears with its beauty. With the privilege of being alive and able to listen and be moved by such art. She created an atmosphere and an experience that wouldn’t have existed if she didn’t.

I want to do that. 

And I think it’s possible. I just have a few hoops to jump through. And a lot of learning and honing to do.

It is very easy for me to dismiss what it is I want, because it sounds frivolous or flighty in the light of day. It sounds vague and too artsy and too uncertain. But I’ve fought with myself for years to cop to my desires, and each time I dismiss it, I pull myself back into the dance of "I don't know what I'm doing with my life."

I can dismiss performance for many reasons: believing I’m not good enough; that it’s too late; for financial reasons; for I-want-to-be-approvable reasons. I want the easy check-box on the form of life: What do you do for a living?

Or, more accurate, What does your soul want to do?

In talking with my voice teacher, he basically said it’s possible, and it’s worth it. I drove back from there to meet with two women to get some perspective on all this job transition stuff, and to firm up actions steps I can take in the maelstrom of “What the F* are you doing?” that invades my brain.

They said, too, it’s possible, and it takes work. Don’t give up. Do not go back to sleep.

Here are some steps to take, Yes you’ve taken some of them before, but here they’re being suggested again. Try again. Talk to my friend, my sister, this guy I know.

No, it won't look like being a self-supporting performer, but it will look like earning enough to support those endeavors.

The artists I’ve met and spoken to this week all have day jobs. But they do it in service of their dream. It’s not an either/or proposition: Art or Financial Stability. Dream or Devastation.

It’s hard for me to keep my eye on where I want to go, and that’s why I have you guys to help me. When I finally ask. And when I finally am open enough to listening. To you, and to myself. 

Ooh, Shiny!

“Don’t forget your dreams, why you’re doing this,” she told me on the phone.

Easy to say when you have income, I replied silently.

I’d told my friend I was on my way to an interview for a sales position. And she reminded me where my North Star was.

But sometimes you have to steer out of the storm in order to get back on course, right?

That said, this is the usual “Molly looking for work pattern”: Spend a few weeks seeking the thing I actually want, see that it’s harder than I thought, or notice that I don’t know how to go about it and give up on it, and then go toward the easy but unfulfilling role.

This search result looks like a different sheep’s clothing, but it’s still a wolf.

I’m trying to interrupt the usual flow of events at the point of acknowledging that “It’s too hard” really translates as “I don’t know how.” Because from there, I can ask for more help.

That is hard, too. To ask for help when you’re not really sure what you’re asking or who to turn to.

I feel like the simple son of the Passover Four Questions, The one who doesn’t even know how to ask.

For the one who didn’t know how to ask, the questions and answers were provided to him. He just had to show up, in his ignorance, and learn.

I have been able to interrupt other patterns of behavior mid-way, once I saw them. The flirting with the married men. Waiting until my fridge was empty to buy groceries, and eating tuna from the can. Following thoughts down a dark path toward isolation and despair.

This is no different. But changing, modifying all of the above took (and takes) effort. Concerted consciousness. Awareness of my feelings, of my triggers. All borne of scarcity mind. There’s not enough. I can’t have any. I don’t know how to advocate for myself.

And this -- advocating for myself -- was part of a very long conversation I got to have with my mom yesterday (as I chopped and roasted vegetables, making that conscious move to feed myself well and stop eating out all the time or going slightly hungry).

The other day, after I’d boldly walked into Neiman Marcus with no resume and no plan and ended up in an impromptu interview with the HR director, I spent dinner with a friend. I was asking her about sales, since that’s her vocation. I was talking about the statistic I’d heard that women rarely negotiate their salary, and men nearly always do.

She handed me a book titled, Women Don’t Ask. And I’m devouring it. Studies that show men see opportunities to ask where women assume circumstances are fixed. Indeed, the cultural pressures and reinforced gendered stereotypes that keep women in positions of not advocating for themselves are plenty virulent, too.

I said to my friend that if I got this position in sales with Neiman Marcus, I’d hope that I don’t go all mousy-girl. That I don’t begin to feel like an impostor, feeling I don’t belong helping women with gobs of disposable income.

And she said something interesting: Since cancer, you haven't been mousy-girl.

She said before then, it’s true, I can turn (in my own interpretation) not mousy, but quiet observer. I will stand back, get the lay of the land, and then maybe add some ideas. But for the most part, I’ll remain fringe.

In fact, in high school, a boy once asked, “Do you ever talk?”

You’d hardly know me by that attribute anymore! But that part of myself exists.

Although, less so these days.

I recounted all this to my mom, my friend’s comment about my new assertiveness, and how I’d lost that subdued, passive nature since surviving Leukemia. I gave my mom a simple example:

That same afternoon, I’d gone to pick up some lunch at this organic yummy place. There were two platters of smothered polenta: one had two slices left, and looked like it had been on the warmer for a few hours. Next to it was another that was obviously just pulled from the oven, piping hot and bright colored.

The older woman ahead of me ordered polenta, and got a slice from that bedraggled lot. I ordered polenta after her, and I asked if I could have a slice from the new batch.

"Sure, of course."

The older woman waiting for her change looked at me, with a look of, “That’s not quite fair.” But, it was. I’d asked. She hadn’t.

I am not the mousy girl I was. I am a self-advocate. Some of it was borne of cancer and my time bargaining with nurses and doctors on what I needed ("I guess that’s okay – no one’s ever asked before."). I completely changed my experience to suit my desires in what one usually sees as an immovable situation.

In the present, not knowing how to proceed – how do I market myself as an essay tutor, how can I market myself as a home organizer, all in service of the fulcrum, all to leave time available for creative and intellectual pursuits – doesn’t mean I can’t proceed. It means I have to ask for help. I have to ask for help on how to even form my questions.

And I have to remember that I’m no longer the woman who gets handed old polenta. 

a short note, just to let you know I’m not dead.

the end.

just kidding.

I have to leave to go meet up with some folks at 9am I haven’t seen in a very long time. I had my dailey method shift yesterday at 530am, so I didn’t write, and sunday mornings are my check-in with my mentor, and usually lead to more emotion than can settle enough to show up here – which is good. so, tuesday, it is!

i just wanted to reflect on something that occurred to me as I sat in meditation this morning, back into another one of those deepak/oprah 21-day meditation challenges: I am living the schedule I wanted.

sure, it’s not perfect! but I’d wanted my days divided into thirds: mornings in private work, working on art, or music, or writing; afternoons working in the community somehow – how I didn’t know; and the evenings spent in performance.

and here I sit today, my morning spent in meditation, a little writing. this afternoon, I’ll head over to the synagogue to teach 4th grade. and this evening, I’ll have rehearsal (well, we’re off tonight, but you get the point!).

without intending to, I’ve come to the structure of the day I’ve always wanted or thought i wanted. the one I didn’t think I could achieve until I was 50, and had more going for me.

but, today, even though it doesn’t look perfect, even though I am only earning about a third of my needed income through teaching two days a week… this is what it will feel like. this is what it does feel like:

awesome. fulfilling. purposeful. open. creative. engaged. important. 

thanks, universe, for this taste of what it will and what it is like. i was right when i discovered that’s the day i want for myself. now, help me achieve it sustainably. thanks. 

Answering the Caterpillar.

Yesterday afternoon, I drove back from the dentist and stopped to pick up lunch and a drink before I returned to my final afternoon at my job.

As I stood on line at Peet’s coffee, the tall cute guy behind me rifled through his pocket, and out fell a green Crayola marker. Without a cap.

This only happens to two types of people: wackos, and teachers. I took the risk.

He replied he was a teacher. And then came the most dreaded question on the face of my earth:

“What do you do?”

It’s one of the first questions people ask when they don’t know one another. It’s a function of the desire to orient and locate you on the web of society and potential commonality: What do you do for a living?

And, honestly, the idea of answering this question has kept me from dating. Because what people are asking is not simply where are you employed, (to me) it’s asking if you are employed, what your social status might be, what your interests are, what your value of your self is.

They are asking, Who are you?

And I haven’t wanted to answer for as long as my response has been, I’m a glorified secretary.

Sure, over the years when I’ve spoken to friends about this, they’ve replied, you don’t have you put it like that. You are a marketing specialist, you are in customer service, you are an executive assistant, an education administrator. You support the people who make things happen, you run offices, you hire and fire people, organize office events, facilitate publications. You reconcile expense reports.

AND ALL THIS READS TO ME LIKE GLORIFIED SECRETARY.

FUCK!

And, the point is that I haven’t felt comfortable telling others that’s what I do for a living.

Because it makes me feel less-than. Because I interpret what I do as not good enough for me. Because I feel that it doesn’t speak to all that I am as a person, and surely, answering that one question for anyone is never an indication of who they are as a whole.

But, I have felt it a pretty good indicator.

I am small. I have zero power. I do boring repetitive tasks while chained to a computer desk. I get condescended to and underestimated. I have the copy machine repair man on speed dial.

BLECH!

Get out of here!

I don’t want to be that person. Because, I’m not that person. It’s stuff I can do, but it’s not all of me.

Perhaps, though, it means that I need to hold others' answer to that question more lightly, because I’ve only had one answer to that question for a very long time, and it’s never spoken to who I am as a person. So maybe I can be more open-minded toward others whose answers don’t titillate me.

But, whatever comes of my relationship to others’ answers, I know that I haven’t been able to budge my relationship to mine, no matter how much work on “self-acceptance” and "perspective" and "gratitude" I’ve done. And so, the only thing to do is to change my answer, not my relationship to it. Yet.

So, yesterday, when cute, marker-covered dude looked into my eyes, and asked me what I did, I was able to answer easily, truthfully, and proudly: I’m a teacher, too.

(you know, part-time, after school two days a week, but, it's a start!)

To Infinity and Beyond!

True to form, I’m running late for work. With today’s direct deposit pay-out, I was reconciling my financial situation before getting started for the day.

Seems like if I can manage to gain steady employment by December, I don’t have to touch my savings. If not, I have until January. But, who wants to touch their savings, especially if it’s modest?

I have a third interview with the private high school in Walnut Creek on Monday, to be their Homework Tutor/Student Mentor. Seems like a good sign, but I’m not counting chickens; I’m still looking around for sure.

But, I gotta say, not having a full-time job as of tomorrow, I feel like I’ll have more time to look – but also to focus. To get clarity and not just fire off resumes willy-nilly.

I won’t write a maudlin blog about how much my place of work has meant to me over the past 2 years – I’m going to see most of my coworkers frequently, as I’ll still be teaching there on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. There was a nice send-off snack at our staff meeting on Wednesday with my favorite snacks. And my boss wrote a really warm blurb about my departure for our weekly e-newsletter.

There have been more hugs this week than before, mostly from members of the synagogue, who I won’t see as often. But I do feel like I’ve become a part of the community, not just worked in an office. And for that I’m grateful, and it’s something that won’t change. I’ll still be there at our big events, probably.

But, I’m also immensely grateful that I won’t be sitting at that desk come Monday morning.

I won’t leave my newbie replacement alone too long this morning, so I’ll sign off now. Perhaps there’ll be another more sentimental missive about the place with time and distance, but, for now. It’s just a change. And, right now, change is good.

Trick or Treat, muthafuckas!

The Dailey Grind

So, here I am, back to my Monday morning shift at The Dailey Method exercise studio! My 5:30am Monday morning shift...!

I arranged to have a sub for me during the weeks Addams Family was in performance (and then an extra one last Monday, since, hey, I was tired!). Now back to a 5am Monday morning wake-up call again. But I do think it's worth signing people into class and folding towels for three hours in trade for the free unlimited classes I get. Granted, I've been so tired and busy lately, I haven't been able to come at all. And my muscles feel it. But I'll be back soon.

In the meantime, I get to use this time (despite the thumping music in the studio room) to do job research, ... and do a little line memorization. Today will be the first run-through of Act 1. There's a lot more for me to learn, but I'm glad I decided to take it (more) easy this weekend.

I still didn't get done all of what I wanted, or study my lines as much as I'd have liked, but progress. I feel like I'm staving off the cold that I was about to succumb to. I got to clean some things up in the apartment, and I cancelled the non-necessity engagements.

Interestingly enough, I was approached yesterday after rehearsal with some potential work opportunities, but until there's more conversation, it's all ethereal. That said, it was gratifying to see that people notice what assets I can add and what skills I have. More will be revealed on that part.

It's also time to work on the final (for now) section of amending relationships that don't sit well with me. Third and final is, huzzah, work. Specifically my current employer.

Funny to me that I wrote this list back in the summer, and now as it's my last week of work there, I'm getting the chance to work on this now. There's nothing in specific that I need to necessarily "make amends" for; it's more about attitude. It's also about showing up on time(!), which this week will be harder, as I flit from dentist appointment to interview to... another dentist appointment.

Did you know that Covered California doesn't cover dental? I didn't! Until I was reclined underneath my dentist's light last Friday afternoon, and she said, Yes, you do need these fillings -- and then dropped the "not covered" bomb. Hence the several appointments this week.

So, that's more information as I continue on my "looking" path. In fact, my dentist had a great recommendation for an alternative private school, and I just applied to them a minute ago.

I have my second interview tomorrow with the alternative private school I met with last week -- whom I told I would only be available to work 30 hours per week. And that seemed to go over fine. With the wage I asked for (which I've been regretting I didn't increase), I'd be able to make the same amount as I do now working 40 hours a week. I have my fingers crossed -- but if it's a good fit, it'll happen, and if it's not, it won't.

The school is also located in the middle of an industrial park, office-building wasteland in Walnut Creek. Which is quite the far cry from the verdant landscape outside my current office in North Berkeley. But, sometimes you make compromises!

In the meantime, I'm going to focus on what I can do at the job I'm at now, watching my attention, (my facebook time!), and how I'm interacting with my coworkers. It's not any of their faults that I am not fulfilled at work and therefore it's not fair for me to seethe toward them, or show up late as a petulant rebellion.

I have no doubt that part of my amending my relationship with my current job is, a) to leave, and b) to understand what it is that got me into that relationship to begin with so I don't end up here again with another employer.

All of those on my list are relationships I have stayed in too long, out of fear, out of scarcity, out of an idea that I can't get what I truly need.

(I hope) I am taking action and self-inventory that will help me to move forward differently. That I'm gaining a semblance of understanding that I don't have to sell myself short; that with work and vision, I can get where I want to, and be the person I want to. I can have the life I want to live, and I don't have to demonize those who are not behaving how I want them to.

The only person's behavior I can change is my own -- and, well, I believe I am. (Come what may!)

A word, if you don’t mind?

Dear Molly,

First of all, congratulations on closing the Addams Family. I heard it was a fantastic run to packed houses nearly every night. And brava on finally getting that one song that was giving you trouble. Fist pumping is highly appropriate!

But, I’m moved to write to you today because I want to make sure you realize how many irons you have blazing right now, and ensure that you’re taking the proper time for yourself. (Although, I must say, I wouldn’t be writing if I thought you were!)

As soon as the show closed, you began a new one the next day, yes? Rehearsing almost daily with a dozen monologues to memorize by next Friday? You’ve been searching for a new job or jobs, as well as having interviews or coffee dates with folks several times a week. You’ve been sitting on weekend mornings for a portrait artist in order to make some cash, and you’ve begun teaching on two weekday afternoons after work and before rehearsal.

Forget about your dishes, we’re way beyond them now! Have you seen your car? Your apartment? Where is the calm space you so crave at home? How about that outstanding parking ticket you need to dispute at the Berkeley parking office? And the fellowship meetings you are barely attending and the crispy, crackling nature of your office interactions right now?

Is it fair to say that you’ve got a few things on your plate… AND that you’re not taking the normal care of yourself that’s necessary for your health? Is it true that you’ve been feeling tired and coming down with something?

Something’s got to give, my friend, and I don’t want it to be you.

Yes, I know this is an uncertain and shifting time, and your home is always a reflection of your mental state. I know it feels like there’s no time for meetings, but doesn’t there have to be? It’s terribly uncomfortable for you and those around you when you’re this wound up.

However, I do want to come back to say, I am writing all this because I am in support of you. I want you to achieve your best in all you do. I just want to remind you to set first things first. Weekends, which have been your farmers market and cooking-for-the-week days, as well as nesting and organizing days, have been robbed by all this new work.

Maybe -- and I’m just throwing this out there -- you tell the artist you can’t sit with him until after your show opens? I mean, the worst he can say is no, right? Maybe you ask a friend to help you with the enormous bookcase you inherited from your upstairs neighbor that’s been standing, disassembled, in the center of your apartment for a week? Maybe you really schedule that time to go to the parking office, and don’t blow it off this time because you’re running late for work?

Look, the bottom line is you’re in a huge amount of transition right now. You’re taking a leap of faith that you’ll land somewhere new and different than where you’ve been. You’re doing this to support your art, and to support the idea that you have more to give to the world than a well-crafted spreadsheet. I am in awe of you for taking the risk.

In truth, both ways are risky: to stay is a risk to sanity, to leave is a risk to livelihood. But, I do have faith that things will turn out well for you (Yesterday's interview was promising & the second interview is set.). You are doing all the right things… you’re just not leaving time for the rest of the “right things,” and that’s where I’m concerned.

So, take a minute to consider my suggestions. See if you can come up with your own solutions, and talk to your friends to help you through this quite chaotic but exciting time.

As a friend once said, The only difference between anxiety and excitement is breathing.

So, breathe, Molly. And I’ll see you when you land, safely.

Yours, 

Yes, We Can.

• emailed landlord to ask to use 4th floor abandoned room as art room
• emailed vocal coach to inquire about lounge singing, how to start
• emailed friend to ask about going up in a small engine plane again. (flew one myself this year, and as always predicted, loved it. eventual vision of napa valley tour pilot.)
• have interview on monday for two teaching positions with a jewish organization
• have interview set up for another teaching gig
• have modeling/portraiture session set for next weekend
• replied yes to get minimum wage to usher at a Cake concert in two weeks
• will be reading tarot cards at good friend’s Halloween party on donation basis
• called friend's mom who’s a professional home stager about being her assistant
• have coffee info interviews set up with a few high-ballers in the community
• have action items from previous info interviews to follow up on
• emailed work-out studio to inquire about becoming an instructor and was told it's possible (with a lot of work)
• have a solid lead on fine dining waitress work if comes to that
• registered as a model with a “real person” modeling agency
• updated my profile on modelmayhem website
• got exact amount of pto i’ll be paid out when I leave my job at end of month
• inquired about health insurance exchange
• got flu shot and all blood tests up to date (all negative – which is positive!)
• made appointment for teeth cleaning
• ordered new shipment of contact lenses before these fall apart in my eyeballs
• replied to private tutoring gig from tutoring website I’m registered with (which… i’d completely forgotten about until I started getting these emails two weeks ago… coincidence?)
• emailed yesterday’s blog about t’shuvah to a jewish publication (a little late, obviously, but still.)

...to name a few of the actions I’ve taken in support of my work transition!

I am nervous about leaving the safety of my 40houraweekdeskjob. Yes.

But, I am taking a lot of action. Even as I drag my feet in some places, and have certainly been watching more Netflix than is good for any one person.

But I have a phone call with a mentor today and we’ll talk about smallness and scarcity and healing and changing. We’ll talk about, “Do not go back to sleep.” We’ll talk about the beguiling and insincere safety of being quiet and small. We’ll talk about the pain and bravery of stepping out of the cage and the tenacity and audacity it takes to stay out of it.

It’s not that I haven’t taken or thought to take any of the above actions before. It’s not my first time at this rodeo. But I just feel different. To quote Elisabeth Gilbert quoting a Balinese healer: “Even in my underpants, I feel different.”

But I also know my habit and pattern of swift work followed by years of inaction. I know what it’s like for me to engage in a flurry of activity and then allow it to languish by my lack of follow-up. I know what it’s like to abandon myself.

Which is why I’m telling everyone and their mother (literally) about my impending transition.

I cannot do this alone. I am a creature of habit, and I need you to be like my wagon train – I need you to lead me away from the ruts. If I let you know I’m on this path, you can help me stay on it. If I let you know it’s terribly painful for me to work toward something new, you can hold my hand and tell me you believe in me.

I know the source of all this change must come from within – I know it’s up to my own inner work to be the foundation for a new life. But I also believe in you, who believes in me, and we cycle one another into our best selves and our best lives.

Yes, I am the one who needs to actually look up that professional development course. And I’m the one who needs to continue looking at alternative work websites – and actually reply – but without you to cheer me on, without you to help me hold the lantern of faith, this change wouldn’t work.

That’s what feels so different this time – I feel supported internally and externally in a way these transitions have never felt. I feel optimistic and hopeful, giddy and aware.

Yes, the future is uncertain. But one action at a time, with your help and your heart, I am clarifying the vision of a future (and present) me who is freer than I’ve ever allowed myself to be. 

Undocking is not the same as Unmoored.

A friend of mine was a CPA working in the corporate world. She was making good money and working long hours. And was not happy.

She gave up her apartment, put her purged belongings in storage, and moved to India for 6 months, studying at an ashram, with no need for income or work, except inner work.

Then she came back to the States.

You can’t pay your bills with enlightenment.

She found that she had to create a middle-ground, and now, 10 years later, runs a private practice counseling others toward their own financial/spiritual balance.

I have a feeling I’m about to embark on a similar journey of finding my middle-ground between financial independence and creative expression.

Well, I guess I can’t really say embark, when what I mean is “continue” to simply push the boat out of the harbor. A boat isn’t meant to stay moored, and you’ll never find out what its strengths or weaknesses are, or what your skills as a sailor are if you don’t leave the safety of the dock.

To be concrete: I have informed my job that October 31 will be my last day there.

And the options that I have before me are less than concrete!

I’ve known for a while that it’s time to move on. In support of that notion, earlier this year, I not only put in for my own promotion at my job, but when I was told, “No resources for that,” I went on an active job search, engaging the help of friends to revamp my resume, made networking dates, and went on many interviews.

I was even offered a few jobs. Jobs, that perhaps before, I would have taken.

But the jobs offered, I came to realize continued marching me up a ladder and on a path that didn’t feel like where I wanted to go.

Despite my “big realization” many months ago about wanting to move in the direction of an executive director or program director position… I began to find out more about what that kind of job and life would mean. And it would mean more hours of my life than I want a job to be.

I found, through that job search, that I don’t want a bigger title with a mildly bigger salary. That the trajectory on which I am positioned and was looking to be headed was not one that ended in work-life balance. In a non-profit, there is rarely such a thing!

So, in came the notion of the “fulcrum,” endeavoring toward a job or jobs that generated more income with fewer hours. Leaving me the time I need to create.

When was the last time I picked up a paint brush, or even a pencil? Have I worked on that essay my aunt suggested I submit to publications? When was the last time I could really call myself a poet, despite my Master's degree in it?

Time. I discovered I wanted to literally buy myself time.

And so, I began to vaguely think about career paths or jobs that would be in that direction. Then came the High Holidays at work… and the play… and a halt to any developmental thinking.

But, the holidays are nearly over. It was finalized that there can’t be a different place for me where I’m at, and after too many days crying at or after or on the way to work, I am making a leap … not of faith, but of action.

With the faith that my action will lead me to something different.

For the past 16 years, since I was 16 years old, I’ve been a secretary. I’ve adjusted more margins and input more data than there are guidos in Jersey.

And so I am doing what conventional wisdom says never to ever do. I am quitting without a job lined up.

I have had a professional-direction conversation nearly every day since my decision, am having and have had coffee with people to bounce ideas off of and to network with. I have closed the browser window when I find myself looking again at jobs that say “Administrative” anywhere in the title.

I have been in a rut, and the only way to un-rut yourself is to lean into the discomfort and the growing edge of change. To watch when I’m teetering into despair, into habitual job search words, … into a Netflix binge, and to push myself onto the high ground again.

Another email, a sudden “crazy” idea, a phone call for some more information.

The experience I find most different about this job search than all my previous “quit with no plan” moves, is that I feel supported by my current office and all the people I’ve met there. This doesn’t feel impulsive, even though there’s “no plan;” everyone at my work supports my move, and though they’re sad to see me go, they have every faith in me that I can do whatever it is that feeds me.

I am reaching out to so many people I’ve met there. This isn’t a “here’s my two-weeks’ notice” email, as I’ve done a dozen times prior. This is actually slow and supported in many ways, and I feel it that way.

I am nervous, of course, but I am excited. I feel glad to notice that my brain is coming up with ideas that might be viable that would have been totally out of the box, and therefore dismissed, before. I’m not looking for another 40 hour a week desk job. I am finally willing to look at a patchwork living.

This is my own “move to India” move, though maybe it’s closer to the center of rational than I know. I’ve never been willing to have a few jobs and put them together for a living, because I thought it was too hard, or too undisciplined, or too “artist.”

I’ve been afraid of judgment: my own, my family’s, my peers'. I’ve been afraid to try to cobble together a living, because that “sounds” so hard.

But for 16 years, I’ve worked the 40 hour job. I’ve had the regular pay-stub with the paid-time off and the health insurance. I’ve had the computer log-in and the number to the copy machine guy memorized.

I’ve done “normal.”

But, dears, I’ve never exactly been normal.

Here’s to Voltaire’s Candide-cum-internet meme:

"If we do not find something pleasant, at least we will find something new.”

Day 21

Today ends the 21-Day Meditation “Challenge” by Deepak Chopra and Oprah I’ve been following this last month. Today’s “thought” is about Fulfillment.

And despite coming home on Tuesday night (finally tucking into bed after a chaotic day of work and a busy night of rehearsal) and bursting into quiet tears of overwhelm, today as I get ready for the day, the soft tears are of a different sort.

Fulfillment.

Two years ago on Yom Kippur I was diagnosed with Leukemia. Last year around this time, I hosted an “I Didn’t Die” party and played in a band on the bass I’d carried for over a decade but never learned to play. This year on and around the anniversary of my diagnosis, you’ll find me onstage in musical theater, another dream set down for over a decade.

Fulfillment.

In workland, I continue to feel like the hockey player who gets checked into the boards, my own path crowded out by the demands of others and by the very nature of the perpetually-behind game in which I find myself. I continue to know that things need to change, want to change them, do research on changing them, … and haven’t (yet) changed them.

I continue to desire giving myself the “right” kind of time to flesh out ideas for a different mode of working, one that means more fulfillment, less time, more stability. I continue to lament that the nature of the game I’m in doesn’t allow for pausing. Except when you’ve been sent to the bench. Which I call Netflix-binging. But that kind of pause isn’t productive, and I know this.

I am looking for the space in which to create a different kind of life, to have the space to dream and plan and implement. And, it’s not this exact moment. Which can be really hard for me. Believing as I do, that my stasis in this position (over-working and underearning) creates a dissatisfaction in me that bleeds into other areas of my life, and keeps me feeling less-than and stuck and not ready or viable or worthy.

And yet.

As I’ve spoken of it, one foot may be in the bear trap, but the other is passionately trying to walk anyway – or, as in the Addams show, to tango. I continue to have one foot in the direction … no – in the reality of a vision and a dream of mine. It’s not the direction, it’s the reality.

And truly, how different I know this is than it was. To be in it, instead of dreaming of or lamenting it.

Can you be half-way fulfilled? I dunno. But, I do know that the hours spent in band, in rehearsal, in laughter, and in friendship are times of pure engagement, presence, and self-forgetting (sometimes!). That absence of commentary, of doubt, feels like the presence of fulfillment.

If I have created, and worked hard toward creating, a third of my waking hours to be ones of fulfillment, I have to acknowledge that the scale is tipping. It isn’t there yet. I still lament and cry and question if I will pursue, but those hours spent in joy …

*insert silent wonder*

Dream Girls

If we can pass others on the street and think to ourselves, “There, but for the grace of G-d, go I,” isn’t it possible that others can pass us and say the same thing?

I spent last evening at a Queen concert. It was balls-out amazing: the talent, the showmanship, the technique and the bravery to stand out there, bounce around a stage and invigorate a crowd of thousands.

I had a moment while watching Adam Lambert, who was filling Freddie Mercury’s shoes pretty darn well, when I realized that only the slightest differences existed between the two of us.

Go with me here. A plane takes off for New York, but the compass is one degree off. You end up at the Nyack mall instead of JFK. One degree. Completely different destination.

If there is just the “grace of god” between me and the person I see huddled under the freeway gathering up their belongings as the cop car pulls two wheels up on the sidewalk to shuffle them along to another temporary spot, isn’t there just the “grace of god” between me and Adam Lambert? Or that woman I saw perform at Yoshi’s a few years ago: She wasn’t perfect. Her pitch wasn’t always on, but she was a performer. She had the crowd completely, she enjoyed herself, she was proud, vivacious, and seen. And she wasn’t perfect.

I don’t even remember who she was, except she was the singer of a bluesy/jazzy band, and she was fierce. She was a large woman with a large smile. And as I watched her, I thought to myself that I wanted to do what she did; get up there and perform, without needing to be perfect – because if that were the case, I don’t think any of us would ever do anything, including Adam Lambert.

Over the last year, I have adjusted my compass to be bringing me closer to that point on the map. I am not so far away in the Canada hinterland, but perhaps flying somewhere over Buffalo by now. (Can you tell I grew up back east?)

Julia Cameron writes in The Artist’s Way that it isn’t talent that creates success; it’s tenacity. It’s being a dog’s fierce jaw chomped around a toy rope, refusing to let go.

The guitar player, Brian May, dazzled the crowd with a 10-minute long epic, cacophonous solo. It was like a safari inside of music itself: strange, elegant, mystic, and ancient. I said to my friend, That’s what happens when you spend 40 years doing only one thing.

That’s what happens when you decide that you love one thing, that you’re good (enough) at one thing, that you want others to know you do this thing: You become great.

Here’s to finding—or claiming, rather—my thing.