community · faith · friends · generosity · gratitude · help · Jewish · love · service

That 20/20 Thing.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

I guess I should tell you about the miracle-y things that have been happening during this time. There are two major
ones, and here they are:
One: My Job
(It’s funny, when I was home sick with strep prior to going
to the hospital, I emailed my boss about my home-sick-from-work status with the
title of the email “I thought Job was a later chapter” – little did I know!) ;P
So, as some of you have been reading, I’d been unemployed
since graduating with my Master’s in May. I’d been actively looking, thinking
about moving back home, applying to anything and everything, with no luck for months. Then, I got the job I now have at the synagogue in
Berkeley.
When I got this job, I was resentful. I was thrilled to
increase my bank balance from $3.98, but I felt ashamed that I had worked so
hard and arrived at what I considered to be an entry level position in the
front office – somewhere I’d been many times before. You heard me gripe about
it, be the opposite of humble about it, and generally kinda be a dick about
having finally gotten a job when I so desperately needed one.
So, here’s the “oo ee oo” part. I got sick. I got really
sick. I will be in and out of the hospital for the next 5 months or so, mostly
in. So, I can’t work, obviously.
My boss’s son had cancer when he was a child, and his son is
alive well, and just had a kid of his own. My boss has had empathy for my
situation from the beginning, and as this started to go down, he said to me
that they would have a temp in until I came back – that they would hold my job
for me. …
At the time this was said, I still didn’t really know what
all this cancer treatment would look like – how long it would be. So a few
weeks later, when I now knew it was going to be 5 months, not one, and my boss
came to visit me in the hospital, I hemmed and hawed – would they still keep my
job for me, knowing how long it would be ‘til I came back? Should I tell him?
Should I not and just hope for the best?
Well, I ended up telling him. And you know what he said? “I
know how important job security is at a time like this, and your job will be
here for you when you’re ready.” WHAT THE HELL? How are people so nice?
And here’s the miracle part – IF I had gotten a job with any
other company, I can’t imagine that they would be a tenth the amount of
understanding. I mean, a bottom line, deadlines, emails, someone needs to be ON
IT. If I had gotten any other job, I
can’t imagine that they’d hold my job for me ‘til I was healthy, let alone come
visit me in the hospital as several of my BRAND NEW coworkers have, and the
others who are planning to.
I couldn’t have planned this at all – and I was so pissed! So, hindsight is 20/20 and all that, right?
Although, there’s the part of me that’s like, um, hey G-d,
you OBVIOUSLY saw this cancer thing coming, having set me up like a champ here,
couldn’t we have gone a different route … but, it is what it is.
Two: My Apartment
I used to work for the property management company that
manages my apartment building here in Oakland. When I worked for them in SF,
they helped me get my apartment in SF, and when I moved to Oakland, they were
equally as generous in helping me with my apartment here (which, by the way, is
a 5 minute walk from the hospital at which I’m being treated…).
I left that job under not the most admirable circumstances,
and earlier this year, I emailed my former boss to say as much and to apologize
for not having been the worker I could have been. He emailed me back to say, yes actually, I could have handled that better, but that
he “had my back” if I needed a reference or anything.
Later this summer, however, I emailed him when I was in my mania of “do
i move back to New Jersey right now??” and I asked if I could give two-weeks’ notice on the
apartment if needed, instead of a month. He emailed one word. “No.” And his
assistant emailed me a form for the 30-day notice format 😉
So, I had no idea where I stood in his shit books or not
when my mom called him early in October and said, basically, my daughter has
leukemia and isn’t working, what can we do here?
Cue the “oo ee oo” once more. My former boss said … he
himself had leukemia two years before. He asked if I’d applied for disability
(if I’d have any income at all), my mom said yes. And he said, Don’t worry
about it. Just keep me informed, and we’ll work it out.
…
What? In SF Bay Area? Rent is a “we’ll work it out”??
Miracle. He told my mom that I’d helped him out when he’d needed it, and true,
I drove his dad to dialysis three days a week for a period while I worked there
(although, I think I got more out of that one – I learned a lot in those
conversations with that man).
My friend said recently to me that we get what we put into
the world, and all the goodness that’s coming back to me is simply that. I’m
just getting back what I’ve put into it.
It’s a little weird to think like that though, because my
immediate thoughts are, it’s not like I am nice on purpose, it’s not like I’m keeping score of how great a
person I am as I go out into the world. I just am how I am. So it feels weird
to feel like, in a way, I’m being rewarded for that “just the way I am”ness.
However, I was contemplating that ridiculousness the other day, and I
thought to myself, Molly, I don’t think cancer is a reward. 😛
The bottom line of the above two amazing stories is the
generosity of the human soul. It doesn’t really have anything to do with me.
I was talking with my current boss the other day about how
many people are wanting to help and do things for me, but there’s often not
much to do. I mean, I don’t really need much, except for some cards, and
visits, and on occasion a ride to the doctor or a grocery run. But only one
person at a time needs to do that. So there’s not a lot for people to do, and I
feel that desire they have – to want to do something. To want to take some aspect of my own burdens away
from me, because there are going to be many things that only I can and will go
through by myself in this process.
So, I’m going to try to think on what people can do that’s
concrete, that gives an opportunity to help and feel useful. Because this is what I
said to my boss – these days, we rarely get the chance to help each other
anymore. We’re all so independent, and I can do it on my own, that as a society and a people, that no one seems
to need help anymore.
In a way, my being sick gives others the opportunity to help
– to allow them to feel that good nachas
(Yiddish) from doing something for someone else, just out of the
kindness of their heart. Not for gain, or
to check that score card I talked about. But just to help, because you can, and
because you want to.
The capacity for human kindness shines very much in this
portion of my story. Which, really, isn’t Job, because I’ve got a lot more
support than he ever did. And I never owned any goats. 

art · community · fortitude · friends · fun · say yes · vulnerability

Ain’t Dead Yet

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Last night, I went to a Halloween party. Like a normal
person.
I did fancy glitter make-up on my face, pretended my
dress could pass as a 60s throw-back, donned my friend’s blue wig, and called
myself a psychedelic stewardess (as they were called in the 60s, pre-politically corrected “flight
attendant”).
It was amazing. It felt like normal. Like something a normal
person would do the weekend of Halloween – get dressed up, go to a party. It’s
something that has felt nearly unattainable for me after the whole cancer
thing – normal. I danced. I danced a
lot. I laughed, talked with friends, and it wasn’t about my cancer. Sure, a few people asked me how I was feeling, and
if there was anything they could do, but for the most part, the people there had no
idea the blue wig covered a shaved head. They just saw a girl at a party – and
I am grateful for it.
Part of the anomaly of being so sick is that sometimes my health is what’s top of my mind, and it’s immediately what I talk about when people call or visit.
Sometimes it’s top of their minds, and they want to know about it. But … sometimes, I just want to know what the heck else is going on in the world. I mean, I didn’t even
know the Giants were in the World Series. (Though, I remain partial to the NY
teams, ahem.)
I want to know how your new job is, or your relationship, or
what happened with that thing. I want to talk about something other than
CANCER. It’s so overarching and undergirding that it feels hard to get away
from, and just talk normally. That’s part of the “watching Ben Stiller movies”
thing I was questioning yesterday – am I allowed to still have normal
conversations, activities?
Thank G-d, as shown yesterday, YES. As I painted a star over
my eye yesterday and asteroids on my cheek (despite a weird double-vision thing I have that the
doctor tells me “will resolve itself”…) — I felt
like my old self. Engaged in an activity I love.
I do feel the guillotine though. I go back into the hospital a
week from tomorrow, and it’s hard to not feel like my days are numbered. It’s
hard to not get defensive in advance. I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to
do this 4 more times. And yet, this is what they know to do to cure cancer, or
at least send it packing for what they hope is years, if not forever.
So, I try and remain present, if possible, but I know it’s
looming. I have scheduled a bunch of self-care things this week, chiropractor
tomorrow to realign all the sitting in a bed for three weeks issues; a masseuse
that a generous friend gifted me on Tuesday to work out the rest of the kinks;
Thursday, I’ll do work with a friend who’s a professional at inner/spiritual healing to help work out the kinks from the inside as well.
It’s seems hard to try to live normally, and yet, as I saw
yesterday, it wasn’t hard at all — All I had to do was show up. – Plus, I kept the wig. 😉

acceptance · adulthood · anger · art · faith · frustration · gratitude · progress · recovery

Cancer.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

About a month ago, I was diagnosed with Leukemia. And my
whole life changed.
I don’t know what this change is, was, will be, but I know
that I am in several ways entirely different than I was. The way, at least
right now, that I see things are entirely new. And profoundly grateful. I
almost died. And yet, I didn’t.
We each get this each day – I got this each day, prior to this happening. I got the chance to
understand that life was precious, but I didn’t, really. I understood it,
but to really feel it? Well, it’s
different now,
and it brings up a host of other questions. Am I allowed to still watch Ben Stiller movies? Am I allowed to spend a day on the couch? Will
I now stop stopping myself short on all my varied art projects, and allow
myself to follow through on anything
that I’ve started? I have no idea.
I’d like to think that part of this “change” – for lack of a
better term for “life altering sudden tragic happening” – will indeed move me
toward being more in my art, more in my life. I’d like to believe that part of
this whole thing is a very nasty kick-upside-the-head lesson in not living for
tomorrow. That I’m being given the chance to very acutely see that life is
short and tenuous, and so I ought to embrace the talents that I have, and finally
let myself explore them fully so that I might share them with you.
I’d like to believe that there are lessons here. Otherwise,
what the fuck.
I’d like to believe that the Universe or my Higher Power
couldn’t — for some reason completely unknown to me – send me a postcard, or a
dream, or a message on Facebook. That for some reason this lesson had to be learned hard, and fast, and
therefore more gentle methods of smoothing a rock down to its shiny parts were
not available to this massive Power.
I’ve been out of the hospital for a week now, and I will go
back in next Monday for another round of chemo. This will be the 2nd
in a series of, likely, 5 treatments. The words that I’ve had to learn over
this month scare the crap out of me. I don’t want to use words like chemo,
nausea, pain meds, pneumonia. I don’t want to hear “How bad is the pain on a
scale of 1 to 10,” or, “It’s time for your shot,” or “Well, we expect this.”
I’ve oscillated since I’ve been out of the hospital between
those few stages of grief – anger, grief, acceptance. Often within the same
minute. When I was in the hospital, there wasn’t time for anything except acceptance. This is happening. Period. Go with it. And, despite
what you may think, it’s really f’ing busy in the hospital with people coming
in and out at all hours of the day and night, throwing information or
medication at you. There’s not really time to process, space to absorb and
consolidate what has been happening to me.
And so, being home now, I’m getting the chance to experience
what I couldn’t while basically holding my breath for 3 weeks. I’m getting to
realize the enormity of what happened. The slow, marinating, seeping
reality – I almost died. The nurse told me that I had 49% leukemic cells in my
blood when I came into the hospital – WITH STREP THROAT – and that if I hadn’t
come in, I would have died within two weeks. I would have gotten a bleed,
likely in my brain, and I would have just died. No one would have known – no one would have known why. Relapse?
Suicide? Understanding this fact has begun to lead me to know that I need help
in holding the space for all this – and yesterday I contacted a cancer support
group.
AND, I have to tell you, I don’t want to be someone who needs a cancer support group – I shouldn’t have
motherfucking cancer in order to need such a group. A month ago, this was unfathomable.
This morning, I read my last Morning Pages entry from the week
before I went into the hospital. I haven’t written morning pages since then, I
was too sick, and then too hospitalized. And so I read them, and I see myself
talking about how my throat really is starting to hurt. About how I went to the
art store Flax and got new pens and a notebook and talked to the woman in the
back about different types of pressed paper – hot press versus cold, what would
be good for the art I want to do. About the café I’d emailed with the month
before about putting up a show in their space, and how he wanted to do
November, but I simply wasn’t ready, as it was the end of September at the
time.
I’d written about the clothing I’d bought for cheap at good
thrift shops, and the flying lesson I was scheduled for, which ended up being
the day I went into the ER. I wrote about being excited, about art that I would
make. About missing my family, and wanting to go home for Thanksgiving to see
them.
In some ways, it feels like reading a journal from junior
high, it feels so long ago. And yet, it’s all still me. And that’s something
that I want to take away from this too. This process is going to be HARD, challenging, painful, difficult, and yet, I’m still
me. As I was writing my first Morning Pages this morning since that last entry,
I was inwardly elated to see my handwriting hadn’t changed. That major facts of
who I am have not changed. That things that were important to me then, “before
cancer,” are still things that are important to me now. – art, family,
adventure.
I’ve been blasted with some of the nastiest chemicals, shorn down
to the barest slices of my body … but my handwriting is still the same.
I could go into the ways in which gratitude has become this
sort of well of tears behind my eyes at all times. I could talk about how just
waking up this morning feels like a gift. But I don’t want to today, really. I could
list the thanks and the inundation of love and support and care, but that’s not
what this blog is about this morning, at least. It’s not a love fest, it’s just
a truth fest. About where I am this very day, at this very time, arguing and
stamping and shaking a fist at the sky with WHY in the m’f’in hell couldn’t you
have made this a little bit of a gentler lesson? About how I feel like I’m some
sort of icon now, with people telling me all the time what an inspiration
you are, when I’ve had diarrhea for 3 out
of the last 4 weeks. I’ve asked people what on earth that even means, an inspiration to what? What have I inspired in
you? What am I inspiring you to do? I haven’t done anything except lived.
I get to be bitter about it. And I get to be amazingly
thankful to get to be bitter about it –
to be alive enough to have emotions enough to get to scorn about it.
It is surely true, the love and support I’ve gotten. And
yet, there’s a part of me that feels angry that I even have a situation in
which to receive such love and support.
I know people love me. Couldn’t I have had my 31st birthday at a
restaurant with them, instead of in a hospital bed? Couldn’t I have learned to
get out of the way of my own creativity and drive and lust for life in a
different, gentler way? Couldn’t I have gotten to see my family by flying East
for Thanksgiving, instead of them flying West to hold my hand while my hair
falls out?
I’m grateful for this blog – this tempestuous blog that
gives me the chance to be honest in every way. Which I want to use to
springboard to something else, to write in another venue, maybe one that’s
paid. I’m glad that I get to write here, as someone told me, as I speak – that if I
write the way I talk, they said, I’m surely a great writer. I don’t know how much that is
true, but somehow the cancer lets me see it a little more clearly. And perhaps begin to accept it. I want to explore my talent more – because there simply is
more there. I want to push into it, and I want to share it.
I swear I would have gotten there without this whole cancer
thing, but I guess I really didn’t have a choice in this one. 

authenticity · dating · finances · frustration · grief · relationships · romance · work

Bus Stop Boy

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Well now.
So, I guess I should tell you about Bus Stop Boy, now that
I’ve finally broken down and updated one of the people I have in my life whose
main relationship with me is about helping me work on relationships.
Over the summer, I began to see Bus Stop Boy, as you might
imagine… at the bus stop. I was temping in the city, and was sometimes taking
this bus, sometimes that. I’d just begun to pay attention to how I interact with
men, trying to focus less on if they’re noticing me or not, how I’m interpreting
or internalizing that information. And Bus Stop Boy was one of these people. I
was aware of him, and he was aware of me. There was nothing more or less than
that, but a definite vibe. Not even flirty, just aware.
One morning, a few months ago, I had come from meeting with
the aforementioned woman the previous day, highly aware now of how I was walking in the world, and I saw him at the bus
stop. Suddenly, I had no idea how to behave. I didn’t want to be all coy, I
didn’t know how to just stand there. I felt a wave of panic wash over me, and
as some of you may remember, I had to leave work as soon as I got there and come home and crawl into a fetal position. Everyone
on BART was standing too close. Whatever it was that my being aware of who and
how you were reacting to me – it had acted as a buffer somehow between us. And
suddenly, seeing Bus Stop Boy, … it was like seeing the Matrix. Suddenly I
could see that everywhere I looked and every move that I made, I was hyper
aware of it, and I was aware if you were aware of it. I felt stripped of some
defense mechanism – I felt utterly exposed, and completely unsure of how to
act.
A rather large reaction to simply seeing a dude at the bus
stop. But, that’s what happened. It took me days to get back to feeling right.
And, in fact, I stopped taking the bus, and opted to take carpool with a friend
of mine during the rest of my temp gig.
I’m still aware of how others react to me, and, duh, that’s
going to continue to happen. People interact. However, I am trying to pay less attention to if “he,” whoever “he”
is, saw me. Noticed. If you’re noticing how I’m holding myself or not. I’m
trying to keep myself to myself when I’m out and about. Not closing myself off,
but simply focusing more on me, and what I’m doing, not on you.
This said, things have progressed.
I ran into Bus Stop Boy when I was on the bus going into the
city for an interview about a month or more ago. I was aware, he was aware. We
both went for the one seat that was open, and he let me have it. When getting
off the bus, I got off in front of him, and turned around and thanked him for
the seat, held out my hand, and said I’m Molly, by the way. He took my hand, said his name, said he hadn’t
seen me on the bus for a while. I replied I hadn’t been on the bus for a while, we both smiled, said see you around.
In reporting this later to my friend, I talked about
“getting a hit” off it. I was nervous about this job interview, and I knew I
could get a little hit from talking to this guy. Sure, there’s the normality of
introducing yourself to someone you see nearly daily just for the sake of that,
and I could file this under that, but I know my underlying reasoning – I wanted
to feel better, and talking to an attractive guy who seems to think I’m
attractive too is a reliable way to do that. (I was about to write it’s a “good
way” to do that, but, this is where I run into trouble.) I felt more spring in my step on my way to my interview, now that I had gotten that burst of acknowledgment from this stranger.
A little while later, I am on my way to another interview,
and I see him on the street in plain clothes with a girl, walking a small dog. Girlfriend, I think, and keep walking. Well, I say to myself,
there’s that taken off the table. He’s got a girlfriend.
A little while later, about 3 weeks ago, I’m on my way home
finally for the evening, having had an awful day at work – feeling my feelings
of despair around administrative work, around having worked so hard for months
to get something so menial, I’d come home from work bawling on the phone with a friend, before I went back out to meet up with some folks for an hour. Suffice it to say that I was drained of
all emotional guile. Of all resistance. Of all pretense.
Funny, then, that I should walk into Peet’s coffee, and
there he is. Bus Stop Boy at 8pm on a Wednesday evening. My eye make-up long
cried off. My incognito hat. Glasses. This is not the look of a temptress. He’s on line
ahead of me, and so I say hello. We chat a bit; we’ve both started new jobs. We small talk, laugh a bit. I
say see you around.
And now, suddenly, we are seeing each other around a lot. I
next run into him unexpectedly on the shuttle from BART – again on a day when I’d sat at the bus stop from work in near-tears. Waiting – FORTY FIVE MINUTES – for a
bus from Berkeley. Taking me nearly two hours to get home from ONE TOWN AWAY.
And there he is. The second time in a row when I’d felt
depleted, and, perhaps, open. 
It hasn’t eluded me that these unusual times that I’ve seen him are at times when I could most use a nod from the universe, some semblance of, Molly – you’re not a worthless, aimless, trundling-along broke spinster. It has not escaped me that during my new days of data entry, receptionist calls, arguments with xerox machines, I’d begun to think of that morning’s conversation with Bus Stop Boy, and it takes me out of my vile existence. It reminds me that I am more than my job. It reminds me that I am something more than that. Simply by recalling the smile of a near stranger, my chest feels less constricted – I feel less trapped. Is this “meaningful”? Is a nudge from “THE UNIVERSE”? Is it just a coincidence? Is it simply pointing out to me the pleasure I take in fantasy rather than reality?
I moved my bags, and he sat down next to me.
After some chit chat, I said, I think I saw you with your girlfriend walking
your dog a few weeks ago (she says leadingly). He got a sudden look, and said, “Ex…” That was their goodbye. She
came to visit for two weeks. She’s been living in D.C. for the past year,
looking for work there and here, and she got a job there, and, as he told to
me, he wasn’t ready to move back East.
He seemed pretty bummed. Secretly, I thought two things.
One: emotionally unavailable. Two: Single. …
So, finally, friends, here’s the kicker. What I admitted to my girl friend earlier today: I have invited him to
come with me to a party my friend is having this Saturday. “As friends,” I
said. But as I spoke to my friend earlier today, … I have no interest,
really, in being this guy’s friend. Nor do I know that I want to be in a
relationship with him. I barely know anything about him. Do I want to get to
know him better? Yes. Am I dating right now? No. Is he? I should hope not! Long-term relationship break-up does not really equal available for a new one any
time soon.
So, what to do? Well, my friend and I spoke earlier about
some “bottom lines” I could set around this. The only thing I could come up
with, which she suggested, was not hanging out one-on-one.
She asked me at the end of our meeting how I felt. I said Stubborn. (She laughed.) I said, Disappointed. The addict part of me wants those hits. Those doses of feeling
something other than overwhelmed with money or lack thereof. With feeling lost
as to my life’s direction or purpose. With feeling lonely, mainly.
As I begin to get some “recovery” or sense of what is
healthy behavior around relationships, I realize that the majority of my recent women
friends are actively engaged in behavior that I just don’t
identify with anymore. I just don’t have anything to say to my friend who’s
texting an unavailable dude daily. Or who just bought sex toys for a threesome. Or who is in and out
of her relationship with the phases of the moon. Which means, and has meant
for me, that several close friendships I’ve had are being let go of — are fading.
Further to the “lonely” part, as I said to my friend this morning, I haven’t been
dating for a year. I haven’t had sex in a year. I am only human. And there’s only so much I can take.
She said she gets it. She felt the same when she was going
through this work. The truth is that I’m doing inventory on my relationship
past, and I don’t want to be involved with anyone while I’m going through this
emotionally raw stuff. I don’t (really) want to use someone else to band-aid the work that I’m doing. The truth is also that I’ve finally gotten paid, and much of my financial crisis is averted, so I finally have the chance to feel a
little less stressed out.
Yes, there is only so much I can take. Luckily, I feel a
modicum more freedom right now, yes, due to money, what-the-fuck-ever to people
who say it won’t make you happy – sorry, food in my fridge makes me fucking
happy, assholes. But that release from imminent worry creates a little more
ease. That little more ease means I won’t have to reach out to false idols for
solace, false idols like the green-fade-to-brown eyes of the Bus Stop Boy.
I can do things to help me bolster and support myself, now
that I’m not as “man the battleships!” Things which will provide more
sustainable relief and support – I can reconnect with friends who aren’t stuck
in unhealthy patterns. I can finally feel the room to write and paint again. 
Do I still absolutely want to just rest my head on his
shoulder and relax to the marrow of every organ in my body? YES.

adventure · decision · faith · family · finances · judaism · say yes · shabbat · work · writing

Go Toward the Open Door.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Wise women have told me this occasionally over the last few
years. And, this is just the opportunity I
got this weekend – to go toward the open door.
Originally planned for this weekend, was helping my
immensely talented and ambitious friend by volunteering at her art show
benefit for Japan. My volunteering for her had come as a status reduction from being in the art show, as during the time of my unemployment, I
realized I was not energetically inclined toward creative production, nor,
unfortunately, toward the donation of any art I currently own. So, I
downgraded myself to volunteer last month.
Then, I continued to be unemployed, and although now (halleLUjah) employed, I don’t get paid until the 15th
of this month. Her show was planned for last night, Saturday night, and I have
$40 to my name until Friday. I had to tell her I couldn’t do it. I simply couldn’t afford the roundtrip to the city. It just wasn’t feasible.
Do I/did I feel like a flake? Yeah. Was there anything I
could do about it? No.
In the meantime, having unceremoniously bowed out of
volunteering, on Friday morning my office was in the midst of heading out for
the weekend to a “Shabbaton,” basically, a weekend at an overnight summer camp
in the Santa Rosa mountains, where 250 members of the congregation (did I
mention I work, now, at a synagogue?), kids, grandparenty-types, Board members,
staff members, would all gather and have a hella Jewish weekend (well, hella Reform Jewish weekend – which includes guitars, LOTS of
clapping on the up-beat, and the community-sanctioned use of a cappuccino machine on
Shabbat).
I, was not going to go. I told them over this week and a
half of my new employment that I wouldn’t be able to go, as I was volunteering
with my friend’s art show. And, part of me didn’t really want to see these
people, as I was still feeling rather resentful at being a freakin’ secretary,
answering phones and manipulating mail merges.
However, there was another part of me who is, about 7, I’d
say. And she, every time I heard someone
wish me a good weekend as they were departing on Friday afternoon,
would say to me, I wanna go to
camp!.
I wanna go. I wanna go to camp. I wanna sleep in a bunk,
and clap during song session, and eat at long uncomfortable tables, and see the
mountains. I wanna go to camp!
She whispered this to me all day. Indeed, she’d been
whispering it with increasing intensity all week, but adult me was too pissed at
these people for having supporting roles in the drama of my life that was once
again entitled, “Molly: The Disgruntled Employee.”
Then, however, came the reality that I would not, in fact,
be joining my friend for her art show. And I’d been offered a ride by another
reluctant employee earlier in the week, that she was going up on Saturday
morning, coming back on Sunday, and I could ride with her.
She’s new to the office as well, and I could sense that
perhaps we could get along. So I told her I’d think about it. And, as she was
generously giving me a ride the the bus stop on Friday afternoon, long after almost
everyone else had defected for the mountains, my little girl was screaming to
be heard.
I was, in fact, on the bus home when I finally gave in to
her. I called the woman, and I told her that if she was still willing, I’d love
to ride with her to the Shabbaton.
Because, in reality, my alternative now, without the art
show, was to sit on Saturday in my apartment, continue to read my Zadie Smith
novel, see a few friends, and putz around, as per usual. I saw that very
clearly as I rode that bus through Berkeley. Everything as per boring usual.
I have been camping once
this summer. Several months ago now. I have kept my childlike spirit drowned
out with the adult business of interviewing, resumes, finance planning,
budgeting, cost efficiency, worry worry worry. There has been nearly NO play in
the last 3 months. At all. A few movies here and there for a break from the
awful soul-crushing of unemployment, but other than that, no glitter, sparse laughter, begrudging fun, and a riotous need to DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT.
So, I said YES. I went toward the open door.
The adult in me was also very calculatingly clear, with its
Cheshire cat smile, that this weekend away would not cost me a penny. That I
would have good meals I didn’t have to cook, pay for, or clean up from. That I
would get the chance to go to the mountains, and hike there, as I did, without
paying for a rental car, gas money, a camp site, anything at all.
I would be able to get out of dodge simply by saying “yes.”
To think that I almost didn’t makes me laugh at myself.
The weekend itself was both satisfying, and exhausting.
Exhausting, as I was “on” the whole time, schmoozing with people, making my new
presence known. It was not an entirely selfless or avocational decision to go up, obviously –
it was/is also important to me that people got to know me as more than the
receptionist, should the ears of the executive director be listening to the
chatter in the water. Phrases like “raise” and “room for growth” come to mind
as I go forward with this job. It was a political decision. – Also, it
exposes/d me to people who might be good contacts later on.
Indeed, there was a published/working poet there with whom I
got to spend some good conversations. The last one included my bald question,
“Is it worth the fight?” [to be a writer, to pursue this {or indeed any} art, to continue to
put one word after another as a sign that we mean something to ourselves, others, this world we live in – that we are not floating mindlessly through it – that we value our experiences – that we mold and shape them and
ply them and tongue them and pinch them into these characters we imprint on paper
and screen … Is it worth the fight to do this?]
His answer, after the knowing laugh, was yes, if you believe
it is.
I believe it is. I believe in marking my existence. I
believe in questioning it, turning it, shaping it, and being shaped by it.
I believe in inviting you to share it with me. To tell me how you see it, to let me have my own world shaped for a
moment or more by how it is you walk in the world.
By saying yes to this weekend, I allowed cherished and often
dismissed parts of me to sing in the sunshine. To look at the Milky Way, for
Christ’s sake. To dance in a circle of women, to talk blogging with a
stay-at-home dad. I got to see a fawn pounce through the brittle brush and pet
baby goats, and to sing at my most favorite service in
all of Judaism, Havdallah, the closing of Shabbat, where we say good-bye to the
week we’ve had, and we welcome the week to come. The service where we invite
the sweetness of Shabbat to come with us into and sustain us through the coming week.
It is a service that dances the edge of wistful, grateful
endings and limitless, renewed beginnings. And, simply, it has the best music.
Shavuah Tov, friends – May you have a happy week.  

coffee · frustration · gratitude · Jewish · poetry · progress · work

Normal Functioning Levels

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

In an effort to “put my needs first,” I’ve decided to change
this to a weekly, instead of a daily, blog. So, Sunday will be our day
together, folks. Two buses and an 8:30am clock-in time will make weekday
blogging a little bit like killing a wildebeest before breakfast – highly
unnecessary.
So, I have a job. ! This past week, starting on Wednesday, I
began working in the front office of a synagogue in Berkeley. This, will be an
adjustment. Honestly, my commute was easier when I was crossing the bridge!
But, I have a job. I needed one, and now, finally, I have one. I’m still not
clear on wtf it took so long to find one. It certainly does fall into the “underearning” category of a job “below my education and skill level,” but, then again,
the first bit of advice in the How to get out of debt… book is **Get A Job, ANY Job** So, I have a job.
It’s not going to be that bad either. There are a lot of systems in
place that are way wonky, i.e. ten-step processes, when they could be 3, but
that’s sort of why I’m there. In the rest of life, usually when I want to help
others streamline things in their lives or make them better, it’s usually none
of my damn business and I get to practice holding my tongue and trusting they’re on their own path. But, luckily, here, it very literally is my business, and so, I’m going to get to organize
and streamline, and “correct” what’s really silly.
That’s part of the advantage of coming in to a new place,
you see things that other people haven’t noticed, really, in years. Why do you
click these three things instead of this one? Oh, I don’t know, it’s just how I
was trained, so that’s how I do it. Why is there an old, dusty dead Foreman
grill in the kitchen – does anyone use it? I don’t know, it’s just always been
there. WHY do you print off paper
calendars of the entire year for the weekly staff meeting that barely get
glanced at, and then thrown away?… So, I do get to come in, with fresh eyes,
and be like, whoa, uh, this is stupid.
That said, there are going to be a lot of advantages to this
job that are not monetary. There’s a pre-school, and this week, the little kids
were getting their intro week, so I got to see all these two and three year
olds come in the front door, all nervous or excited. I got to encourage them.
There’s a very sweet, wise-ass kid studying for his Bar Mitzvah who comes to
hang out almost daily with the youth group advisor, so we get to wise-ass at
each other. There’s a piano in the chapel off the main sanctuary that once I
get keys, I was told absolutely, I could come in there and play during lunch.
It’s not a bank. That’s an advantage. It’s a synagogue. This
means people coming in looking to volunteer; retirees looking at the gift shop
for cards or mezuzahs. Kids coming for Hebrew school; adults coming for Torah
study. It’s a community that I’m getting to become a part of. And that’s not
something every job has at all.
Even though, I’ll tell you, I was highly disappointed that I
didn’t get the Marketing job I wanted, (and I got a letter from the IRS this
week saying that I owe them money from 2010, likely because I didn’t report my
student loan money properly), this isn’t going to be that bad. Am I still going
to be living a bit meagerly? Likely. It’s not a high paying position in the
slightest. Is it more than minimum wage? Yes. Am I waiting tables? No. Am I
making sales calls all day, like one of the jobs I interviewed for? No.
It could be worse. And, it can only get better, I suppose.
Mostly, I am glad that my stress hormones are in retreat.
Returning to normal, without the barely contained underground river of how
am I going to pay my bills??? I slept
almost the whole day yesterday. It’s like, with the stress in retreat, the
whole system floods with a great big PAUSE, system shutting down now, crisis
averted. Yesterday I woke up, ate breakfast, thought about going to the farmer’s market,
and climbed back into bed, waking up 4 hours later. Took another mini nap
after trips to the library and grocery store, cooked dinner, watched a dvd, and went to bed at a decent time.
I needed it. Obviously. I’ve been stressed, man.
In that/this period, though, I’ve also started to do some
other things. I’ve begun to soak my own chickpeas to make hummus from scratch.
I’ve begun to marinate tofu so that I can bake it. I bought quinoa from the
bulk section at a way cheaper price than anything packaged. All of these
organic, all of them cheaper than buying ready packed or ready made.
I’ve really enjoyed doing this. Experimenting with different
flavors in the hummus, roasted red pepper (jarred, but one day, maybe my own),
garlic, pine nuts, lemon. Using the tofu marinade to pour onto veggies I’ve
steamed to go with them. I’m getting healthier in my eating habits. More
interested, and more creative. Part of that creativity was borne of necessity, the need to buy things cheaper
as money has run out during these months of unemployment.
Coffee is no longer in my cabinets. This makes me awfully
sad. But, it’s not good for me, so I’ve been reading, so it’s going the way of
the dodo. That, I will miss. But it’s not like coffee’s moved to England, and
I’ll never see it again. I did, indeed, get some decaf with some caf this week.
There’s just nothing quite like the texture of coffee.
One place I had coffee was at the poetry reading on
Thursday, at which I read my rather explicit new poems. I didn’t preface them
by saying the experiences described were mostly not current, which I sort of
wish I’d said, as what will people THINK of me??, but it all went well. I got good feedback on my work. The words
“bold,” “brave,” and “funny” were thrown around. I’m glad I read the work, even
though I was nervous about it. Every time I perform, it makes me want to do it
more, and again.
I wasn’t able to “get it together” to make broadsides of the
poem I wanted to, but there will be time for that. I had a few other things on
my mind this week!
All in all, it was a highly emotional week. The anticipation
of whether I was going to get the job I wanted. Interviewing for it at 9:30pm Sunday night via Skype and finding out at 11pm that I hadn’t gotten it (the other girl had more “proven experience”). Waking up
Monday morning, knowing I was about to accept a job that has the same title and
pay rate as a job I accepted 5 years ago. Calling a friend to ask if I could ask them for more money. Crying, mourning the loss of where I think I ought to be, and
what I ought to be doing. The loss of my ability to save on any significant
level so that I might move back East some time this century.
And then calling to ask for more money, not getting what I
asked, but a token amount more than what they offered. The new chaos of
commuting to a new job. The first few days of a job when everyone is still
evaluating you. The knowledge dump into my brain from the girl whose job I’m
taking and training with. The highly anticipated poetry reading where I was
bold and brave and scared as fuck. And the crash, like air let out of a
balloon, a deflating of all the energy, worry, and stress as I crashed out
yesterday.
There are still going to be challenges, of course. This is a new job. There’s a lot to continue to learn, and
the girl I’m replacing leaves on Thursday. I still do have some financial issues to contend with like the
IRS letter, and the fact that I don’t get paid till the 15th. But,
by the way, I did sell my electric guitar and the amp for the price I never
thought I would get (thank g-d for asking for help). So, it will be ok. But, I
still feel deflated. I’m going to need time to bulk back up and refuel to normal
functioning levels.
Til then, and in order to get there, I will TRY
to be kind to myself. Get out of my head, and my own problems. And be grateful, if even for a moment, that I am finally employed at a job that is far from atrocious. 

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Keel the Bool

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

There’s a perhaps mildly racist parable in the How to Get out of
Debt… book which recounts the following
paraphrased story.
A boy in assumedly South America or Mexico has a bull. This
bull is his best friend. His father, however, cannot afford to buy food or
shelter for himself and his son for much longer. He tells his son that he needs to
sell the boy’s beloved bull in order to buy the things they family needs. The
son pleads, saying this is his only friend. His father tells him that with the
money from the sale, they could afford things that can’t now – like school and
new shoes and supplies. The boy thinks on this, and replies, “Keel the Bool.”
The intention of this story is to illustrate that there may
be things that we are holding on to out of pride or vanity or stubbornness.
And, that if we are in tried financial straits, it is time to Keel the Bool.
I have brought to the local bookstores my supply of “B” books.
Books that I wouldn’t miss if they were gone, and I have sold a handful over the
last few months. This morning, I began, in my morning pages, to write a list of
all the things that I could sell at a yard sale that I am now planning to have
on Saturday. There were things that were obvious that I could part with, things
that wouldn’t be missed, or wouldn’t hamper my quality of life. There are those
which would be missed, but an acceptable loss. And then there are those that I’m not sure I have the
audacity to sell yet.
I made the decision earlier this week to sell the electric
guitar and amp that I’ve carried around since my friend gave them to me about 4
or 5 years ago when he was moving. I have liked having them around. Being able to use the electric unplugged when it’s
late but I still want to play and not disturb the neighbors. But for all
intents and purposes, I have rarely used it, and even more rarely as it’s
supposed to be used – as an electric guitar.
So, I have little problem getting rid of it, except that my
ego has enjoyed knowing that I have it, and feel “cool” having it.
But this morning, writing all these out, figuring I better
just bring this equipment to the music store that buys things, and see if I can
sell them there, well, I wrote down if I could sell my acoustic guitar.
I have had this – nice – guitar since I was 17. It was my
high school graduation present from my parents. It’s not top of the line, but
it wasn’t cheap either. But, like it’s electric cousin, I rarely use it.
I do use it though. I probably pick it up at least once a
month, and if I’m on an “I’m really
going to learn how to play this damn thing” kick, then more often than that.
When I had been taking guitar lessons about 3 years ago, I was playing it
almost daily for about 6 weeks. Then my funds ran short, and lessons got cut. I
don’t know that I could sell it, though, out of sentimentality rather than future visions of Clapton-like skill.
So, I moved on through my apartment, back to my book shelf.
And now, stacked on my desk, ready to be taken to the bookstore today to see
what they might take and pay me for in return … are “A” books. Books, surely,
that I could get from the library. But there’s something you should know about
me – I hardly ever buy books. Ever. Avid
reader and writer that I am, I was raised going to the library. There were lots
of books coming in and out of my house as I grew up, we were a reading bunch,
but there were surely less than 100 books for the entire household, including
cookbooks (well, maybe not including cookbooks – my mom had a little bit of an
addiction thing).
Point being, any book that I now own is owned because I bought
it. Some are ones I bought for undergrad or grad school and decided to keep because of their literary value to me; some, I bought because there was a very rare occasion when I wanted to own that book – knew
that I’d wanted to read it repeatedly, which, to me, is the only reason to buy a book. 
So, a select stack of these now sit on my desk. Joyce,
Dickinson, Winterson, Ensler, Steve Martin, even (Pure Drivel – if you haven’t read it, there is an incredible
short story/vignette about a shortage of punctuation marks, and he is therefore
allowed to use only ONE period in the entire story. It is beyond brilliant). Faulkner.
I’m going to sell back a Faulkner. It’s like slicing off a chunk of skin.
There are a few that I will not sell. But I admit that that
choice was made more because of the condition of the book and the unlikelihood
that they’ll be bought back. Most of my treasures are on the to-be-sold pile on
my desk.
Yes, come tomorrow morning, I will have either accepted the
receptionist job I’ve been offered, or I will be finally chosen for the marketing position I want. So, yes, I
will have a job, and will know which one it is in approximately 12 hours, following
my Google Hangout interview. But, a job doesn’t equal a paycheck until about
two weeks into the gig, if not more, as they get you on the payroll.
So, I have money for September rent, and about $30 left
over. For food, for transportation to whichever job it is. But, mostly, for
food.
I am willing to sell back these treasures, assuming, of
course, that the wary and selective eyes of the bookstore even wants them. I am
willing to sell them back to feed myself, and my cat.
I am willing to sell a musical instrument I don’t use. I’m
not willing to sell the acoustic, because I don’t think, yet, that I’ll have
to. But I am also willing to put a lot of junk and not-so-junk on sale at a
yard sale on Saturday.
So, if you’re in the Oakland Piedmont Ave neighborhood on
Saturday between 10 and 3, please come by the “Help me feed myself and my cat,
Stella” sale.
Lastly, I’ll just note, that, yes, all of these things are
just things. Not nearly as important as
housing and feeding myself. And further, once I do have a job and a paycheck,
anything that I sorely regret, I can replace or buy back again.
And “A” books as these may be, I can get them all at the
library. Just don’t judge my worldliness by the emptiness of my bookshelf.

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Firm & Consistent Progress.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

A friend of mine recently moved into a 3 bedroom house that
she’s renting with her boyfriend up in the Berkeley Hills.
The process for her of finding this house was not easy. She
looked for over a year for the right place, staying as she was in the rental
house in East Oakland, where her car got broken into twice, and her home once.
They looked and looked. They raised their price point to see if maybe that
would bring something in. They looked still.
At one point, she tells me, she broke down to her boyfriend
in despair, saying that nothing was happening, that they’re right were they
were a year earlier.
He said to her, No. We’re making firm and consistent
progress.
She felt calmed. “Firm and consistent progress.” Not, “going
nowhere,” “nothing changing,” but “Firm and consistent progress.” Alright. She
could get behind that.
Not long afterward, they found this house, which fit into
their original, lower price range. And it’s gorgeous; and she’s happy.
I remembered this story this morning, because I became aware
of something. I’ve spoken a lot here about my reluctance to take on
responsibility, that responsibility for me had meant more than I was
developmentally able to do when I was young, and so I have a “thing” about
shirking it.
But what I realized, is that it’s not necessarily responsibility that I avoid, it’s consistency.
I am not a very consistent, or reliable person in many ways.
I have felt too flighty, too magpie – ooh shiny! – to stay in one spot, or one
job for too long. Even this blog has been difficult for me to maintain on a
daily basis.
One of the positions that I’m in the running for, I was
reflecting this morning, will demand that I hone and discover the quality of
consistency. Because of the nature of the work, I would have to be “on top of”
several things, repeatedly, and consistently, in order to garner the kind of
support and engagement the job expects.
Oy. This is not an ingrained skill in me. Or, at least, I
haven’t seen it as one. When I’d considered my dislike of responsibility, and
recognized its effect on my professional and personal life, it made sense as a
reflection of how I grew up. When I look at consistency and how that might have
been a quality that was skipped in my development, I can plainly see why as
well.
There were the days, or even hours, when things were good.
And others were showing up for me, and I was showing up. And then, things would
turn, and it was “abandon ship.” This cycle of calm and storm was so … consistent in itself, that that kind of existence became the
norm for me.
There’s always been a period of calm, and a period of storm
in my life. Sometimes, perhaps even most or all of the time, I’ve been the
impetus of that storm. Don’t get too comfortable where you are – things are
about to shift.
Oh yes, I feel that. It’s why I’ve moved so much; it’s why
my friendships ebb and flow; it’s why my relationships always dissolve – or
erupt – after a few weeks or months.
I have no experience with “firm and consistent progress.” I
have experience with one step forward and two steps back. I have experience
with, as my college roommate told me, being “always one step behind where [I]
want to be.”
Consistency. What is that like??
And, moreover, consistently showing up to my
responsibilities, for my friends, for *gasp* relationships?
I honestly have no idea. I have switched jobs every two
years or fewer since I was 16. I have moved every two years or fewer since I
was 18.
The moving thing is occurring more to me now. In my first
month of college, each year beginning in a new room or house, I would have rather bad insomnia. After the first
two years, though, alcohol helped that. When I moved to Korea, the day I
landed, we went out to the bar and got shitfaced. The night I moved to San
Francisco, I insisted that we stop in all the bars we could as my
friend/acquaintance and I walked down Divisidero.
When I moved, sober, into a new place within San Francisco,
I had anxiety flutters the whole time I was moving. And now, I’ve been having
trouble sleeping for 3 nights in a row. Which is rare for me.
Except during these times of actual change. It’s like a
switch gets thrown, and all my fight or flight instincts get kicked up, even
though there’s nothing to fight or flee.
Faced with the opportunity, no matter how this job thing
comes down, that come Monday morning, I am sure to have a new job, I’m a little
fucked up.
I know that either will give me the opportunity to be
consistent, but one demands it more directly in its job responsibilities.
Consistent outreach, consistent updates, consistent ensurance that the company
name and mission get out there in several ways, on a regular basis.
On a regular basis.
What on earth does regularity mean? I haven’t learned that in my bones yet. My
bones are still primed for don’t you fucking trust a damn thing to
remain as it is. What an exhausting way to
live life? I’ve perpetuated the story. I’ve made decisions that would give me
new evidence that things in life are not to be trusted or relied upon.
I’ve made decisions that would inform others that I’m not to
be relied upon. And so they don’t. They expect me to flake. To be engaged for a
period of time, and then withdraw. To be totally around and happy to be there,
and then to be removed and distant.
I have learned that to be engaged is a temporary thing. I
have learned and honed my skill of doing the same thing I learned from others –
to allow others to depend on me, and then to pull the rug out. It’s a
self-fulfilling prophecy.
I guess, I’m looking forward to trying out this thing called
“consistency.” To attempt, however falteringly and humanly, to show up engaged
on a regular basis. I also imagine that I’ll have internal reactionary moments,
of This is too scary, This can’t go on being good. I may have more moments of self-sabotage. But, perhaps, on the road
to learning how to be a responsible and consistent woman, I can be comforted by
knowing I’m making “Firm and Consistent Progress.”

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Remember What The Redwood Told You.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

So, my writing group approves of the poems I want to read at
next Thursday’s poetry reading (event found here!). Yes, explicit, they said,
but that’s not the focus or the point of it. Precisely.
So, I guess I’m going to be reading these poems! I shared with
them my fear of reading these, and then coming to sit down back with everyone
else, feeling hella awkward, but, in another way too, it’s just my art. It’s
not necessarily “who I am,” it’s just how I chose to express myself. I don’t
have to be as tied into its reception.
Speaking of “reception,” I’ve been offered a receptionist
position. Now, before we go peeing ourselves with glee, I’m going on my 2nd
interview this morning for a job I really do want, rather than the receptionist, which, I will, potentially/likely
take, should this job not come through. But, I don’t … well, I don’t really
want it. I suppose at this point “any” job is worth doing and having, but …
man, my poor ego.
And more than that, my poor wallet. There’s a marked
difference in pay between these two positions. I also have an interview on
Friday morning with an SF museum, but it’s for a short-term gig for less than
the receptionist pay. So, although, for the love of Jehovah, I’d LOVE to work at this SF museum … it’s not quite right either.
I don’t want to come up in 9 months, and be right back here again, having
already had to live meagerly for 9 months – and there’s no guarantee that I’d
be shifted to another position within the company.
So – PRAY FOR ME, to get this job this morning that I want. *and would be good at*
I’ll still be meeting this afternoon with the receptionist
place, to talk about start date, salary, benefits. I mean, those words alone
make me tingly inside. But I also know the
kind of internal work that I’ve been doing to bust out of this job bracket –
and it feels a little – a lot – like moving backward. Receptionist.
I did ask them if there was room for growth in this
position, and he said, well, honestly, it’s limited, but there could be.
Farkle.
I’m not making any hard and fast commitments for or against
anything. I’m too atwitter with excitement about the job interview this
morning, and already feeling a time crunch to get ready and get out the door.
But, some morning pages, though I admit, not the full ones,
and some blogging, though perhaps not the full thousand or so words.
I couldn’t fall asleep well last night either. I couldn’t
tell if it was nerves or the green tea I had in the afternoon.
What I can tell you
is that after I went to my writing group, I came home and started to work on a
broadside of one of my poems. A broadside is basically like a print of a poem,
large, like a small poster of it. It’s artistic, and has maybe some colors or
images. I don’t have a printing press, so I had to figure it all out by hand, and
I loved it. I had to count the lines in my poem, divide it into the space on
the paper I had, line the paper in the infinitesmal increments for spacing, and
then write the whole thing in. But, I like it.
It’s a first/rough draft. I want to use different paint, as
the paper I have isn’t that great, but I don’t want to buy more. I intend to
try to sell some of them at next week’s reading.
But, I’ll tell you. I had a great time with it. Counting the
number of letters in the longest lines of my poem to figure out how wide the
lettering should be. Practicing the handwriting. And, in the end, seeing that
it sort of does just look like a homemade project 😉 But, I intend to do a
little better job on the next ones, practicing the painting part, so they don’t
obscure the writing.
Anyway, I’ve got to run, wish me luck of the Irish!

p.s., I found 26cents yesterday 😉 

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Pennies from Heaven.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Well, whether it was my colorful display of language that
did it or not, yesterday I applied to a job, and later that afternoon, got an
email to schedule an interview for it.
How ‘bout them apples?
It reminds me of my friend and his parking mantra. When
looking for parking, he repeats a mantra (which, I found out later was, in
fact, an actual Buddhist mantra: Nam-myoho-renge-kyo,
but as I heard it, it was Nam, Yo, Orengie, Kyo). He repeats this mantra, and
insists that it works in helping him to find parking.
In my own experience, I think the way it “works” is that you
say the mantra until you have found parking, and Miraculous! the mantra “worked.” It also is really great at
keeping your mind focused on something other than, damnit there’s no parking.
So, it serves a purpose at least.
Whatever the spiritual or magical effects of the mantra, I
think it’s sort of the same with this job interview on Friday. I cursed at G-d,
then applied for a job, then I got an interview. Did the cursing at G-d “help?”
Would “G-d” be motivated to act by my refusal to accept the anguish of my
situation? Dunno. Maybe not. But, maybe so.
I was writing about it this morning, asking why it’s taken so long for anything like this job, and
the one I have a 2nd interview for tomorrow, to come through. It was
“indicated” that it was simply because these jobs weren’t available yet.
Guffaw. Come on,
Master of the Universe – there were no other jobs that would have been as acceptable as these over the last
three months? I find that hard to believe. So, then, what “lessons” was I, or
am I still, supposed to be learning from this protracted period of panic,
anxiety, and desperation?
A simple and easy answer is: Patience and Persistence.
Farkle. Who wants to learn that?? Have I learned it? Well, in spurts. There have been
periods during this time when I’ve cursed myself into exhaustion, and
“surrendered,” and came to believe that perhaps, just maybe I had a “higher
power” that really did have my best interest in mind. I have come to a place
where, over these months, and through other work I’ve been doing, I’ve come to
introduce myself to a very new Higher Power, one that perhaps, maybe, I might
actually trust.
Because I’ve done so much work on this front, this
particular path of getting closer to spirituality, I’d thought, come on, of course, I believe that my Higher Power has my best interest in mind. Of
course I trust it. But, strikingly, in this new round of work I’m doing, I put
it down on paper, and, in fact, I still have my default G-d. The one that is
untrustworthy, inconsistent, and unreliable.
And so, I’ve been hiring a new one that embodies the
opposite of these qualities.
I’ve imagined this new Higher Power as a Rookie from the
bush leagues, coming up into the Majors. I am the coach or manager. This new
Higher Power is stoked to finally be on
deck. Finally to be able to prove what skills and moves and plans he has. “Put
me in, coach! Put me in!,” he tells me eagerly.
And, so I started to. I began small. Because this is a new entity,
and I’m not sure I entirely trust it; and, very much, trust is an earned emotion. Like any relationship, this is a trial, a
getting to know you period. So, I decided to put my new Higher Power in for a few innings.
I started to say, let’s see how you do for these next few hours, and we’ll
revisit if you’ll be on for the next few.
And I did that, for probably a week or two. Okay,
things have gone well these few hours, let’s see what game plan you might have
for the next few.
And on it went. Until, not long ago, I decided to put this
new player on the team’s official roster. To invite him on, perhaps, permanently.
So. If I’ve begun to form a relationship of trust with a
“Power greater than myself,” can I trust, therefore, that all this mishigas is
actually for my benefit?
Well, there’s the rub. Where the rubber meets the road. A
trust and a faith that works in rough going. Do I have it?
Yikes. Well, what I have is a more firm belief that there is
the option for me now of something/someone I trust more than I have before. I
do feel, honestly, that I’ve established a layer, even a foundation, of trust
with this entity. When I close my eyes in meditation, I can see the eager young
ball player, I can see that he only wants to show me what grand things he can
do and wants to do, if he’s only given the chance.
I can see that this is not a flighty entity.
Therefore, if, as in math, a = b, then b = a. I trust that
this power wants my life to work. Therefore my life is being guided by a force
I can trust.
There’s not really a way around that, unless I question “a”:
that I trust this Power.
So, how does this play out in my everyday life then? Well, I
can remember this equation. I can remember that I have decided to trust this
power based on evidence that I’m not dead, crazy, or in danger. That’s pretty
big evidence. I can continue to gather it on the smaller things too, which is
where, for me, the “real” evidence is – “Okay, you got the big stuff, but what
about this smaller shit – LIKE MY JOB??”
Well, the week that I was putting my HP in the game for a
few innings at a time, I started to find pennies on the ground. Call it
whatever you might, but I considered them “Pennies from Heaven,” and to me,
they were like little winks from the Universe that, yes, I am being taken care
of. That I am and was on the right path.
So, is it a parking mantra? Is this conversation with a new
higher power just something to hold my attention and faith as I go forward with
my job search, never knowing if such a power exists? Maybe. I’ll never know,
will I.
Do I feel better when I think about that Rookie and his
toothy grin, tapping the side of his wooden bat against his cleats, excited to
prove himself to me? You. Bet.