http://escapeart.wordpress.com

Do keep reading—your support and words of encouragement over the past six months have been golden!

Did I mention that I quit my job?

Oh, yeah … that.

I gave notice last month; Thursday was my last day. For the sake of security, I sent out applications to find a new job, and even landed some interviews. But on the cusp of an offer last week, I got so completely spooked at the idea of committing to another 9 to 5 job that I cut my prospective employer off at the pass—even though the offer was in Austin, where I really want to move.

I want to say that this was a difficult decision. Actually, it was crystal clear.

Now I am happily packing for my trip to Europe—a long-anticipated, much-needed, springtime spin around Scandinavia, the Baltics, and the Balkans. If all goes as planned, I’ll squeeze some articles out of the venture.

I am approaching this new chapter with a few freelance prospects, a little savings, and a lot of hope. I feel a little like the narrator in the Gillian Welch song playing on Pandora right now, “Wrecking Ball.” It’s such an obvious imitation of Dylan that it’s almost a spoof.

Look out boys, 'cause I'm a rollin' stone.

That's what I was when I just left home.

I took every secret that I'd ever known                                      

And headed for the wall

Like a wrecking ball.

It’s a fine start—bold dreamer sets forth to incite transformation! Trouble is, the narrator of this song winds up working at a mall in Santa Cruz. I have to laugh. I don’t mind contemplating this fate; it keeps me on my toes.

In the quest for a more fulfilling and creative life, etc. etc. blah-blah, I have hardly been blogging maniacally. It has, after all, been over a month since my last posting. I couldn’t sum it up if I had to. It’s been plain nutty.

Amazing changes are at hand, though. Unfortunately, I can only partially credit my own hard work. That part is a bit anticlimatic, given my fiercely independent tendencies. (I wouldn’t even let my husband give me a bag to help me could carry the toilet paper a mile home from the grocery store yesterday.)

So what is on the horizon?

My husband has scored a monthlong teaching gig in Denmark. Wahoo! This will not only nicely accommodate my burning need to to see the big wide world, but force me to quit my job. Talk to me on March 16, when the deed is actually done….

I’m admittedly both thrilled and freaked out. On the other side of our six-week trip, we’re likely to be completely broke, so I’m looking for reliable ways to put food on the table. Is it possible that I’ll ultimately wind up staying in the 9 to 5 grind? Eeek! That thought has lit quite a fire under me. When I’m not creating sample itineraries for my late spring getaway, I’m creating sample work plans for the summer relaunch of my freelance business.

Here’s what I’m not interested in being: a housewife. For the record, I’ve been down that road, and it led me straight to disempowerment. Asking permission to replace my crappy old tennis shoes gave me kind of a rock-bottom feeling, and a desire for a more self-sufficiency. A friend at dinner the other night heard our travel news and exclaimed, “That’s terrific! You probably won’t even have to work … he can just support you!”

For me, this is not as fun as it sounds–though of course it may work for others. My sister-in-law, for example, rocks the housewife role like no one else. (You try being a mother of two todllers and training for a half marathon!) But different strokes. In summary, I’m beyond psyched to end the 9 to 5 phase of my existence, but I’ve got to get my butt in gear and whip up some freelance clients.

Meanwhile, if anyone has travel tips for any of these places, I’m curious to hear about your experiences.

Finland (Helsinki, Lapland, Karelia)

Lithuania (Vilnius)

Sweden (Stockholm and…?)

Russia (St. Petersburg, Karelia)

Croatia (Split, Dalmatian Coast)

Latvia (Riga)

Montenegro (coast)

A week ago I wrote–but never posted–an essay about the importance of taking a big , fat, fantastic vacation. I was fresh from a two-week hiatus that included meditating on the beaches of Point Reyes, California, and hiking with my family through forests of pine in North Carolina. I was sure I had purged any and all memory of office politics, and had even gotten over the fact that I was rejected for that travel guide gig.

My pro-vacation manifesto never saw the light of cyberspace, though. On the eve of my post-holiday re-entry, I tossed, turned, and (I kid you not) woke up in the middle of the night screaming. Let’s not even talk about the stress-related epileptic seizures. Christ, the drama.

Over the course of this very rough week, retail therapy has been key, from undereye concealer (1), to syrupy-sweet cinnamon lattes (4), to fabulous dresses that are delightfully inappropriate for work (2). I think I’ve actually been so stressed out that I went down a dress size, which both encouraged and frightened me, reminding me of Anne Hathaway’s character in The Devil Wears Prada.

The week wasn’t a total wash. After an energizing Saturday-morning Vinyasa class with the super-competent Jason Crandell, I also bought something that might actually be useful: a day pass to the 2007 Yoga Journal Conference. Whether I ever become a certified teacher or just continue to hone my supta virasana, I am damn happy to have this practice in my life. It is my saving grace.

Tomorrow will be better, I am sure of it.

Today was the first anniversary of my hire (at the job I am now scheming to quit). Fittingly, I spent the whole morning feeling like I was going to puke. Just after noon, I collected my belongings, stumbled out into the rain, and fell into a taxicab to be carted home.

Vile illness aside, it’s apparently weeklong celebration:

Monday, I was told that the office sociopath (a.k.a. T-Rex, Cruella de Ville, the Ice Queen) has finally, at long last, gotten the axe. The fact that I will no longer have to work with the woman who has mercilessly tortured me and my coworkers for 365 days is almost the greatest anniversary present I could have asked for.

Tuesday, I got a call from a major publisher of travel guidebooks. I’ve lined up an interview to talk about writing a guide for my home state, which is (conveniently) where I want to relocate by this summer. Despite the pithy pay, it’d be a solid enough gig to  a freelance gig strong enough to lure me out of my day job.  And it could make my yurt on the Haw River a reality…!

And now (Wednesday), I’ve just learned that my proposal to barter my marketing and production skills for a series of yoga classes next year is actually going to fly. This means I can delve into deeper study without breaking the bank … and that I can actually apply my skills to something a little more meaningful.

What will the rest of the week bring?

What a hiatus…!

So the real reason that I’ve avoided blogging lately is because I’ve been feeling guilty. For weeks, I’ve been telling myself that my quest for escape is somehow wrong, that wanting more out of life is only a reflection of how greedy and insatiable I really am.

I trace the guilt back to two sources:  my slippery grasp on pop Buddhism, and my obsession with Thanksgiving. Together, the two have made me completely neurotic in the last month.

Pema Chodron is this Buddhist monk who writes very accessible books about Buddhist philosophy, and (probably just to be ironic), I recently picked up The Wisdom of No Escape. The flap copy tells me to “accept the delightful and painful situation of ‘no exit’”–to play the hand I’m dealt rather than reaching for something better. But of course, the quest for something better is my whole mission right now.

I’ve been paralyzed by this idea. I haven’t been able do anything, from applying to grad school to pitching my manuscript. A little voice keeps telling me that I need to … I dunno, embrace my life as an undervalued marketing drone living in an insanely expensive and soul-less city. Jesus, but does that sound right? Why just accept the things you can change?

On top of all this, last week was Thanksgiving—the one time of year we should be able to pull it together and count our blessings. Usually, this kind of thing is my forte. When I was in high school, I literally kept a list of moments to be grateful for.

A bizarre sampling, circa 1992:

· Waiting for the Baptist bus in my pink sheath dress with Jennifer in her teal one, and then the great potluck after church.

· Looking hot and sweaty in the bleachers, until the landscaper asked me and Sara and Cheryl if we wanted to play in the sprinklers.

· Skimming my feet over the tops of puddles, then a game of impromptu crabapple soccer.

Ahhh … a simpler time. I don’t even know if I could make this kind of list today.

I know this: When I think for a moment about … oh, dying masses in Uganda or soldiers and civilians in Iraq, suddenly the quest to fill my own creative void seems pretty insignificant. I don’t want to be a navel-gazing artist any more than I want to be an office drone.

Surely there is a way for me to cultivate gratitude and acceptance while feeding my deepest desires. My next step is to start a new page here, called Visions. It will detail my unabashed wants, and I will do my damnedest to exorcise the mad, ridiculous, useless guilt that’s been plaguing me lately.

The Wisdom of No Escape actually said something kind of great. It made me feel better for having this whole wrestling match inside my head.

 For a fully enlightened being, the difference between what is neurosis and what is wisdom is very hard to perceive, because somehow the energy underlying both of them is the same.

–Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape

Maybe it’s a bad sign that I’ve not posted in so long. Maybe it’s a sign that I’ve lost hope or resolve, that I’ll be caught in this rut forever ….

Or maybe I’ve been busy digging myself out.

Stay tuned.

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.

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.

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….