Thursday, September 23, 2010

The Window

I sat outside and drank a raspberry beer from Dark Horse Brewery in Marshall tonight and contemplated life and circumstances. Emily Woodcock bought the beer because she knows it's my favorite and I'd had such a horrible day having had my nearly fatal car accident and then realizing may insurance had lapsed and all. I hardly ever have an alcoholic beverage and I hate to even mention it due to my many beloved recovering alcoholics in my life. But somehow tonight that Raspberry beer was a real treat. It reminded me, I suppose, that I'm just a regular old girl and I've never really aspired to be much more than that.

What a beautiful night it was for sitting outside, though. Earlier, Greg Sobczynski had played me an early vinyl Greatful Dead album because of some things I'd been saying about life and death and fate and everything. It was all good and fitting and it was soul food to be around people who care about me. Greg and Emily run the Ann Arbor Clean Water Action office and have been a couple for many years. They fit together very well. I like them and feel lucky to work for such nice people.

Emily persuaded me to come out of the house tonight. I had to pick up my check anyway. I need it. I've absolutely no money. We get paid on Thursday nights and Thursdays are also staff night. Staff night is a time when canvassers all over the United States throughout the Clean Water/Environmental network get together in their various cities for socializing. Work talk generally doesn't happen, except as it relates to good storytelling.

Greg told me some jokes. I told him my two jokes. It's all I got. I've been retelling the same two jokes for twenty years. We sang each other some really old school folk songs. Emily and this guy named Nick who hiked the Appalachian Trail this summer did some wierd video disco game. They were jumping all over the basement with this rapid-fire footwork.

Megan Owens, an old friend from my Chicago years, posted on my Facebook page from her home near Sacramento that I should start feeling around for a window.

It's easy to get all philosophical and a little bit crazy when something big happens -- like crashing a vehicle and narrowly escaping death. It's easy to start contemplating a special purpose, the reason for existance, big questions such as those.

But you know, I just don't have energy today for big questions or big solutions. I made a decision to put my health first and trust that my finances and everything else would fall into place.

So now I am going to bed -- grateful for the loving friends and family members who I have in my life today -- and grateful that I do have a job to go to tomorrow. I'll work something out with this financial mess. I guess I'll make payments or something. I'll figure something out with my car. I can take the bus to work. Emily said she can give me some rides home. There are other staff members who live near me, too. It will all work out.

For awhile today I felt panicked. I wanted to move to a state with better jobs. I wanted to make more money. I wanted to feel secure.

But nothing's secure. There are no sure bets in life. We're really not in control of much of anything. Days like today reinforce that reality.

So I am going to keep walking for the Great Lakes through February sixth as I had planned. It's work I value and every week I feel myself getting healthier for it. I'm learning a great deal, too -- about leadership and being a team player. I'm also learning so much about keeping a positive attitude, about trusting, about keeping my side of the fence clean.

If something else comes my way, I'll consider it. But I don't have the energy to push and pull and weasel my way into something else just because it pays a little bit better. This job doesn't pay much, that's true. But it is secure. And if I get better at it, there will be opportunities to earn more money than I am making at the moment. And I shouldn't even say "if" I get better at it. The fact is, I will get better at it because I am working hard.

I'm pretty shook up about that accident, though. I guess I'm glad that I don't have to figure everything out.

Hope is faith holding its hand out in the dark, right? That's my mantra and I'm sticking to it.

Thanks everybody for being so awesome.

(Note... the format for the Blogger has changed and I can't find spell check or how to post a photo. Sorry!)

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