Trained monkeys picking coffee beans.

Yes means yes and no means no.  Sort of.  Well, not exactly. It has not really been a banner week for me though the beautiful place in which I live thrives at this time of year.  The County fair starts today too.  I love that.  Actually, I applied for a job there this year.  Something new for me.  They never responded.  Yes, there it is again.

Last night, an actual response to my interview last week came via email and I did not make it to the finals.  Though I had told myself I let it go as I walked to my car that day, and I did, the rejection was difficult to take.  For me, there have been so many in the last almost nine months.  The no of a non-response and the no we are choosing someone else are almost equally as difficult.  For me, weathering all of this turns me inside out.  I must see if my thoughts match my actions.  How can I improve my outlook or adjust to the world as it is?  How can I accept the no when it really flies home to my heart? I found it difficult to just receive yet another clamped down, gate slammed shut, rebuff that leaves me standing there in the road smelling everything burning around me.  My California. 

Each time I take in, absorb and return to the source of myself, here inside this small frame, I encounter the risk of being unemployed and what that does to your self image.  There is no one to help us out of this one.  What it feels like is almost impossible to show you and yet, imagine this next scenario. 

Imagine that you are newly single and you search for nine months, without fail, through ups and downs of your questioning of how you might improve to become more attractive to others and continuously you receive rejections over and over and over again.  Do you keep telling yourself that all it will take is someone seeing who you really are and welcoming you home?  Do you give yourself messages throughout the day that you are kind, loving, attractive and generous?  Or do you simply give up and join a cult, realizing that no one is going to get it.

OK, no cults for me.  However, when no comes home this many times, you think of moving somewhere else where things are thriving and fruitful.  Is there any place like that left?  Maybe the trained monkeys picking coffee beans in the mountains have a place for me.

Hope is a thing with feathers and claws

The new norm, though many of you who are right now bustling around at your workplace won't ever know what this feels like, is the non-response.  It is as if the world has adopted the ultimate dysfunctional  method of conveying the obviousness of their reply.  Nothing.  For those of us trying to move forward and connect, belong and plan for our futures, although our control of it is a moot point in life as we are in the valley of out-of-control and then some, it feels like the claws of something huge has us by the shoulders and is dragging us across the landscape. 

Nothingness can feel palpable and it does.  How do we explain this to you? As if our hope had become our downfall.  Now tell me that isn't so.  And yet, it feels as if the minute I have a hope for my future, a brightness in applying for a job that holds the promise of opening up into challenges, rewarding moments, purpose and maybe even riding my bike to work becomes my nemesis. 

The trench as wave experts report, on the other side of this freak wave of hope, is immense and dangerous. We shall surf up to the lip of this rogue wave only to find that the other side will drown us for sure. For me, Emily Dickinson may have thought that "Hope is a thing with feathers," but she apparently did not know that thing had claws too.

What goes around

A brief foray into the ocean this morning with other seekers created some relief from the doldrums of another week looking for work that has yet to arrive.  Will it? We cannot often know what is in store for us.  Actually, we only imagine it is in the hands of something larger than ourselves and when something random strikes us as premeditated by a power greater than ourselves, we think it is destined.  I am not so sure about that.

For me, I attempt to find the place of grace where loving kindness towards others becomes more natural.  The ocean, its' random seeming waves wide open to the sea this summer mirrors how life has come to seem to me.  Sometimes just arriving in the water after so many in our group have challenges real and self-created, can be a miracle in itself. We are a fractious group of body boarders.

Another friend who is within a few years of my age talks to me about the black hole into which are resumes descend.  Another application.  Another trail of nothing.  And so we bob in the water together and attempt to lose our blues.  The ocean brings a person right present and the energy of all that surf helps to cast our fates beyond the breakers. 

Onward towards the afternoon, I have looked through today's job prospects-we should call them something much more honest-and applied for one, sole job.  This is how the summer has transpired.  I refuse to let it break me and I shall continue to play in the surf when I can, knowing that what goes around will one day, come back around.

Not waiting for Monday

For those of us who cannot seem to make a beginning these days, this summer, this year when we hope for a change in our lives that includes a job and a paycheck to attend our efforts, some chance to put ourselves forward into the stream that seems to ebb below the surface of each week that carries everyone else down the river of life.  For those of us who cannot seem to get any, albeit very little, recognition of our skills, our energy and our selves in the work world, Monday looms.  It can if you are waiting for an answer from the world that never seems to call. It can seem like a very cruel joke.  It is, at least, an unfeeling response.  I don't feel or imagine it is about deserving but it is about being chosen.  For me, this is a very slippery slope.  To feel solid about oneself when all around you other people are getting ready to go to a party that you were not invited to and won't be, begins with strength of character. 

So today, as Monday looms, and the week fans out like a gambler's hand secreted close to the body, I have places to volunteer, some home projects, some life projects and I still have hope that an answer or several will emerge from the bracken.  However, I am doing most of this life without waiting.  I am moving on regardless of the lack of response to my resume or applications.  I hold the line and seek, apply and send my request into the unknown but I don't wait.  I plan and volunteer and move in my life.  This is not easy.  This does not mean I don't ever worry.  This is not some kind of Zen fearless zone.  This is living and being and hoping that one day "Peter" will arrive in town and hold interviews.  This is doing my best to believe in myself and my goals.  Not waiting for Monday is a job in itself. 

For today, we will go hiking in one of our most beloved places, cast a view towards Jenner and eat some home packed lunch.  It is that easy today.  Tomorrow will be a bit harder.  Tomorrow is Monday.

Are you being of service or are you taking up space?

For some, the act of giving and teaching by example in doing so, almost seems reflexive.  They cannot help it.  For some of us, we learn that compassionately and genuinely serving our fellow humans is the the meaningful link we were always missing.  We are reformed self-centered humans and trying to be "of service" to others in ways heretofore unknown to us.  However, being a doormat is not part of serving others.  Strength of character is an integral component of service.

And so I have returned from the memorial of Ms. P. who is one of those folks who could not stop helping others.  She instructed us, shared with us, revered some of us and made us all feel special in some way.  To each of us, she saw our best qualities and reflected them whether we were deserving or not.  She was remembered today as someone who touched the lives of many in a deeply profound yet stalwart manner.  Ms. P. advocated for each one of us in some personal way and those were the stories told today.  She loved, she listened, she shared and she stood by each one of us.  She could not help it. 

Today was perfect weather in Guerneville and I imagine her reveling in the place we held in her driveway speaking about how she mattered to us, singing and crying and laughing too.  Wasn't it a beautiful sight Ms. P.? 

For some of us it takes more of an effort to serve others seamlessly as my friend accomplished.  For some of us we could use a stint at doing much more of it so that we might take up less space taking, taking and taking. And some of us need to make a start somewhere, somehow in a way that "isn't all about us" but rather all about what kind of mark we leave on our journey.  You know what John F. Kennedy had to say about this so I won't batter you with the idea.  Make a start and don't do it and tell someone you did in order to gain attention.  Do it simply because doing it makes the planet a better place to be living for all of us. Let us all use the example of Ms. P. as our guide and try our best to make it stick.

Peace be with you my friend.  I shall miss your truth.

Youth in Asia and saying goodbye in any language

This week has brought many hellos and goodbyes bubbling up like messages from a deep, deep ocean.  I haven't been in the ocean much this summer as the season changes and it is harder to go out by myself.

I am no "Intruder In The Surf" (http://surfandthefury.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html) but rather a human trying to wash my sins away in the salty brine of the great sea's energy.  My "friends" and family seem to have scattered and though it has been shocking to feel what it feels like when people admire your courage, watch you on your raft floating on the water and don't call the Coast Guard, it is the reality.  People have things to do and places to go, don't they?  The last thing they want is an unemployed person dragging them down.  How many of us are feeling this on this Friday in July, 2011?

A frank discussion yesterday with my interviewer about euthanasia led to a new understanding for me about how animal shelters decide who stays and who goes.  For them they must make these decisions which we would rather not know and for which we would rather objectify them in very, very harsh terms.  They are out gatekeepers though and we ask them to illuminate the exit sign for so many animals that we selfishly create and then abandon.  Most people won't even tell us that they are leaving us behind although we know it before we are left standing in the wake of their SUV-iPhone-run-you-down-in-the crosswalk-while I speed-away lifestyle.

The unemployed aren't just wooden objects on the Ouija board of life, though it can feel like you have reached the Hotel California where your nightmare of getting into the lobby and then never finding the door out plays over and over again in your life.  We are humans, needing company, needing others to believe in us when we stop believing in us, needing cups of coffee bought by employed friends who still love us, needing emails and hallmark cards and most of all needing contact with other humans.  We need hellos.  Yes, it is a big job and you are just the person who could make a difference for someone struggling to find meaningful work.  Call the Coast Guard, send the card, write the email every week, call, text, whatever.  Walk in our shoes.  Don't forget us. 

And so it is that I am remembering my friend Ms. P. on the eve of my friend's memorial tomorrow, I remember her and all that she shared in her life to teach others and share her passion of directing us all to higher peaks from which she viewed life.  Ms. P. died on 6/21/11 and I was able to wave hello and goodbye from the doorway. I did so in my inner language which she understood so well.  I shall miss her forever and a day.  Tomorrow we shall commemorate her life and we shall be saying goodbye in any language. May the "road rise with you" Ms. P.

Adrift in the job seeker life boat

Tea time somewhere in the world and make mine iced today.  Coming down from an interview as it always seems with its strangeness, wonder, hopefulness, anxiety and calm.  Yes, this time I was so much calmer.  That was my goal today-to be more present and more calm.  For me, the interview builds and I begin to feel tense and attached-so attached, to the outcome.  If only this or if I only said that.  This time, my goal was different and it felt like watching myself watch myself.

Something different too was that the interviewer was running late which put me in a chair by the window.  The house cat, silky and jet black with those green, otherworldly eyes, came and sat on my lap for some time.  He purred.  I relaxed.  He purred and the moment was right there brought to my small self. Maybe every employer should have a house cat so that we can all calm the you-know-what down.

And so I exited the interview feeling really good about myself and how I communicate what is so very hard to do.  At times, it is as if the employer has already decided and your anxiety is better spent somewhere else.  Today, 12 people were being interviewed for a 20 hour a week, temporary position.  I am fortunate to have been given some air time and I am all too aware of that.

However, as I left, the next interviewee was someone with whom I crossed paths as a volunteer and who was laid off in the recent fiscal year, government trim.  She is very qualified and dedicated.  She never seemed to be open to me when I was a volunteer yet I smiled at her as I walked to my car. I turned in my thoughts and said a prayer for her.  Rather, I asked the H/P to do what she could for this woman instead of myself.  That is my form of prayer and I do so with the compassion that comes from being in the same life boat and wanting all of us to survive until we reach land.  Good luck M., you deserve it!