The Holiday Squeeze

I had to make some adjustments as I figured out—or relearned—how to Christmas while working full time.



We had the added complication this year of M's weekend work and play practice schedule.



Plus the plays and music concerts and other performances to attend ourselves.



We worked around, cut back, and made-do. I let some things drop—St. Nicholas Day, St. Lucia Day, the Winter Solstice hike and fire in the woods.



No one seemed to miss the missing celebrations, and I'm not sure how to take that—be happy that my kids are easy to please or disappointed that our traditions over the years didn't make more of an impression.



We DID host our traditional Hanukkah feast with friends, on the same afternoon we brought in our tree.



C and the boys took charge of decorating said tree, while I prepared latkes, and festooned it with miles of yarn garland from E and Z's finger-knitting days.



It took me until two days before Christmas to finish hanging all our ornaments, the same day I spun like a whirlwind, baking three kinds of cookies and my first-ever yule log cake (Black Forest flavor).



And we went on a traditional family Christmas Eve hike to the river with our guests.



Followed by family and feasting and, of course, round after round of gift-opening.



The greatest gift I received was five full days off to spend doing all of that baking and decorating, and a little last-minute shopping, and, of course, doing what I love best on Christmas: hanging out at home with my kids, watching them enjoy their gifts, nibbling all day on cookies and crackers and cheese, and just being for a little while, with nowhere to go and absolutely nothing we have to do.

I hope you and yours had a wonderful holiday season, too.

Change in the Air

After 2 1/3 blissful years as a free agent, I'm returning to the 9-5 work-a-day world next week.

One of my grad school mentors used to say that to sustain your writing career, you needed another source of income "to pay for the kibble." She was the owner of large dogs. While the only kibble we buy around here is for ducks, it adds up when the chipmunks and woodchucks and sparrows help themselves. Also, teenagers eat a lot as well, and unfortunately, you can't stuff them full of kibble. They're expensive in other ways, too—orthodontia, soccer cleats, car insurance (!!!), pants, pants, pants. We have three of them now (teenagers that is), and we also have a house we built and moved into 16 years ago, which means that our appliances and fixtures are starting to fail, in what I'm afraid is just the beginning of a cascade. Oh, yeah, and a kid going to college next year.

I had some really lovely teaching and freelance gigs over the last year, but not enough to pay for much kibble. I just didn't have it in me—the hustle. I loved the work, but I do not love asking people to give me work, or trying to extract photos out of people or scheduling interviews with people who have different priorities, or asking people to pay me. Not enough to turn it into a full-time gig (and with so much writing and hiking and drawing and reading to be done, who had time for a full-time gig?). I'll hang onto my regular clients, and I'll keep teaching—I already have two workshops scheduled for next year—and I'll keep editing at Literary Mama. I won't completely step out of the game.

I doubt you'll notice much difference here, since I'm already posting at a rate of about once per month. Then again, I posted a LOT when I worked full time (something about having only two days off per week and wanting to make those two days count), so you may be in for more of me (which is what everybody wants, right?). I'm reminding myself that I was VERY productive when I worked full time—I made zines, I blogged, I wrote a ton of essays and short stories, I completed my MFA, I studied to be a Master Naturalist, I did all kinds of knitty/crafty/cookery things. My goal is to both be productive and stay centered (i.e. sane). Wish me luck.

Oh, and did I mention, I get the summer and fall off, so that's pretty fantastic.

Seah Kayaking and Nature Journaling

The very first thing I did the first time I came to Maine was go on a five-day sea kayaking trip. I went on another a year later and took kayaks out for shorter adventures during my two years in college on the coast. I bought a used ("tupperware") boat many long years ago, but only had it out on the ocean once or twice before I had kids and my kayak became a dust- and spider-collecter. I've gone out sea kayaking maybe twice since we had kids (one of those trips is chronicled here). And I didn't know how much I missed paddling, that salty film on my skin, even lugging heavy boats over mudflats.



Then I had the great good fortune to have been invited to teach a nature journaling workshop for Northstar Adventures and I spent last Saturday paddling with a small group of people in beautiful Penobscot Bay, from Castine Harbor to a pair of islands in Brooksville.

There we explored the shore, did a variety of writing and drawing exercises, and ate a delicious lunch (some of our group even took a swim in the cold water).



It was a pretty divine day and I was so happy to be back out on salt water (and wondering why the hell we live in Maine but inland). With each workshop, freelance gig, and piece of writing sold, I feel one tiny step closer to my career goals (which I once articulated as, "Go canoeing and write about it.") Yet, as we speak, I'm sending out resumes, because the demands of three teenage kids (all of whom have stomachs, feet, and teeth, three expensive body parts), a house whose appliances and fixtures are all exactly 16 years old and therefore all meeting their demise at once, and two 20+-year-old cars mean that the necessity for "real job" is becoming unavoidable. Which means that going canoeing and writing about it will once again become a weekend/evening/lunchbreak/interstitial pursuit. I won't say I'm not sad about that.

But in the meantime, if you want to join me for a THREE DAY!!! nature journaling workshop, I'll be teaching at Little Lyford Lodge in the Greenville area for the Appalachian Mountain Club. See here for details.

Liminal

Yesterday was my last day at work. Forever. I'm not really sure what I'm going to write about that here. I'm not really sure what I think or how I feel. It's all so wrapped up in the energy I'm putting into getting ready for our trip and the stress of dealing with grown-up stuff like transitioning to private health insurance (done!), staring in dismay at my bank account balance, trying to figure out my new camera, and the boys' last days of school and E and Z's final baseball game of the season and the beautiful spring weather and the messy messy house and the two sleeping bags I still need to make before Wednesday.

I don't write much about work here, for many reasons, but I was there, off and on, since 1997 (for a total of 15 years toward retirement, thanks to some time away at the beginning, maternity leave twice, and some stupid bureaucratic nonsense about how jobs are classified and what counts). I will not miss bureaucracy. I will not miss politics. I will miss people and community. I will miss a steady paycheck.

I am looking forward to, of course, our upcoming big trip. This transition time. This reset button.

I recently read an essay by John Landretti in Orion magazine, "Nameless Season," about liminal phases, which he describes as, "that strange moment after one has given up a familiar way of being but has not yet come into a new identity."

Yes, that's exactly where I am now. A snake that has just shed its skin and is fresh and glistening--and vulnerable. And, I will admit it, a little self-absorbed. Maybe a lot self-absorbed. This next phase of life is all about me, my goals, my dreams, and I'm dragging my husband and children along for the ride, possibly into financial ruin. I do feel a little guilty about that. But then there was the person I was before, a person so stuck and frustrated that I could barely stand living with her anymore, let alone inflicting her on those I love.

So...like I said I have no idea what I think right now, or even what the point of this post is. But I hope you stick with me as the new identity begins to form.

Spring Awakenings, or a Long Rambly Post about Tiredness and Blogging and Midlife Changes

I don't know what's happened to my blogging energy lately, but it's been kind of absent. All my energy has been absent, really. For weeks and weeks this winter I was so, so, so tired. All I wanted to do was sleep day and night, waking up occasionally to consume vast quantities of food, because in addition to being so, so tired, I was so, so hungry.

Instead of sleeping and eating all day and night, I went about my usual routines and got kids off early in the morning and went to work and grocery shopped and cleaned up after dinner. But then, instead of doing anything useful, I'd just lie on the couch and watch youtube videos with the E and Z and then DVDs with M.

When I get tired like that, I can't even remember what it feels like to be NOT tired. I feel like I've been exhausted since I was pregnant with M and never recovered. I wake up every bit as tired as I was when I went to bed. Maybe it was just the usual March Malaise. Or maybe it was "second winter" (you know since first winter was so wimpy it came back for a second go-round). Or maybe I've just been doing too much and my body said "enough."

I heard this story on NPR over the weekend, about how thirty percent of people in "midlife" are unsatisfied with their work or careers. This story really hit me emotionally. Here I'd been going around thinking I was crazy or selfish or unrealistic for wanting more out of life than my current work situation, but I'm right at home with nearly a third of people who are bored, disengaged, miserable. It's good to have company.

I'd actually wondered if I'm even capable of doing good, challenging, interesting work anymore. And then I'd remind myself that I do good, challenging, interesting work with my editing and teaching and writing (unfortunately, no one is interested in paying for those things, so far). I've built great relationships with the writers whose work I've edited. I've gotten fantastic feedback on my workshops. And while the writing can be teeth-grindingly frustrating at times, I can sink my teeth into a project and hang on like a Jack Russel Terrier until it's done (was that too many tooth metaphors for one sentence?).

So, yeah, I can bust my butt, but I've lost the will to do it for other people's goals and agendas. And it's so very exhausting at times, keeping up with these lives--the worker bee life, the editor/blogger/teacher/writer life, the mother/wife/homemaker life.

I'm not sure what this post is about, except that I feel a little bit of energy seeping in. I spent the weekend cooking for Easter and prepping for my next workshop and read a whole entire book in the downtimes. Then last night I read in the tub after the kids went to bed (believe it or not, that was an energetic evening activity compared to the last few weeks) and tonight E and M and I played a game of cribbage and now I'm doing workshop prep and actual blogging. So even if it's not very springy outside, I just might be getting a little more spring in my step.

P.S. Something about writing this post inspired me to update the blog look. What do you think? Is the photo in this post too big? How about the one in the header?

Weekend Things: Whirlwind

Saturday morning, I dropped M and his guitar equipment off outside of a bar in downtown Hallowell, and then wended my way through parade reroutes and bridge-out detours out of town and to a small nature preserve in Litchfield. There I joined a group of people in chasing down butterflies as part of my Master Naturalist training.

Clouded sulfur

Great spangled fritillary 

Cute beetle.

Silver-spotted skipper

Cute damselfly

When we finished, I raced back to Hallowell, where I caught the end of the second Rock Camp group's set and, happily, all of M's group's set.

Blah, Blah, Blah performing Green Day's "American Idiot"

After a quick lemonade on the waterfront, I hurried home, showered and changed, and headed back into town, where I med a friend and drove down to Brunswick for dinner and the commencement ceremonies for the students graduating this semester from my grad school program.

The whole day felt kind of disjointed--chasing butterflies, rocking out in a bar, talking writing and books, listening to inspiring speeches, dancing late into the night, catching up with good friends. It was like a microcosm of my whole life; I feel like I'm cramming too many things into too small a space. But there's not a single thing on that list I'd want to give up. Sunday I was too tired to do much of anything--we went raspberry picking, I taught E how to play Speed (in an effort to avoid playing either Chess or Pokemon) while everyone else was at C's grandmother's birthday party, and worked on my nature journal while he watched Ninjago, I made a pie. 

At the end of the day, looking around at the post-apocalyptic landscape that is our living room, I said to C, "I wish I could take a few days off work and get the house in order."

"Or," he said, "you could just stay home on the weekend."

But I don't want to stay home on the weekend...and if I do stay home on the weekend, I don't want to spend my time getting the house in order. I already feel like I have to squeeze my entire life into two days a week. I'm not giving away those two days, too.

How about you? Have you achieved this illusive "work-life balance"? And if not, what do you give up to make it all fit in?