Back to it

Let's just say I've given myself some time to reflect upon the hard work I did a few weeks ago, assessing what I love and what I'm good at, listing the things I really don't want to do ever again (add to that original list scraping ice off my windshield, though that's probably not going away for a while). We won't say that I got too distracted by life, the universe and everything to actually bother to continue on this path. Diplomacy to self; it's an art.

There are some things I want to try, and I have no clue about whether they'll work. Whatever. I am ready to throw some things out there and see what sticks. I hesitate to reveal my hand at this point, simply because the couple of things I am most focused on are not completely ready yet, though now that I am focused, it won't take long.

Alright, rolling up my sleeves, rubbing my hands together rapidly, taking a deep breath...

What don't I love?

I don't like to hate things... I don't like to be a whiner or complain endlessly about stuff, so hopefully I can do a brief, logical inventory of stuff I am not good at, don't like to do and never want to do again.

sales or telemarketing
customer service
answering any sort of "hotline"
reporting numbers and data
tracking things like the effectiveness of marketing plans or ad campaigns
attending sales meetings
looking for needles in haystacks

I know that I am an impatient person, cannot spend hours and hours looking through records or files or compiling data or whatever; my attention starts to wander quickly, I get surly and actually start to experience light-headedness, nausea, headache or severe hunger. It can utterly blow the rest of a day. Well-meaning folks have sometimes complained (ahem) about this particular personality trait, and all I can say is, I have never had any control over it. It's not that I want to "get my way," or that something has to be entirely about me and what I like... I just am not the kind of person who can DO that. Even with things I do like. Dyslexics often say they feel physically ill when confronted with a page of music notation, or even in severe cases just a page full of words, so I can't imagine that my "affliction" is an indication of a major character flaw; it's just an honest brain quirk.

Another quirk (let's be generous) is that if I have a job, it has to be meaningful to somebody or I become increasingly despondent, unengaged and utterly lose interest. It doesn't even have to be relevant to my situation personally. If I can contribute to somebody's quality of life, I'm good. It makes my time mean something. If it's just sales of something completely irrelevant to that basic quality of life, fuhgedaboudit. For example, being a relay operator for the deaf - that's hugely relevant to major quality of life issues for a poorly served population, so I'm incredibly happy doing that. Additionally, writing for Premier Guitar combines my two major passions, so I love that as much as I love breathing. Being able to write for Premier Guitar while between relay phone calls is perfection. On the other hand, selling consulting services to institutions that contribute enormously to the debt load of a population just getting a start in life, no thanks... couldn't do it no matter how hard I tried.

The other thing I'd like to work my way around is the whole making-megabucks-for-somebody-else-and-getting-paid-squat-to-do-it thing. That sucks and I don't ever want to do it again. I think I would be okay with making megabucks for me, but would need to try it to find out for sure.

So, what do I love?

playing guitar
writing
writing songs
writing poetry
creativity-based counseling/mentoring
cooking
walking
sewing

Alright, so the theme, excepting walking, is creating stuff, whether it's music or poems or articles or meals or clothes or whatever else I dream up that I want to create. I have to be engaged in some kind of creative act or I'm not happy. No wonder I sucked at every job I ever had, save this last one, where I get to use my brain for whatever I want about half the time I'm there - and I get paid no less for using it.

So far I have managed to combine some of these loves quite nicely. Song-writing, for example. And writing about guitars. Poetry sometimes turns into lyrics, though not all that often. The mentoring part is cool; I get to help other people create their own stuff. Gotta love that.

Cooking is often compared to music - you lay down a groove, and play with ingredients and seasonings like they're notes or phrases. A stew becomes an edible jam session. A casserole is an ensemble piece. The dough rises like a saxophone solo. The colors in a soup become individual melodic lines. In the summer, we used to make Garden Soup. Fresh veggies, right out of the garden: green beans, peas, corn, onion, broccoli and cauliflower in a veggie or chicken stock, cooked until JUST tender, and then at the very end add a little red cabbage and a chopped up tomato, and the broth turns magenta, and all the colors sing like angels.

Sewing is also sort of a jam session; texture, color, pattern, detailing. There's a structure to a jacket, and very strict rules to follow so that it drapes a body properly, accentuating the curves of the body, drawing or deflecting attention at will, but the detailing is all about expression. I have fabric love. I love interesting textures and woven patterns. I love the way certain fabrics drape sensuously, while other fabrics freakin' testify. It's a marvel to me how it's all done, how the warp and weft of simple threads can result in such dramatically different looks and feels.

Walking, on the other hand, is like a spiritual thing. In my mind, Nature and God cannot be separated or distinguished, so walking out in the woods becomes very prayerful and meditative for me. I once stayed at a hermitage out in the woods for an entire week where there was a "labyrinth" that could be walked as a meditation. I must have walked that thing 100 times. It was bliss.

There are other things that I love, but these are the biggies, the ones I could be happy doing for the rest of my life. Okay, brain needs to settle a bit now.

Clear, like mud

So it's time for me to take an inventory, or several is more likely. What am I good at? What do I love to do? What are the things that I really hate doing, and how can I avoid having to do them ever again? What assets do I have? Which of those assets are useful in doing what I love and am good at, or avoiding what I hate to do?

I must confess, when I was a child, and friends wanted to play "house," I didn't want to be "the mommy." I wanted to be "the guitar player." My friends had no comprehension of what my role would be in these makeshift families (which seems to be the case for a lot of guitar players finding their way in the grown-up version of "house"), but that didn't dim my desire to play that roll. I've compromised the purity of that desire a bit in my life. I have been "mommy" and "bread winner" and "business partner" and "wife" and any number of other things. Lately, "writer" has kind of eclipsed "guitar player" and that's been okay. It seems to keep my Muses satisfied, though I do miss playing in front of an audience. Okay, in front of an appreciative audience that "gets" it. I don't miss playing in most bars and restaurants.

I suppose I still have an audience: the readers of Premier Guitar Magazine, and the few who read this blog. And people do write in or comment on the web site, and most of the time they're terrifically supportive and appreciative, and that's very nice, and the pay is comparable to gigging. Being able to hang out at home on the couch and turn my thoughts into revenue is just about the most wonderful thing I can imagine.

So writing goes into the "love" column, and hopefully it is high enough on the "good-at" scale for me to give it so grand of a place in my life.

Now I have to ask myself, how do I really feel about being "the guitar player?" Is it still the central fire around which my heart and soul turn? That, dear reader, requires some mulling.