Is a job just a job or should it be something more? Should a job only be something more when touches certain aspects of life, like health or child care? Is it even possible to enjoy a menial, somewhat mindless job?

Is it wrong to want to have a job you enjoy, even if you have no idea what that job might be? Or should we just settle for what is available and use it to pay bills and live for the rest of our lives, only “living” outside of “work” and only “working” to “live”? ”That’s not really a part of my life, it’s only my job.”  It seems a little like the oversegmentation we as Americans excel not-so-wonderfully at (vis a vis, seperation of church and state). Should what we do be a part of who we are? To what extent?

When a person spends 40 hours a week doing something, you are realistically spending about half of your available waking hours not doing anything else.

But is it also overly American to debate this? Is it a first world luxury to choose your occupation? Does that make it a moot argument based on those ethics? Or should we, because we have the opportunity, make the most of our privilege and choose to do something we enjoy doing?

Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning. Sometimes I guess I actually am drowning, or almost, when I hold my breath and stare at the crack in the ceiling of my bathroom through the three inches of water I’m laying under. It feels so heavy then, that water. Heavy and warm and beautiful. I wonder what crying underwater is like. Would I be able to? Most of the time I make big gasping noises when I cry, like a child or a dying fish. But I can’t do that three inches under. Because then I would be drowning. And what would that be like? Like breathing, but wetter? Would it hurt? How? Sharp or burning or pressure or achy? Sometimes I feel all of those things anyway. But not right now, not under this water, in my echo-y silent escape of a world. So maybe it wouldn’t hurt at all. My lungs are burning now, wanting air. That’s it, that’s the feeling that I get all the time— a burning in my brain, in my gut, behind my eyes. For air. Like I’m drowning.  

09.18.2010

I reach over and plug in my cell phone charger: there’s only one bar left in the little battery icon in the right corner of my phone. The back of it’s still warm from talking for the last hour. I tuck it in it’s spot by my bed and lay down: another day is fast approaching and we both need our rest. I am, after all…

a businessman going for the biggest deal of his life tomorrow.

a teacher fighting against growing laziness tomorrow.

a student sexting at least twenty times tomorrow.

a teenager making plans for after prom tomorrow.

a child talking to grandma tomorrow.

a social worker taking a child away tomorrow.

a child abuser looking for a job tomorrow.

a pedophile looking for a school to watch tomorrow.

a rapist getting my charges dropped tomorrow.

a lawyer facing defeat tomorrow.

a preacher hoping it goes better tomorrow.

an activist facing the police line tomorrow.

a policeman facing the picket line tomorrow.

a musician playing the corner again tomorrow.

a drug dealer playing the corner again tomorrow.

…aware that tomorrow is a full day.

It was a picture of a bunny with an umbrella (purple, I think) walking in the rain. I spent a lot of time on all of those rain drops, looping them into existence over and over again with my skinny Crayola markers. I’ve always enjoyed tedious, repetitious activities, even at the age of six.

I couldn’t have been more than that since I was sitting at my white wooden table in a matching white wooden chair (the set came from Aunt Thelma’s house on what was then a recent visit), bending intently over my rainy bunny picture in the play room at the end of our trailer (which we moved out of when I was almost seven). And in the kitchen, immediately to my left, divided only by a dad-built wall, was some sort of official. Maybe inspecting something for the beginnings of my mom’s soon-to-be bakery, or some other such grown up thing which requires officiating. That detail has not stuck with me over the last twenty years. All I know was that he was sitting at our grown up tan table with my parents and I was drawing away behind the wall at my little white one.

He wore a navy blue suit though, if my memory serves me, and had dark hair and a young face. (Well, young to the me remembering this.) And I was smitten with him in that mostly innocent way children have. Though I was probably old enough to know better (and even if I wasn’t, I probably did). But I ran down the two cinder block steps outside of our converted trailer after him and gave him the picture anyway. I think it was actually raining. Maybe that was my premise for giving it to him. A thin line of grass, a thin line of sky and a thousand blue rain drops falling on a white bunny’s purple umbrella, his house forever waiting at the left side of the paper. I have wondered from time to time how long that business man kept my childhood labor of love. 

Someone pulled the stuffing out of the sky

and left it all askew: the breeze is blowing the light

white pieces everywhere and the birds don’t know

what to do. The sun is leaking all over the place,

bleach blotching the bright blue day and dripping 

down over the tips of the trees, pulling

and stretching and popping out their leaves!

It was raining. And dark. And late. The rain ran in skittish streams around the windshield wipers and reflected the lights of the highway in quick white flashes. I stared at it from my sleepy position in the back seat. My mind fills that it must have been pretty warm out because it was late July. It was a little weird only being the three of us in the van on the way up to Buffalo, but Beth was in Oswego having her life changed and molded by an artist experience while Lona was going into labor.

It was a private Catholic hospital. I don’t remember the name but it still confuses me a little why she chose that particular one. Something to do with insurance, maybe. Brian was there to greet us, sort of awkward and jittery in the weird yellow lighting of the empty waiting room. His farmer frame just looked out of place and that certain father-to-be anxiety was all over his face. Amber was in the room with my older sister, the ever-faithful best friend and very enthusiastic birthing coach. She seemed the most excited of everyone, with her sweats and notebook, poised a little like a weapon. Lona was mostly sweaty, her bright blue eyes glowing out of her shiny face above a tense bulging body. Even then that child wanted to be in control. Her back was bothering her incredibly, and that pain occupied her more than the contractions. She chattered at us in little bursts her indecision about having an epidural, about wanting to do it naturally. If only it wasn’t for this back pain. She seemed frustrated that it wasn’t the contractions, almost like back pain was an insufficient excuse for medication.

We couldn’t stay very long in the room, an abrupt medical professional— my memory won’t say doctor or nurse— shooed all of us, including Poppa-to-be, out into the pink plush waiting room with the bad yellow lights. Only one person allowed to stay with the momma. That didn’t seem quite fair to any of us. Calling Beth popped to the forefront of my mind, and my dad gave me a phone card for the pay phone mounted to the wall. I tried with no success and so Dad and I ventured through the always winding, identical hospital halls down and out to an outside door so we could use our cell phones. We took turns calling the couple of numbers we thought might lead us to her. One us must have succeeded because the next thing I knew I was peeling myself off the row of chairs I was sleeping on, woken up by Brian’s excited “It’s a girl! It’s a girl!” as he came bursting through the door from the delivery room. An immediate rush of joy burst through my chest cavity and onto my face and I split a huge grin as I followed my parents. I have a niece.

Light breathes life,

breaks dark, makes sight

clean, clears away crowds

of souls faded gray— none

stay to play in Light

that stings skin, brings in

bats from places unsung

to, faces wont to

forget, forces breath

to lungs blacked by

boxers’ blows, smoke

of smothered anger, wrath,

jealousy, strife— life

breathes Light breathes,

sighs, wheezes, heaves to

exist, survive, subsist,

alive!

          Emerge clean

    from clear wet waves, cold

                bright ways to show

strength (beyond sight bound

by psyched-up, wound-up-

in-knowledged drafts of rights

found lacking—) know Light. see

Light-breathed-life in

rounded tones of tight

truth. There lives we,

lives us, lives community.

February 4, 2010

This is really old— 2004— but one of my favorite things I’ve written.

Warm on the floor
parallel, perpendicular
back to knees bent
comfortable?
me too ‘cause I missed you
John plays
while we watch
sandwiched gladly
between beds
close as we can
with sleeping bags
and soft light

then sliding outside
in new snow
you skid and I smile
peace falls in tiny crystals
all around
silent save our rush
giggles and frozen breath
rush into each other
and an abandoned building
for food then follow
our footsteps fading
back into Thompson
to watch John play
Back to You
and the us I’ve missed

I missed your birthday
two years in a row- to go
to Mississippi with money
I never really thanked you for. 

          This summer I wrote
a real letter
that counted your blessings 
                            (at least a few) 
but
it sat
on the the table in a half
reconstructed kitchen 
waiting
                  (don’t know where it went).

               I thought you would
(read it) come home. And I found
myself, lost myself 
denying denial and hating hosptials.
                                  
                                 I try to say
                                 at least I
                                 saw you once

because I wasn’t going to go at all
(they said you would come home!)
                
                 until Jake changed my mind.
                                        
But I didn’t stay
as long as I should’ve

didn’t say
what I needed to, or even take
    the little ginger ale you tried
    to give me. Still giving
                         even when I hadn’t said thank you.

(At least I said ‘I love you’.)

Beth said she wanted to see
you one more time- at my apartment, 
                                     did you hear that?

I want to say thank you-
                                     can you hear me?-

and I missed you at my birthday
and I love you
and come back.

                            I don’t know why
but somehow
twenty years 
wasn’t enough.