A Multi-Cultural Farce

What a strange day this was and so glad that someone thought up the idea of  Friday.  T.G.I.F. indeed. I am now home after sharing a big old pizza with a friend who knows me well.  There is nothing like friendship to cure the ills of a weird year thus far, weird week, weird day. I am so glad someone thought up friends and pizza.

The multi-cultural farce of this day started with a very strange after lunch meeting in the crowded shop where we store our stuff and where lots of other stuff sits around or ends up on the floor until they clean it up.  Strange way to do business.  We are all sitting and standing around when my co-worker accuses me of telling one of the residents that he is lazy.  He further accused me of saying to this resident how hard I work in comparison to my co-workers and not to tell anyone or I will get in trouble.

It gets stranger.

First of all, I am not a snitch nor am I stupid or lacking in common decency enough to talk up the shortcomings of my co-workers, of which there are plenty, to a resident of our not-so-fine establishment.  In fact, I was sideswiped by his accusations.  Mr. Big I appeared quite sure I did just that though he would not say who the perpetrator in question was.  Mr. Big II started to chime in on my inability to sweep perfectly to which I got really freaking mad.

It gets stranger.

I defended myself to this very strange accusation on this strange day and we all parted after more posturing by my not-so-fine co-workers for some more weeding, imperfect sweeping and generally get me to quitting time thoughts.  It came and went and I must say it felt odd, annoying, dark and definitely filled with resentment in the air about having a tiny woman out-work you every single day. 

It gets stranger.

I find out when I get home another co-worker, a man, had a loud conversation with a resident where he said that Mr. Big I is lazy and his sister, also an employee, heard this and reported it to her brother.  Her brother-Mr. Big I, then decides that the person impugning his character is me and the snow ball comes down the hill full blast. Somewhere between someone else saying what everyone thinks without my saying so and my accuser is the multi-cultural farce where I work.

Non-native English speakers fill in the gaps just like native English speakers and something is still lost in the translation.  One thing is for sure however, I am working in the wrong job, wrong time, wrong place.  Hurt, anger and accusations sent me on my way home yet I know that I prefer comedy to drama.

Enough is enough.

If God Were A Hummingbird

I have been in my head so much lately that a song on the radio last night, as I drove home from the gym, warranted a volume up to blasting.  I have not been having nearly enough fun with very little emphasis on laughing at all.  Far too serious and far too self involved.  Not a good recipe for a job seeker or for a person who tends towards the dark end of life's spectrum.

Actually, tending towards the dark end of the pool allows me to feel compassion for others though like many humans, I am most demanding of myself.  Cultivating a gentle hand for myself was not part of my childhood lessons and so I filled in the gaps.  Or the part of me that tried to make sense of a family home as violent and abusive as ours led me to decide it must be "my fault" if bad things happen.  You know who you are so just know that I know.

I had two job interviews in the last seven days and I am still waiting to find out if I cleared the bar on both.  This silence that follows an interview often means something less than kind for those of my ilk.  And so, I have tried something different as I wait but don't wait or rather hope without knowing what hope really feels like.

I imagined that in a bay off the coast of somewhere there is a ship anchored with the employees of one store where I interviewed.  They are standing on the deck in their company sweatshirts and they are looking towards me.  At times, they cheer. At times they shout encouragement to keep rowing, keep rowing.

I am in a perfect Nantucket, white row boat with a royal blue stripe around the rim.  I pull on well worn wooden oars and my dog Rosie is stationed at the bow, her huge, white angel wings extended like a sail themselves. Rosie does that dog snot thing where she breathes in the sea air and blows snot out her long, Greyhound nose.  She looks back at me from time to time as I pull the oars against the incoming tide. 

At times this week while raking, weeding, spreading compost, sweeping and hoping, I reminded myself that I am still out there rowing.  Sometimes there is the voice of the people on board telling me to keep on and sometimes it is the benevolent voice in myself that tells me to hope because hoping is worth it.  I am worth it.

Today there was another boat in the water which held one of my co-workers who had a second interview at an awesome company called Traditional Medicinals. She is a woman who has suffered through a variety of betrayals at our place of work and who also expects the worst but deserves the very best.  And so I placed her in a boat with a man in a black chauffeur's cap rowing her white boat with red stripe to the shore where she would go for her interview. Maybe that is just the kind of prayer someone needs to get to the finish line.

I am home now writing and getting ready to shower and do my homework for a college class I am taking.  I am feeling emotional and kind of sad and I am still rowing there in the bay towards the ship with my new co-workers waiting for me. 

A thought came to me this afternoon as I freshened up the fruit tree rings in Commons B & C, as a hummingbird clicked away and drank from a nearby feeder.  What if God is a hummingbird?  Every flower would be red and full of pollen because the "God" in everyone, our benevolent better selves in other words, wants the best for us.  The "God" in everyone is there in the row boat whether we are aware of it or not.

The Verve Of Margaret Thatcher

Okay, I do drive a British car and she does wear the Union Jack on her side view mirrors.  She is a tiny little sprite of a car that can escalate the freeway entrance at a very high rate of speed.  I am in love with my car.  However, it is a fact that I was raised in the era when the Irish Republican Army was at war with England, killing people with bombs that rocked Britain for some time.  Scary times.  Fearless Celts.  My kin.

Having lived in a household with a Celtic, alcoholic mother whose favorite saying was something like, "I am sending bullets to the IRA," going to see The Iron Lady with Meryl Streep yesterday was as much about an unceasing admiration of everything Ms. Streep does and the times I lived through historically.  Having a Celtic ancestry means you feel the domination of the British empire in your flesh.  Your hackles get raised by the inference and arrogance of the Brits because "your people" survived as poor serfs under their cruel power.  Ancestry is funny like that.  I wonder if there is gene for it.

We celebrated our anniversary by trekking to Fairfax in Marin County to chase another stupendous vegetarian/vegan lunch.  We went to sit in a very sunny window table at Cafe Lotus which serves gluten free/vegan Indian food.  The aroma in the small restaurant hit me like a lunch time truck and I was ready to order everything on the menu.

After consuming vegan Samosas, Bengan Bharta and garlic vegan Nan with brown rice, we were pretty darn happy.  We walked the small town of Fairfax and came upon The Scoop-organic, homemade ice cream, and I ordered a "real double" which was a very large two scoop extravaganza.  In fact, it took me quite some time to finish it and I was finally full. 

We eventually made our way to The Fairfax Theatre in town to watch The Iron Lady.  From beginning to end, I was moved, maddened, sorrowful, delighted and swept up by Meryl Streep's performance.  Ms. Streep is Margaret Thatcher and it left me thinking about my own path in life right now.  I have often felt that I wanted to do something that mattered, on a smaller scale, much smaller and I try.  I do try very hard to do just that.

There are parallels for me.  Friday I nearly quit my job because Mr. Big I and II went to clean up the irrigation shed because it was raining.  I was left raking in the rain and now soaking wet, and slowly but surely became incensed.  I made a decision to go find an indoor project myself but by then I was furious with my bloody sword drawn so to speak. My Celtic background fuels my sense of outrage at these kinds of things with a kind of bloodthirsty ire that almost seems I can hear the pipes coming up behind me.

This is the kind of outright sexist crap that I deal with every day.  Mr. Big II never gets that he is doing something unfair.  It almost seems that both of my co-workers cannot fathom what it is like to endure discrimination even though they are both from another culture, another male dominated world.  In fact, singling out their hard working, female counterpart for outright derision and isolation seems normal.  They don't even get it.  I find it exhausting. 

I write all this because in The Iron Lady, Thatcher's story as a woman entering the very kind of world in which I work is depicted in a way that allows us to feel the unfairness as well as her unrelenting force of personal strength and fortitude.  I have that also.  Most women have this kind of courage because we usually have to fight our way to the surface.  It is called male priviledge but that is really cleaning it up quite a bit. It is business as usual and we don't let it break us.  On the contrary.

In fact I have an interview for another job tomorrow and the pipers will be playing behind me as I enter the building to show my face to be one of reliability, strength and unrelenting character.  I am a great employee and co-worker and I refuse to continue to be left raking in the rain. 

They shall "rue the day" as Maggie would say.

Mile 9 In A Half Marathon

After trading three emails with an H.R. manager at a grocery store where I have been trying to get hired since last April, tearing up during my morning meditation as I asked for the guidance to give my dream some real steam, holding the wish and intention of getting an interview with them, staring at the back of their store from the loading dock at my current job and trying to will them to call me, I began to falter a bit this afternoon.

For any job seeker, holding a positive intention is a difficult balance.  When do you throw your arms up during the roller coaster ride and scream your ass off and when do you grip the side rail? A prayer, a wish and an intention are made from the same cloth.  We call it positive thinking but maybe it is simply a belief in ourselves regardless of the outcome.  However, it is difficult when the interest comes and then it goes.  How do we relax?  How do we believe and then let go?

And so it is that I am almost dead on my feet tired at my now four months of working as a gardener.  The same uncertain climate has led to daily if not several times a day being overly criticized by the lead gardener for doing something wrong.  Not exactly.  Sexism and not such a pretty word when you watch your co-workers do the minimum and you are the one getting grief for doing excellent work in half the time.  No kidding.  It has gotten really, really old.  Yeah, I'm the girl.

I hold the dream that the H.R. manager really meant what she said in the last email and hope that tomorrow will bring a phone call for an interview.  I have been here many times and that is what it is like to look for work in 2012.  It reminds me of running a half marathon. At about mile nine, your mind tells your body to stop running though there are 3.1 miles to go.  As a runner, you then try to pry up that relentless voice in your head to find, underneath, the character and the guts to go the distance and cross the finish line still running. 

I am still running.

The Loving Hut And Harry The Whippet

Yesterday some friends took us along on their sweet adventure to San Francisco for lunch and a dog park and a coffee shop.  It was as if the heavens shown down upon us as the weather was clear and sunny in the city.  So sunny that by day's end we had seen four naked people on the streets of San Francisco.  Well then it is the city.

First stop at a dog park in Petaluma for a brief constitutional for our four legged friend and so many different dogs were there.  Cavorting and sniffing and running amok were various dog friends who all seem to be very well behaved in this large dog park near Hwy 101.  I was so impressed and for me, dogs are like a tickling breeze to my troubled mind.  Any kind of dog peaks my interest and I find a way to get close to them if I can. 

We then traipsed to San Francisco and found the restaurant that Ms. M. found for us on the great Internet highway.  A vegan Chinese restaurant is an unknown in our part of northern California and so it was an exciting event.  The Loving Hut as it is called has a 100% vegan menu.  It is a clean and bright place with so many wonderful things to eat.  Wow.  All our meals were outstanding and one could not tell that no meat in any way passed our plates.  In fact, for desert I had banana fritters with vanilla ice cream that made me feel giddy and almost otherworldly.  What an incredible lunch with our fascinating friends and their rich stories.  We left The Loving Hut feeling full and ready to take a walk.

We ended up at our friend's new dog park find and spent some time watching and petting other dogs as our four legged co-adventurer checked out her kin.  A man with an elderly Whippet came in a while and I made my way to Harry.  Harry had once been a puppy with lots to sniff and wag about.  I found that Harry seemed to be very stiff and in pain.  I wondered if his owner realized just how hard it is to be a 15 year old Whippet with back pain.

I wanted to snatch Harry up and take him home and treat him with Rimadyl and massage and acupuncture daily.  He came and stood in the crook of my bent knees, just like Rosie and it pretty much broke my heart.  Harry is one of those dogs who steal your heart before you know what has hit you.  Perhaps there is a Whippet in my future?  If so, may he have the kind of soul that Harry shared with me on a sunny day in San Francisco. May you have a soft landing Harry.

We left the dog park and walked "The Castro" which seems to have turned more vaudeville than I remember.  However, the bar where I used to drink was still doing a thriving business.  That bar now has cafe tables out front where the naked man we saw walking down the street found a chair amongst clothed patrons who did not even give it another wink that he was, indeed, naked as a jay bird. We stopped by the coffee shop and onto our car for a brief sojourn to the marina where the ocean was dotted with yachts and boats coming in from an afternoon on San Francisco bay.

All in all, I felt full of sunshine, people watching, great food, dogs and love as we traveled north past the beginnings of late afternoon across those Marin county hills that are the gateway to our beautiful county here. It seemed like I had stepped out of my troubles and I feel so fortunate to have been included in such a glorious adventure with great humans, a puffy dog friend and Edith, the GPS maven.  Thank you everyone.  Boy did I need that!

Roses Have Thorns For A Reason

I have now pruned over 25 rose bushes on our campus at work in the last week.  When I close my eyes, I see an imprint of the bud unions, dead and crossed canes laden with now blistered rose buds.  The roses that bloomed later this fall because the weather has been so warm became blistered with the frost and failed to open.  It is as if they were stopped in their tracks from opening and revealing the beauty within on these freezing mornings and warm, warm afternoons in northern California.

I have a pair of hand clippers and two loppers which I use to save my old hands.  I am pretty good at this and my co-workers were not doing the pruning.  Too girlie I guess.  Actually, they went off together as they usually do because it is some strange sexist male bonding thing to work together, and dug an enormous hole in one of the lawns.  They were looking for a water leak they never found.  Of course, this is the macho work that they seem to think needs doing.  As my mother used to say, "Another flock flew over."

I thought of roses as an analogy for my life today as something that is forbidding because of the pain those thorns incur even on gloved hands.  They bite and they have a simple beauty that forces us to endure their inflicted pain.  Life is difficult at times like today, last week or last month.  And yet life holds the beauty of a warm winter afternoon with robins nearby in the underbrush, sun on my tired shoulders and an appreciation of a paycheck tomorrow. 

Like roses, life has thorns and I do my best to admire the beauty that evolves, small and way big, while handling the sharpness of disappointment and struggles with gloves and a delicate touch for my sensitive heart.  I send out understanding to all who travel with me in hopes that they will find solace, peace and compassion tonight. May the road rise with you and may there be more than a few blooming rose bushes along the way.

Staying Can Be Herculean

Today's not so earth shattering inspiration for the day from Daily Wisdom-365 Buddhist Inspirations says: "No matter how hard you pursue pleasure or success,there are times when you fail. No matter how fast you flee, there are times when pain catches up to you."-Bhante Henepola Gunaratana.

OK, maybe it can be earth shattering if one can crack the door to the great unknown of life.  I am having a difficult time staying, having traversed the emotional landscape in a rusted out jalopy with bald tires and a steaming radiator.  Figurative of course.  Just the same, I have tried every exit sign this week, railed against the gates that would not open, justified my anger and my fear with some lame story in my head that repeats...you are a loser that is why...and then just tried to get to the finish line and wonder.

Friday night I went straight to the gym and went swimming after work in the oncoming twilight of evening.  There was a full moon appearing through the stark branches of the trees and the sound of traffic coming up around us three swimmers.  It was a bit of bliss with the outdoor pool a fine degrees and I felt a baptismal of water and relief come over me.  A hot shower afterwards and some quickly consumed Mexican food at El Patio rounded out my escape from a hour a week gardening job that is much less than I had originally hoped for in life.

Saturday came and went with some sleep, Qigong in the park, a few errands and a late evening grocery trip to Oliver's Market.  Shopping later in the evening when everyone else is home having a life can actually be fun. I saw the very petite, young produce worker hauling her cart to the back of store with admiration and desire.  Desire for her job actually, not her. If she can work there so could I.  I wish, I wish, I wish. 

I walk into grocery stores as if someone going to a car showroom. Strange but true.  I check out there presentation and yearn for a place there.  Is anyone home?  What happened to grocery jobs being working class opportunities.  Now it seems completely out of reach but still wished for and perplexing. Maybe this will be one of those times when I fail.  I just have a hard time believing it and so I continue to resent, yearn, resent, dream, accept, dream and maybe resent again.  The grief cycle of looking for a good job in America.

Sunday is here and I made some Chandra's Chai, ate cinnamon rolls and now for a dog walk and a run.  Maybe I will find some peace out there in the bright, sunny morning of this day.  May you all find that wherever you are in the world.