More and more, I am becoming me.
It took me this long to get here.
Fewer and fewer things in this house. A miniature car, bright orange. No more of
that corporate work that bound me to this desk from 3 AM, sometimes until 10 PM, sometimes, work that made me less than pleasant (but only sometimes, I think, I hope). Only the books I want to read twice or three times in the house, and the ones I buy now are the ones I want, not the ones I feel an obligation to.
The work I do is the work I want to do. Reading
the middle-grade books that carry the grown-up wisdoms. Reading
the memoirs that I will teach. Profiling the people and places that inspire me, like
Elisabeth Agro, say, who has revolutionized crafts in my city. Talking to other writers in real ways about
the real work we hope to do.
I lived decades measuring my life by what I thought of as "real work." I was, I boasted to myself, making the correct sacrifices. I am trying on something new. Living my life as measured by my passions. I don't know how far this will go. But I'd be so mad at me if I didn't try it.
I've been a blogger slacker; I confess. It wasn't meant to be this way.
But I've been rolling through and over rugged landscapes in these past weeks, and sometimes it's better to think and to do, rather than to speak.
But now I'm speaking:
Following thirty years of chasing projects in corporate America I am calling off the chase. I loved what I did, the people I met, the meaty, beautiful, complex projects I was entrusted with, the client projects that still sit proudly on my shelves. But in recent years too much has changed—a disheartening disrespect and disequilibrium has entered in. It's a demand and disappear environment out there these days. It's phones ringing after dinner with early AM deadlines, nights tapping away, and the next-day news:
Whoops. Sorry. We were wrong. Didn't need that project after all. Didn't need you.I have lived my life putting my family and friends first, my students second, my corporate clients second, too, and me a distant something. I would do it all exactly the same way again; I have no regrets. But going forward I know what I want, where I am happiest, what I must be, must have. More time with books. More time with people who write and read with noble purpose. More time spent beneath a blooming, bursting cherry tree, or on a farm, or by the sea.
More time being the me I need.
Not long ago, in New York, I sat with someone I have grown to love, the great editor, Lauren Wein. Later, writing to me, she wrote words that ricocheted through me. After so much frank unkindness from corporate America, after too much time spent in the claw and crawl of it all, I had this sudden sense of being seen.
seeing you i thought again what i thought the other time---beth has such SHARP EDGES. in the very best way. your virtual presence is so much about generosity, encouragement, positive reinforcement--for other writers and artists, for your family, for your students. in person, the other side comes out. and it's equally compelling---it raises the stakes somehow, in the best way! it's still positive, lyrical, poetic Beth, but there's also a tension there--the sense of an oppositional pull. the bold, unexpected shoes to complement and subvert the elegant, basic black.
Being seen. How simple that sounds. How great the journey.
I was the kind of kid who opted out of long summers by the South Carolina shore so that I could stay in muggy Philadelphia to work in a life insurance shop, mimeographing newsletters and keeping score for salesmen. Or, if I did go to the beach, I worked the sunny days in shops with names like The Mole Hole. At the University of Pennsylvania, I catered meals among museum mummies or checked in musty library books at Van Pelt. At twenty-five, I started a business. I've been serving clients since.
Some of my very best friends have emerged from the ranks of corporate America—creative people with philanthropic hearts, cure-finding people, galvanizers, idea men and women. But this past year, as the economy has changed and pressures have mounted, as people supply has far outstripped people demand, a new mood has set in—an underlying rancor and shout, an impulsive do-it-now-though-I'll-change-my-mind-later, a you-don't-count-just-listenism that foils honest attempts to get good work done. It's not like that everywhere, of course, but where it lives, it defeats, it rankles.
Conversation yields results, not confrontation.
I know that Mole Hole very well - I wonder if it's still open.
I think my sector has emerged from the hard times still strong, but last year I was wondering if my business would survive.
I hope it gets better, soon, Beth. People get angry when they're scared, but it doesn't help.
Oh, The Mole Hole - on LBI, Barnegat Light? Still there, still a cute little shop.