As I sit here typing, an awesome moon is rising. It is full and deeply orange and hanging low in the sky. The night is silent for the first time in hours. Perhaps, folks have finally settled down after a sundrenched afternoon of loud, obnoxious fun. Or maybe, like me, they are frozen, stone still at the magnificent sight which is truly over our heads.
Summer 2010 Unofficially Officially begins this weekend in the US. The weather for the Commonwealth is forecasted to be spectacular. I don't actually need a weather guy to tell me that tonight. The moon is promising a hazy, hot, and humid day tomorrow. My town will swell to three or four times its population with tourists heading for the sandy shores of the Atlantic. Just like when I was a kid. And, just like when my Dad was a kid. And, just like when my grandparents immigrated here. In fact, this location has been a summer retreat since the Massachusetts tribe named the area Nantascot; 'the low tide place.' There is some comfort in that kind of annual redundancy.
I'm living a life with very little redundancy at the moment. A few weeks ago, I wrote about my free fall out of the professional life I’d been cultivating for the past two decades. I am very happy to report that total catastrophic failure did not ensue with the loss of financial security. The truth is, my life is infinitely better in every way possible. This should not have surprised me. It did and does still surprise me but it should not have.
My writing is flowing in a manner I always hoped it would. Huge chunks of time are available not just to sit at the keyboard and hammer out the prose but to sit in the sand and think about what stories I want to tell. Better still, there is ample time to sit in the sand and listen for the wind to tell me stories from another time, from another voice. I have multiple writing projects rolling along and reimbursement for my writing efforts is occuring, as well. My target of a thousand words a day is a benchmark usually blown passed before lunch.
I've also had time to nurture the side of my professional life which was most neglected; treatment and patient care. A non-writing projected related to my clinical work is taking root and starting to flourish. It is a collaboration with a colleague that is shockingly new for our rather uptight profession. Nothing like it has be done before. Groundbreaking excitement for geeks like us.
And, as my personal joy started to take hold making every day a wonderful fresh start, something else happened. A call out of nowhere about a job within my clinical specialty area. It was a really sweet deal but it would be 40 hours Monday to Friday for the entire summer. Sort of where I was when I walked away from my career, just with a little less responsibility and a bit more money. I was really torn. Conventional wisdom was screaming for me to snap it up. As I hashed it out with friends, I found myself describing the clinical work I would like to do and it was nothing like the job offered.
So, I decided to say no. Risky! Dangerous! Then something really strange happened. Before I could decline the offer, the recruiter called to tell me the job was withdrawn from their data base. Odd. I didn’t actually have to refuse the work and give the impression of being ungrateful for a great opportunity. The recruiter felt bad for bothering me. She asked to hold onto my name in case something else came across her desk. Okay, I said but let me describe my dream job situation.
Wanna guess what happened next? Not one, not two, not three, but four former employers independently contacted me within 72 hours of that conversation and offered me the freelance work I had described to the recruiter who has never spoken to any of these folks. Can I get a WTF?
The faith I was raised in, religiously organized redundancy with candles, actually taught me to expect this exact result but I have not been paying attention for a very long time. My heart remembered the lesson but my head took longer to catch on to the concept. What is the concept, you might well ask. I'll tell you...in paraphrase because I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment; 'without love, I'm a banging gong.' The translation is very loose, I know, but the idea is simple. I hated what I was doing and nothing was working out for me. Once I walked away from the daily despair and began to embrace living I started to love my whole life again. I love what I'm doing everyday and abundance has followed me all the way home.
Feel it? Wind rushing by, hair whipping wild, free falling still...and loving every minute of it...
Can you feel it now too?
phair
Words to run with! As this is Memorial Day in the USA, may it be filled with the memories of the good. Enjoy the updates.
Peace, Health and Happiness.
Elisa
- BtVS
- Chapter 14 of Lost by Rebelrser & Zigpal (Rebelrsr's web site).
- Chapter 39 of Tara by Mark Warren (Hellmouth Revisited).
- Chapter 36 of American Girls by Barnabas (BuffynFaith.Net).
- Chapters 1-4 of Something About Her by Traqin (BuffynFaith.Net).
CSI: Miami - Part 5d of Decisions by sinjenkai (Saffic).
Original - Chapter 10.10 of Flowers of Edo by Nene Adams (her web site).
- Part 8a of Blood Lust by sinjenkai (Saffic).
Original Graphic Novel - Chapter 3, Page 1 of She Said by Kris Dresen (he web site).
X-Files - Part 22 of Dana's Malakim by Dhamphir (Saffic).
