The Wait

I heard the venerable Sam Abell (30-year veteran of National Geographic) speak over the weekend at the Midwest Photo Expo, for which I signed up at the last minute after a few days/weeks of super-sneaky hate spiral about my current career non-situation. Being a photojournalist, his mantra has always been, “Compose, and wait.” When it comes to my work (and my life), I’m far better at the composing part than I am at the waiting, but now I see that both are rather necessary.

Before I even went to Puerto Rico to dream-chase, I set into motion the current composition of my life as I thought it would look best: subbing to pay the bills while working to build my business. When the picture didn’t look the way I thought it would right away, I panicked and tried to change everything helter-skelter. Abell listed three elements of a good photo: Setting, Gesture, and Expression, and for about a month I was tossing all three around and feeling supremely unbalanced as a result. Move to Texas. Move to Virginia. Move to DC. Go back to teaching full-time. Go back to school full-time. Become a desperate housewife. Many, many expressions of griefangerdepressioncrazy. A few rude and moderately destructive gestures. Overall, running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

Even as I scrambled to recompose, I was forced to wait. On job applications, license applications, relational confirmation and failure to falsify. Then came the unexpected and unasked for blessing of my job at the real estate office. Suddenly I was making enough to live on without dipping into savings, and I still had time and energy left for the physical exercise and creative work vital to my well-being. It didn’t look like what I had originally composed, though, way back in high school and college, and for a while it was confusing. But when I finally relaxed into it about a week ago, I realized how much I enjoyed being able to put my moneymaker down at the end of the day and come home to myself instead of dragging home a burnt-out husk and trying to get even more out of her. Subbing has been fun, but I realized that I don’t miss the responsibility anymore, or the need to control and organize. (cf. a dream I had last week) And critically, I don’t need to be needed as much as I used to. (TA-DA!)

I had already been thinking that it would be supremely difficult to balance a full-time teaching job with the level of creative work to which I aspire, or even the level I am working at now. Teaching takes so much out of me, and if I am honest, doesn’t give back enough for me to live by on many levels. I could if I wanted to, for awhile, if it were necessary; say I need to relocate in the future and need work right away. But at least in central Ohio, my current job working 25-30 hours a week doesn’t pay proportionally less than full-time teaching, which I find quite sad knowing as I do the value teachers provide and the sacrifices they make.

I’m going in to sub again in a few minutes, actually, for a teacher whose position I applied for last month. (She’s leaving to stay home with her kids, so no awkwardness there.) I looked at her sub plans to find that 4th period will be taught by a candidate for the very same position…which is not me. (Slight awkward, yes.) My pride whimpered in protest until I gently reminded her, “Are you sure that’s what you really want?” At which point, she quieted, and we continue on our wait.

A month ago I was really confused by what I thought I wanted, but I suppose I’ve reached a point in my life where the truth will out in time whether I am ready for it or not ,and that is supremely comforting (from the 20/20 of hindsight, at least!). I compose with all the elements available, usually putting too much in the frame at first (both in my photos and my life), and–here is the critical part–wait for the universe to settle into its natural way. Usually at this point in a blog post, I march off in to the sunset with a Plan in the hand…but now I (mostly) know better.

P.S. I really want to be Sam Abell when I grow up.

A brief musing on green onions

Last week I got the brilliant idea of sprouting my own green onions from Pinterest, and so far they are the only chlorophyll-containing organisms I have managed to not kill within about 48 hours. (Knock on non-living processed wood.)

I originally bought a bunch of eight onions and promptly diced the green parts of four of them to make an epic amount of fried rice. Then I stuck the white parts, along with the remaining four whole onions, into an erstwhile jar of Trader Joe knockoff Nutella.

Within about 24 hours, the whole onions were getting all dry and crispy at the ends. (“TURGOR! TURGOR! We have catastrophic turgor loss!!” is the message I imagine frantically shooting through the poor plants’ plasmodesmata. Good God, I need to get back into a bio classroom.) But the ones I had chopped to the white parts were busily sprouting new growth. (I like to think my daily cheers of “Go go green onion baby go!” had something to do with it. Maybe the CO2 from my breath.)

And so the object lesson is clear and timely: sometimes to make room for the new, one must get rid of the old. Old thought habits. Old lies internalized. Old distortions taken as facts. Old dysfunctions that crowd out truth and beauty. The trimming can be traumatic, but maybe it’s the only way to grow.

Back on the Pony

So today was the first time I’ve been in a classroom since November…five months, almost to the day, I think. I got onto the sub list at a private PK-12 school and today was my first assignment. G and I were talking about how teaching is so much a performance that you give every day. You have a costume. (Roomie asked this morning whether it felt weird to be in my teacher clothes again. It did.) You have your cues. (This school plays music at class change, which is an unguent to ears scarred by alarm bells and buzzers.) You have your props. (The daggone braided lanyard like a noose around the neck.  Kidding…sort of.) And you have your lines, delivered in your own characteristic teacher voice. (Mine caroms like a billiard ball between various accents and chooses words like caroms.)

Five months ago I couldn’t and wouldn’t play that part. I couldn’t keep the mask on when I felt the face beneath disintegrating. But today…it all came right back the instant the kids walked in the door. And my goodness, they were LITTLE! And smart. Astounding the difference a few years and a lifetime of good nutrition makes in a child’s physique and faculties. (Dear Title I schools: In lieu of pricey intervention programs or technology gimmicks, consider serving your children a hot, high-protein breakfast and lunch, and see what happens to test scores. Just a suggestion.) I didn’t feel nearly as anxious about letting them fart around a little in class because I knew that they would finish the assignment at home and all would be well that ends well. I can probably count on ten fingers the number of students I have had in the last two years that I would actually trust to do that. (Well, maybe a couple toes too.)

So it certainly felt like an alternate universe most of the day. Where were the hall monitors, the police officers and CPOs, the locker searches, the third-trimester bellies and ankle-grazing pants wandering the halls? I remember going in to get my fingerprints done and actually being surprised that students were walking in lines. And I feel guilty because…well, because I’m programmed to, but why really? Because I have come to expect so little when once I had such high ideals? Because part of me really wants to teach in a school like this where it is easier than in the trenches? Or just because guilt is a handy delayer of meaningful action? (Slam. Ouch.)

My decision to edge back toward the classroom was, to be honest, not motivated by any tremendous desire to change any life except my own. Yeah, I’ve missed being with kids and feeling that unique bond of trust coalesce between us and among themselves. But mostly I needed some sort of income and access to seniors and families in need of photography services if I want to pursue that path more seriously. Then I realized a few weeks ago that if I want to rearrange some of the relational distances in my life, the field in which I have the most training and experience is the most efficient way to get a job in my hypothetical new home. All this to say that I’m not trying to get back on the pony because I’m absolutely in love with the pony, but because the pony is currently the most direct route to where I want to go.

In my conversation with DH a few weeks ago, I declared that I was done being a martyr. That teaching could and should be, at the end of the day, just a job. And I certainly have a far more realistic perspective on that than I used to. But fear and doubt flicker around the edges. As I revise my resume to reflect the past year, I am really struggling with the thought, “I already asked for a second chance last summer, and I blew it.” (G’s response, “So ask for another second chance.” Por eso, te adoro.) Everyone seems convinced that I will be able to find another position, and I guess logically I know that is probably true. But I’m also wrestling with the theology of a comment made by another sub, “Maybe God doesn’t want me to work at this school.” Do I believe in a God who actively throws up barriers, and laughs when we smash into them like birds to a window? Am I centering my life around a God who is as small as I am, and refuses to be placated when His offerings go unappreciated?

I just can’t. Last night as I looked over the sudden deluge of opportunities to pick up some things and drop others, I wondered, “Either God is saying ‘Stay in Columbus!’ or ‘You’re free to go!’” And my friend wisely said, “Maybe God is saying, ‘Jennifer! I love you! Do whatever the hell you want!” (The thought of God cursing amuses me greatly.)

Blasphemy? Heresy? Hope?

Time has a funn…

Time has a funny way about it; maybe there is something to the whole space-time continuum thing. There are those divots of joy or pain when time seems to stand still, but those inevitably accelerate up to the baseline again and the days will blur into weeks into months.

It’s hard to believe it’s only been a year since…oh Lord, so many things. Virginia and back again. Losing Chiles. Saying goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. Moving back. Losing the spark. Puerto Rico. Doors closed. Doors opened. Limping forward. Burning out. Cutting my losses. Digging deep. Jamaica. Las Vegas. Puerto Rico again. Digging deeper. Moving through and moving forward. The days have been long but the weeks and months fast. “Every breath has come to this…one step closer.”

je ne regrette rien

A few months ago, in an attempt to dissuade me from following my heart down an admittedly crazy path, my father pointed out several of my past misadventures in the relational realm and urged me not to do something I would later regret.

If I may be so bold, I regret nothing I’ve done in my relationships. Being an F on Myers-Briggs, I value relationships above all else, so you would think I’d be more upset when they end. And I am, but I do not regret anything that I’ve given, because in the act of giving I am inevitably enriched, and that I get to keep.

The Guardian posted an article about the top five regrets of the dying, as heard by a palliative care nurse in Australia. I’m trying to outgrow these now, so that I don’t have them when my time finally comes.

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

I am still figuring out exactly what it means to be true to myself, but I think I am definitely getting there. Respecting others’ feelings is certainly a big part of who I am, but I am learning to do that without compromising my own boundaries and ideals.

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

I feel a little regret for the time I spent working in college and high school, but it set me up to graduate twice with 3 degrees and not a cent of debt, which has enabled me in the years since graduating to make most, if not all, of the choices that brought me my greatest happiness. I choose now to work hard at what I want, not for others’ approval or expectations of what I should be doing.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

Haha, this…is probably not something with which I will ever struggle. Any bouts of emotional constipation will resolve themselves with rather great swiftness and varying (and generally lessening) degrees of meltdown.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

I like to think that I am reasonably good at this, or maybe I have just become better at accepting the fact that friends will move closer and farther throughout my life, but that distance is neither malevolent nor irreversible in most instances.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Now this one I feel. As narcissistic as it sounds, I think that my greatest regret so far is that I have wasted so much time being unkind to myself, because in the process I tend to become someone who is unable to be kind to others (cf. my last job).

What is your biggest regret?

The God of Disappointment

A failed test

A broken plate

A stolen toy

Broken hearts

Stolen dreams

Failed families

Two thieves

One betrayer

A bruised reed

The oppressors couldn’t kill you

The stone couldn’t hold you

Death couldn’t take you

Truly, you are the God of disappointment.

Trying to relax and bend into the ebb and flow. Perhaps all dreams must come to an end, but only so one can truly wake.

A first line

A zap of inspiration Sunday, and I’ve been gumming this line around in my head ever since. I don’t have much beyond this, but my puny sense of authorial gumption is pummeling her ineffectual little fists against the Editor, so here it goes.

“They never tell you, when you are dating or engaged, that when two people choose to marry, one is inevitably agreeing to be widowed.”

Present Tense

I recently realized that it is only by letting go of my vision for the future that I have been able to not only enjoy the present far more but also the let go of the past. When I’m not fixated on what I wanted my life to look like by now, it is much easier to forgive those who have disappointed me, including myself.  Intention is good and necessary on some level, but I think that too often I’ve placed my hope in an outcome, rather than in the Person who is truly all good and all love.

Take the perennial thorn in my side: relationships. (Just in time for Valentine’s Day, OF course.)  I’m going to commit a bit of heresy and say that the premium placed on marriage by certain cultures has perhaps limited my love ability (and loveability?) rather than nurtured it.  I think that I internalized “love” as a means to an end, something you hoard only for the one you deem “marriageable.” (And how the hell, I have ever asked, does one figure out who that is? No answer.)  Guard your heart and all that. I understand and believe some things need to be held sacred to the bond between husband and wife. But is it not possible to give of your affection to someone you will never marry, at least until you have found the person whom you will, out of simple generosity and pleasure? My life has always been characterized by withholding, saving, storing, but for what?  Ostensibly in reserve for future husband, but I wonder if stinginess has become such an emotional habit so that when I do find myself in a relationship, I have a constant eye on the “prize” rather than the person.  Might it not do me well to practice giving within my limits without a thought for what I want in return? (I think that until now I have never done so.)

Don’t misunderstand: I still want to be married and I am protecting my marriage as best as I know how. But for now I have set aside the expectation of marriage to take the pressure off myself.  I feel like transferring my perfectionistic tendencies onto relationships causes me to take it so much harder when things don’t work out.  But if I treat it all as a learning process (that I still enter very tentatively)–this is healthy, that is not; I am this way and not that way–then there really can be no failure, only chapters that end and eventually–yes, please!–one that begins and begins and begins.

Lighten Up

I just realized today that it is only when I have something to lose that the urge to clench–but also the vital need to hold lightly–is strongest. That would probably explain the quickening anxiety vortex, huh?  Good to know…

Unbelievably cool image by Heather@Noelley.net.

Future Perfect

About a month ago, Alex Beadon posted about where she wanted to be in five years. Before I could lose my nerve, I wrote one too but never got around to sharing. And in the last few weeks I have found just enough hope and joy to consider revisiting this exercise in a little more detail.  She wrote in third person, but I decided to totally freak myself out and write from the I.

I am almost thirty…who would believe it? I have come out of the tumultuous years of my twenties a woman of greater faith, hope, and love than I was before. I have learned to trust myself, others, and God through all circumstances. I have learned to be content without losing my ability to see the potential in any person or situation. I am a mentor to young women, and I still stay in touch with the Phenomenal Women in my life. My mother and I are friends, especially now that my husband and I are expecting our first child and I am preparing for a huge helping of karma if my child turns out to be a drama queen like me. Being married has taught me to sacrifice and receive and to hold lightly. My husband is my partner and best friend; we shoot together, cook together, read together, write together, dance together, and laugh like idiots as often as possible.  My days are spent capturing the beauty of people and nature and telling life’s amazing stories. We probably won’t travel as much once the baby arrives, but to be honest I am rather looking forward to tummy time, Mommy and Me yoga, and knitting stupid amounts of tiny clothing. For now and ever, I choose love.