Touched

Tonight, at a holiday party for the historic house association on which education committee I sit, I was surprised to be thanked for my work on the 3rd and 5th grade curricula!  My friends, the director and education coordinator (the wonderful Mrs. S about whom I've written frequently) had encouraged me to stay to have fun when I said I could only stay a bit.  But I thought they were just being nice, you know, wanting me to enjoy myself since I don't get out much.

Yes, I can be dense.  Then, when the dedicated and hard-working director, Mrs. A, stood up and thanked the illustrious guests as well as the long-standing house docents, she also acknowledged me!  I couldn't have been more surprised.  Seriously.  I thought she was talking about my two other main colleagues on the committee who had been there much longer.  I had no clue until she looked at me and mentioned my work in Chicago.  And then I think I blushed deeply from my spot in the back of the room where I had been comfortably pacing on the rug. I shook hands, we took pictures, and I went back to my spot in the back, this time with people smiling and nodding at me.  And I could barely contain my sniffles.

I can't begin to say how touched I was.  See, the historic house and these wonderful women (it's mostly women) have been such a light in what has been not exactly a dark but definitely a gray year.  Because while they supported and accomodated me in my health struggles, they also allowed me to do what I love to do, which is engage children in learning about history through material objects, interactive tours, and hands-on experiences.  It was an intellectual challenge (learning colonial history) and professional challenge (stretching my museum ed legs again but in a new living history as opposed to art museum setting), in an inspiring, open-minded collaborative environment, so far from my "sick room" that it was a wonderful distraction, even when I couldn't participate as fully as I'd like.  It was--they were, and still are--a life line for me, for which I will always be truly grateful.  So the honor, the gratitude, the appreciation were all mine.

But it was really wonderful to be recognized.  (In fact, I'm not sure how much that ever happened in my professional life--people are always nicer to volunteers!).  And I will always treasure the paperweight with its hand-drawn depiction of the historic house.  (When we met up right afterward, Sis and Bud oohed and aahed over it.  Bud said, "Congratulations, Mommy!  That's cool." And Sis offered me a tissue!)

And I'm rearing to go for the spring tour season!

Thank you so much.

Crisis in Faith

Not that faith. Not real faith. In fact, if I'd embraced my UUism and lessons from Buddhism, it wouldn't have been much of a crisis.

But last night, when we realized that Yahoo had erased, obliterated, annihilated, deactivated one of my email accounts--the one that included all of my professional work from all my museum jobs, an account I obviously don't check often because I haven't needed them--I too felt erased in a way. That professional identity--with all my contacts, my documents, my work history--gone in a flash. And I had wanted them more than I had in the last 6 years because I'm starting a new volunteer position as an educator at an historic house museum and am writing curricula and other materials. So I tried to log into my old account. But Yahoo's new policy is to deactivate email accounts, erasing everything, if you haven't used it in four months. And they never told me.

I cried myself to sleep, in the glow of the computer light.

Because Mama was convinced that somewhere, somehow there was a backup, that she had been careful, conscientious, and cautious six years ago.

And she had.

Only not with the email account, because it's not possible to download Yahoo, but with my work files, which were carefully labeled on a CD which she'd backed up to an external hard drive, way back when. So, even though the emails and contacts and such are gone, I have anything that I wrote and stored on my own computer.

Bless Mama, who stayed up very late to retrieve the documents. (And she is now double-backing up and/or printing out all manner of things--a decade worth of pictures, 500 pages of a cookbook, the entire text of this blog, our address book.)

Though, I tried hard to convince myself it hadn't mattered in that 12 hours I thought it was all lost. Telling myself that I needn't be attached to those files because I could make new ones, or even more importantly, be attached to that old professional identity, which had little to do with my life today. If/when I ever go back full time in museum education, here in a new state, my contacts will have moved on, my documents will need to be updated, everything will have changed. The security blanket of data that I have held on to--the one that offers the protective cover of tools should I ever need or want to go back to that work, proof that I'm capable and employable--really holds little safety or protection, I realized. But it had held, very tangibly, who I used to be. And that is what I mourned last night.

Looking through the documents this morning--pre- and post-visit activities, tour confirmations, docent training manuals, public program announcements, class syllabi, lecture texts, conference presentations, grant proposals--brought back all sorts of memories from about a decade of work. It was both bittersweet, remembering all that I used to do, but also confidence-building, here as I begin a new journey.

Beyond learning to have faith in myself (and in Mama!) and in the way things unfold, I was reminded not to put too much stock in perceptions (or ideas/beliefs about myself, career, past) or in things.

Especially computers.

(Yes, some of you will note that, in the end, a computer did save the documents. True enough. But I think it's more the symbolism of it. I could've had printouts of everything, too. Might, even, in the basement somewhere. It's the faith in the belief that I needed these things, truly needed, not just wanted because I'm attached to them--that I couldn't be happy or survive without the documents, or my recipes or blog or even pictures--that was false (even if we're still gonna back it all up, because there's more than one lesson we're working on here.) That, and Yahoo sucks.)

Wednesday

Today is a weird day in the Hungry household.  Mainly because I'm not going to be here--I'm working at the museum (working should be in quotes, because as you know I'm not getting paid.  Hmmm, is money the main criteria of work?  I need to think on that).  

Yep, I'll be at the museum almost all day, 12-5, attending an evaluation session of their programs run by an outside assessment firm.  I'm really excited because a). I've never been able to afford an outside eval when I headed up ed departments so I'd like to see how they do it; b). it's such a change from my usual routine that I forgot and not once but twice scheduled other activities for the kids and me today!;  c).  I can learn new strategies and techniques for program creation and implementation; and d). because I'm new to the museum I am in no way personally responsible for the programs they are evaluating which makes today interesting but not anxiety-ridden.

So, Mama is coming home for a long lunch break until the babysitter can get here after school.  I'm so fortunate that Mama supports my museum work, my intellectual and professional aspirations, and offered to do this for me.  (Of course, we're very fortunate that her job allows her that flexibility.)

Despite not being responsible for the program evaluations, I am a little stressful.  First, I don't have a professional thing to wear.  It's all hidden away somewhere in the back of the basement or closet.  And the shoes I'm supposed to wear before my orthotics are ready (being measured for those next week, finally)--my dirty white extremely supportive tennis shoes--don't and shouldn't go with anything.  And it's been a long time since I've dealt with colleagues in education--I'm rusty on talking the talk.  Which altogether means that today is an important way to ease me back into everything.  More tomorrow . . . 

Of Virtues and Necessities

A friend recently commented on my post "Working through Work," which began when another friend (no, it wasn't you) said that I had better get back to work soon or I wouldn't be able to.

The commentor (a friend and, I should point out, colleague in the field, as is the other one) gently reminded me that said friend was correct even if honesty is hard to hear.

And, as it turns out, they are both right.

Having not done anything professional or academic in 4 years, I am very aware that my time is running out. In fact, on brutally honest days, I know my time has run out. I am really no longer competitive for the kinds of jobs I used to hold. This is probably alarming, surprising, or even disappointing to people who know me from the field, people who supported me through the dissertation process (I know it is because they hint at it or tell me outright). And so that particular post was very much about working out how I felt about it. Am I sad that I have missed that career boat (by jumping off)? Do I need to swim fast to a lifeboat (of freelance or part-time work) to see if, to continue this metaphor, I can paddle around there until someone can throw me a rope and pull me to the safety of a full-time, professinal museum or academic career? Or am I okay about going for a swim, because really the water is just fine?

And as I thought about it, in that post and other discussions, I realized that though I never would have said I was okay with it, I think I am prepared to let the career float on by. Yes, I did spend years working on my dissertation. But I almost now see that as a finite project. Which I barely finished. I finished it because I had started it. Not because I needed it for something else. Which, I didn't (most museum educators do not have Ph.D.s and by then I'd already chosen that as my path). And I'm proud of the work I did on it, of the article I published, and of all the various projects I completed as a professional, full-time art historian and museum educator.

It comes down to this: I value my education and my past career experiences, as well as my role as a full-time mom, but I know I cannot do both well, though many women can. When it comes down to it--realizing that if I tried to do both now, I would find it impossible--I choose full-time motherhood over full-time career. For the children, for our family, and, yes, for me as an individual. And since I believe this, for all intents and purposes, ends the future possibility of the kind of position I had--which oddly doesn't sadden me too much--I am considering what to do, how to define fulfillment and satisfaction, now that my previous definitions of it, my previous path, that career boat is sailing away. Sure, I can still work in the field, be a professional educator without being head of education, use my art historical education, do something related to my skill set. There were part-timers and freelance educators at my first big job and I didn't understand why they would only want to work part-time; I get it now. And I know I can do that (even after 4 years). But even more interestingly, I'm developing several new skill sets, and will continue to, and I would love to see where the new ones, when combined with the others, take me. I find this all rather exhilerating and I am excited about it. That is, when I'm not terrified at the tabula rasa of my future because I never really in a billion years thought I--good little A student with a feminist bent who actually never planned on becoming a mom until the day on the train, ironically as we were headed into work, that I turned to Mama and said we should have children--would ever choose motherhood over career. But I am.

The mommy doth protest too much, methinks? I hope, indeed, I would like to believe, that I'm not just making a virtue out of a necessity. But thanks to both friends, and the others who emailed me or commented, for helping me to think about, to clarify my thoughts about, what really is a life-altering paradigmatic shift for me.

Working through Work

A friend said to me, "Well, you better get back to work before you won't be able to work again." While initially, I agreed with her and believed her warning, I have since realized how much harm, more than good, it did.

I've always been a good student: straight As, honor rolls, honor societies, Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, grad school, Ph.D. The academic track is a clear one, if not always easy, and so I followed it, doing my best and doing pretty well at it, for years. Of course, one aspect of "good student"-ness is a need for approval, for pleasing the teachers who give out those grades, for recognizing and reconciling oneself to authority figures and mastering what they require. Of course being able to do that successfully, thereby earning those As, stroked my vanity (which was, at least academically, considerable, and still is at times). And of course, it was all circular, expanding to include career once school was (finally) over (with colleagues whose approbation I sought taking the place of teachers).

But I'm off track, so to speak. Instead of academic art history, I embraced museums and education, certainly seen as a lesser career in the field. And for awhile, that concerned me. But at some point, even before finishing my Ph.D. I abandoned extreme ambition and overachievement in favor of greater life-work balance. I think much of this is owing to watching a teenage student of mine live while slowly dying from Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy; he was 16 when I met him and died about a year and a half later. Even though I returned to grad school, I had rearranged my priorities. I just don't think I knew how much they had changed until now.

I left work early when I was pregnant with the twins, ostensibly because it was a hard pregnancy (it was), but equally because I was done with work and turning myself to my new project of motherhood. But I am continually asked when I'm going to return, the implications being I'm behind, I'm slacking, and I'm wasting my education by staying home. And I have believed it. My friend's words brought out all my anxieties and fears about not being a "good student." I had embraced the notion that my prescribed path is to return to work as soon as I am able. But I keep pushing that time off--the kids are in school a bit now, and I could probably find something worthwhile to do (well, I might have been able to, before the recession). But in my downtime, I do almost everything but pursue academic or professional goals: I don't research or write articles for publication, I don't apply for teaching jobs, I don't even volunteer at local art museums, and I don't stay very current on my field. I had a misguided notion that if I kept my other blog current, the one on art, museums, and families, that I would somehow be keeping alive my career, doing the work that my friend said was critical to ever being employed in the field again. But those posts, while of interest to me, have not been a priority. Besides, when I'm honest with myself, the idea that blogging about art will somehow make up for not working when I go to get another job, is absurd. Especially because I'm in no rush to get that job. And by turning to examine my reticience and hesitation, I have learned some new things about myself.

I've been working through the current chapter of my Personal Renewal Group workbook, and one of the questions was "what is your heart's greatest desire?" Another was about regrets at the end of my life. Another was about business I could leave unfinished. And as I've considered these, I've realized that among my priorities, goals, and possible regrets, career has had little to do with it. I'm not sure I am going to have another career, in the sense of picking up where I left off on an ambitious trajectory of ladder climbing (such as it was in a non-profit field). Of course, with the recession, there is no ladder, there isn't even any hiring. And this is almost a great relief. Because without those jobs out there waiting to be filled, I don't have to feel guilty about not wanting to fill them.

This is not to say that I won't find work again, far from it. What I mean to say is that I've given myself permission to leave the good-student track, to define professional and personal fulfillment in other ways, "out-of-the-box" ways. I don't have to be the head of education at the big "brand-name" art museum, which is what I would've required of myself in the past. I don't need the approval (or even the understanding) of colleagues, or friends. I might start something local, I might continue my work at church, I might actually embrace my other blog without the pressure to make it "successful." I don't need an ambitious, impressive career. Just something, probably something with a little art and an educational bent, to use my knowedge, experience and skills to help others while fulfilling myself and providing a role model for my kids. If it turns out to be full-time, or even "on-track," that's okay too, but it doesn't have to be. And I'm not going to feel guilty about not doing what others think I should.

Of course, it would be especially reassuring if I knew that taking the "mommy track" now was not jeopardizing other possibilities in the future. But how do you prepare for a future you haven't yet charted? How can I know what I would need to do today in order to secure a tomorrow I don't yet know I want? It's funny, but all of the really important, momentous decisions of my life have involved little or no forethought or advanced planning: electing to pursue grad school in art history as a senior in college (changing my major that year to do so!); hooking up with Mama; moving to Chicago; pursuing a lead in museum education; moving back to NYC to finish my dissertation; buying a house in Connecticut; having a baby (having two!). Mama will tell you, on most of these occasions, I just turned to her and said, "we should do this." And when asked to explain my decision-making process, I said it just came to me. Well, obviously, this career thing is not one of those occasions. Which probably means, if past performance predicts future, that it's not really decision time. And when the time does present itself, I will intuitively know what to do. Somehow. It's worked out well so far.

I know I am lucky that Mama's career allows me not only the choice, but the time and resources to figure out what my choices are. Perhaps, paralleling this, my choice, in its own way, frees her up to pursue her career while also providing a richer family life without the guilt that working moms often have. The feminist in me has, until recently, said that I was letting down the team by not returning to work. But, seeing feminism as emphasizing choice for women--and not just the choice to join the workforce--but also seeing feminism as redefining our lives and thought-systems outside of traditional patriarchal modes, I think my change of heart, or more particularly my dawning realization of my choice, is in line with a feminist perspective, just as Mama's career goals and work are too. So, my friend was, in the end, wrong. By not going back to work now, I am actually acknowledging and embracing the life's work I do now and will continue to do, in whatever ways it manifests itself. For if I had stayed rigidly on track, I wouldn't have the kiddos, and life, for Mama and I, would've been much more work than it is now.

But even as I write this, I know that I am looking for, am so desperately needing, approval.

Ars Longa, Vita Brevis

I am always a little bit homesick after visiting the city. I feel that way after I go back to Texas, too. It's not that I want to live in NYC or in Houston again, but that I have a bittersweet nostalgia for all that is good and a selective blindness about all that is not. We chose to live in the 'burbs even before there were kids, wanting a home, a yard, more space, a slower pace, at a price we could afford. But then we were both commuting into the city five days a week and enjoying all of its charms and few of its hassles. Then for a bit, Mama alone commuted while I was at home with the babes and I could feed off of her city energy and enjoy things and tales she brought back. Now, of course, she has a much easier commute and I like having her not-so-far-away, but I miss the city.

(My one Connecticut joke: do you know what they call people from Connecticut? Connecticutters? Connecticutians? Connecticutites? No. Commuters.)

We want to raise our children here in Connecticut, where the laws support our family as does the community of which we are a part. I had a suburban childhood and loved it, wanting that for them. And with mommies with a familiarity and love of the city, the kids will have the best of both worlds, especially with grandparents still in Queens. At least we are going to try to go down regularly, knowing that as life gets more hectic and scheduled, visits will probably be fewer and farther apart.

I wish there was a way that I could easily do that with my career, the other thing from yesterday's visit for which I still yearn occasionally. Like living in NYC, working takes on an afterglow when you aren't actually doing it. Long meetings with curators who can't explain the exhibition for which you must program? Budgets that don't allow you to do what you dream of? Audiences that don't show up? All that email and voicemail and still more meetings? No, I remember the great tours and the packed lecture halls and the crisp new brochures and the comrade-in-arms colleagues and the engagement with art and scholarship. I'm homesick for my career. But I can't have that for 2 hours twice a week, or even next year for 2 hours three times a week--especially because I only want the good parts, not the annoying ones, which is why I haven't tried too hard to find something professional to do just yet (to the disappointment of my professional friends, those without kids). Just as we wanted to live in the burbs, we wanted a stay-at-home-mom for the kids, someone totally focused on and available for/to them in these early years (not to say that work-away-from-home moms like Mama aren't totally focused in a philosophical way on their kids, but there isn't the same kind of present-ness/presence. And believe me we talk about it. We're like the "Blue and the Grey"--or was it "North and South" with the split family?-of the Mommy Wars. It's Reconstruction here now. Except no one won and no one lost). And just as I'm not ready to sacrifice my community here for the city, I am not ready to sacrifice my SAHM-ness for my career. I want it all, know that's not possible, and am just a little down right now. At least, with art and the city, there is always something to go home to.

A Desk of One's Own

I have a new desk.

Well, not "new." I found it in someone's garbage about a year ago (yes, I am occasionally a dumpster diver; this was on the curb of a big house nearby. I'm always shocked what people throw away, especially with a Goodwill not too far away). It's a beautiful wooden desk with cubbies that has been thoroughly cleaned and been in our entryway and now bedroom. For awhile, Mama was storing her stuff in it, but it wasn't really working for her. Or for me, because even when it was hers, I would sit here during rest time and work on the computer. So, yesterday, I traded her my coveted downstairs letter sorter hanging on the wall for the desk. She gets downstairs storage and easy access and I get to have the space where I actually already work. It's a perfect solution.

I have always loved my desks. From the yellow one with three big drawers and a thin drawer at the top, to various dorm desks, a few cheap pressboard office supply store desks, even my huge, L-shaped, ultra-modern (and not very me) IKEA computer/dissertation desk that is currently in the basement, I love sitting at and organizing and working at my desks. My office desks have been pretty great too, from the one in the basement of the museum in Chicago (which was my first) to the one overlooking Central Park from a 19th-century mansion to the last one, again in a basement, complete with bookshelves, drawers, bulletin board, and cubby walls in my own huge office space (which served a double function as the museum's art studio and later housed my assistant at her own desk near mine). And now I have a desk again; I had put the IKEA one in the basement with the end of the dissertation project and the beginning of the baby project. Why did I need a place to write? But with the blogs, the job search, and the possible job, I'm so glad to have a desk again. I've put my knick-knacks on it, put some office supplies in the drawers, purchased a desk tray and am extremely happy with the result.

While I won't equal Judith Shakespeare's or even Virginia Woolf's writings at this desk, it is mine and already feels like home. I think I must have missed having a desk, the first time in some 35 years. I'm looking forward to spending my rest times here. It's kinda like coming home to the old me.

Wish Me Luck

I've lined up some professional references and have started editing my most recent resume (which I had tidied up for a museum job this summer so it has to be reconceptualized) and am actually going to apply for a couple of adjunct positions at local colleges for the spring or summer. Just to teach a class or two, probably introductory survey. The timing has to be right, the money more than I made ten years ago without my Ph.D. I haven't taught in a lecture hall in years but lectured extensively at my four museum positions. It's kind of exciting, kind of scary. But let's not count chickens or move carts in front of horses. Let's just revel in the moment as I consider reentering some semblance of my former professional life. And if I end up not getting one or not taking one I get, just the act of thinking about it has been so good for me.

Which is why I'm in the process of starting a whole new blog, one of art and museums, a more career/professional/academic one which I will premiere probably in January once I've written (and actually edited) several posts.