184. spigot

July was a rough month for David.

My long-term contract finally ended at the university where I’d been doing administrative support since March 2012. I’d been informed of this about two weeks prior and started sending out résumés right away in the midst of completing the project work I was doing there. I let two temp agencies I’ve worked with in the past know that I’d be available starting July 1st.

Then June 28th came around, and there was not a bite on any of the applications I submitted. Granted, that was the week of the 4th of July so a lot of hiring managers may have been out on vacation. So I kept filling out and submitting applications. The temp agencies started calling with job opportunities that sounded like a “great fit” for my skill set that they wanted to submit my resume for, only to call back a week later to say that the client had selected another candidate.

I started getting email responses like this:

After screening your application materials, you are not among the candidates who will proceed to the next step in the process. However, you may be considered for future vacancies as additional positions become available.

A couple of the places I submitted résumés to that actually responded wanted me to come in for interviews, only to call shortly after to say that I hadn’t been selected. Meanwhile, the bills kept coming in, rent was due, and I had to buy groceries to avoid starvation. A haircut still seems like a luxury, even though I do need to look presentable (read = hireable).

This has been a demoralizing month, not to put too fine a point on it. My thirtieth half-birthday just passed, meaning I’ve passed the half-way point to thirty-one, and I’m without a job and steady income. My application to receive unemployment benefits finally went through a few days ago, meaning that I have a little cushion room while looking for permanent work.

Just another first.

I did experience some relief in my contract ending with the university. While I liked the people, I wasn’t really happy with the kind of work I was doing there, or the work that I’ve been doing the past few years. It’s tough to find anything else with my skill set, however. I trained for a career in music academia, and at the $11-12/hr pay rate my degree and experience have garnered, it’s been virtually impossible to pursue additional training and, you know, pay the bills and live.

The truth is, I’ve been rather down on my experience and education since graduating with what I’ve often referred to as a “useless” degree in music composition. From a conservative Christian liberal arts college, no less. It wasn’t until talking with a friend who is a career counselor several years ago that I even saw the marketable value in such a credential. A music education is not the fluffy walk in the park that many high school seniors seem to think it is. It’s actually one of the most rigorous fields of study there is, aside from medicine or law. It requires a high degree of analytical and creative thinking, learning to work and think collaboratively, and retaining a great deal of information that you’re required to apply and synthesize into performance.

The amount of rejection I faced both in college and after led me to believe that what I had to offer was something that nobody wanted—that I’d wasted almost a decade of my life pursuing something that was only going to be decorative. Like most people, I can’t make a living doing what it is that makes me feel most alive. Yet being stuck in an office, at a desk, staring at a computer screen at spreadsheets, and formatting and filing documents is suffocating and deadening, like the gnomes of Bism in The Silver Chair, held in captivity too near the surface.

The other day I was finally able to see my therapist after over a month of not being able to afford to go. It didn’t feel like a very productive session as I was pretty low that day and felt like I was just babbling most of the time. What I did manage to get out of the visit was the reality that I’m in the midst of a crucible of renewal, both personally and artistically, and that I often fail to see the actual value in the wealth of experience that I do have.

Though I’ve flirted with pursuing other professions and fields of study, the one that has most consistently held my interest is music. Over the past couple of months, after beginning to connect again with musical friends, I’ve started composing again, and the feeling of satisfaction in putting notes to paper is palpable and intoxicating.

Another realization that came after seeing my therapist was hearing that I’m finally approaching my career, creativity and life purpose as me, as my authentic self. While I wasn’t necessarily an empty shell before, I was living my life by what I believed other people wanted for (and by their expectations of) me. It felt like being a shadow, and I had very little idea of who I actually was.

Once I started getting free of the anger and resentment that followed my deconversion from religion, I could begin to piece together who I really am and what I truly value, and live by that. I’m not entirely sure yet what that means for a career, but it does involve making this world a better and more beautiful place. For creativity, it means pursuing what deeply resonates with me (instead of what will glorify God), promoting a Humanistic worldview, and using music and art to highlight issues that matter to me and to bring people and communities together.

Life is too wonderful and short to keep my head down and work for retirement. Because there’s more to my passion than a pile a stuff.

169. intemerate

It’s strange being (nearly) 30 years old and contemplating going back to school. Or at least class.

Tonight was my first time back as a student in a classroom in just over eight years. (The last time was in early December of 2004, but most of that period was a blur as it was overshadowed by the gargantuan annual Christmas concert.)

Around Thanksgiving (actually, it may have been on Thanksgiving Day) I decided to quit dancing around the issue and actually register for a creative writing course. This was shortly after attending the intro session at Hamline University for the Creative Writing master’s program, and I was afraid of losing momentum, so with my boyfriend’s encouragement and support I signed up for a creative nonfiction course.

It’s so funny that after all this time I’ve landed in nonfiction and essay. As a kid and then as a teen I was a voracious reader and writer of fiction. Then music took over my life in college. Four years later and I was well surfeited of music to the point where I couldn’t even listen to it for almost two years. This was when I discovered audiobooks and public radio, and rediscovered my love of words and language.

All last week I tried not to think about the course very much, aside from the logistics of getting there and being prepared in terms of bringing materials. I didn’t want to have any expectations going in for fear of being disappointed once there. The course itself is geared towards writers working on book-length projects that center around personal experience. The minute I read the description it seemed perfect for me!

“Hmm. Do I have a compelling experience?” I rhetorically asked Jason.

He thought it sounded like something I should definitely go for.

I tried not to think too much about my future classmates, or the instructor, who they might be, how much more experience they might have than me, and how inadequate I might feel in comparison. After all, I have limited academic writing experience, and no training in literary theory or criticism. I’m mostly self-trained, with the majority of my learning coming from having honest friends read and edit my work (that is, friends who are readers and not interested in stroking my ego).

And then there’s my competitive streak, which is a mile wide, and armed with sharp teeth, claws and a degree of selfish ambition. I often describe this part of me as almost pure Id, my primal lizard self largely dominated by fear, and concerned chiefly with beating other lizards (or at least driving them off) and getting what it wants. It’s this part of me that set out to crush my younger sisters’ desires to pursue music, or at least to play the piano. That was my purview. Claws off, thank you very much.

It comes down to my own anxiety over feeling insignificant, and my sense of self-worth being tied into what I produce and do. It’s why I settled on composition in college. I was good at it, there were many other competent pianists there to show me up for the mediocre keyboardist I was, and it was an area I could easily establish myself in and defend against challengers. It’s sad to think how much time and energy I’ve wasted and how many relationships I’ve cheated myself of worrying about that.

The class itself was delightful. Writing courses are so different from other classroom courses. It’s less about listening to a lecture as doing and sharing actual writing. Our instructor did most of the talking tonight, as is often the case with the first day of any class, but aside from going over course expectations, we talked about writing, developing and describing our book/story project proposals, and working on the writing exercises our instructor gave us.

The challenge in writing personal nonfiction, she said, was moving from personal experience to finding meaning within that. It’s one thing to tell your story. It’s another to find the deep threads in it that will resonate with and inspire your readership. Why does this story matter to me? she asked. What’s at stake in it for me?

The first exercise we did was a sensory one, asking What have I seen that no one else in this room has seen? Ditto for hearing, smell, taste, touch, then to what no one else has done, been, knows, and are. What’s the exotic landscape or object that a reader can connect with? Basically, what’s the personal connection that will tap into the passion and love that will inspire people to keep reading? It’s not enough to know your story. Why is it worth writing about?

I was fascinated and excited to discover that the guy sitting next to me was also working on a story about losing his faith. The lady next to him is working on a memoir about going back to school as a radiology technician after the last of her kids left home, and she had to figure out who she was all over again while learning to work in a largely male-dominated field. Another woman has a first draft of a manuscript about her year recovering from cancer, but is struggling to find the inner story and the meaning within the experience.

As each of went around at the end of the evening, introducing ourselves and describing the subject we’re planning to write about, it was remarkable to notice some of the common links and themes between each story. Of course, the challenge for each of us will be finding what’s compelling about each of our stories, but it reminds me yet again how interesting people really are, how vital it is to tell each other our stories, and how much experience is lost to the act of getting through the day.

I have no illusions that this will be easy. But for the first time in a while I feel like I’m heading in the right direction.