It's foggy today and yesterday I finished a three day hauling cycle aboard the Close Enough. My body rests and I shift to freelance legal work. After a few hours on phone and computer, I hop on my bike, pick up mail and, for an exercise break, ride down to the town dock to watch the ferry arrive and say some hellos. My mail is tucked in the front carrier I made out of a bait bag and trap hoop.
With all the fear and personal uncertainty, the lonesome hours, the financial pressure, getting on the bike is, again, a liberation. Leg muscles go. Fog flies by. Life is groovy.
Update at lunch time: I am having crabmeat I caught, rhubarb my kids harvested in the yard, red kelp from the boat and eggs from North Haven. Only thing from far away is the kale.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
Good Days
There cannot be anything sweeter than apple blossoms on an old tree in a back yard with Penobscot Bay surf in the distance and kid laughter closer by. 3 consecutive days of blissful weather here on the island have brought productive time on the boat, and rest and rejuvenation with my two younger kids. It was magical to see this place through their eyes with its hiding places, giant elephant ear rhubarb leaves, hammock, green grass and soft early summer air. Our future here is precarious. Our present is magic.
Then today I get a little sniff of what the money may be like when the lobsters show up. It is flat calm with dazzling sunshine. I'm running the boat, hauling gear, making all the moves more fluidly, doing things that are still new in that I didn't start doing this when I was 14, yet the work settles in a little every day.
Yep. Still stuck. Financial realities are painful to confront. Not sure what I'll be doing or where I'll be living in the longer term, but today, I am a fisherman, and it is good. There is even a respectable paycheck.
Then today I get a little sniff of what the money may be like when the lobsters show up. It is flat calm with dazzling sunshine. I'm running the boat, hauling gear, making all the moves more fluidly, doing things that are still new in that I didn't start doing this when I was 14, yet the work settles in a little every day.
Yep. Still stuck. Financial realities are painful to confront. Not sure what I'll be doing or where I'll be living in the longer term, but today, I am a fisherman, and it is good. There is even a respectable paycheck.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Saturday at 4:45 AM, Persistence
It's just before 5:00 a.m. on Saturday, May 12. It's blowing 21 knots gusting to 22 with a small craft advisory for hazardous seas, too windy to safely go out alone and haul my traps. It was going to take all my courage to head out today anyway with the catches being so pathetic, and conditions less than ideal. Now I have to come up with a different plan and not panic about losing a hauling day.
I am desperately missing my family. I will focus on the joy of seeing my children later today and watching my daughter's stage debut in a play on the other island.
I get up early every day, work hard, adapt and embrace change. It feels impossible right now, but as distraught as I am, I have to trust that my drive and the world's generosity will line up and I will recognize that moment.
Update- Feeling just enough motivation and guilt to drive to the harbor, bringing my lunch and clothes for the day, I drive down, pausing at the crest for a look at the sea. The view is not what I expect. It looks perfectly fine, no white caps, no geisers where swell meets ledge. From the wharf I see Charlie and Ellen heading out. They give me the courage the hazardous seas advisory tried to sap out of me.
Once out on the boat, I perplexingly have a sunny day at work on the water. And the catch is up.
One of the many self help resources I've listened to talks about how successful people are serial failers who don't take the hint. It's about persistence. It's about all I have that works. Sometimes. Like today.
I am desperately missing my family. I will focus on the joy of seeing my children later today and watching my daughter's stage debut in a play on the other island.
I get up early every day, work hard, adapt and embrace change. It feels impossible right now, but as distraught as I am, I have to trust that my drive and the world's generosity will line up and I will recognize that moment.
Update- Feeling just enough motivation and guilt to drive to the harbor, bringing my lunch and clothes for the day, I drive down, pausing at the crest for a look at the sea. The view is not what I expect. It looks perfectly fine, no white caps, no geisers where swell meets ledge. From the wharf I see Charlie and Ellen heading out. They give me the courage the hazardous seas advisory tried to sap out of me.
Once out on the boat, I perplexingly have a sunny day at work on the water. And the catch is up.
One of the many self help resources I've listened to talks about how successful people are serial failers who don't take the hint. It's about persistence. It's about all I have that works. Sometimes. Like today.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Microwave Popcorn is Evil
I wrote these things as I was readying myself to leave a secure, decent paying job with benefits. I was not doing well in that situation either and needed to make a change. At the time, my wife and I were ready for a new adventure. For me it was then or probably never. The fence becomes invisible eventually, and that's where I was headed.
March 1, 2006
Microwave popcorn represents the smell of cubicle culture. I will never eat it again. The fragrance is artificial, chemicalized, the perfect symbol of a working life disjointed from nature, joy and freedom. The smell of confinement, frustration and the dehumanizing infantilizing effects of too much job security. It is the smell of quiet, polite misery, of death marching forward while life is pushed aside. A factory-pressed trick of the nose, not eliciting the cornfield or the butter churn, but an imposter with a crooked acrylic mustache coming detached on one side.
I’m in my last hour of employment. Joyful, giddy, tired and flat as at a memorial service. Tired with no physical cause. I would not want to work somewhere a long time and leave. It’s actually very hard, even though I’ve been anxious to go. I signed my termination form yesterday. Not that comfortable with the choice of words. My ass wants to be kicked rather than coddled in this polyester chair. I say that now from the ass-coddling comfort of the chair. We’ll see.
It’s a fool proof scheme, and I’ll be the fool to prove it. The audacity of taking on something that is soul-felt, but otherwise unknown. It makes magic come up close enough to touch and smell. For this, I’m someone I would admire.
How that's changed, depending on when I ask myself. Overall, I'm glad I took a huge leap. Sometimes, I'm thoroughly convinced it was very much the wrong thing.
February 4, 2006.
5:36 in yellow green numbers, hanging in darkness. Not looking connected to anything. Kind of how I feel. I have no job on the island. We have no house on the island. We have no way of getting our stuff to the island. We have no money to pay for moving to the island. In the green number-hanging darkness, I’m certain we’re going to the island.
Messy life change and adventure when you’re not ready. When you’re in a phase of life that seems to be all about making sure your kids are safe and stable and fed.
Change for its own sake after all the justifications. After all the talk, it’s because I Want It. I tell myself risk is good, change is good, growth is good. We talk for hours about the benefits and challenges, the means, the obstacles. Fear comes arm-in-arm with excitement. Lots of important emotional and spiritual points get made. The kids will always remember it. We’ll never regret it. Actually, it’s really because I Want It.
***
“Job Security” means disempowerment, infantilization, donuts, too much screen time. Sitting. Hunching. Cowering. Dissipation. Pettiness raised to Martha Stewart-esque attention to detail. Pharmaceutical companies must absolutely love state government employees. Diet companies. Junk food producers. Magazine publishers. Our break room table featured three consecutive monthly editions of a women’s magazine. All three cover stories were about weight loss. Crumbs in the pages and a grease spot on the back.
And so it began on early 2006. Getting unstuck from a stagnating situation, out of one frying pan and into an eventually scorching hot fire. From too much safety and boredom to financial kamikazi-ism and one of the most dangerous, financially unpredictable jobs in the U.S.. From death by sitting to 24 x 7 financial and physical peril.
Now what?
March 1, 2006
Microwave popcorn represents the smell of cubicle culture. I will never eat it again. The fragrance is artificial, chemicalized, the perfect symbol of a working life disjointed from nature, joy and freedom. The smell of confinement, frustration and the dehumanizing infantilizing effects of too much job security. It is the smell of quiet, polite misery, of death marching forward while life is pushed aside. A factory-pressed trick of the nose, not eliciting the cornfield or the butter churn, but an imposter with a crooked acrylic mustache coming detached on one side.
I’m in my last hour of employment. Joyful, giddy, tired and flat as at a memorial service. Tired with no physical cause. I would not want to work somewhere a long time and leave. It’s actually very hard, even though I’ve been anxious to go. I signed my termination form yesterday. Not that comfortable with the choice of words. My ass wants to be kicked rather than coddled in this polyester chair. I say that now from the ass-coddling comfort of the chair. We’ll see.
It’s a fool proof scheme, and I’ll be the fool to prove it. The audacity of taking on something that is soul-felt, but otherwise unknown. It makes magic come up close enough to touch and smell. For this, I’m someone I would admire.
How that's changed, depending on when I ask myself. Overall, I'm glad I took a huge leap. Sometimes, I'm thoroughly convinced it was very much the wrong thing.
February 4, 2006.
5:36 in yellow green numbers, hanging in darkness. Not looking connected to anything. Kind of how I feel. I have no job on the island. We have no house on the island. We have no way of getting our stuff to the island. We have no money to pay for moving to the island. In the green number-hanging darkness, I’m certain we’re going to the island.
Messy life change and adventure when you’re not ready. When you’re in a phase of life that seems to be all about making sure your kids are safe and stable and fed.
Change for its own sake after all the justifications. After all the talk, it’s because I Want It. I tell myself risk is good, change is good, growth is good. We talk for hours about the benefits and challenges, the means, the obstacles. Fear comes arm-in-arm with excitement. Lots of important emotional and spiritual points get made. The kids will always remember it. We’ll never regret it. Actually, it’s really because I Want It.
***
“Job Security” means disempowerment, infantilization, donuts, too much screen time. Sitting. Hunching. Cowering. Dissipation. Pettiness raised to Martha Stewart-esque attention to detail. Pharmaceutical companies must absolutely love state government employees. Diet companies. Junk food producers. Magazine publishers. Our break room table featured three consecutive monthly editions of a women’s magazine. All three cover stories were about weight loss. Crumbs in the pages and a grease spot on the back.
And so it began on early 2006. Getting unstuck from a stagnating situation, out of one frying pan and into an eventually scorching hot fire. From too much safety and boredom to financial kamikazi-ism and one of the most dangerous, financially unpredictable jobs in the U.S.. From death by sitting to 24 x 7 financial and physical peril.
Now what?
Just Pedal
This is the story of me getting unstuck. Getting on the
bike and pedalling, but also laying in the grass and being. Not either
giving up on life or pretending problems aren't real, not becoming the
loser despite many invitations to see myself that way. Also not flogging
myself or working constantly to the breaking point.
I am very, very stuck. I have great deluges of tears daily about money problems, relationships on the verge of annihilation or reincarnation, self loathing. I am nearly 50, in utter financial chaos for several years. I have a law license, a commercial lobstering license, an Ed Tech III certificate and many other reasons to succeed. I'm not a drug or gambling or shopping addict and yet I have failed financially and career-wise.
There is an enormous divide between my deep sense of self worth and my external circumstances. I am failing. At everything. And busting my ass in the process. If I'm going to suck this bad, don't I at least get to sit on the couch in sweatpants and really work that role? I am in very good physical and intellectual condition. I take good care of myself. I love myself. Why then, is everything going so terribly wrong? I need more money, yes. I need to pay my bills. That is in my character. I am unable to do so right now and it hurts every single minute of every day. My character and worth are reflected in the world as an absent, exhausted father and past due notices, deadbeat happy-grams.
As I had left my children on another island with their mother yesterday, I had an hour and a half boatride to think about and cry about my situation. I have responded to stress by making lists of tasks to get me out of whatever set of problems there was at the time. Strange thing is, as good as I am at the list organizing and the execution of the listed tasks, I am still frantic, depressed and feeling desperate. Seems like maybe such list making is not helping.
Then I get on the bicycle and for no reason at all, the overload, panic and desperation aren't any more. I'm a 10 year old boy. It's school vacation. I'm just riding. I head down South Road past the one room school, the former one room school and now town office, the fishing workshop with the stereo early-summer loud, the engine block that's been dragged to the road for recycling, to the harbor road, past Wanda working on her flower garden, up the crest and down the hill to shingled shops of the harbor. As bad as everything has become- money, marriage, separation from children, feeling like an idiot learning the lobster fishing business, disconnection notices, overdue mortgage payment- all of it eases when I jump on a bicycle and pedal down these twisting dirt roads surrounded by sea.
I ache terribly for my family. I am fearful for our desperate financial situation. I'm coping by deep cleaning the house, going through years of debris, selecting and saving the special things and sorting and disposing of all the clutter generated by years of being busy with three kids and nineteen jobs between Lisa and myself. It feels good to find special bits of art, writing, photos and know that now these things are not lost to the mounds of crap.
Since I'm alone, I'm also using the time to start to quantify and make financial discipline plans. The monster is smaller when I open the envelopes and write down the numbers and dates.
Still ache for family. For this reason, the phone company bill is going to be a priority.
On today's list is to write the story of my comeback as a way on visualizing and writing my own good story.
Probably ought to start with how I got stuck. Funny thing is, I got stuck in this situation by getting unstuck from another.
Next: Microwave Popcorn is an Evil, Life Draining Thing.
I am very, very stuck. I have great deluges of tears daily about money problems, relationships on the verge of annihilation or reincarnation, self loathing. I am nearly 50, in utter financial chaos for several years. I have a law license, a commercial lobstering license, an Ed Tech III certificate and many other reasons to succeed. I'm not a drug or gambling or shopping addict and yet I have failed financially and career-wise.
There is an enormous divide between my deep sense of self worth and my external circumstances. I am failing. At everything. And busting my ass in the process. If I'm going to suck this bad, don't I at least get to sit on the couch in sweatpants and really work that role? I am in very good physical and intellectual condition. I take good care of myself. I love myself. Why then, is everything going so terribly wrong? I need more money, yes. I need to pay my bills. That is in my character. I am unable to do so right now and it hurts every single minute of every day. My character and worth are reflected in the world as an absent, exhausted father and past due notices, deadbeat happy-grams.
As I had left my children on another island with their mother yesterday, I had an hour and a half boatride to think about and cry about my situation. I have responded to stress by making lists of tasks to get me out of whatever set of problems there was at the time. Strange thing is, as good as I am at the list organizing and the execution of the listed tasks, I am still frantic, depressed and feeling desperate. Seems like maybe such list making is not helping.
Then I get on the bicycle and for no reason at all, the overload, panic and desperation aren't any more. I'm a 10 year old boy. It's school vacation. I'm just riding. I head down South Road past the one room school, the former one room school and now town office, the fishing workshop with the stereo early-summer loud, the engine block that's been dragged to the road for recycling, to the harbor road, past Wanda working on her flower garden, up the crest and down the hill to shingled shops of the harbor. As bad as everything has become- money, marriage, separation from children, feeling like an idiot learning the lobster fishing business, disconnection notices, overdue mortgage payment- all of it eases when I jump on a bicycle and pedal down these twisting dirt roads surrounded by sea.
I ache terribly for my family. I am fearful for our desperate financial situation. I'm coping by deep cleaning the house, going through years of debris, selecting and saving the special things and sorting and disposing of all the clutter generated by years of being busy with three kids and nineteen jobs between Lisa and myself. It feels good to find special bits of art, writing, photos and know that now these things are not lost to the mounds of crap.
Since I'm alone, I'm also using the time to start to quantify and make financial discipline plans. The monster is smaller when I open the envelopes and write down the numbers and dates.
Still ache for family. For this reason, the phone company bill is going to be a priority.
On today's list is to write the story of my comeback as a way on visualizing and writing my own good story.
Probably ought to start with how I got stuck. Funny thing is, I got stuck in this situation by getting unstuck from another.
Next: Microwave Popcorn is an Evil, Life Draining Thing.
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