It’s been a slow start to spring in Santa Fe — a few warmer days, but we’re still waking in the dark morning to chill. That said, I am enjoying the later sunsets and the raspberry sun is starting to reveal itself earlier and earlier. I have been seeing a few more birds, which makes me very happy. A baby hawk sitting on the fence outside my desk window, little Indigo Buntings grouped in twos and threes on cactus and sculptures around the ranch.
But it’s been hard for me to sit and write. Life has been (too) busy with the rush of this new job, news of the horrible war in Ukraine, trying to stay on top of the constant life admin, and of course, making time to do things that really fill my cup (ahem, skiing and hiking with my loves.) Mostly though, it’s been a sense of being tied to my computer for work and not wanting to spend one more minute with an open Google doc than I have to.
I am working through a variety of feelings of having taken a new job — that feels very much like an old job — that is no longer quite the right fit for me. The pandemic changed me, Santa Fe changed me, age has changed me. This role would have been great for me eight or 10 years ago, when I was hungry to climb and spread my wings as a wanna-be tech lady exec. But I am trying to find the right water level at the moment, to see if there is a way I can make it work and where my experience and knowledge can offset the sheer demand for the grind of stuff to be done.
What I am noticing most is that mentally I am not in the game. I want to be excited about how I use my sharp mind — a gift I have — and right now I am ambivalent and tired. The sheer volume and velocity of what’s required for work and life (and all of the lagging financial stress from trying to deal with the failed house sale) feels like it has caught up with me. I feel sad that my writing life has fallen to the wayside and that my body has gotten stiffer and thicker without more time for running and yoga. I also know that I am incredibly lucky to even have these problems and they will change again.
The other day, I worked straight for a number of hours on the computer, and then I went for a walk with Bruno. Afterwards, I bought carrot juice and caramel chocolates at Trader Joe’s and went to a 12 Step Meeting. When I came back to the ranch, I made a fire. These are the ways I feel at home. I jested with my therapist last week that maybe this would be a 40-year blog project — homeward bound could take that long.
There will be another inevitable turn in this sequence of homeward bound events. I am returning to San Francisco in April to stay for a few months to regroup on how to proceed with that condo and sale of it. I have mixed feelings about that destination as well.
It feels to me as if I am getting served up some double helpings of revisiting what once was so that I can fully move into a new chapter with no look-backs. For now, my sense of what is the right thing to do is to keep connecting with my intuition and feelings, to keep showing up and being honest, to keep noting and observing, to keep surrendering to what is showing up versus trying to force my will. Oh yah, and to keep praying for money to fall out of the sky. Hehe.
And, most importantly, it’s just about finding little pockets of joy in each day. So with that, here’s a little joy shot from the weekend:
I so feel this. I am currently looking for a job but almost everything interesting seems like it comes with the caveat: “this will be a complete grind.” And I just don’t have that in me anymore. I’m still holding out for something wildly expansive and creative and relevant to the future of publishing. But perhaps it doesn’t yet exist....