My computer died February 14, 2010. I went an entire month without internet (except for my phone, yes I’m technology spoiled) and while I thought that I would feel insanely disconnected from the world, constantly bored, I felt rather healthy after a few days of detox. Its funny the things we think to need to be happy, but can easily learn to live without. We are adaptable creatures of survival.

All I can focus on is spring. Fresh air. Streaming sun rays. Sundresses and skirts and sandals and overall freedom; freedom to go out for long periods of time, to walk anywhere, to sit and be still outside. Spring is that eternal promise I remind myself in the depths of winters early darkness. Despite the fragile buds and warm air, I like to think of spring as more fierce than even summer and its lush landscapes and stifling air, just because it has to kick so much winter butt. I hope you all are looking forward to all the goodness waiting to spring forth.

I’m in the midst of my screenplay now; no turning back cause i’m halfway in, and a light at the end of the tunnel. I suppose I talk more about how I’m going to finish it then I do actually writing. But thats just my style. There are days or hours when I just get really into it, and most days thats not the case. I feel good about this week though, probably because of the snow. The snow descending everywhere gently reminding you of the things you need to do while bundled inside. It makes me want to eat eat eat and write write write!

O my God, what am I
That these late mouths should cry open
In a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers.

—from “Poppies in October” by Sylvia Plath

I love this stanza, because I feel like this is what it feels like to be compelled to write. I recite it to myself often, mostly when I worked my soul sucking retail job this past holiday season. To think of the people for whom retail will always be their career, always makes me wonder what am I, that little things like poppies would so electrifyingly alive; that everything speaks to you so clearly that you should have just have to write it down. Luckily I don’t think that voice dies or goes away, because I imagine I’ll have to keep listening to that voice through a few more retail jobs.

-from “Shroud” by Ani Difranco

Hearts and Needles

xkcd.com  - by Randall Munroe

SO this week I felt the inner turnings of change. Feeling extra stuck on the job front, I redesigned my resume. It’s a cleaner, simpler format that seems to put more emphasis on my work experience. I also obviously changed the layout for this blog! I hope you like it, I think it too is a cleaner simpler format that is easier to read.

My new resume seems to be working well as I had two interviews this week. It introduced me to a new conundrum; what if the person interviewing has the energy of a dead cow? One employer seemed too rushed to be bothered to properly interview me; never asked if I had questions or told me about the job. Another seemed so quiet, so bored that I could barely muster polite smiles. I’m a good natured person, and it felt difficult to bring out my (waning) enthusiasm to these uninterested interviewers. As much as it is my responsibility to sell myself and be my best, I’ve always assumed they too are selling their company; they should bring their best game in order to truly dig out the best people for the job.

Tomorrow I train for my underpaying retail job. I can’t complain, but hopefully mixing things up will produce a new outcome, like a job!

And unemployment has again brought me down an interesting path! I took a job on a political campaign (I’ve decided to keep things anonymous, no employers, people, etc will ever be specified) but that being said I’m liberal, in NYC, the primary for mayor is Tues… so feel free to figure it out.

Its the fifth job I’ve taken from craigslist. I seem to be most successful on that website, I think employers posting there are looking to hire quickly and usually temporary, so I’ve been pretty lucky. The informality of the website also makes me more comfortable when writing cover letters. The pressure to write in a professional manner isn’t there, so I’m most real and honest.

Putting my job in context, I’ve been a volunteer for three campaigns. Growing up in NH means intense primaries. I was lucky enough to be involved for the most awsomest of these campaigns, John Kerry for President. Yeah, I was an intern for a year. I walked into the John Kerry office  September 2003, a nervous, excited, idealistic 16 year old. I had no idea what that political world was. I entered it to find I would knock on hundreds of doors and make thousands of phone calls. Through this I spoke to hundreds of people. Some eccentric, others hardworking and humble, some excited to talk about issues that matter to them, others who slammed doors in my face, hid in their house and pretended not to be home (yeah I can hear your footsteps when you run from the door) and others who yelled at me on the phone (shout out to the person who told me they were dying and wouldn’t make it to election day). I loved it. In maybe no other capacity can you really speak to people about their lives, and like film our political process unites all of our stories. I snuck into the Democratic National Convention and watched Kerry accept the nomination. I also watched him lose, and me lose my hopeful nature. I carefully waded back in the process a few times for Hillary only to watch her lose too. Watching Obama win however, helped me realize how things come together in the end. Letting Bush destroy the country for another four years resulted in a smart, uniquely elegant, humble (and black) president.

SO in all my days on campaigns I’ve never been paid to canvass. Then on craigslist I found the mayor’s campaigns were all hiring people to do the stuff I had done for free for years. I took a job and yesterday was my first day.

There is a reason they pay you to do this stuff in New York. Where in New Hampshire my main worries were stepping on people’s lawns and interrupting dinner, I find in New York I am mainly concerned with getting past peoples gates and not being harrassed by drug dealers on every street corner. At least in the area I was in, which is East New York. For those of you who don’t know, East New York is the roughest of all NY areas, its deep in Brooklyn. Funny enough, last week my roommate was watching a documentary called “East New York, behind black picket fences” or something like that.

I was pretty terrified the entire time I was there. I mean, I really stand out. You could probably smell New Hampshire on me. I’m used to people opening their screen doors to me, not speaking through a peep hole. I think I’m good for this area though, because people aren’t afraid to open their doors for me, as I clearly look like a mouse might look if she was in a kitchen full of cats.

But the thing is, no one I spoke to was unkind to me. I think  if anything, they probably respected me for going into their neighborhoods to hear what issues they think are important. I realized standing next to the hustler on the corner, that everybody deserves that attention; perhaps the poor most of all. And I thought how grateful I was to see this world that people live in. Every store counter was shielded by bullet proof glass, every home had two gates. I imagined what it was like to grow up where everyone is living behind shields. When I walk around in Nashua I smile or say hello to each person I pass, and in this neighborhood you DO NOT make eye contact with anyone. How disconnected, how always on guard you must grow up to be. It felt lonely, separating, to be in that world.

I’m glad that unemployment has brought me back to this campaign world I so much love. As a writer, you must know ordinary people, places, not the gilded cage one lives in. I think thats the problem with those Hollywood writers and directors. They move into mansions in their gated Hollywood communities and lose touch with the stories that are grounded in humanity. You become like Scorcese, making gang movies your whole career, or Micheal Bay, making crap that doesn’t make sense, where even the ever constant sunsets aren’t the real colors of the sky. When I’m successful someday I will probably move into a nice home is a safe neighborhood, but I hope I still take the subways and observe all the different life that sits in the car with me. And I hope I still campaign. I will never give up knocking on people’s door and asking about their life. When I write, I want to keep it real.

Ever’body might be just one big soul,
Well it looks that a-way to me.

Wherever little children are hungry and cry,
Wherever people ain’t free.
Wherever men are fightin’ for their rights,
That’s where I’m a-gonna be, Ma.
That’s where I’m a-gonna be.

- Woody Guthrie in “Tom Joad” based on The Grapes of Wrath

P.S. If you like the image at the top you can check it out, and other products, at http://www.northernsun.com/n/s/When%20I%20Grow%20Up%202%26quot%3B%20x%203%26quot%3B%20Magnet%20%289948%29.html

Here is a poem I wrote last spring about coming out of hard times just as nature melts away snow. Its strangely fitting however, as the approaching dullness of winter takes root. I hope you enjoy. Its a sestina, 39 lines, with the same six words ending the six six-line stanzas. I guess you could call it the devil’s favorite form. The six words end the lines in a different order for each stanza, concluded by a tercet. If you have a good idea for a title, please share:

It is the time of year when the air hovers

Between the chill of winter and the warmth of spring.

There is a certain glow that seems to fall

On budding flowers, across melting grass.

Sleepily, I prepare to awaken all my senses

To the ways in which life is reborn.

It is oh so tiring, this business of being reborn.

I remember the time when my breath hovered

Half-dead, half-alive. As if my senses

had fallen asleep to life. Then that one spring,

I saw hope in nature, magic in each blade of grass.

Everything became electrified that fall.

Climbing out of that tunnel of darkness I sometimes wanted to fall,

Back to the bleakness where insecurities are born.

Easier to live down there, like a bug buried beneath the grass.

I missed the safety of the darkness as I hovered

Near the top, where bright light rays streamed in like spring

With her winking blossoms. A reminder of sorts, that hope is still to be sensed.

Although I was as fuzzy as a moldy rotting peach, I mobilized my senses

So that each apple tasted crisp and clear that fall

Among the orchards that would bloom so much life in spring.

In the deadness of winter I look at the branches and remember they are born

Into red round jewels. If there is fear that they will hover

In that frozen bud, I simply look down at the dead but enduring grass.

All this will pass, like the summers of freshly mowed grass.

I am eight again, barefoot and running. Before love made no sense,

Before I knew a different home. The chickadees and robins hover

Around the bird feeder we’ve just filled. I am falling

Off the swings into a pile of recently raked leaves. I am born

Out of that joy. I am warm and happy like a hot spewing spring.

Of all the seasons, there is a fragility in spring

that you can feel as your toes touch the tender grass.

Though you hope that kind of childhood happiness can be reborn

There is a pulsing, daunting sense

That you have to let those hopes fall.

Just beneath them, like sprouting seeds, new loves are hovering.

They hover until just enough of winter’s rain and the sun of spring

Give them a sense they are ready to transcend death, to be born.

We tread along that grassy carpet, upon which we sometimes fall.

Well my friends, the feature film, it sucked. It was a crazy Bollywood film. I’m pretty sure the filmmakers flew over on Friday and decided on Saturday to just make a movie in NYC. Disorganized, exhausting and I had drive in Jersey. I don’t do Jersey. So I worked enough days to make my rent next month and said goodbye to Bollywood.

I’m grateful to have made some quick cash. I learned I’m a pretty awesome driver and can handle city driving well. Most importantly, I made some cool friends. The other drivers and I collectively bonded over the hectic course of events. They made me focus on my strengths when I wanted to quit. In the end, I walked out of this experience overall more confident. And I have the story I will subject my children to some day. “WHEN I was first starting, I once had to drive this crew who liked to yell at me and only fed me Indian cuisine…” I learned to love a lot of the people in the crew; language and cultural barriers aside, the lights and wonder of New York City reveal we all look at some things the same in spite of what our eyes have seen before.

“The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people.”   –  Cesar Chavez

I feel good about future plans. I think I’ve finally grounded myself in a good place. Today I was reading an illuminating interview between Leslie Stahl and Gail Collins about her new book on the rapid changes the second wave of feminism created in society. It gave me great pause to reflect on the work of women before me who have made my current career search that much easier. Did you know that in 1970′s applications were pink or blue based on gender?? I’ll think of that each time I fill out an application. Of course I have a minor in women’s studies and know full well the history of womens inequality, but as I read the article I thought of how little that plays in my consciousness. To arrive in an interview in slacks, to know that I can apply to any job regardless of my gender, I take that very logical assumption for granted. And whats more, to think it happened in my parents lifetime! That it was only 30 years ago flights between New York and Chicago included men’s only flights! That a woman who once showed up to court in slacks was jailed for contempt! Tonight I think not of my job search, but of the women whose job it was to upheave the social fabric and legal system of an entire country to make not only a paycheck, but a way of life.

“These days, feminism ain’t about equality, its about reprieve…”  - Ani Difranco

- From a letter of Schopenhauer to Goethe, November 1815

I haven’t worked on my screenplay in over a week. I’ve been busy, but also stuck at that critical juncture where the protagonist’s life begins to unravel. Creating the journey of a character makes one realize the path that is universal to all of us.

In the first few pages I’ve introduced the protagonist and painted the world. In thinking of how this environment shapes her, I think of my own.

Whoah. While writing that last paragraph, which I meant to be longer and more insightful, I got a phone call… offering me a job on a feature film!! My first feature!! And oh boy, right when I really needed a job to save me from free falling into a major depression. I am very excited, very very grateful, and very hungry to learn.

I’m a mexican jumping bean right now, so I can’t finish this post with the thoughts I intended to. But now I can begin to post about actual work, so I’m sure that will be more exciting to read about! Special shout out to my Dad, who kept telling me my job was right around the corner, and it was. Here’s to paying rent on my own next month!

Cheers!

I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.

—from “Poetry” by Pablo Neruda

I’m back to posting. September was rough. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the blog because I hate to think of how long I’ve been job hunting. And I didn’t feel like there was much to tell about anyways.

Let’s see. I didn’t get the job that I bought the cute black dress for. But I have worn it to many interviews since, and get it to wear it again tomorrow. I’m still very grateful I found it.

One less hope becomes
One more song.

—from “Song about Song” by Anna Akhmatova

Good news. I did get a job at a retail store last week. I’m sort of bummed to go back to the work I did in high school, but with unemployment climbing double digits, I’m well aware that many people with longer careers, more education, and more financial needs than I are working jobs they never imagined themselves back in. Being underemployed may not factor in the unemployment statistics, but I’m sure it can be equally as frustrating for many. I just saw that ABC (or NBC?) is premiering a new show called Hank. It stars Kelsey Grammer (aka Frasier) as a former highly paid executive who now works in some kind of fast food/retail place. Only because Kelsey Grammer stars do I have any faith in the show. But clearly a couple of tv execs read the newspaper and quickly pitched this show to appeal to the mass of people who can afford basic cable (but not much else right now) and would like to see their lives reflected in this crap comedy. If nothing else it further bellies my belief that if people get paid to write that, I can get a job writing for tv.

We are poor passing facts…

—from “Epilogue” by Robert Lowell

I did stumble across a great omen. During the summer I bought the book The Alchemist from the pile of required high school reading at Barnes and Noble. It was short and had a lot of impressive stickers on it so I figured it might be a good read. I read a few other books first, but last week started The Alchemist.

In this book the hero is a shepard who has a dream while in the fields one it. It tells him to go to the pyramids and he will find his treasure. He risks his life, has several setbacks, goes off course. But along the way he meets people who tell him that when someone desires something with all of his/her heart, the universe conspires to make that desire manifest. We are all connected, and the universe is written by one hand. One companion teaches him to follow omens. We all have signs leading us to our personal destiny, but many are blind to these.

“The single most important decision any of us will ever to make is whether or not to believe that the universe is friendly.” – Albert Einstein

What sets this boy apart is that he has the courage to follow his “Personal Legend” as he calls it. A king explains to him that most people never do, or they try but once it becomes too hard they quit and settle. Through his adventure the boy learns to speak the Language of the Soul.

Maybe it is hard, but if you’re doing what you love it should feel right. And by god, if there is a show called Hank on tv then I should definitely not give up!

Side note: I have started buying coffees with coins at a coffee shop so I can sit down and write. That’s where I am right now. However, there are only four power outlets in this hippie vegan place. I guess they hate electricity. So this asian gentleman in a business suit came in with his computer and looked soo bummed because there was no plug. I mean, his face carried a look of devastation that was beyond superficial. He happened to sit down next to me. I noticed after a few moments he wasn’t waiting for food. So I offered to unplug my computer and we could share. He was so excited! So I unplugged, and he turned on his computer. He pulls up skype, and begins talking to his wife. They were speaking japanese, but in moments of english I heard him apologize for not being able to talk to her yesterday, and telling her it looked like she “had lost the weight.” (I’m thinking baby weight!) It was very touching. And although my computer died while he was talking, I was happy to wait and grateful I got to see a lovely moment. I just hope that someday when I need to use one of these four plugs one of these “I look like I eat granola but am using a $2000 Mac laptop and eating vegan flaxseed cookies with herbal tea” will offer me a plug. He was very grateful and gave me his business card. He said if I need an apartment or house to give him a call.

So that’s where I am as we speak (or read I suppose.) I’m working on a screenplay that I truly love. It’s been exciting and joyful to write, this one is the money! Perhaps I will look back at the start of my career as maybe not filled with great jobs, but the path toward having time to write this work.

Next post I will discuss cover letters (which I’ve finally mastered) the new book I’m reading (hint: Ann Patchett) and tell you what my screenplay is about.  Special thanks to Maria, who today got me back to my blog.

Ring the bells that still can ring,                                                                                               Forget your perfect offering .                                                                                                     There is a crack in everything,                                                                                                     That’s how the light gets in.

– Leonard Cohen