r + r

In an interesting turn of events, I find myself working long, very long days, sometimes running a whole department on my own, working in the kitchen and the hospitality aspect of the job--on top of being completely sore and in pain from following workout videos online.

My bad mood isn't helped any by my crazy work hours, all the training I've been doing at work, and my incessant brain fog. My mind refuses to cooperate and write an essay (already!). The fuel that drove me for hours and hours of non-stop work (school and otherwise) dried up. I'm literally running on fumes.

This is the time when I should be juicing and slowing down, but I keep forging ahead. I know I'm not doing my best work (even if it looks like it). I'm uninspired, and cranky and my mood swings fluctuate like crazy.

I'm looking at spa menus, daydreaming about spending a few hours in a day spa. My Puritanical instincts prevent me from enjoying myself. I'm too ashamed to spend my own money, on my time and enjoyment. It's a damn shame.

green

You know those movies that we've all watched, when the protagonist finds out in the end, her geeky male bestfriend is her true love after all?

I was washing my hair (all of my wonderful thoughts happen when I'm around water, not a coincidence since water is the universal symbol of the unconscious) when I realized, quite candidly, I've been sitting on a goldmine after all and I was too foolish to notice.

My job at the natural food store, of course.

Last Friday, I had a meeting with my boss which ended up exactly the opposite of how I thought it was going to turn out. I had expected a meeting where all my faults and inadequacies are all lined up in front of me, to mock me, and remind me that I'm not as good of a manager as I once was. When I had the energy, and the vitality, more importantly, the vision to become a great manager in my workplace.

What I didn't expect, which I should have expected since I "received" a message from the ether on my way to work about a pay raise. Not me, I thought. It's not time.

But it is time, and the time is now. I hadn't meant to cry and get emotional, but I did get weepy and I choked back some happy tears for one of the best news anyone could receive in 2013. As of last Friday, I'm officially making the most money I've ever made in my life. Save for a couple of scholarships I won, which amounted to a few hundred dollars an hour--but a one-time windfall doesn't count. What counts is making the most money you've ever made in your life hour after hour, paycheck after paycheck. The good news is this kind of pay doesn't top out. It only gets better from that point on.

A few years ago I set a very lofty wage scale for myself. A very low integer (in hyperexpensive Seattle, anyway) which I exceeded a few months ago, and the integer that I'm making now is laughing at my old integer. I remember when I told myself that number is all the money I'll ever need, and now I have surpassed that number. People are right, you always want more. Always.

I wonder how greed and philantrophy can exist in the same small place inside my heart. They circle each other like feuding cats, ready to claw the other one out.

Alchemy of a life

“You have to eat and keep going. Eating is a small, good thing in a time like this,” Raymond Carver

I made a pot of soup, enough to feed a few dozen people.

As I watched the split peas melt into a creamy concoction inside my pot, I realized I’ve never made soup before. More importantly, I’ve never wanted to make soup, no matter the depressing, dark Seattle days.

Soup is something I bought, particularly, Vietnamese pho soup—studded with basil, jalapenos and made bloody with Sriracha. Although these days, outstanding pho is farther and farther to come by; I still remember the first time I had pho, the soup was delicious in visceral and metaphysical ways—the way food should be. Your stomach is full, and so is your heart.

My grandmother, my so-called namesake, whom I never met, was an extraordinary cook and homemaker. She was also a career woman, quite an astonishing feat in the 40’s and 50’s. Stories that I heard about her always revolved around her astonishing capacity for cooking, and general homemaking skills. Her whole life was made from scratch.

I always wondered, what she would think of me now—her namesake, the granddaughter who is her physical and spiritual replica. She’s a Taurus, by the way, and I, a Virgo. In the language of astrology we’re both Earth creatures, women who were practical, grounded, did as they were expected, toiled the earth. We didn’t have any of that flightiness my mother has, or did we indulge in vacations and spent hours seated in front of the TV like my sister, her other granddaughter. We are doers, women who were constantly moving, doing and never being.

My life is a drive thru kind of existence, even before I migrated to America. Food was always bought from stores, kept in boxes. Old clothes left to fall apart, or thrown away, never mended. Cleaning, I can appreciate. I can spend hours cleaning my desk and de-cluttering my space. Anything else that closely resembles housewife duties, I stay far, far away. I suppose my fear of domesticity stems from my parents.

My mother was raised as a debutante or a dilettante as I like to call her. This seems harsh, except it’s the truth. She went to private schools, my grandmother could never afford, to up her standing in society; to up her chances of marrying into wealth. She married my father who is an engineer, a top brass engineer, but his largesse was never quite enough. He always felt like a shell, like he was always holding something back. This being the old world, she stayed at home and raised four kids. Not that she was particularly happy about any of her life decisions. I always thought she would have been more fulfilled being a single girl about town; her stay at home persona never quite fit her.

 Stirring the giant vat of soup, and reading the recipe for tomato basil, I remembered why I never wanted to cook. Cooking to me even as a child meant I have to stay home, and be home at a certain time to take care of the husband, the kids, and maybe even the husband’s parents. I was never one to follow rules, no matter how hard my parents, and my teachers tried, I was always the girl who’s going to run away. I still am, in so many ways, the woman I wanted to be when I was a child. Maybe this is why I ended up alone, despite loving so many people; I’ve always wanted to be alone. I don’t want to go home and cook for other human beings. When I go home, all I want to do is read a book, and maybe grab some dinner on the way home. If I get to eating dinner at all, otherwise, it’s cheese and some kind of protein.

As I get older and seeing food elevated to status symbolism, I realize how I missed out on the ritual of cooking, and nourishing yourself with food that you made. Food never tastes quite as good when it’s transferred from a box, or bought out of a store. The last dinner I cooked, I had salmon, broccoli, fresh pasta and a cream-based sauce in the fridge. I’ve had the same meal countless of times in various restaurants around the city, but this meal, this is what food tasted like when it’s made with love. I fed on that meal for days, and I felt satiated, warm and content.

Working in a food store, I witness firsthand how people’s lives are increasingly centered on food. It’s as if our lives have become increasingly dull and repetitive and we strive to find excitement in the food that we eat. When I’m bored at work, I gravitate towards our endless pastry display. Desserts never tastes as good as it looks, in my experience anyway, but I like the proud look of it.

In another life, I toyed with the idea of becoming a baker. I liked the precision of the ingredients and the recipe, and the order of throwing all the elements together. For a planner and a control freak, baking is one of life’s most perfect jobs. But fate had other plans, as I like to say. Despite months of looking for employment as a baker, I wasn’t getting any calls. Besides, the unbearably low wages disheartened my quest. A baking life wasn’t mean to be. So I put away the rolling pin, and the recipe for the mythical cake-like chocolate chip cookie that I still think about every so often.

The academic/intellectual life won over, and the rush of wanting to finish college whelmed me. I’ve completely lost the desire to do good work in the restaurant industry, and when once I was tirelessly picking up waitressing shifts all over Seattle and the Eastside—that hunger went away. But that desire to serve, and be a part of something bigger than myself, it's a love that never goes away. Maybe this is why I went into the food world; I needed to be of service to the community. Food is the easiest and fastest way to nourish, and really, it could even begin with a pot of soup.

*

Reference
Baldwin, Christina. Storycatcher. Novato, CA: New World Library. 2005. Print.

change

Looking through my phone list yesterday, I realized I had something I didn't have a year before. My phone book has a SWAT team of Western doctors at my disposal. The number of Dr's listed on my phone is nauseating.

I can't believe just a year ago, I didn't have any form of health care insurance, and now my insurance's largesse is astonishing I could hardly believe my good luck.

I have a private physician, a dermatologist, a masseur, an optometrist and a dentist on my phone book. More professional people's numbers listed on my phone, way more than true and everlasting friends I can call on.

Is it really good luck? I know, when I first started this job I didn't want to go in. I was unhappy with the industry and in so many ways, I still am. The disposable and replaceable nature of its workers depresses me to no end. I'd like to come in to work, knowing they can't fire me and replace me within an hour. Or at least come in to work knowing I've done something good for humanity.

My friend said all of my "good luck" is from the universe responding to my bucketful of kindness. I said, no, that's not it. Life is all about feng shui, the releasing and accepting of the inbound and the outbound. Excising old growth ideas, and nurturing new ideas that encourage fertility and growth.

Nobody took more chances than I did, last year. This year is no different. I can feel the winds of change chiming all around me, and all I could do is heed its siren call.

small, good things

A palette of orange, pink, blue and purple was splashed across the night sky against Lake Washington. Somehow, I had forgotten about the cutting remarks I've been picking up here and there from colleagues about our (by "our," I mean, the management team) complete inability to be everyone for everybody.

Trust me. I want to help.

Somehow, I lost control of my feelings and I snapped at a co-worker whose particularly cutting remark about how so and so will fix "our mess" when she returns from vacation, cut too deep against my heart.

Who do you think writes the schedule?! (the underlying message: who do you think created this mess?)

Chastened, she backtracked, by then, I felt terrible and embarassed that I had such great control over my own feelings and I let loose.

And so I drove down 405 in search of nature, and from the right side of my car I saw the spectacular view of Lake Washington in a cold January afternoon. All I wanted to do was take a walk underneath the trees, with the lake beside me and I know life is going to be okay.

"You can walk away from all of this."

The celestial message was right, I can walk away from all of this foolishness. I have youth, on my side. Not only that, I don't have a house or children or a husband to explain myself to. I never wanted to be one of those women who can't walk away from it all; 28 years later, I'm still that woman who can walk away from it all.

So I went to a bar I like to call, "the least assholey sports bar I can find." The bartender is nice, and he leaves his patrons to float around in their own thoughts. I had wanted a beer, but I could never finish my Amber. I opted for my usual instead, a 6 0z pour of Prosecco served on a flute; and I had fries and too-sweet wings and watched the sports channel. Life is good.

A few good, wonderful things happened this week too. My new advisory job with an NGO started this Thursday. Despite my packed work schedule, I found myself lighting up from the inside with the prospect of harnessing all my advocacy efforts into one place. Next month, we are headed to Olympia to lobby for additional educational funding especially for the poorest, and neediest students in WA state.

Small, good things are piling up in my gratitude jar. In a time when people no longer feel it's necessary to say "thank you," I'm grateful and I say thank you, thank you, thank you.

warmth

"You're searching for the wrong things."

Once before, I used to hear messages, not unlike a phone call or a well-placed text from a friend. When I was driving around in my old neighborhood, I heard this message from above the pop song I don't even remember listening to.

I miss that, the celestial messages I get every so often. Now, those messages are few and far in between. Most of the messages I've been receiving lately are either warm, and stick to your soul kind of words, or words that say without meaning to, "you're not good enough."

As I ponder that message, I wonder what that truly means. I've considered downsizing my life even more but there's not a whole lot more to give. Although I would be very happy to trade my SUV for a smaller, compact care but that's another story. I don't have the self-medicating issues of most people my age (and maybe even older than me). If reading way too much is self-medication, then call me a hot mess.

Right now, I'm facing a huge challenge at work. Without giving too much away, the next few months is going to be a Mastodon effort to steer a ship on course. I could be facing six days of work, every week, for months. I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and have already mentally prepared for the challenges we're dealing with, and more that are coming up.

I should be happy, right? I'm an editor, that's what I do. I like to cut the fat and expose the lean meat; but the deep dissatisfaction is wrapping its cold arms around me again, and I can't ever, ever get warm enough.

Fruit of Wisdom (TESC)

Week #1 Traveling with Pomegranates

 

Fruit of Wisdom 

Christmas Day.

Three pomegranate sightings within a few hours of each other—it’s as if the universe knows I’m reading Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor’s book, Traveling with Pomegranates, over the holidays. I wanted to rest my eyes before sitting down to write this blog post, and over at goop.com, a single word captured my attention; the word that’s burrowed underneath my soul, and lives inside my ribcage (rattling, demanding to be fed constantly)—Perfect.

Ann’s struggle and the ebb and flow of her depression in her early 20’s seem so close to my own. There’s a fear, an overwhelming sense of ineptitude that lives around the space in my heart. No matter how much I achieve in a small period of time, I find it lacking.

 Practical. This is another word that I think of when considering options after college graduation. As I told quite a few people this year of my story on how I found myself back in academia, I find myself racing against time and my own intuition to enjoy my collegiate journey—this time around.

A few years ago, I migrated to the US with my family. Not too long after that I enrolled at Seattle Central Community College (after a year of school in an Ivy League university in the Philippines), and I pursued college education with Olympian dedication and fervor. I barely slept at all during my time at the college, and I worked full time on top of it. I was in the Dean’s List, and the Honors Society and no matter how well I did in college, I could never remember my life there. My excellent academic record revealed a studious, diligent student but who is this student really? I’d like to know, as I only have fleeting memories. I went to one of the most, fun, vibrant colleges in WA State and I missed the dance, not once or twice, but many times over.

Afterwards, I transferred to Evergreen State College. I packed up my things and moved into the dorms, eager to re-invent myself and my idea of myself. I dreamed of all the people I’ll meet and the fun adventures I would encounter in Olympia. Instead, I did the diligent student thing and read all my books, wrote the best essays, and burned out with an unhappiness I couldn’t shake.

So I left school, a decision I made while watching Ratatouille in the theater. At the time, it was a decision that I made that my soul truly wanted, and besides I didn’t know any of my next steps. I went into college the first time, fully thinking, I was going to be a college professor and be a writer on the side. I tend to follow intuitive nudges and one time in class, when people were talking about their future goals, I had a petit mal seizure of panic and anxiety. I realized I wasn’t cut out for the professor’s life. For one thing, I’m too rebellious and I’m terrible at taking constructive criticism. Another, I’m not good at delayed gratification—working towards something in the long term, bores and terrifies me.

            Graduate school, the words loom over me like an angry rain cloud. It’s only fitting that I reach for this familiar book again at the end of the year and the beginning of the new one. I’ve read this book a few times in the past, hoping to find answers in between the pages. I find Ann’s depression and her lack of guidance in her life, and Sue’s grievance over the last few chapters of her life and her sense of unfulfilled destiny—a balm, and an assurance that life will find its way to keep me whole. If these women found a way unscathed (and published a book out of it), maybe I can too.

            In November, I finished my coursework from my one (and eventual final) semester at WSU. I finished classes (very) early and made it to the President’s List. And here it is again, that feeling of loss, like I missed out on something but I have no way of knowing what.

 I was born on the feast of the Virgin Mary, most Catholics greet this day with pride and joy, like a second Christmas.  It’s my destiny to be associated with the Madonna, the way I always found a rapport with Athena as soon as I learned about her. I was always the girl who did things just like the boys did, who always stood up to authority.

 When the other girls were thinking of dating and relationships, I was hiding in the library and dreaming big dreams—most often on my own, without the thought of a romantic partner on my side. So much so that I eschew human companionship to stay another hour on the job, bury my soul into another book, and write just one more essay due (in two weeks). I wear Athena’s personality and characteristics around me like a shield, while letting the other Goddess walk away in boredom—not giving them a chance to live through me, flesh and bone.

            And so, that wanting, the desire to live out an unfulfilled destiny—I wish I knew mine was so I can make a wish on New Year’s for it to come true. What is my unlived destiny? I’ve been published here and there, won awards, won money for my scholarship essays. As of this writing, I’ve been in the food industry for 10 years, and finally, finally, I’ve found a company who is willing to invest in my skill and talent and whatever unfound potential I might still have.

 I feel that constant push and pull in my heart. “Your heart should want it,” Sue once told her daughter, Ann. But what it is that I want—a writer’s life or a business life? Whatever it is, my heart, my heart that’s been betrayed by life, is afraid and fearful to reveal its own wants and needs. How do I find out what I want when everyone around me is pushing their own agenda? 

Trying to find the stillness in my own thoughts, and my own heart is a tumultuous journey. More so than interviewing for a Mastodon STEM company, or applying for scholarships; or just taking that great leap forward in acquiring my college degree. For now, I need to find peace in myself that the answers will come at the right time. No need to push and pull—when the universe isn’t ready to give and I’m not quite ready to receive.  

do less

Looking back on the events that transpired last year, two words came to mind for 2013: Do Less. Yes, do less. Pick up less work, less stress, enjoy myself more.

I want to give myself permission to not do anything, just for one day. Do as I desire, without thinking about the overwhelming to do list floating above my head.

It's a great fantasy of mine to be one of those fabulous people who say c'est la vie! and enjoy their lives, doing whatever it is idle people do.

New Year's Eve was spent in the company of women I've never spent time with before. I had a grand total of two glasses of red wine. A feat for me, really, since I weigh 100 pounds and I have the metabolism of a horse. I'm not one of those people who make resolutions, I draw up wishes instead.

What did I wish for in 2013?

Quite frankly, more work.

For one thing, a step above my job now.
1. A job better suited to my future self, rather than the old one.
2. Finish my BA degree once and for all.
3. Build a new career path with the NGO.
4. Start graduate school.
5. Move into a fabulous new apartment.
6. True love (of course).

I should have wished for me, too. To find calm and serenity within my own heart. This is going into my wish list for 2013. No matter what happens, I wish to find the love and stillness within myself.

Happy New Year, everyone.

January 2013 forecast

Monthly Horoscope for Virgo

Presented by Horoscope.com

Planets in Capricorn will help you feel secure and grounded, especially regarding love and romance. You'll know that your partner or love interest is committed and trustworthy. Intense feelings will increase your bond and you'll be able to show your partner how you feel. Venus will be in Sagittarius during the first part of the month. You may visit a female relative, but there could be tension. Jupiter in Gemini will bring opportunities to realize your ambitions, but you might have to sacrifice some of your other activities. You'll think a lot about your career path.

 

Monthly Career Horoscope for Virgo

Presented by Horoscope.com

Take a bold risk during the first half of the month. Playing it safe will cause you to lose valuable market share. If you're looking for a job, apply for a position that seems out of your league or is unrelated to your previous experience. You'll make a great impression during an interview, particularly if you dress the part of a seasoned professional. Keep a juicy secret under wraps on or around January 27. That's when you'll hear exciting news about a future assignment. Your inside knowledge will give you an edge over the competition. A business loan will come through in the nick of time.

 

Monthly Wellness Horoscope for Virgo

Presented by Horoscope.com

You could be very active and living on your nerves. With Aquarius on the cusp of your health zone, you need to channel this energy in such a way that it doesn't cause distress to your body. Regular workouts are a must. Otherwise, the feeling of having too much electricity running through your system could be uncomfortable. Once you get the balance right, your diet and other health matters should click into place. It might help to not ingest too much caffeine now. Go for the decaf option as well as plenty of fresh water. Keeping yourself hydrated helps a lot.