Dream Job #2: Why I Am Qualified to Chair the NEA

Ah, Wednesday, when part of our nation will be watching the first of the presidential debates tonight.  I confess that I likely will not.  It's hard for me to stay awake when the TV is on, even when we're watching something that's riveting.  Will this debate be riveting?  Time will tell.

Still, as the debates have approached, and with all the various job drama of my own setting, I've been thinking about various government jobs.  I have realized that I'm the perfect candidate to lead the National Endowment for the Arts.

Here's why:

--I'm used to working with no budget. 

--In fact, I'm so used to working with no budget that I have perfected the art of asking for money, being told no, explaining why it's important, being told no, and staying my charming self through the whole process.

--Not only am I used to working with no budget, but I'm also quite good at making amazing events happen even though I have no money.

--I have no specific examples to offer in proof of that last statement, but I'm a poet, so I'm sure it's true.

--Like Dana Gioia, I have been a poet who has worked in the belly of the corporate beast.  I am not a sheltered academic who has never had to think about profit margins or shareholder profits.  I am not an artist with a trust fund who has never had to worry about money.

--I shall take a brief moment while you recover from the laughing fit inspired by the words "sheltered academic" and "artist with a trust fund."

--Much of my life as an administrator involves saying no.  I imagine that much of my life as the Chair of the NEA would involve saying no.

--But I do delight in figuring out ways to say yes to worthy projects.  I love figuring out ways to say yes more often.

--I'm used to working with disparate groups of people, as the Chair of the NEA would need to be.  I imagine days of talking to Congress people, meetings with people who might fund grants, going to arts events.  That kind of day would make me happy. 

--I'm used to finding ways to get us to consensus.  I understand the importance of getting everyone's buy-in.

--I also understand that there will be times that consensus isn't possible.  I have learned to live with that.

--Some have called me "brutally efficient."  Some say this in awed tones, as if to offer me a compliment.  Some tell me this as criticism.

--Every organization needs one or two people who are brutally efficient.  It helps if the brutally efficient people have a visionary streak.

--On good days, I have a visionary streak.

--I'm not just a poet.  Various art forms appeal to me.  I understand that the NEA needs to minister to a variety of artists.

--I'm now solidly middle-aged.  I know how to dress the part of Chair of the NEA.  I will not show up looking like a bit player in a reality TV show with too much flesh on ill-advised display.  I promise to only wear my punk outfits in private or for Halloween.  I will not dress in ways that scare people.

--I'm not afraid of travel.  I would serve the whole U.S., and I'd be happy to travel to various parts of the country to talk about the importance of the arts and to discover what's going on beyond D.C.

--I don't need much sleep.  Or perhaps it would be more correct to say I've gotten used to operating on less sleep.

--I don't need much sleep or money.  What more do I need to say to convince you that I'm the one who should be your Chair of the NEA?

--I realize that I'm of North European descent, German and Scottish mainly.  I understand that it would be desirable to have a minority presence at the head of the NEA.  I am a woman, a different underrepresented group.  Perhaps that would be enough?

--I have friends and family in the D.C. area who could help me when it's time to move to D.C.

--I understand that we already have a Chair of the NEA, and I'm not suggesting that he needs to be replaced.  But all Chairs step down at some point.  When that happens, I'm ready to go at a moment's notice. 

Dream Job #1 and Late Life Job Fulfillment

One of the women that I know at the gym is an avid reader.  I enjoy talking about books with her, even though we only have a few minutes in the day to do it.  The other day, I said, "That would be my dream job, reading whatever I wanted and writing about it."

She said, "Working for a publisher?" 

At the same time, we shook our heads.  "You'd have to read so much bad stuff," I said at the same time as she said, "The slush pile!"

"No," I said, "I want to read what I want to read and write about it once or twice a week.  And to get paid $150,000 a year.  If I'm gonna dream, why not dream big?   And I want to go to a conference or two a year, with expenses paid."

And then I spent the week-end rereading Phyllis Tickle's Prayer is a Place.  I read it years ago when it first came out.  At that point, I had just recently discovered her 3 volume version of the Liturgy of the Hours, The Divine Hours.  I was fascinated by her discussion of the writing process.

This time, I noticed how much of the book revolves around Tickle's post mid-life career.  She has a full career as an academic, teaching and being a dean.  Around the age of 45, she quits those paths to found a press that has multiple focuses and is fairly successful, especially as small presses go.

Then, around age 58, she gets the call that will change her life.  She's asked to be the editor-in-chief for the soon-to-be-created religion section of Publishers Weekly.  She gets to read books, meet authors and publishers, and go to huge festivals and conferences.  In short, she has my dream job.

And here's what made me most hopeful:  she got that dream job late in life.

We're surrounded by stories of young stars.  We're inundated by stories of Ph.D.s that have an expiration date.  We're swamped by stories of mid-life and later job seekers who can't find anything.

I loved reading Tickle's memoir because it reminded me that those stories are not the only stories.  A world of stories exists where people find that doors open when they need to, that a human that you knew briefly decades ago will come back into your life when you need that person, that there's a shape and a pattern to life that isn't just chaos theory and apocalypse.

I also noted that Tickle often felt like she needed more and more writers.  She recounted one story of hiring a woman who sent her an unsolicited resume and that woman became one of her strongest employees.  Note to self:  don't discount sending off my resume/CV/information to places where I'd like to work, even if there are no published openings.

And then, even later, she wrote The Divine Hours, the project she considers to be the reason she was put on the planet.  It's been wildly successful.  It's not a project that anyone would have forecast to be wildly successful, but several people had a shared vision, and thus, success.

Literary historians might remind us of many similar trajectories, especially when we consider the path of women writers and artists of all sorts.  Just because you haven't produced your most successful work by the time you're 25 doesn't mean that you won't.  Lots of people have done their best work at midlife and beyond.

It's important to remember that point, as we move into the Autumn awards season.  The MacArthur Genius grants have just been announced, and it's a fascinating list of people and their interests.  Soon we'll have the Nobel prizes.

You might be like me; these awards might lead to painful introspection, to that infernal question, "And what have I done with my life?"  My answer changes from day to day.  On days when I've redone an assessment report for the 5th time or revisited the schedule yet again, on those days I feel most like I'm in a play authored by Beckett, a play which mocks the idea that life can have meaning.

But on days when I write a good blog post or carve out a poem from interesting ideas, those days are good days.  On days when I help facilitate some sort of reconciliation, those are good days.  On days when I assist in developing workable solutions to real problems--those are some of my favorite days.

I wonder if those problem solving days come after a morning of good writing?  I've never kept track, but it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case.

And it's important to remember that MacArthur grant recipients don't always/often start out with their genius recognized.  They often labor in obscurity or isolation.  They devote themselves to subjects that others have rejected as useless.

It's not about winning a grant.  It's about following the passion.

Lessons from a Local Disconnected Week-end

I’ve always known that when I’m on vacation and away from the computer, I get more reading done. That observation makes sense to me. Much of my reading has migrated to the Internet, after all. I only read a newspaper that’s on paper not pixels when I visit my parents. I only subscribe to paper magazines which will provide good collage images.


However, I’ve also noticed that when I’m on vacation and away from the computer I sleep later. I feel more relaxed. Is that because I’m on vacation or because there’s no Internet?

On Thursday, we realized our phones and Internet were gone. We called (hurrah for cell phones) and were told we wouldn’t have service until Monday. A technician showed up yesterday, but sure enough, the two main cables were fried, and they’d need to be replaced. Hopefully that will happen today.

But in the meantime, it’s been a peaceful week-end. I did sleep later. I read a whole book, which I rarely do in a single week-end anymore—unless I’m on vacation. I went for a run on Sunday morning, which I rarely do at home.

I thought we might get out and do more around town, the way we do when we’re on vacation. But because we’re at our house, there are still chores that need to be done. I got errands run. My spouse and I tackled the yard—which got a thorough edging and mowing; we’ll usually skip the edging if it’s just one of us doing it.

It was also a peaceful week-end in the neighborhood. As summer moves into autumn, more of our neighbors resume their outdoor life, especially during football season. Several neighbors haul their televisions into their back yards, where they grill and listen to music and watch the game and get increasingly louder as they get drunker.

But not this week-end. So, we enjoyed our backyard: we mowed and then we grilled each meal and then we watched evening come and the full moon rise.

I didn’t leave the computer entirely. I typed in some poems, and I worked on a short story. I’m sure I made more progress on the short story than I would have if I was also able to blog. It was strange not to be able to use online sources to look things up. I used a dictionary—the old-fashioned, door stop of a book kind—to look up a word or two.

In short, with every task I undertook, I noticed I was less distracted and less irritable. Is that because I go more sleep or because there were fewer Internet tasks or because we stayed home instead of zooming all over the county?

It was a good experiment, even if it wasn’t one of our choosing. It’s good to realize how out of sorts I can get when I’m too plugged in. It’s good to remember the different kind of life I might have if I could disconnect more.

Internet Snow Day

This may be a quiet week-end, in terms of Internet based reading and writing.  I returned home on Thursday night to discover that our phones are out.  When our phones are out, the Internet is out.  Perhaps this is a sign that we need to upgrade.

We don't have dial-up, but we do have an Internet connection that depends on the phone.  And the technician may get there today or tomorrow, but it may be as late as Monday.  Sigh.

Oh to live in a land of fiber optic cables.  We had that kind of access once, in grad school, in the early days of Internet connectivity.  It was lightning fast.  I told myself not to get used to it.

I tell myself that there are worse things.  I'm not a big talk on the phone person anyway.  But I do love to spend time reading on the Internet.  I do love the immediacy of blogging.

It has been interesting to return to journaling on private pieces of paper that I can be relatively sure that no one will read.  I'll keep doing that.

And I do love a big stack of library books.  I shall pop by the library and stock up.

It's kind of like a snow day, only with electricity!

Collage: Soul Cards and Career Insight

The other night, instead of going to spin class, I went out with a colleague who's moving from full-time faculty to part-time.  Her income will be cut dramatically.  She's faced this before.  She taught at our school in the early 90's, in the hospitality program.  When that program was cut, she went back to school, got another degree, always with an eye to returning to teach in the institution that she loved so much.

She always said she wanted to teach here until she was at least 78.  I suppose she still can.  She just won't be paid as much.

That evening, we had the kind of storm clouds that made me turn off all the electronics when I got home.  My spouse was at Chorale practice, so I had lovely time to myself. I wrote in my paper, off-line journal. When I was done with that, I was tired, but I still felt like doing more creating.  My collaging supplies caught my eye, and so I sat down to create what I'm calling soul cards.

 I use liquid glue instead of glue sticks.  When I create images with glue sticks, they don't have the kind of permanence I want.  But, as you see in some of these pictures, liquid glue can leave ridges.

I've been keeping a repository of images:  each time I throw away a magazine, I cut out appealing pictures and keep them in envelopes.  So I began the process by looking through saved images to see what leaped out at me.  I assembled my images and grouped them and started gluing.

The process is similar to that of making vision boards, except instead of finding images of what I want to attract, I'm taking images that appeal and trying to figure out my unknown/little known yearnings.  I think of them as soul cards, rather than vision boards in miniature.  What does my soul want?  What does my soul know?  How can I tune in?

When I look at the card below, am I yearning for a new house or time on a porch or rest of all sorts?

I was going to stop at 3 cards, but then the words on the card below leaped out at me:  "Stay Hopeful," "Peace also takes courage," and "Finding answers."  Not much mystery there.

There's one thing that came to me in my journaling the other night that I want to make sure I record in several places, so that my subconscious begins to chew on it.  When I think about my future, my brain seems to go in three tracks:  writing, academia, and something to do with a spiritual life.  Any of these might require going back to school.

But what if my brain goes to those 3 because that's where I've trained it to go?  What if I might discover other possibilities, if I assumed that any avenue was open?

I'm not sure how I go about breaking out of my brain rut, but I plan to try!

Ashes, ICUs, and Writing Process

Yesterday, I wrote this post which included my poem "Ash Wednesday in the Intensive Care Unit."  It came from a true event.  My mother-in-law had been moved to the Intensive Care Unit, and I visited her on Ash Wednesday.  I noticed that all the patients had an ash cross smudged on their foreheads.  I asked the nurse, and she said, "Oh, sure, the priest was here this morning."

Most of the patients were unconscious, and I wondered about the ethics of smudging an ash cross on unresponsive patients.  I decided not to ask further questions.  The nurse was probably not interested in having a theological conversation:  that's not why she went to nursing school, after all.

I got to school later in the day and tried to write a poem.  I tried to compose at the computer.  What came out was a grammar worksheet:  improbable but true!  I used it for many years.  I'll put one of the paragraphs below; can you find all the run-ons and comma splices?

"Because it is Ash Wednesday, the man in black (no, not Johnny Cash!) puts ashes on our foreheads.  The ashes represent our sins, they also represent the ultimate end to our bodies after death.  But we've been in the Intensive Care Unit, so we know better.  The end has very little to do with ashes the end comes when your body fluids go where they don't belong.  Sometimes the end comes despite the best efforts of the pumps and tubing the hospital provides.  If we didn't already believe in a Supreme Being, we'd have to invent one, it's just too hard to face the end otherwise."

Not only did this worksheet allow me to discuss run-ons and comma splices, but it also let me talk about writing that had different purposes for different audiences.  When I taught Composition, I brought my poem into the class, and we had a reason to read a poem and talk about the difference between what one attempts to do when writing a poem and when writing an essay.  When I taught poetry, I showed them the grammar worksheet and we talked about line breaks.

I also had to talk about Ash Wednesday, what it means and the customs that surround it.  It gave me a chance to have a brief theological discussion.  You could argue that such a theological discussion is as inappropriate in a Composition classroom as a priest smudging unresponsive patients.  I would argue that college should expose students to existential ideas and spiritual connections and not just in religion classes.  Since I wasn't proselytizing or pressuring students to convert, and since we spent all of 10 minutes on the theological background, I'd say I didn't overstep.

So, the experience in that ICU has been turned into a grammar worksheet, a poem, and a blog post.  Maybe it's time to write an in-depth consideration of the theological implications of smearing ash on unconscious patients.  Or maybe it's time to write an essay that considers pedagogy and theological side trips.

Ashes and Atonement: Yom Kippur Dawn

Here we are, a few hours before Yom Kippur sunrise.  I have atonement on the brain.  For a more theological meditation, see this post on my theology blog.  For an even more powerful meditation, see this post written by Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, who in the hours before Yom Kippur, helped a family prepare the body of a family member for burial. 

She reminds us of what this high holy day should be about:  "On Yom Kippur we try as hard as we can to make teshuvah, to correct our course and shift our alignment so that our actions, our emotions, our thoughts, and our spirits are aligned with holiness. We try to repair our relationships with ourselves, with each other, with God. We try to relinquish the emotional and spiritual calluses which protect us in ordinary life, and to go deep into awareness of our mortality and deep into connection with something beyond ourselves."

I've been thinking of atonement in my own religious tradition, which traditionally comes at Lent, that time period that begins with Ash Wednesday and takes us to the week before Easter.  I've been thinking about ashes and other symbols of our mortality.

I'm thinking about my friend's Hindu priest who smears ashes on his forehead every day.  It reminds him that we're only here for a short time.  It reminds him to keep events in perspective.  So few things are worth getting upset over.

On Ash Wednesday, many Christians have a cross of ash smeared on their foreheads.  I've written a series of poems that have Ash Wednesday in the title.  Some are more hopeful than the one I will post below.

Still, I will post it, because it was recently nominated for a Best of the Net award.  It's the first time my work has been nominated.  I'm not sure what happens next.  Do all the nominees compete against each other?  Is there an awards night?  Is there some kind of collection that exists only on the net?  An eBook of winners that people could buy?

But in the end, it doesn't matter.  I'm incredibly happy that editor Jessie Carty not only liked my poem enough to publish it in Referential, but to nominate it too.



Ash Wednesday in the Intensive Care Unit


No one has to remind us of our dusty
destiny. Here in the ICU, every day
is Ash Wednesday. Some days we reflect
that an awful lot of fluid precedes
our descent into dust—fluids
come and go into the wrong crevices,
the body leaks and oozes
before it dwindles into dryness.

Still, the priest makes his rounds, smudges
comatose foreheads with ashes from the palms
of a distant celebration. How long ago
that we protested this archaic ritual.
Now Ash Wednesday claims its place as the most relevant
day of the church calendar.

Trapped in our failing flesh,
the liturgical year stopped
in the beginning of this season
of penitence. We long to believe
in resurrection, but in this hospital,
we realize that the viruses and bacteria
will inherit the Kingdom of God.