Saturday, July 16, 2011

Stillness appears as a bird magician

We were lucky to win a kayak trip from a ZenFest of all things and met in Jenner early this morning to glide down the river.  There were three other couples and our wonderful guide Mr. J.  It was foggy and we paddled up the river and then back for lunch.  After lunch we paddled towards the mouth of the river and as we moved towards the ocean, on the right, a great stillness, first a bird and then driftwood caught in the tree and then no, a Great Blue Heron.  We paused, floated towards it, the small waves bouncing off our kayak and I felt so very struck by the stillness as this amazing sight drew me in and I recognized that feeling that so often seems inexplicable.  The Great Blue just perched there, viewing us through its bird's eye, the breeze ruffling its bird belly feathers so that I knew it was real.  No driftwood.  All magic.  And so it is that we came to end a wonderful time on the river with laughing strangers and drove homeward filled with the freedom that water brings to me.  I wish I could stay there in my thoughts.

As we drove home, we passed the place where I pulled over last month to get the last call I received for the most recent interview.  I started to go to that place where I remembered trying to make a connection with the two people who "screened" me at the sandwich bar at a south county, national grocery store the next day after the call.  I was neutral that day and hopeful behind the scenes where the little people run around and prepare me for my next performance.  I was neutral, then very present, then resigned, then hopeful, then shocked that they never called me to say nay or yeah, then disappointed.  Such is the life of a job seeker now. It is very hard to stay neutral and be a living, breathing and feeling human being.  Impossible really.

And so in my thoughts, I stepped away from that memory of getting the interview and falling into the dumpster of applicants yet again.  I stepped away and recalled the teal colored water rolling out to the sea, the flock of white pelicans, the fog lying across the Russian river this morning, the Great Blue Heron and our friends for the day.  I hold onto the beauty in this world as my lifesaver. No wands, no smoke and mirrors and no performance.  Rather, extraordinary stillness appearing as a bird magician.

Panic by another other name

Thoughts come edging to the surface this morning as I feed the dogs and make my coffee.  This is the tender and vulnerable part of the day where I do what I can to encourage my heart to open the luggage and see what it there.  For most of my life, I have sent the ticker tape through my mind first and never knew what I really felt.  So these days, unemployed with a roughly scheduled life, I have time to know what my spirit is trying to tell me.

Near the creeping end of my last profession, I sat in a cubicle surrounded by other bright, albeit socially inept, humans working for the government.  Especially in the early morning, I felt the first tendrils of panic clutch at me, as I sat there in my Jones NY shirt and pants-my monkey suit I called it. I could feel the radical changes in the office as if they had come to rest in the center of my chest and I knew, soon, very soon, I would have to decide. 

For anyone out there, right now, I understand the immense loneliness and ragged breathing brought on by the trauma of coming to the reality that all has changed around you and you will have to make a very hard decision.  I could see it around me in the secret meetings managers had every day and feel it in the fabric of the tense, angry phone calls with the public, over and over and over again.

I was tense and afraid and panicked. I had lost 10 pounds over the preceding year and if you know me, that is not a good thing. I was almost out of my mind some days.  Everything I worked for was about to be left at the door to this institution where I left so much of my hope, energy, diligence and my heart. I would have to give up so, so much.  I survived and now, nine months down the line from that cubicle, I have memories of myself, sitting there in my cloistered world, writing thoughts on scratch paper, poems and angry rants in order to survive because there was absolutely no one else who cared to listened.  I have made it out, and now I am free to feel other kinds of panic.

It is hard to give those traumatized days breadth in my writing. I am here now, trying to find the door to the next place that I can thrive in and give my energy, work ethic and my heart.  It doesn't have to be perfect and it does have to let me over the threshold.  And so, now I panic sometimes that I shall never work again.  I am not a slacker nor are others who cannot seem to be recognized.  In fact, we are mostly overachievers who feel compelled to produce something in life.  Now, the rules have changed dramatically.  It feels very strange now kind of like being isolated in that cubicle with almost 80 coworkers and no one calling the bluff of the man in charge.  Even having a union meant silence.  Unions don't protect workers.  They negotiate contracts.  So, now, it feels like a different texture and it is fear just the same.  The remedy?  Swim, run, cycle, hike, read, meditate and don't give up.  Just don't give up.  It cannot have been for nothing.  It just can't.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Not exactly going 80 in the fast lane

Friday afternoon has revealed few jobs to apply for yet I still managed to reach the 80 application mark at WF.  Not exactly a Ferrari ya know?  Dream the dream even if it is an illusion.

A word to others about people mascarading as friends who claim they will put in a good word for us.  For those of you who have jobs and feel stressed out and overworked, take a moment.  Have a cup of tea on a bleak summer afternoon with all of us.  US. If you have no intention of telling the person you know at such and such a place that your good friend is a great person to consider, don't.  If you tell us that you know someone and when we ask you to call them you say yes but you haven't the slight inclination to make any call-don't do it.  We are asking for your help.  Not a magic act but rather just a few words to reflect what you know about us.  Walk in our shoes.  Feel the dirt between your toes.  Do something for someone who is struggling.  We will be eternally thankful and you will be paying it forward. Isn't this why we are here together on planet earth?

My best story about the beloved contact lie that never happened is a friend of my beloved who claimed she knew all kinds of mucky mucks at a national grocery chain.  I asked her in person if she would put in a good word for me and no less than four email requests. I asked her if she had talked to the Produce Manager at the Queen Mary whom she said she was very good friends with and blah, blah, blah.  Needless to say, and you can see this coming but I was still innocent, she never called him, never talked to him and never meant to do anything on my behalf.  She became irritated with me because I kept inquiring and then the light went on in my head.  Cruel joke or just lame human. You decide.

As a postscript, she runs by me on the trials at Spring Lake and I see her camped out in the gym lobby reading her very important email.  I nod and I smile good day. And I have some thoughts about how she never meant what she said.  Do what you say you are going to do or don't make yourself look good claiming you know someone who can help us.  It isn't honest and it sure isn't nice.

Food is the staff of life they say

When it came gushing into my thoughts last summer, that what I was so good at and continually doing in my life could be part of a grocery store environment, I got very excited.  It was an idea from some divine place or so I thought.  The idea of being part of a store's bright, shiny presentation each day was thrilling to me and I had missed it completely.  I had been sitting-literally, in a cubicle for almost 12 years analyzing data and arguing values with people as my job slowly deteriorated to an automaton with a computer mouse.  The joke at home was that trained monkeys would and could be doing my job.  Maybe not this fiscal year but its coming.

And so I began to apply as the Queen Mary was set to sail in Coddingtown.  It was thrilling to look at the photos of the construction progress at the other "Original Santa Rosa" store three blocks from my house.  I would view the pictures and the photo of the project manager and dream a dream of being part of a team of workers who cared about people, products and had such bright attitudes.  That was 78 applications ago.  78.  Not a word.  Nothing.  Just a resume and application questions flying to that parking lot that I spoke of before.  Swirling garbage in an abandoned lot.

For me, now, I still carry the dream and it has been tainted by a lack of response to my enthusiasm by every store in this county.  How is it that a bright, work history success story with excitement, genuine concern for others and a current volunteer gig working as a grocery/produce stocker human cannot get a job in a local grocery store?  How is that?

Today I am off to the Food Bank to work in their office or the Food Bank itself.  I love going there and it is a welcoming, energetic and purposeful place on earth.  We are a grocery store and we give it all away to clients.  We organize the deliveries, fill orders for clients, breakdown stock for distribution, fill the produce case, front the stock on the shelves, clean, clear out cardboard, shuffle frozen deliveries in the walk-in and joke with one another while we are doing it all.  We are a team and it is not just a faux title.  Real people doing real work.  It is not a slogan that means just try to get a job here.  I am valued, like many other volunteers there, for the time, energy and love of humans that we share.  It feels wonderful.  .

And so, WF will continue to turn down my 79th application and on or not-they seldom tell me via those email boilerplate rejections that I am not pretty or something enough-and I will walk forward with my dream intact.  My hope is that "Peter" is out there in some store being promoted to Team Leader and he will say "Whoa," let's talk to that Dancing Carrot........for now, just a fantasy and something that makes me twinkle inside.  TGIF world here I come!

Thursday, July 14, 2011

So goes the nation

The almost full moon was rising up over the neighbor's roof as we made a late dinner.  I thought of the Yahoo news story about those of us, not working and not finding any work, and what it really means to walk around inside our flesh.  Some of us are young and having the same despair that the rest of us are having.  Despair inwardly sharpening its dull blade upon our stalwart hearts.  We are survivors and so many people do not get it at all.  Tomorrow, so many people will rush off to work, texting or using their very much hands on phones as they merge, tailgate and try to run down others on the road and in the crosswalk.  We are all in such a hurry to get to where we will still arrive stressed, disconnected and empty.  Tonight, a woman I greatly admire told me that how I am matters.  It seems so simple and yet, it is not.  A gift, with a delicate bow, offered in a soft post Georgia twang, arrived just in time for the moon to reflect the brilliance of just this kind of treasure we give to one another. Pass it on, pass it on.  Bless you all.

Today just is for now

Looking for work, being out of work, unemployed or not in the workforce currently are all twisted paths to the same thing. We know. We know.  We don't want to say it or have people think we are the losers that we feel that we are.  Oh, we have been marketed, did I mention that?  So, it starts with sun up and what I tell myself.

This morning is golden and bright and promising as the sun comes up over Annadel.  It begins to peek over the back fence near the roses.  The roses, red and red and red, begin to glow inside out with their crimson bodies lit from the morning sunrise.  There is a bit of NPR and then, ugh, enough.  A poor man's mocha-coffee with instant chocolate-and a few moments where my mind adjusts before I skitter off in some direction.  It is right here, in this in-between, where the demons lie in wait to see how vulnerable I am today.  Anything can stir them to action.  Some news drama about the right wing politicians can bring them up from their slimy bunker and into my thoughts about my future and lack of response from the world  or job offers from the most simple job opportunity. 

This morning is so lovely and the county in which I live so very blessed by summer days that begin just like this, that I am in the batters box waiting for the demons to throw errant balls at me but I do not budge.  Like my Qigong teacher who gives us a bit of Tai-Chi in the mix, I deflect and stay grounded.  I don't need to fight back today.  Today just is for now. 

I will walk the waiting Greyhounds and I will write, I will look for work and see what it out there because I know I have so much to give back to a world that will not turn my way.  No matter I say.  Maybe it is genetic or maybe I am just tired of letting the demons pitch baseballs at me.  No matter, I shall prevail.  "Peter" will be there one day when I am not counting on him.  I shall keep the faith, as if it were a small torch placed in the secret door to my heart, the click of the door registers the treasure within, and I shall carry that torch into the world today.  I believe in myself.  Let the day begin....oh, it has, it has. Let's go.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

The non-technology day or something close to it

Wednesday began to be a day of no computer or phone intrigue.  I began to need that space from this one dimensional world in order to bring peace to my mind.  It started as I began...always beginning...to feel that looking for a job was much like waiting at the opening of a train tunnel.  I was waiting there looking down the long passage and waiting.  I knew that the train would be coming and that the engine light would slowly fill up the tunnel as the the train came nearer and nearer to me.  My mistake.  No train came.  Yet I still waited with an open heart and mind, stoking my own engine-the one that is with me when I wake each day-with belief in myself and my skills and my place in the world.  And so the train still hasn't come.  I have stepped back from the opening, still thinking it will arrive one day and I will pull myself up by the worn, brass railing and onto the landing between the engine and the first passenger compartment.

For now, I am beside the tunnel, in the shade with an iced tea.  Yes, I still stoke my own engine and this is how I came to it.  I take Wednesday off from the pursuit.  I needed that early on to feel like I was taking back the power that employers seem to snatch up and toss away in some abandoned parking lot where all those online resumes seem to go.  They scatter around in the open lot like fodder for some wind ghost who heartily cackles as the hopeful wait by their phones for the "call." 

I came to feel that if I did get an interview and spent my day preparing and driving to the appointment, waiting for them to come fetch me from the front of the store or the office to which I applied, giving them my pitch with my enthusiastic, genuine, bright and hopeful self, they asked the same five questions.  I could almost count on it.  Their faces gave nothing away as I grew anxious trying to make a connection with them.  With some people, I may have thought I had a chance and then nothing.  No call and no email to tell me that I was not chosen.  Nothing. This has happened over and over and over again.

And so I came to take a day off from all of that calloused energy.  I start with walking the dogs.  Then I shower and go to the gym where I swim in the pool.  If Ms. M. is there already, gracefully swimming her laps, then I know all is well with the world.  She is a regular and her vibe gets people to choose other lanes.  She is a fixture and a strong, confident woman swimmer.  She is one of my heroes.  I watch her with awe as I attempt to do two 50s without stopping.  For me, the sapphire water, like a gem in my thoughts, becomes a place of beauty and safety.  I have been here when it was hailing or raining and cold and swam laps regardless.  It is my release from a world that tries to tell me that I no longer matter.  The water has saved me from my own dark thoughts and restores the balance in my life.  I feel buoyant and revitalized.  Reborn but not like it sounds.

Some Wednesdays, I don't answer the phone either.  That helps to release that focus on the phone that applying for jobs does to the human brain.  It feels cruel to look to the phone for an answer but there it is for us.  So, if you are trying to find me you will need to call multiple times and you may not get me then anyway.   Whether we apply for jobs or not, the same thing seems to happen.  We are people just like me.  I graduated with honors and have an exemplary work history full of success and service but I cannot get a job mopping floors at the local grocery store.  Hmmmmmmm.  What do you call that?

Wednesday is here and off to go swimming!

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

WF and the afterlife

And so it seems even a "former" Team Member cannot even get back inside the door.  I am not qualified enough for cashier but overqualified for "sanitation?"  Whew, that makes my head spin.

http://www.wallenda.com/

Unfavorable mention and the Flying Wallendas

To the world, I add the list of potential employers who could not either see past the past or even respond to an application with a nay.  This is more common than the rest of you who pack your lunch in the morning understand.  Respect?  Our time and efforts do not even put a dent in the fender.  Is it age discrimination or is it that no one really cares about the worker they seek?  Caring means one has manners and endeavors to respond with a polite "no thank you" or "we chose another" prettier than you.  Deal.  Okay, we do deal.  We do that every day and fluff our auras and believe in ourselves even though you cannot even tell us no after our applications, emails, questions and efforts.  Our time.  It seems like your time is the ultimate.  Kind of arrogant isn't it?  So, my dream job-Community Market who cannot seem to hire someone over 50-Oliver's Market-no 3 AM is not an "early morning shift" but actually the middle of the night!-Trader Joe's-County of Sonoma Park and Recreation Department-City of Rohnert Park-Whole Foods, all five stores and counting-Kaiser Permanente-RCHC-Central Animal Hospital-Imwalle's-Andy's Produce-a multitude of Craigslist employers who never identify themselves and to whom I have applied and never, ever heard from, a multitude of employers, albeit left wing, on the WACCObb list to whom I have applied and never, ever heard from-Exchange Bank, Home Depot, Small Animal Hospital of Cotati, FedEx, King's Nursery, Taylor Maid Coffee, Alvarado Street, Traditional Medicinals, Harmony Farm Supply, Sonoma County Farm Trails, DAAC, Sonoma State University and the Sonoma County Fair 2011 just to name a few.  Have I been busy?  Yes I ....have! My thoughts unnaturally turn to the Flying Wallendas and their amazing feet of relying upon one another.  All of them depend upon the connection they have and each one must respect and admire and of course, depend upon, the power and skill of the other Wallendas.  And so it is that I dream of someone we shall call "Peter" who realizes that I am just the right Wallenda to put on the pyramid.  I never stop thinking of my place in the balance and all who make up the team.  I am a Wallenda through and through.

7 months does not create a life form

Kind of low today and playing the Dolly Parton song over and over and over again.  I can use the planted, positive thoughts of a strong, tiny woman.  I went to the gym with my hat brim way down.  Don't bother me.  Don't mess with my head.  I am trying to get through.  The world carries on and tailgates me on the way home, texts while driving, rejects my job applications.  Guess what?  I am still here!  As bright and as strong and as friendly and tenacious as ever.  You are not breaking me!  78 WF applications and counting.  This is the "letter to the world that never wrote to me."  No kidding.  Seven months looking, hoping and imagining and still...tick tock...counting.  Dream big.  Dream whether they get it or not.  Keep dreaming.