I attended a seminar on personal reinvention last night, presented by a local author, Claire Cooke, Must Love Dogs, Summer Blow Out, and Wildwater Walking Club. Not thinking that she has six published books to her name as well as a feature movie created from one, I wandered out the door last night to make a ten minute ride with about fifteen minutes to spare. Oops. As I drove by the little blue bookstore holding the event, a line of humanity snaked down the front path. Once I joined the queue, I noticed a camera man pointing his lens out the front door. All in good time we realized that The Today Show was filming a segment on the author and would be covering her presentation last night. Hmmm. As the camera swung toward me, I artfully stepped behind a taller woman in front. Yes, I’m in the process of reinventing myself, but until I’m a bit further along, I prefer to do it away from national TV.
Due to the crowd and the camera crew, things were pretty tight--the author graciously stepped outside after the filming was complete and conducted the rest of her seminar from the steps of the book store to the group outside. If you haven’t read Claire Cook’s first book Must Love Dogs, then you don’t know that she used to be a teacher, and that she completed that first novel while sitting in the car, waiting for her daughter to finish swim practice. Last night she called that writing period her “guilty pleasure,” the time she did what she wasn’t supposed to be doing. Aha, I can relate.
Here are all the things I have not done in the last three weeks, while I have continued (with some disruption due to company) my guilty pleasure, which is writing this blog:
I have not finished The Copywriter’s Handbook. I did however, read Blessings, by Anna Quindlen.
I have not identified other freelance writers with whom to network. I did request to join two freelance writers groups on LinkedIn but to date I have not received acceptances from the group administrators. It’s been over a week, I’m feeling deflated.
I have not identified a course to take to further my writing career. Writers’ Digest is offering a 20% discount for the month of July. Several topics intrigue me…but none of them cover business writing. I did complete a long stalled essay, it is now out in the black hole of editor-land, and now I spend my time second guessing it.
I have not networked to find someone to help me develop a website (I’ll trade services if you need me to write your copy). I did find a little exercise on About.com and created my own first website. It says: “This is my first website.” That’s as far as I got.
I have not come up with a name for my potential business, and I have not opened a small business account. It goes without saying that I don’t have business cards.
When Claire Cook said: “Every day there is a really good reason not to get your work done” I thought to myself, I am getting work done. It’s the paying work that's a struggle.
Sigh. Today I’m scheduled to go back to the outplacement office. Perhaps that will get me back on track.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Summer Dreams
Today begins the first week this summer that neither my daughter nor I have anything extensive scheduled. Before I acquired my own, ahem, unstructured time, she attended camp in some capacity--day camp, overnight camp; she’ll repeat a counselor in training experience in mid July. That commitment however, extends only for a month. A bonus with regard to my employment status arrived in the form of our ability to offer her a few unplanned summer weeks. Her first week off from school we had company, so we were busy enough. This week though, she and I are a bit unsure of the blank calendar hanging by the desk. Watching the weather forecast calling for extended rain last night, we looked at each, and asked: “What are we going to do?”
Until 2009, her summers were planned, coordinated, organized—the opposite of mine at her age. She had drop off and pick-up times and attended extended day programs all summer long. The good news is that she has loved it all. It’s just hard for me to relate to.
Back in the day, if you will, starting in mid-June, my sister, brother and I waved goodbye to Mom at 9:30 a.m., jumping onto our ten-speed bikes for a trip across town to Lake Waban. Skimming bareheaded and barefoot up Route 135, we careened around parking meters and hopped over curb cuts. Traversing paths that snake through Wellesley College Campus, we peddled hard on the flatlands approaching the downhill then plummeted, no hands, no feet, arms swinging at our sides and hot breezes tangling our hair. Whizzing past sun blond fields loud with chainsawing cicadas, we pumped ourselves by the college science center replete with pseudo smokestacks and jutting metal beams, past honking frogs in the sculpted lily pond, over the hill near the brick art center and descended one more time. Panting, we hopped off our bikes onto summer callused feet; walking the last fifty feet over a stony drive to flash our beach badges at the desk that marked the territory we considered our summer home.
Ah, the lake. It was nothing more than a pond really--muddy brown and warm by August with a tiny beach molded out of mocha sand they trucked in annually. Peeling green and white docks jutted into murky water, olive benches and picnic tables toasted in the sun at the back. No matter how small though, the beach offered us huge freedoms. Long before I was my daughter’s age our parents let us go and beach rats that we were, weather permitting and even when it didn’t, we stayed at the lake until the last whistle blew.
My brother, sister and I weren’t alone in our passion for the beach. Living in a wealthy town, many of our school friends summered elsewhere. Those of us left behind dove into seasonal friendships; alternating between breathless games of raft tag and partnering up in striped-sailed Sunfishes to battle mid-lake sponge fights. Sometimes, we rowed boats, weaving long chains into the black water with our oars, and tipping precariously, plucked wild blueberries from bushes that dangled across the way. On the far side of the lake, we crayoned ourselves with chunks from an old demolished paint factory, drawing on canvases of suntanned skin. At night, chests aching after a day of swimming, we’d pedal home exhausted but exhilarated, counting the minutes until the next day.
I became a lifeguard at the lake when I was old enough and spent my summers earning a salary where I wanted to be anyway. Once age granted us driver’s licenses we met our friends back at the lake as the sun tipped below the horizon. Tunneling bare toes into cooling sand we’d laugh in blackness that turned us invisible. During the hottest nights we swam, ducking behind the dock and holding deep breaths when college security shined searchlights over moonlit water. Paddling row boats to the middle of the lake we gasped at shooting stars--quicksilver strokes brushed across crowded evening skies.
Even as I write this I sigh. Not only are those days of teenage independence ancient history for me, but the beach that was witness to my blossoming adulthood is fenced off now. It turns out that poisonous residue from that long abandoned paint factory where we unknowingly played, had leached into the surrounding land and waters for almost eighty years. When this was discovered, our beach became a hazardous waste cleanup site, complete with bilges, spillways and pumps. Trees were torn down across the lake, an impervious barrier laid and now playing fields for the college students exist where there were once woods.
Though I live fifty miles away now, at least once a year I walk by the lake, eager to catch some reflection of my youth. All this time after the cleanup though, a chain link fence still blocks the way. Perhaps in the future my little beach will open again. But this summer, my hopes are for my daughter. For the five weeks she has free this year, I wish her a summer with friends at the harbor, boat trips to our peninsula beach, salt crusted skin sticky with sunscreen, flip-flopped feet covered with sand, and most of all, a season riding no hands and no feet, arms flung wide as she negotiates yet another downhill swoop.
Until 2009, her summers were planned, coordinated, organized—the opposite of mine at her age. She had drop off and pick-up times and attended extended day programs all summer long. The good news is that she has loved it all. It’s just hard for me to relate to.
Back in the day, if you will, starting in mid-June, my sister, brother and I waved goodbye to Mom at 9:30 a.m., jumping onto our ten-speed bikes for a trip across town to Lake Waban. Skimming bareheaded and barefoot up Route 135, we careened around parking meters and hopped over curb cuts. Traversing paths that snake through Wellesley College Campus, we peddled hard on the flatlands approaching the downhill then plummeted, no hands, no feet, arms swinging at our sides and hot breezes tangling our hair. Whizzing past sun blond fields loud with chainsawing cicadas, we pumped ourselves by the college science center replete with pseudo smokestacks and jutting metal beams, past honking frogs in the sculpted lily pond, over the hill near the brick art center and descended one more time. Panting, we hopped off our bikes onto summer callused feet; walking the last fifty feet over a stony drive to flash our beach badges at the desk that marked the territory we considered our summer home.
Ah, the lake. It was nothing more than a pond really--muddy brown and warm by August with a tiny beach molded out of mocha sand they trucked in annually. Peeling green and white docks jutted into murky water, olive benches and picnic tables toasted in the sun at the back. No matter how small though, the beach offered us huge freedoms. Long before I was my daughter’s age our parents let us go and beach rats that we were, weather permitting and even when it didn’t, we stayed at the lake until the last whistle blew.
My brother, sister and I weren’t alone in our passion for the beach. Living in a wealthy town, many of our school friends summered elsewhere. Those of us left behind dove into seasonal friendships; alternating between breathless games of raft tag and partnering up in striped-sailed Sunfishes to battle mid-lake sponge fights. Sometimes, we rowed boats, weaving long chains into the black water with our oars, and tipping precariously, plucked wild blueberries from bushes that dangled across the way. On the far side of the lake, we crayoned ourselves with chunks from an old demolished paint factory, drawing on canvases of suntanned skin. At night, chests aching after a day of swimming, we’d pedal home exhausted but exhilarated, counting the minutes until the next day.
I became a lifeguard at the lake when I was old enough and spent my summers earning a salary where I wanted to be anyway. Once age granted us driver’s licenses we met our friends back at the lake as the sun tipped below the horizon. Tunneling bare toes into cooling sand we’d laugh in blackness that turned us invisible. During the hottest nights we swam, ducking behind the dock and holding deep breaths when college security shined searchlights over moonlit water. Paddling row boats to the middle of the lake we gasped at shooting stars--quicksilver strokes brushed across crowded evening skies.
Even as I write this I sigh. Not only are those days of teenage independence ancient history for me, but the beach that was witness to my blossoming adulthood is fenced off now. It turns out that poisonous residue from that long abandoned paint factory where we unknowingly played, had leached into the surrounding land and waters for almost eighty years. When this was discovered, our beach became a hazardous waste cleanup site, complete with bilges, spillways and pumps. Trees were torn down across the lake, an impervious barrier laid and now playing fields for the college students exist where there were once woods.
Though I live fifty miles away now, at least once a year I walk by the lake, eager to catch some reflection of my youth. All this time after the cleanup though, a chain link fence still blocks the way. Perhaps in the future my little beach will open again. But this summer, my hopes are for my daughter. For the five weeks she has free this year, I wish her a summer with friends at the harbor, boat trips to our peninsula beach, salt crusted skin sticky with sunscreen, flip-flopped feet covered with sand, and most of all, a season riding no hands and no feet, arms flung wide as she negotiates yet another downhill swoop.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
The Week in Review (20)
Things I have learned:
You save over $1.50 a pound by buying brand instead of gourmet coffee beans. Buy whole beans and grind them just before you perk and it tastes just as good.
Rain won’t stop you if you don’t let it.
There is always something new to see around you, as long as you keep looking.
Skepticism is natural when you bring visitors to the cemetery to see the view. It feels better when they see it though, and stop looking at you like you are crazy.
On the first sunny day after two weeks of rain, you will get sunburned—guaranteed.
If I could invent a truly non-sticky sunscreen, I wouldn’t have to worry about unemployment.
I knew this one, but it bears repeating. Love has no bloodlines. Family is family--however it is built.
You save over $1.50 a pound by buying brand instead of gourmet coffee beans. Buy whole beans and grind them just before you perk and it tastes just as good.
Rain won’t stop you if you don’t let it.
There is always something new to see around you, as long as you keep looking.
Skepticism is natural when you bring visitors to the cemetery to see the view. It feels better when they see it though, and stop looking at you like you are crazy.
On the first sunny day after two weeks of rain, you will get sunburned—guaranteed.
If I could invent a truly non-sticky sunscreen, I wouldn’t have to worry about unemployment.
I knew this one, but it bears repeating. Love has no bloodlines. Family is family--however it is built.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Good Bye
The house adjusts itself in pops and squeaks, while overhead, airplane motors drone above the tops of swaying pines. On the street a car engine revs; in the backyard a bird sings cheak, cheak, and then flies away.
Until a half hour ago teenage girls laughed and hip-checked each other and slouched and scuffed their flip-flopped feet. Grinning through gapped teeth, a six-year-old reached a brave hand to a temperamental cat then stepped back to tuck her fingers into a grown-up palm. As we clicked photo after photo, gathering proof, creating history, they tossed their heads bored, turning away, living the moments not recording them. Slamming victorious hands on the butcher-block table and high-fiving, they played “Apples to Apples” and “Mad Gab,” twirling brown hair while one said “You guys” and the others “Y’all;” one called me Mom and three called me M’am, but in similar timbres that confused all who heard.
Visitors to the area make us see our own world more clearly—the sliver of a moon framed between the halyard and mast of a dry-docked sailboat, hump-backed boulders lining the beach, sea mist floating above a churning ocean, snails that suction their way across damp sand. We realize that we don’t know the names of the trees whose shedding leaves carpet the roadway after two weeks of rain, nor the pink blossoms on the bushes that line a chain linked fence. Once again we see a windmill with arms that dip and circle and stretch above our horizon; rocks littering the beach come into focus as pink and black dappled stone, smooth gray granite or amber stripes, treasures brushed off and pocketed with memory attached.
We notice how fast we drive, how quickly we speak, how unthinkingly we interrupt here in the North, where the world spins at a feverish tempo. Before long the clock will pick up its measured movement, reverting to a previous cadence, life as before, time as always; but for now, raindrops splat on the wooden deck, a hummingbird vibrates and wings away, a truck speeds by, the computer clicks, a house shifts onto itself, cracking, squealing, echoing, empty.
Until a half hour ago teenage girls laughed and hip-checked each other and slouched and scuffed their flip-flopped feet. Grinning through gapped teeth, a six-year-old reached a brave hand to a temperamental cat then stepped back to tuck her fingers into a grown-up palm. As we clicked photo after photo, gathering proof, creating history, they tossed their heads bored, turning away, living the moments not recording them. Slamming victorious hands on the butcher-block table and high-fiving, they played “Apples to Apples” and “Mad Gab,” twirling brown hair while one said “You guys” and the others “Y’all;” one called me Mom and three called me M’am, but in similar timbres that confused all who heard.
Visitors to the area make us see our own world more clearly—the sliver of a moon framed between the halyard and mast of a dry-docked sailboat, hump-backed boulders lining the beach, sea mist floating above a churning ocean, snails that suction their way across damp sand. We realize that we don’t know the names of the trees whose shedding leaves carpet the roadway after two weeks of rain, nor the pink blossoms on the bushes that line a chain linked fence. Once again we see a windmill with arms that dip and circle and stretch above our horizon; rocks littering the beach come into focus as pink and black dappled stone, smooth gray granite or amber stripes, treasures brushed off and pocketed with memory attached.
We notice how fast we drive, how quickly we speak, how unthinkingly we interrupt here in the North, where the world spins at a feverish tempo. Before long the clock will pick up its measured movement, reverting to a previous cadence, life as before, time as always; but for now, raindrops splat on the wooden deck, a hummingbird vibrates and wings away, a truck speeds by, the computer clicks, a house shifts onto itself, cracking, squealing, echoing, empty.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Fun Fact
Peacefield, the ancestral home that John and Abigail Adams bought after he returned from his stint as ambassador to France and was elected the second President of the United States, is open for tours in Quincy, MA. The home remained in the Adam’s family until the 1900’s and became property of the National Park Service in the 1940’s.
The tour guide who took us around the property had been working for at the site since she was thirteen, (she is in her mid to late 20’s now) and offers an informed and entertaining tour based on her own research. Grinning, she recounted how John's and Abigail's son, John Quincy Adams, an accomplished, educated and brilliant man as well as the sixth President of the United States, was, err, lacking in certain social graces.
There was no upper hall in the original home. Therefore, upon waking at 4:00 in the morning, rather than walking down the stairs, across the long front hall and up another set of stairs to get to his paneled study, he thought nothing of cutting through the guest room in his night shirt, carrying his lantern, even when it was occupied. Imagine spooning in a nineteenth century feather bed and waking to the President of the United States strolling through.
Eventually, his British born wife, schooled in a bit more etiquette, arranged for a back hall to be built on.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
A Good Light
On a sight-seeing tour with out-of-state visitors in a driving rain yesterday, we stopped at the beach and saw the ghost shadow of Minot’s Light, shrouded in fog, a mile out to sea. Our daughter explained the history of the lighthouse; that the first Minot’s Light was made of iron beams driven into to the ledge off of Cohasset and Scituate in a feat of optimistic engineering. In 1850 two assistant lightkeepers lost their lives in a storm similar to yesterday’s tempest, when the lighthouse collapsed into the ocean.
Yesterday, rain blew sideways with the wind off the sea and waves exploded like geysers up against the rocks surrounding the beach. I caught myself thinking about those two assistant lightkeepers; how they would have known that the lighthouse was not safe, holding on tight while it rocked back and forth, pounded and shook, shuddering with each wave; that they would have looked at each other in the eyes, knowing that unless some miracle occurred and the seas subsided, they wouldn’t make it through the night.
The replacement lighthouse is made of interlocking squares of impermeable Quincy granite; each mountain of water that crashes against it wedges the blocks closer together. It towers there, out beyond Barrel Rock, beyond the Grampuses and we count on it to set our bearings, recording numbers as it flashes 1-4-3. And then once in a while a storm reminds us that a long time ago, Minot’s Light wasn’t situated there, solitary at the edge where it has stood impervious, as natural in our horizon as the rocks surrounding it; protecting sailors for 159 years.
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