9 to 5

I'm in one of my want-to-work (for all you sticklers, that's outside the home, because yes, yes, I know I work at home) cycles. This almost always happens after a). I talk to one of my working art historian friends b). hear about a job, any job, even a job I don't want, in my field or c). go to a museum. Luckily, those things happen pretty rarely and so a long time can go between yearnings for my old professional self.

But it's one of those times because a). I have communicated recently with two art historians working on a project together and also saw two friends who were until very recently active in the field b). heard about a job I'd like but can't do because of the time and distance and c). went into the city and saw several wonderful exhibitions at the Met. All in the span of about 10 days. Oh, and I gave a talk on museum ed and will be giving another talk with an art historical bent in a few weeks. I'm also reading articles in Brain, Child Greatest Hits about working moms, SAHMs, choices, and the struggle everyone takes.

I loved Theo Pauline Nestor's description of the SAHM's view of work in "What We Do For Love and For Money: A View of Work from Home." After wondering if SAHMs really yearn for work, or "really just craved the water cooler, the low-level human contact that work can supply," she went on to state:

But maybe it really was work she needed. Maybe she wanted to tumble headlong into uninterrupted thought like a child somersaulting down a grassy hillside. Maybe she ached for the purity of the completed mental task. She wants to let her brain plow through a problem that requires all her concentration, to submerge herself into thought for so long, she forgets to pee, to ea, to deflea the dog. She forgets--just briefly--how much depends on her. It is a cool drink, this forgetting. When she rises out of it and swims to the shores of her life, she retrieves her life piece by piece like a traveler coming home.

Travelling is great, but isn't coming home the best part?

But, to know that, to appreciate that, you have to travel, even once in awhile.