I'm in the final days of recovery from a sinus infection, after two or three days of throbbing headaches radiating through my sinus's I was hit by a fever and head full of orangish-yellow snot. An antibiotic course, lots of ibuprofen, saline, and rest saw me overcome the worst of it and I'm slowly regaining energy and strength. I was down for four days, not a tremendous amount of time, but I still feel physically and emotionally sapped and drained, the amount of work a body has to go through to expel an infection is tremendous and takes a heavy toll.
It is not often that I get sick. Once a year, maybe, I'll have the 24 hour flu or a lingering cold but these are passing ailments, uncomfortable, but a footnote in the course of my month. Being bound to a bed for four days is, to me, a significant chunk of time and offered an extended chance or reflection and retrospect.
I was struck at how close a metaphor getting sick is to getting laid-off -- running through life in a constant upward direction, putting a little aside, and slowly getting ahead. But when you get laid-off all of that comes to a screeching halt what little is held aside is sacrificed and the long road up is a short fall down. Likewise, getting sick seems to interrupt a strong flow of fitness (riding, working out, etc...) and, in the case of being down for a handful of days, if it doesn't set you back it certainly takes a great deal of will and strength to bring your body back to where it was. It is a few days of pain and hard work after undergoing a few days of pain and hard work.
Life for, for my family, seems to be season after season of driving forward as best we can to be stopped cold by things out of our control, namely getting laid-off as the season slows to a halt. It is easy to lapse into a fatalistic view of life and become trapped in a static a horizontal status quo. A way of living that does not sit well with me at all.
Being sick makes me frustrated and depressed, it feels as though my body has let me down and the strength and energy I depend on to draw strength from is sapped and I am empty, crest fallen, and broken for a time. Loosing my job is like getting sick and it takes time to recover the shattered confidence, the broken expectations, the crumbling security... But slowly I begin to recover, put the pieces back together, and step outward, forward, onward.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
Reinvention: A New Identifier
This has been another season of life relearning how to cope with unemployment. The emotional toll and mental stress invoked on men and women who are generally dependable, hardworking, honest people doing their best to contribute to society and provide for their families is dramatic. As we, the unemployed, comb the job market for prospects it is with the knowledge that for every job we see and assume we can do, there are dozens of other people looking at the same job with the same assumptions, motivations, and qualifications. The job search is a taxing and frustrating process made even more so by desperation and, often times, and undeserved sense of humiliation and rejection given rise by virtue of the situation. It is, however, also a chance to begin to re-invent identity and purpose, pursuing some of the things en masse that otherwise are weekend hobbies or passions shunted to the back of the mind collecting dust and atrophying from disuse and neglect.
I have written before of the way I identify myself with my job/occupation. This identity isn't, necessarily, something I've longed or dreamed for, but it gives purpose and title to the long hours spent away from my family in pursuit of financial gain and, to some extent, justifies the work I pursue. For a while now I've identified myself as a carpenter and secondary to that is the rest of my life but as the way I provide for my family and align with society, it has been who I am: Carpenter -- wood worker, framer, finisher, craftsman. It is fair to say that embraced this title/identity and became what I did, letting go of the aspirations of a potential writer and avid reader. The necessity to provide for my growing family took precedence and I committed fully to being a carpenter, a craftsman, in pursuit of whatever excellence I could find therein. I don't regret my career path, I have learned a tremendous amount about the industry and I can speak with authority to the process and craft of building and construction. Carpentry has been a fair way to make a living and provide for my family but recently it has been a casualty of the "great recession" and opportunities to advance and get ahead have been limited and sparse and the great majority of local contractors have let their true colors show with questionable business practices, poor wages, and a cut throat approach to employees and margins.
(I am not a small business owner so it is easy for me to criticize and condemn from where I sit. It is important to clarify that they have to make their living as well and it would be unfair to say that they are only out for their benefit. It isn't necessarily true and I appreciate their need to make a living the same as me. That said, it has become common practice, at least locally, to treat employees as dispensable and to cheapen the value of skilled tradesmen to such an extent that when those of us who are unemployed find a job we are often taking a dramatic hit on what our labor and experience is worth to the point that working as a carpenter is rapidly loosing its viability as a way to raise and provide for a family.)
It is in this context that I find myself with a little time and a chance to pursue some of the lost aspirations of my life. So, for now, I write and I ride and I spend time with my family.
With my identity in flux and the structure of a steady job eliminated I have experienced, in the past, the detriment a block of time with little or no focus can have on my mental state. So it was important to me to establish a routine early in my most recent lay-off. That routine starts in the morning, getting everyone ready for the day and helping my wife maintain her routine but still being available to help with the boys as I was able and was necessary. My routine has remained in tact for four weeks now, leaving the house around 9 a.m. to write (at least 1,500 words a day or three pages and more if I can, but my daily minimum is 1,500 words) then home for lunch and job search in the afternoon and a spin on Galbraith with my mt. bike every other day or so. Remaining rigid to my writing schedule but flex able in everything else as to spend time with the boys and my wife and, as much as possible in the growing stress and financial anxiety, enjoying the opportunity to pursue writing and riding and family.
Once I find a job each of the things I'm able to give focus to, now, will take a hit and my structure will have to be re-vamped to accommodate work but I hope to maintain a newly invented identity as writer, husband, father, rider and not simply carpenter. I am no longer content to be simply carpenter, life is so much more complex and engaging than that. I have done some writing that I am truly excited about, seen my level of riding take a big leap -- in fitness at least -- and spent some quality and purposeful time with my wife and my kids. So much more important than a life of work.
I have written before of the way I identify myself with my job/occupation. This identity isn't, necessarily, something I've longed or dreamed for, but it gives purpose and title to the long hours spent away from my family in pursuit of financial gain and, to some extent, justifies the work I pursue. For a while now I've identified myself as a carpenter and secondary to that is the rest of my life but as the way I provide for my family and align with society, it has been who I am: Carpenter -- wood worker, framer, finisher, craftsman. It is fair to say that embraced this title/identity and became what I did, letting go of the aspirations of a potential writer and avid reader. The necessity to provide for my growing family took precedence and I committed fully to being a carpenter, a craftsman, in pursuit of whatever excellence I could find therein. I don't regret my career path, I have learned a tremendous amount about the industry and I can speak with authority to the process and craft of building and construction. Carpentry has been a fair way to make a living and provide for my family but recently it has been a casualty of the "great recession" and opportunities to advance and get ahead have been limited and sparse and the great majority of local contractors have let their true colors show with questionable business practices, poor wages, and a cut throat approach to employees and margins.
(I am not a small business owner so it is easy for me to criticize and condemn from where I sit. It is important to clarify that they have to make their living as well and it would be unfair to say that they are only out for their benefit. It isn't necessarily true and I appreciate their need to make a living the same as me. That said, it has become common practice, at least locally, to treat employees as dispensable and to cheapen the value of skilled tradesmen to such an extent that when those of us who are unemployed find a job we are often taking a dramatic hit on what our labor and experience is worth to the point that working as a carpenter is rapidly loosing its viability as a way to raise and provide for a family.)
It is in this context that I find myself with a little time and a chance to pursue some of the lost aspirations of my life. So, for now, I write and I ride and I spend time with my family.
With my identity in flux and the structure of a steady job eliminated I have experienced, in the past, the detriment a block of time with little or no focus can have on my mental state. So it was important to me to establish a routine early in my most recent lay-off. That routine starts in the morning, getting everyone ready for the day and helping my wife maintain her routine but still being available to help with the boys as I was able and was necessary. My routine has remained in tact for four weeks now, leaving the house around 9 a.m. to write (at least 1,500 words a day or three pages and more if I can, but my daily minimum is 1,500 words) then home for lunch and job search in the afternoon and a spin on Galbraith with my mt. bike every other day or so. Remaining rigid to my writing schedule but flex able in everything else as to spend time with the boys and my wife and, as much as possible in the growing stress and financial anxiety, enjoying the opportunity to pursue writing and riding and family.
Once I find a job each of the things I'm able to give focus to, now, will take a hit and my structure will have to be re-vamped to accommodate work but I hope to maintain a newly invented identity as writer, husband, father, rider and not simply carpenter. I am no longer content to be simply carpenter, life is so much more complex and engaging than that. I have done some writing that I am truly excited about, seen my level of riding take a big leap -- in fitness at least -- and spent some quality and purposeful time with my wife and my kids. So much more important than a life of work.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Lingering Days of Winter
It feels like it has been a long winter. The days and days of rain in November and December, the snow and bitter cold in January feel like we've seen enough. It doesn't help to have this on again off again spring tease as February drives forward. I woke up this morning and the back yard, the neighbors roof, the windows of the cars are covered in ice and frost. Ohm rises from the various chimneys and vents on the houses about the neighbor hood and the cars that drive by leave a long trail of exhaust visible because of the cold winter air.
I don't dislike winter and I prefer the cold, bright, frozen days to the weeks of cold, cloudy, rainy days or the inevitable snow melt when everything is saturated in slush and mud and you can not go anywhere without soaking the slush and mud as though you were dry and crusty old sponge longing for moisture. Winter, though, feels long and cold and even the brightest days fade into an early night and start very slowly.
But I think it has more to do with the pattern that has been established these past three years, as winter crawls into spring I have crawled into unemployment and the early nights and late mornings become a bleak frame for a bleak state of mind.
I am ready for winter to be over -- I am more ready to have consistent, steady work.
I don't dislike winter and I prefer the cold, bright, frozen days to the weeks of cold, cloudy, rainy days or the inevitable snow melt when everything is saturated in slush and mud and you can not go anywhere without soaking the slush and mud as though you were dry and crusty old sponge longing for moisture. Winter, though, feels long and cold and even the brightest days fade into an early night and start very slowly.
But I think it has more to do with the pattern that has been established these past three years, as winter crawls into spring I have crawled into unemployment and the early nights and late mornings become a bleak frame for a bleak state of mind.
I am ready for winter to be over -- I am more ready to have consistent, steady work.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Jury Duty
This week finds me in the first half of my jury duty commitment and already I have sat on a jury and became part of a process that found a man guilty of driving under the influence. The true nature of "innocent until proven guilty" struck me for the first time this week. Having the chance to sit in court and watch a man, whose civil liberties were on the line for a choice he made, react to the prosecutor's case for his guilt.
At one point, true to his plea, the defendant wholly believed his innocence, that his blood alcohol content did not indicate a violation of the law, that he was in the right and should be in the clear. But slowly his countenance changed, over the course of prosecutor's case he crumbled and at the end of the second day he was a guilty man. Not based on evidence alone, though it was irrefutable that his blood alcohol level was over the legal limit, rather his demeanor as his posture failed and his face fell and he could hardly keep his chin up for the tears that threatened to be revealed.
Passing judgement on someone for something I'm sure I have done was a humbling experience.
Realizing that there are liberties he will lose offers some perspective.
Six jurors were chosen (this was district court), people I'd never seen or met before, from a dynamic cross section of life and experience. From these two days we developed a subtle bond of friendship and commitment, believing collectively in the evidence presented brought us together in a way I can not entirely understand. Perfect strangers in unanimous agreement.
By the time the trial was in its closing stages there was little, or no, other option to come too, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the defendant was guilty of the offense he committed. But in retrospect it could have been so different. The defense could have found opened holes in the testimonies of witnesses for the prosecution--as he so nearly did--not revealing lies but developing doubts and minor inconsistencies and that is all he needed to do. If he had been successful the result would have been dramatically different.
I don't, in general, have a lot of faith in people's opinion to think for themselves. I have listened to to many politically charged propaganda spiels from the mouths of friends, acquaintances, and protesters on the street that were lifted directly from their favorite extremist personality or association. But over the course of two days my faith in the human mind to take in and comprehend facts and reason has been restored by some degree.
Jury duty was a terrible inconvenience and the process is littered with wasted time as the logistics and decisions are made on the fly. Yet I don't feel it was a waste--though I am not eager for another trial--rather I have a new appreciation of the dedication lawyers have to their practice, the knowledge a judge relies on to pass judgement and mediate a trial, and the legal process itself with its strict protocols.
When the system works as it is supposed to work then we are a privileged society. When it fails, as I am sure it does, the result is disastrous. I look at the liberties I assume and have taken for granted for so long today differently than I did three days ago. We are privileged to be free and to assume a great deal of freedoms until choice or situation forces us to do something regrettable upon which a jury of our peers will cast judgement.
At one point, true to his plea, the defendant wholly believed his innocence, that his blood alcohol content did not indicate a violation of the law, that he was in the right and should be in the clear. But slowly his countenance changed, over the course of prosecutor's case he crumbled and at the end of the second day he was a guilty man. Not based on evidence alone, though it was irrefutable that his blood alcohol level was over the legal limit, rather his demeanor as his posture failed and his face fell and he could hardly keep his chin up for the tears that threatened to be revealed.
Passing judgement on someone for something I'm sure I have done was a humbling experience.
Realizing that there are liberties he will lose offers some perspective.
Six jurors were chosen (this was district court), people I'd never seen or met before, from a dynamic cross section of life and experience. From these two days we developed a subtle bond of friendship and commitment, believing collectively in the evidence presented brought us together in a way I can not entirely understand. Perfect strangers in unanimous agreement.
By the time the trial was in its closing stages there was little, or no, other option to come too, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the defendant was guilty of the offense he committed. But in retrospect it could have been so different. The defense could have found opened holes in the testimonies of witnesses for the prosecution--as he so nearly did--not revealing lies but developing doubts and minor inconsistencies and that is all he needed to do. If he had been successful the result would have been dramatically different.
I don't, in general, have a lot of faith in people's opinion to think for themselves. I have listened to to many politically charged propaganda spiels from the mouths of friends, acquaintances, and protesters on the street that were lifted directly from their favorite extremist personality or association. But over the course of two days my faith in the human mind to take in and comprehend facts and reason has been restored by some degree.
Jury duty was a terrible inconvenience and the process is littered with wasted time as the logistics and decisions are made on the fly. Yet I don't feel it was a waste--though I am not eager for another trial--rather I have a new appreciation of the dedication lawyers have to their practice, the knowledge a judge relies on to pass judgement and mediate a trial, and the legal process itself with its strict protocols.
When the system works as it is supposed to work then we are a privileged society. When it fails, as I am sure it does, the result is disastrous. I look at the liberties I assume and have taken for granted for so long today differently than I did three days ago. We are privileged to be free and to assume a great deal of freedoms until choice or situation forces us to do something regrettable upon which a jury of our peers will cast judgement.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
A Tribute To "On Writing"
I am into my fourth week of unemployment. The weight of working for a company I (I realize now) cared very little for has been lifted from my shoulders as well as my first reaction to being unemployed – anger, resentment, fear, disgust, etc. That isn’t to say I’m over the experience, when I dwell to long on my previous bosses or see the Advent Construction van roll down the street the company culture of hypocrisy and double standards rushes back and for a moment I am left standing in a blank space, heart rushing into my chest and my vision turning red. But the episode passes quickly and I am able to continue on in my day with very little trouble.
I have used this time to reread Stephen King’s memoir/instruction manual On Writing. This little book is one of the most insightful books on writing I have ever read. King writes from an experienced perspective with a candid and endearing voice. Beginning as a small child, his experience growing up without a father and moving around the east coast and into the Midwest, from family member to family member and finally settling in Maine so his mother could take care of her mother. The book chronicles King’s journey from struggling short story writer/English teacher to publish author on the rise, right through the accident that hospitalized him in 1999.
Broken into two parts, the first is his life and what made him the writer he is, the second is his insight into writing and how to go about creating a discipline and lifestyle of a productive writer, there is nothing in the book I don’t find to be valuable or helpful. Looking at my copy it looks as though I’ve ear marked the bottoms of nearly a third of the pages in the book to mark a reference or insight I found particularly useful or insightful.
To be frank, I don’t find the works of Stephen King to be particularly intriguing. I struggle the macabre subject matter and the corny situations. There are a few notable exceptions where I feel he has written superb stories – The Stand, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Shinning -- nothing that will every win a Pulitzer or National Book Award, but strong, honest, excellent, well crafted stories with powerful characters that we can either relate to or see in ourselves or others. But having read On Writing a few times now I appreciate the man who is Stephen King.
He is a prolific, successful writer who has made piles and piles of money by being honest to the language and voice with which he identifies. He is disciplined and humble and realizes that he has become what he is today with the support of his family and friends. King has overcome dramatic obstacles including substance abuse and a relatively unsettled childhood and later in his life a head on collision – while on a walk – with a van on a back road in Maine. The accident should have killed him.
There are a great number of writers whose works I consider to be far superior to King, some contemporary some before his time and I am never compelled to pick up a King novel or to search one out at the library. But his “memoir on the craft” is one of the most influential books of writing in my life, to this point. As I use my down time to work on writing and try to create a discipline of the craft I have Stephen King to thank.
So, Stephen, if you ever read this: You are a pragmatic, inspiring voice from the wilderness. Thank you for On Writing.
I have used this time to reread Stephen King’s memoir/instruction manual On Writing. This little book is one of the most insightful books on writing I have ever read. King writes from an experienced perspective with a candid and endearing voice. Beginning as a small child, his experience growing up without a father and moving around the east coast and into the Midwest, from family member to family member and finally settling in Maine so his mother could take care of her mother. The book chronicles King’s journey from struggling short story writer/English teacher to publish author on the rise, right through the accident that hospitalized him in 1999.
Broken into two parts, the first is his life and what made him the writer he is, the second is his insight into writing and how to go about creating a discipline and lifestyle of a productive writer, there is nothing in the book I don’t find to be valuable or helpful. Looking at my copy it looks as though I’ve ear marked the bottoms of nearly a third of the pages in the book to mark a reference or insight I found particularly useful or insightful.
To be frank, I don’t find the works of Stephen King to be particularly intriguing. I struggle the macabre subject matter and the corny situations. There are a few notable exceptions where I feel he has written superb stories – The Stand, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Shinning -- nothing that will every win a Pulitzer or National Book Award, but strong, honest, excellent, well crafted stories with powerful characters that we can either relate to or see in ourselves or others. But having read On Writing a few times now I appreciate the man who is Stephen King.
He is a prolific, successful writer who has made piles and piles of money by being honest to the language and voice with which he identifies. He is disciplined and humble and realizes that he has become what he is today with the support of his family and friends. King has overcome dramatic obstacles including substance abuse and a relatively unsettled childhood and later in his life a head on collision – while on a walk – with a van on a back road in Maine. The accident should have killed him.
There are a great number of writers whose works I consider to be far superior to King, some contemporary some before his time and I am never compelled to pick up a King novel or to search one out at the library. But his “memoir on the craft” is one of the most influential books of writing in my life, to this point. As I use my down time to work on writing and try to create a discipline of the craft I have Stephen King to thank.
So, Stephen, if you ever read this: You are a pragmatic, inspiring voice from the wilderness. Thank you for On Writing.
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