Crossing Paths

I have been "hired" to write a monthly newsletter for my previous job at a private girls' school. I am glad for the job because it combines my love of writing and my need for a bit more monthly income. It does something else: it allows me to be involved with the school without the stress of the school. In other words, I can be involved without really having to be involved.

I like that. No papers to grade, no parents to call, no icky behaviors to curtail, no frustrating faculty meetings to endure.

This contracted job also requires that I take photographs to use in the newsletter, which means I must spend time with the kids on their field trips, in the classroom, and at their big performances, but I do not have to organize the field trips, plan the lessons, or stay all day and night at school preparing for the culminating events.

I went on my first field trip yesterday and ironically, I ended up going to my current place of work (REI) to take photos of the kids climbing the pinnacle, the tourist attraction at REI.

When I showed up, with four cameras strapped around me (2 were mine, 2 belonged to other people), my co-workers at REI had no idea what I was doing. It was too hard to explain, so I just told them I was taking photographs of the students and left it at that. I didn't tell them that I used to work at this school or that I was making 5 times as much money going on field trips and writing than I was selling backpacks and binoculars.

This crossing of paths was a bit odd, but it sums up the slightly fragmented life I have these days. I am not bound by any consistent schedule -- each day is different and many of them are self-determined. Yesterday, for instance, I had the field trip and then a meeting at the school to learn how to use their online newsletter program. In between it all, I needed to run some errands and roast a chicken for dinner. Not having slept well for the past few nights, I ended up taking a small nap on the couch in the middle of the day in between a walk with the dog and downloading the 150 photographs I took on the field trip (10 of which are actually usable...thank god for digital cameras!).

There is part of me that misses the certainty of a day-to-day schedule -- get up at 6, get to school at 7:30, hammer through the day teaching, and come home at 4:30 for a walk with the dog and some semblance of a meal before I head to bed-- but that schedule comes with so much unhealthy baggage. While I find myself groping my way through some of my days of late, I can feel the stress melting away. Finally, FINALLY (and I say this with my fingers crossed) the congestion I've lived with for the past three months is diminishing and the purge has lightened my head as well as my worry.

Today I have three dogs to walk, some insurance papers to sign, a dog to brush, and time at the computer getting a start on my first newsletter article on leadership models in an election year. Each "job" -- the dog walking and the writing -- require me to log my hours, but in between is this mushy room in which I can make choices -- clean the house, do some laundry, make some soup, a long walk with the dog -- and while I'm still learning how to move within the mush, I'm finally feeling as if I have the energy and the confidence needed on this new and unfamiliar path.