The voice mail went “My nae is Troy McClure—I am a best selling author and holder of several patents. I will be calling you on Wednesday at 9 Am to discuss a project manager position with the Department of Excellent at my University.”

What kind of fool was this? Who talks like that? And he didn’t even ask if I was free at the time.

I wanted to hear what would happen on Wednesday at 9 AM.

I answered, ready to hear what this was. Yes, he was real. He did have a job opening. And after a few more minutes—most of which were spent talking about himself—he asked me for a second interview.

I didn’t actually meet him.

But I had a second interview with the people at the university, and they were tougher. I even had to do an impromptu presentation on a topic of their choice. Like homework.

But I was in!

The best selling author had gotten me excited about the work. I was ready to get down to it.

He called me on the phone every morning to dump his vision of the work on my head.

I was all in! I swam thought it to find the tasks I could work on.

I wanted to get going on it. We had a department to grow—a Department of Excellence.

No one else was in the department. Just me, because the other people were still to be hired. I did what I could fish out from the daily phone dump with the Best Selling Author.

By the first week I proudly showed what I had done. Look!

No pause, but the dump on this call now included a request that I stay in my lane.

Then he paused “I am going to love you.”

How wonderful! I was making progress.

If only I could make sense of the lane he wanted me to stay in. I was doing what he said needed done. I must just need to do it harder.

After two weeks, another person arrived in the department. I shared what I’d been hearing from the daily phone dumps. She was as lost as I was. And then the next person arrived. She was not informed, but she was more guarded. Probably she wanted to wait and see for herself.

So after the fourth week, the Best Selling Author stopped speaking to me.

And  the guarded women did too.

I went from being totally along for two weeks in this department to working with two—no, three, if I included the absent Best Selling Author—people who wouldn’t speak to me

Hm.

Was this growing pains? What this a challenge I had to work through?

Reluctantly, I went and talked to HR. They were as vague as HR is required to me.

Walkign back to my desk in the ice cold department of excellence, I decided I was going to make them fire me if that was their intent. I was the innocent victim here.

But those two women in the office with me. How could I unfreeze things?

I formed an irresistible strategy.  In the morning I walked up to the ice queen’s desk.

I stood and said:

“Why did the pirates go to the Caribbean?”

She glued her eyes to her screen.

I stayed.

I waited.

She looked up at me, despite her strong aversion, and said:

“Why?”

“Because the wanted some ARRR and ARRR”

I gave her a huge smile.

The other women laughed. Ice queen was on her back foot. Her snarls were out of place now.

So for that mornin I could repeat the punchline and make a place for myself on the battle ground.

6 weeks after I started, I was asked to go to a meeting at the other side of the campus. It was an 8 minute walk. The person who gave me the second interview was there, along with HR. Sign this, and clear your desk. You are done.

It is usual for fired employees to get escorted off my security. They knew the security gaurds had become my friends, so the university official said he would walk me.

8 minutes of a walk to my desk. Then to my car.

I said nothing. He did try to make conversation to make nice. Silence is loud.

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the #3!!  is water?”

From “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace

I am good at persuading myself into accepting a circumstance. I can do such a thorough job that all other possibilities vanish.

Those fish didn’t see what they were swimming in.

I know the difficulty of leaping into the unknown. There are reasons to stay put.

The hero’s journey studied by Campbell begins the comfortable home. The hero doesn’t become a hero until he is forced into the unknown.

It’s human nature to cling to the familiar. It comes from my animal roots. Stay safe. Stay still.

Then something happens to eject me.

It could be an external disaster. Or it could be something inside me.

The hero has to go on the journey.

That’s bad enough, but with all that long practice of ignoring anything I don’t see. I can’t see what I’m walking into.

I blinded myself.

Shaking and scared I set out to find what I barely believe exists.

Clawing at the mud in my eyes, hoping my vision is still there.

I tamped down the hope and fear of what existed for so long. Time to face it.

Hope and doubt eating their tails.

Faith gets back on her feet, looking through the cracks to where the light gets in.

I’m going to fall. I will surely fail.

But it’s not fatal, as long as I get up once more often than I fall.

I need something and I am going to chase after it. I don’t entirely know what it is, but that is no reason to give up. I won’t let it stop me.

Ran into an old friend this weekend; I hadn’t seen her in a while. I assumed she was too busy with clever important things, and I’d left her alone.

Turns she’d been unwell. I was sorry I hadn’t made an effort to see her—if only I’d realized!

She shrugged and confessed that she’d been keeping it hidden.

Ah.

I kept a lot of things tamped down during the cancer battle. I know Brene Brown sings the praises of vulnerability and no doubt she is right. But how many parts have to be exposed and vulnerable at once?

My Sensei taught me to avoid the fight if you can. If I see a situation in distance, I should use Run Fu and get out of there.

But if I am in it, be all it. Every move I can made, every strike, every dodge, be 100 percent in. That includes blocking and defending, and when the fight is on all things narrow down to the next action.

After cooperating with the doctor’s medical attacks, I wasn’t sure what else I could do. I chose to keep putting my face out there. I felt as though I didn’t have a right to struggle in public, like I ought to be embarrassed and hide my weakness. I fought it by showing up so that I “may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand”

There was cringe factor. There was learning to be ok with what that day brought me.

With the fight over, the world has expanded. My wounds are healing, and this warrior is returning to regular life. What just happened in these last three years?

I’ll admit I’m jumpy after the long fight, but I did pick and finish a project from before. I published my book, and remembered that part of me.

Last time I wrote a book I didn’t know how to talk about it. I didn’t have the courage to be all in. I’ve learned a lot, and the world has made space for me.

The fighter I’ve become has also learned to make space for myself. Whether and elbow or a knee, or an introduction to a stranger that I’d like to meet.

I’ve said it before, unemployment is like being marooned on a desert island. The days are long.

I’ve taken to lighting candles so I can see evidence of time passing by the candle wax level lowering.

When my daughter was a newborn, time passed slowly too. I began counting each feeding as its own day—making each 24 hour day with a feeding every three hours equivalent to 8 days.

Staring into the unfocussed eyes of my newborn, I looked for a sign that I was a person. Yes, I was sleep deprived, injured and post-partum insane. And I was sure I didn’t matter at all to this new baby. Any  person—even a machine–could have done what I was doing. These were not difficult or personalized.

She couldn’t tell who I was. I was not significant or distinctive.

I didn’t matter.

As I say that, I know it is not true.

You, my reader, recognize the absurdity.

“Of course you matter!”

As mother of a newborn then

and now as a long and even longer suffering jobseeker, I am ensnared by this favorite folly

This conviction that no one notices me, that my best hope is to be ignored so that I can keep my seat at the table. As long as I don’t draw attention I won’t be asked to leave.

A month or so in I was playing with her and talking to my tiny baby, she smiled

AT ME

For the first time I felt connected to her. I was recognized.

Achilles had his heel; I have my weak spot that throbs. I’ve learned many people have a wound like this, that I return to again and again.

Last week, after my most recent job rejection, I attended an expo. Feeling isolated, insignificant and worse,  I found a friend and scraped together a set elevator speech as I prepared to ask for a job.

I’d been working on a book for my industry, The AV Project Manager Handbook. I brought a pre- publication proof as a conversation starter.

At the event, I met person after person that I’d known for years. Seemed that I personally knew half the attendees at the event. Then the people who I didn’t know yet saw my book and were thrilled to meet me and learn about this useful book.

I’d fallen for my old trap, believing that I’m nothing.

I may not have a job or a position YET, but it’s coming. Things take time to grow. That’s a certain text.

I’m not proud to say I’ve felt this way, but telling the story of my shame let’s a little sunlight in. And if anyone else sees their own folly as I share mine, perhaps we both can lift ourselves inot the light.

Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,

Or what’s a heaven for?

Robert Browning

I’ve had three years of learning to live with impairment. Those were years of breaking old habits and picking up new ones.

Like a teenager that can’t drive, I narrowed my horizons significantly.

Three years to break habits of a lifetime.

Is that how it works?

I think what I did is make new habits. Habits of distracting myself as I marked time.

Last week I said I didn’t recognize myself I remembered the person I used to be, doing the things TODAY that I once did years ago.

Times do change. That kid gets a license and starts to see what’s out there.

Or things that were once required get simpler.

Or new distractions dominate my view.

Where’s my jetpack? Wasn’t it all supposed to be done by robots now?

I’ve picked up a book “indistractible” which discusses how to focus again.

Those little jokes and funny memes are the snack food of the mind.

I’m grown and I know how much I will can’t resist certain snacks, and I won’t even let them in the house.

These new habits are starting to smell the same.

My life was different four years ago. A lot changed.

The world changed too.

Same song

Second verse

A little bit louder and a little bit worse

Indistractible points out that our time spent on these entertaining mindsnacks is a way of avoiding boredom, also known as pain.

During the cancer treatments I fostered distraction from pain.

Here on the other side, I shake my head like a dog out of the bath.

I don’t want to avoid pain.

There is reward on the other side.

In principle, anyway.

It is up to me to work the principles out in practice.

Practices from the cancer years are still useful now:

What can I reach for? What is possible today?

“Are there no more worlds that i might conquer?”

This is not my first rodeo.

I do remember the first, though.

The day I held my first book–really a real book with a cover and pages—with

Written by Murphy

on the cover in 2006. I felt as if my life were complete in a way I never expected it to be.

That day, 18 year ago, when I took the 4 hour PMP test to get officially certified. I wanted it so bad. I studying and grindinfg it out.

Walking into the grim Pearson testing center to sit in a cadaver-colored cubicle to choose the right answer

A? B? C? D?

I barely recognize the memory of that woman.

Was it really me?

It was me. Sp was everything that came after.

Yesterday I finished a grind and got another cert.

I’m worn slick,

I remember that first cert, it was a lot harder. I had high hopes for what I could achieve with it.

I remember I wanted it to prove it to myself.

Memory is a shaky thing.

Today, I want the cert to prove it to other people.

I know I know. I am ten toes down confident. Others seem to need a proof.

Now I can concentrate on putting my book up for sale. My fifth book Which is most definitely for other people.

There is a theme. Those are significant things that I’m accomplishing to impress other people.

That’s good and I’m glad I did it.

What’s next? I’d really like to do something significant for myself. That’s over the edge of the known world.

Unbeknownst to each other, in an O. Henry style, my  husband and I exchanged gifts on valentine’s day.

Separately we each found a book for the other in the used book store sources we haunt.

I gave him a book about tanks. As I suspected, he already had it. But we had a chance to look over it and discuss it, even comparing it to the one he had. This new one will recirculate out again.

He gave me a book he knew I had already read:
The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy

I read it in the original English, because it had been printed in Russia while I was living there..during that year and a half, I read every English book I could find. Our translators had a copy they lent me: the Forsyte saga.

Chris discovered my appreciation for this story after PBS ran TV series of the story.

I was riveted, and enjoyed the period scenes this time.

And here it is in my hands again

I will read the story again, remembering the 19 year old perspecpective thr, and the 30 year old who saw the tv series

And what will I think of it today?

I have a whole suitcase of new experiences and knowledge to bring to writing now.

 As I set it on the pile of books to be read, I discuss it with Chris like he talked tanks with me.

This period romance is different 

Because

The story is told from the tortured perspectice of a man. Soames Forsyte was a highly eligible bachelor, but the books pick up after the marriage has happened.

This is the “ever After” which is usually vieled by the curtain.

Soames loves his wife but is desperately and terribly unable to capture her love in return.

His locked-up turmoil keeps me coming back.

It is rare in fiction to see a man so powerless against his nature. That same nature which draws him to his wife keeps him from her.

 He is so good at what the world demands of him. At the tail end of the Victorian period, he got the prize: he is rich and a man of substance.

And it has also left him powerless and grasping for the woman he can’t connect with.

Even in Victoria era the male point of view is an exotic landscape.

Eb                               Bb

Write a page make it three

            Ab          Eb

talking all about me

Eb                Bb 

Name at the top

Ab                          Bb

Colleges to wrap it up

Eb                 Bb             Ab            Eb

Names and dates with a list of how I’m great

        Eb                    Bb       Ab            Bb

The good NOT the bad of every job I had

Eb           Bb          Eb        Bb

Getting ready for My interview

Eb            Bb

Going to ask you

  Ab        Bb

If i can work for you

Eb        Bb

Can I work for you

Eb

Please

Eb       Bb

Can I work for you

Eb       Bb                  Ab

I’m so good at what I do

                   Bb

Can I work for you?

Eb                Bb

What once was

Eb           Bb

Now is not

Eb             Bb    Ab           Bb

No more coffee from that pot

Eb               Bb       Eb      Bb

Dior Once Open now are locked

                     Ab

I could ask why

                                 Bb

No one answers but AI

Eb           Bb          Eb        Bb

Getting ready for My interview

Eb            Bb

Going to ask you

  Ab        Bb

If i can work for you

Eb        Bb

Can I work for you

Eb

Please

Eb       Bb

Can I work for you

Eb       Bb                  Ab

I’m so good at what I do

                   Bb

Can I work for you?

“You know how to get something from Kathleen?. If I should up with a pack of Marlboros, she is always happy to see me.”

My Scottish boss was getting ready to introduce me to our team member Kathleen for a project. As he reminisced about times he’d worked with her, he dropped this story.

Like a scene from a black and white movie during world war 2.

He was a kind man.  Is it such an old-fashioned custom to learn one another’s small pleasures? 

He knew how his wife took her coffee. I’m not sure all Scottish men are so considerate, but this is the stuff of romance novels.

I am thinking of the world of choice I live in. There are dozens of coffee beans, with a specific grind. Not to mention the brand of creamer. If I had to explain my preferences to someone else, it would be so precise as to be embarrassing.

How to pressing the buttons on the coffee machine in the precise combination to provide exactly the sort of beverage I have become accustomed to.

I could not presume to ask someone else to make me a cup of coffee in the way I like to drink it.

And yet this sweet man from Scotland had paid attention enough to a co-worker’s cigarettes. His old world charm is overwhelming.

I have created an isolated prison with my specificities. Is that precision worth it?

It is inconvenient to invite another person into my sphere. Sharing my home, and my sleeping arrangements with my husband requires compromises. I had to learn to arrange the bedding to give both of us what we need. He had to learn to sleep though the alarm I set for early morning.

Sometimes I snore. 

Sometimes he snores.

Of course we could sleep separately, and avoid the inconvenience. 

But we have decided it is worth it, so be close to one another, and let our lives overlap even if it’s not what I precisely want. The connection is worth adjusting my allowances.

Is it possible that I could change my requirements so that another person could join me in my coffee habit?

Chris doesn’t even drink coffee. I asked him how he would like his coke. 

The attention and to compromise are a formula for the kind of romance I want.

hiding feeling

don’t speak in the first prrson

but decisions are made from the brart