Unemployed

[Post from November 2012]
[a very honest post]

Well, not exactly unemployed. I nannied for three days a week and sometimes taught up to three yoga classes every week. Friends bought or gave me almost all my food. I clamped down an iron fist on my earnings, paying only my rent and student loan bills every month. Oh. And gas.

I stressed out a lot, but I also read voraciously, laughed really hard, cried honestly, took photographs with a camera and with my mind, and last week, I even BIG cleaned my house. I applied for lots and lots of jobs, interviewed extensively, and learned that sometimes people who are interviewing you for a job actually don't really know how to interview someone. They asked me lists of questions that had little to do with the position in question, and seemed to be from an online how-to article. It was a good reminder that all of us are human, all of us can be prone to put off something important until the last minute, and all of us are still trying to figure things out. I hope we never stop.

The reason I am writing this post is because Monday, I start a full time job. I loved the organization, loved the interview, and got a good sense of the atmosphere of the company. Nonetheless, I am full of trepidation. I am an idealist at heart, and it's one thing to imagine and wonder and ponder; it's another thing to dive into a real job, with hours and wages and an office.

I am wholeheartedly grateful to be moving into a place where I can provide for others as I have been provided for; while working in a supportive place doing work I believe is meaningful and important.

Thanks to what I might refer to as my sojourn from the working world, I understand some important things though.

1. A job is a job. It neither completes nor defines me.
2. Anxieties and worries occur working or otherwise. Some jobs (and I've had one of these) directly increase our anxieties while decreasing our ability to cope with them. These are worth leaving. In other instances, we look for a place to pin our often nameless fears and worries. Jobs are convenient. So are family members and loved ones. It's good to be aware of this.
3. We live in a country with more than enough, that constantly tells us we need more. We don't. There is always enough.

These are some of the lessons I hope to take into my new job. I am hoping to give myself lots of patience and plenty of time to transition. It takes a long time to transition. I learned this in Spain, in coming back from Spain, and in starting other jobs.

Here we go - the beginning of an end and the beginning of a beginning. 

The Story of the Tomato Plant

Someone very wise once told me that while our minds try to explain everything, the heart speaks in pictures and metaphors. This is the story of a tomato plant that speaks a picture better than I can explain.
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This spring, my roommate and I were suddenly inspired to garden. We went on a long walk past a plot of community gardens and picked up a brochure.

"Carolyn?" I said to her. "I wonder if Bill (our landlord) would let us garden in that raised bed with those tiny ugly bushes."

So Carolyn called him up. I was sure he'd say no. I listened to Carolyn's end of the conversation.

"We were wondering if we might do a little gardening in the raised box outside our house... Yes the one with the bushes in it...Well, we know it's not very much room, but we'd like to try!... Okay, thank you!"

And just like that, we were gardeners! I went to work clearing some of the very sketchy mulch, saving it in my old humidifier box, in the unlikely event that Bill wanted it back at the end of the summer. I planted zinnia seeds we'd been given at church and documented their growth with my camera. Despite having almost no money, I went to our local hardware store and splurged on a trowel, a pack of four marigolds, a flowering plant that promised to come back year after year, and an heirloom tomato.

Caleb, my boyfriend, gave me a bag of potting soil to work into the heavy clay soil so common in this area. He also brought me a pair of gardening gloves which I stained black and green with nature and earth. I turned the potting soil along the row where I planned to plant things, watched the box for the times of day it had full sun. I planted the marigolds in intervals throughout the box, the tomato plant in the corner where it would get the most sun, and basil and sage from our CSA. I also planted the flowering plant, but it withered and died only days after.

It was one of the hottest summers on record. My May dreams of harvesting my own tomatoes were deferred again and again. I worked three jobs, still made almost nothing, and went on an unexpected two week trip to Spain. While I was gone, Caleb stopped by our house every day to water the tomato plants and others. The tomato plant grew, and grew, and grew. It put out flowers. It dropped the flowers. It grew some more.

I came back from Spain. Caleb's beard was enormous. So was the tomato plant.

The summer and I synced our rhythms, racing around frantically, knowing that the heat couldn't last forever and neither could this pace.

By July, I was weary. I watered the garden out of sympathy for our mutual heat exhaustion. I lifted up tomato branches, searching for a sign of red and spotting, again and again, the tag I pushed into the ground with pictures of what I hoped would be coming.

At the end of July, I quit my job as an ESL instructor, much to my parents' surprise. It was a huge relief. As the summer finally started to wind down, I found myself watering the garden while carrying the baby I began to nanny. I let him pull at the zinnias and tomato leaves.

In late September, I looked at the tomato plant. The thing was a giant mound, ten feet by ten feet. I had pruned it several times, to see if it would spark anything. It had been in the ground since May and had yet to produce a single tomato. I thought about Jesus cursing the fig tree and wondered if I should just rip the darn thing out of the ground right then and there. It had been, I decided, a waste of water to water the thing since May. Oh well. I love plants, and I don't like it when they die. I could never have killed one with intentional neglect.

The first two frosts came. No one could understand why, including myself, but I covered the tomato plant with two sheets (One wasn't big enough.)

And then a miracle happened. The tomato plant flowered, and almost overnight it was filled with tiny green tomatoes. They grew, and grew, and grew. Some were the size of softballs and still green. I could only laugh. It was October. The season for squash and pumpkins and greens. Not tomatoes! I pulled off the flowers where no tomato had yet formed so that they plant could put all its efforts into the tomatoes it already had. The plant had a mind of its own and put out more flowers than I pick. Tomato after tomato grew forth. I covered it for the frosts again.

Eventually, I picked those tomatoes and put them in my windowsill. Slowly but surely, they ripened one by one or two by two and I had garden tomatoes when I least expected - all the way through December.

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Carry on friends. Don't grow weary in your waiting. The time will come.

Yobbity, yob

I am living a new kind of existence. Every day, I wake up at the same time and get dressed and leave my house. Recently, I've been walking but sometimes I drive.

I go to work.

From about mid-August until the end of November, I didn't really do that. A very, very sweet baby was  delivered to my living room two - four days per week and I walked to a local yoga studio to teach classes. After a blisteringly hot summer full of activity, a two week trip to my second homeland (Espain), and working three jobs flung from all over the city, I was ready for a break. So I quit things. And hoped and applied for others.

I don't think I realized it at the time, but it refreshed my soul in a way I still don't understand fully. One day I was sitting in my grandparents' armchair, which I've inherited. I was feeding him a bottle, hoping he'd fall asleep before the bottle ended. I realized, "Why would I want to be anywhere else besides right here with this little baby?" At that moment, he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

I don't know if you've ever been schooled by a seven month old, but that sweet baby taught me how to be present to my body, mind, and spirit. I am learning this still. I am learning gratitude and that God always, always provides.

So I have this new job now. And most of the time, I love it. When I was first starting, someone said to me, "The money's not great. None of us are getting rich here." I snickered inside my head and thought, "That's what you think. This is more than twice what I was making before starting here!"

Starting a new job is an adjustment though. It's been good to walk to work, to be at work, to feel like I am getting things done everyday. Watching a baby sometimes does not feel like getting anything done. I'm glad for both practices though. One job of presence and one of task accomplishment. They overlap though. Presence is something that I often feel the need to race through in order to complete something. I am actively fighting this though, and trying to take the time to linger at lunch and when speaking with a coworker.

Linger.

Sometimes I start a blog post with an idea of what I will be writing, and by the time it's finished I no longer remember what I was going to say in the first place. I think, mostly, I am writing to remember the woman I became in those four months of liminal space, to hold on to it, and to carry it into this new place in my life called work. 

Simply having an wonderful Christmas time

When I was a little kid, I loved Christmas. No school for a week or more! Presents! Lingering meals and time with cousins! Lights on houses! Christmas songs! One year, I even got to dress up as Mary. That was epic and my life-long fifth grader's dream.

Now as an adult, I observe the same things I observed as a child. It looks different though. I see homeless friends on the street in the midst of the Christmas shoppers. I pause as people swirl around me to say a few words to the man ringing the Salvation Army bell. He looks worn and tired. I watch as Christmas decorations go up around my neighborhood. Flashing lights nearly cover one house and I wonder how they sleep at night. "Silent Night" ironically croons out of the temporary speakers they've installed.

Don't get me wrong - I love traditions and meaningful decorations. I just wonder, sometimes, if the best way to prepare for Christmas might be emptying our homes, our selves, our lives of everything that distracts us. How much more meaningful would remembering the gift of Christ be if we had spent the first four weeks of December quieting our souls?

I don't mean to be cynical or to sound judgmental. I did not spend the first four weeks of December quieting my soul or emptying my life of excess clutter.

And this, in some ways, is the message of Christmas. Christ comes. Ready or not, God becomes flesh and moves into the world and into our lives. Mary would have probably preferred to have the baby with her female relatives surrounding her, close to home for her first childbirth. God comes anyway, letting the shepherds know to be not afraid. God meets us where we are, whether or not we think we are ready.

May we be transformed by the little baby who comes into our broken, over-cluttered world. And maybe I will start giving away my possessions to those with less.

This post was inspired by two of my favorite bloggers:
Amanda's post http://everythingsuptodate.blogspot.com/2012/11/waiting-for-christmas.html
Mary's post http://tonicwild.blogspot.com/2012/12/tis-season-for-what.html (This one gets into some things I didn't cover here, but feel very strongly about.)

The meaning of penúltimo

Once upon a time, I lived in a magical land where it was warm all the time and people planted olive and palm trees for fun. I picked pomegranates and oranges from trees. I sometimes stayed out until the absurd hour of three in the morning. I sneakily eavesdropped on English speakers as I pretended to not understand.

Well, actually it wasn't warm all the time. In fact, I froze in my unheated places of work and home in the 40 degree weather. 40 degree Fahrenheit, folks, Fahrenheit. 40 degrees Celsius would have been scorching.

It was magical, but as in all good stories, there was a problem. I was lonely. As a means of solving this problem, I signed up on a website that connects people from all over the world. You just type in a city, town, or region, and other member's profiles pop up. You can ask to sleep on their couches if you are visiting the area or you can ask them to show you around. I decided to see if anyone wanted to be my friend.

One of those people, let's call him Ignacio, said sure, let's be friends. Have you been to the zoo here, I asked. Not for a long time, he said. And just like that, we decided to go to the zoo. I told him the intersection where I lived, and he said he'd pick me up.

As I got into his small SUV, I thought to myself, "I am so glad my mother doesn't know what I'm doing right now." It was a thought I'd had many times before, like when I was biking along the highway after getting off at the wrong train stop. And I had the same feeling many times afterwards, like when I was lost at midnight in Paris with no phone and only a very creepy man trying to make me get in his car.

This time, however, the man was slightly less creepy, we spoke the same language, and I was willingly getting in his car. As I opened the door, I realized I was violating several rules from childhood. Don't talk to strangers. Don't get in their cars and ride away with them. Always tell an adult where you're going.

But this time, I was the adult, and I sort of knew Ignacio, right? Right? I had met him on the website. And people you meet on websites are always safe... right?

Fortunately, we did exactly what we said we'd do. We went to the zoo (See picture above). Then we picked up a friend of mine and went to the movies. We saw Up in the Air with George Clooney. George Clooney's voice should never be dubbed. It's too weird. Then we dropped off my friend and Ignacio asked if I wanted to go get dinner. Eek. I wanted to say no, but he was offering to pay and take me to a really.cool.place. I have a hard time resisting really.cool.places when in foreign countries. We found out that we exercised at the same gym. Oh no, I thought. I hope he doesn't walk by when I'm in my belly dancing class. I might hide.


After dinner, I was ready to go home. After all, we'd met at 3, and it was now close to 10. That's a long time to spend with someone you don't really know. Then, Ignacio suggested we get drinks. No... I said. I'm pretty tired. "Venga," he said, come on. I know a really.cool.place.

Frick.

Now, two years later, older, wiser, I know how to put my foot down. How to say, "Heck no, techno. I'm tired and want to go to bed." But then, I was just learning. Plus... not my culture. And heck no techno doesn't really translate.


And so we got drinks. And then he asked if I wanted another drink. I said no. He said venga. Come on. El penúltimo.

Now. I didn't know what penúltimo meant, but I heard the word "último"  and I was on board. "Okay," I told him. Último means last. As in the last one. No more. Fin. The end. Ellen goes home and goes to bed. You know, Último. Nope. he said PENúltimo. Penultimate. It's a cognate, but that didn't help me when I didn't know the English word to begin with. It means the second to the last.

Thus, I sat and drank two bottles of water while he drank two more (the second to the last and the last) of whatever he was drinking. All the while, I was cementing the meaning of "penultimate" in my head. Not last. Second to the last. I will never forget it.

Might I have a cookie? It will be my penultimate.

For times of transition...

This is quite an interesting time in my life. Someday I will write about it. Maybe when it's over. For now, suffice it to say that I have some pretty great friends and I spend a lot of time around my house. And it feels like it's moving toward something good, most days, but other days it feels long and endless and I just want to buy new things as a means of making myself feel different. But I don't. (Was that penultimate sentence a run-on? Probably.)

As I make my way oh-so-slowly toward the new and different, I am encouraged by a sermon emphasizing these parts of 2 Samuel. I wanted to share.

From 2 Samuel 7:8-11

‘This is what the Lord Almighty says: I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth. And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies.


I took you.
I have been with you.
I will provide a place for you. 
I will give you rest.

What to do when your cake falls apart...

A few weeks ago, my roommate and I were assigned to bring desserts to a party. Sweet! 

She made a very amazing trifle with chocolate cake, pudding, and whipped cream. I planned to make a light and fluffy lemon cake. Alas! I did not line the pan with parchment paper (always read the recipe BEFORE the cake goes in the oven...). My cake overflowed in the oven and then came out like this.

It was so sad when my cake looked like this. The second half came out in crumbs.

I looked up various solutions online. It appeared my options were cake pops, frosting the heck out of it, or making a trifle. 

But woe to me, for my roommate had, an hour earlier, cut her beautiful cake into squares and made a trifle. 

Not that trifles aren't delicious, but one seemed plenty. And I didn't want to go buy more ingredients so I took a break and went to my room to think about something else. This is a vital step in any mini kitchen crisis. (Except when you've spilled butternut squash soup everywhere. Then you just have to clean. But that's another story.)

I then looked through my cupboards and found the can of powdered egg whites my mom once bought and then only used once. I had confiscated them when I moved.

Meringue was born.

I pushed the cake into a springform pan

... and whipped up a meringue from powdered egg whites

...spread it on top and baked it!

Voila!

It was so good. And who'd have thought meringue would freeze so well?

Do you have any unusual suggestions for fixing a broken cake? This trick worked especially well because this was a very, very moist cake. I'm not sure how well it might work for a more dry cake.