Better in my Imagination

To those who may be wondering … it didn’t work. It hasn’t yet, anyway.

I went to my boss the very day after my last post, declaring that I would better serve the company as a freelancer. With this single move, I imagined wrestling to the ground all the job’s demons–from the unruly workflow to the wasted hours I spend commuting each day. Let’s not forget any of 50 other things I’d rather be doing, namely writing a children’s story or practicing yoga.

Of course, I figured my boss would need time to think. I didn’t imagine she’d need to think for two whole weeks. Finally, this past Friday, I received a reply. No dice.

“We need a marketing manager far worse than we need a freelancer,” she told me. “Let’s check in next spring and see where we are.”

So I took the damned promotion. The glimmer of hope in this–the idea of revisiting the topic in the spring–tells me that I should not walk around feeling doomed. But I know that I am moving ahead without my heart–the part of me most essential to a job well done. And that feels dangerous somehow.

Having failed (for now) at making my big escape, I packed the car on Friday evening for a smaller-scale getaway. A friend and I headed up north to Point Reyes, where sprawling meadows and forests meet the Pacific. Beneath, the San Andreas fault line rips at the Earth, and the jagged landscape always reminds me of how unstable we are, despite illusions otherwise.

Why did I opt for security in this situation? Maybe it seemed like a way to tame my artistic temperament, to do the practical thing for once. I guess it’s possible that’s actually worthwhile… but in this situation, I am not convinced.

Rejection, Round 2

Today I got another rejection letter–and this time, celebrating is a little more difficult. It’s not only from Chronicle Books; it’s short and not especially complimentary. Note that while the editor considered the subject matter “interesting,” she did not find anything nice to say about the actual story.

I mean, Lord knows these editors– with piles and piles of submissions at their feet– have way more important things to do than cheerlead authors. (No, really; they do.) So let’s not carry this too far. The editor, who apparently specializes in biography, could have loooved my story and just not been able to tell me so in the five-sentence letter she sent. Right….
Still, I am starting to think my Howard Finster bio just might not be sexy enough for the modern children’s market.

A Door Opens

Nothing gets the proverbial escape plan in motion like a trip to Thailand dangling under your nose.

 

Last weekend, I’d already decided to ask for some additional, unpaid time off from work. I’d envisioned spending a week in silent retreat, wandering the grounds of a meditation center and rebooting my mental system so I could forge ahead with a better attitude.

 

But by Tuesday—before I ever managed to spring this on my boss—a friend had liquored me up and half-convinced me to steal away to Southeast Asia with her and another of our coworkers.

 

“You can meditate in Thailand,” she told me. “They are Buddhist, after all. Besides, you’d be amazed at how different your problems look from halfway around the world.”

 

(This is something that I should know for a fact. I do, after all, work for a travel company. But in truth, I don’t even have a current passport. I hardly feel sheltered, but my two forays abroad practically render me a bumpkin in the eyes of my footloose colleagues.)

 

This is one of those times when I don’t know whether to listen to my own inner guide or keep my eyes on the signs around me. The next step seems so obvious; even my relatively practical mother has encouraged me to take this trip. My hesitation is that the real escape I’ve been seeking seems more of an inward journey than an actual one. But am I really just so crusty and dried up from my day job that I’m not recoginizing the escape hatch when I see it!?

 

Just in case, I’m going to go ahead and renew my passport.

 

Meanwhile, another idea I’m stewing—one that would nicely accommodate world travels, actually—is to try and take my current work freelance. It’s not the most promising response to a promotion, and wrongly navigated, could put my entire relationship with this company at risk. So it’s kind of a scary week ahead. But if all goes south and I lose my steady paycheck, I do know a place where I can live for $20 a day….