A Walker in the Suburbs

Ten days after my last day at Georgetown Law came my first day at Winrock International. A welcome sign, a tour, a lunch and a meet-and-greet all made me feel at home. As did lots of friendly people.

Now I just have to remember the new names, learn a new line of work and adjust to a new routine.

Ah, change! Can’t live with it; can’t live without it.

But of course we all live with it. Every day we grow a little older, a little bit different than we were yesterday. Those of us with children need no reminder that life moves on. But no one can avoid the truth entirely.

A change in routine merely makes more obvious what is true all the time.

The office is nearly cleared. Only a few more papers to sort, then a bit of electronic tidying. It’s time to end one chapter and begin another.

It’s a surreal feeling, one I’ve grown used to these last two years: the loss of something once integral. I’ve watched, fascinated and bemused, as the details of my work have evaporated and trailed off, so many ghost vapors.

I’m in a strange position — disconnecting from one place, not yet connected to another.

Isn’t that what we used to call freedom?

On February 13, 2006, my children were in fifth, ninth and eleventh grades — all still at home.  My parents were alive and going strong. Copper the dog had not yet come to live with us.

On this day, a Monday, I got off  Metro three stops closer to home, walked into a new office and started a new job. I was editing a magazine, which meant not only writing and line editing but also working with designers and a printer. I’d never done anything quite like it before.

The months and years have passed, the magazines have gotten to the printer (on deadline!) — and the job has remained.  It’s changed, of course. Now I edit web stories, press releases and media advisories; I keep tabs on videos and tweets and Facebook posts. I’ve adjusted, I guess you’d say.

I try not to think about what I would have done instead. This job has given me an income and security. It has given me the flexibility I needed to raise children and tend parents. But I’m a freelancer at heart and don’t always measure success in the conventional manner.

Still, today I raise a glass — a bit tentatively and not without irony, but I raise one just the same. Ten years is a long time to be at a job. It’s a milestone worth celebrating.

Yesterday was spent almost entirely inside. A rainy day, the tree still up (a state of affairs that will  end today), laundry chugging away in the basement, a casserole simmering in the oven.

A calm, inward-focused day was the perfect antidote to a long, outward-focused week.

But already I feel the gears groan into action for tomorrow’s workday: answering email, sketching the week’s to-do list, planning quick dinners and what I’ll need to make them before I dash to the grocery store.

What was once a day of rest is now a day of preparation.

When the going gets tough, the tough get a day planner. An old-fashioned model, ink on paper, 5×8. Each week gets a complete spread, so there are 10 lines for each day’s appointments rather than just a tiny square.

I used to swear by these books but over time had stopped using them. I made do with the tiny, purse-sized calendars and scribbled notes to myself each day of what I needed to accomplish. I liked being less scheduled, time a vast river rather than a tightly parceled stream.

But my new duties require lots of meetings, and meetings must be jotted down lest they be forgotten. So once again I am a person of the book. The appointment book, that is. 

It was after 4 p.m. yesterday when I finally walked out into what some were saying was the most spectacular weather of the summer. It’s interesting how easily we accommodate ourselves to inside air, inside thoughts. Here we are, creatures of vastness, accepting so much less of ourselves.

We do it for all the right reasons, of course. To earn a living, to pursue a craft, to tend to the ones we love.

“You’ll never get rich by digging a ditch” goes a line from an old song, “You’re in the Army Now” (or some such title). Around the office I have a saying, “Well, at least we’re not digging ditches for a living.” And some in the office have argued that digging ditches doesn’t sound all that bad. Maybe not for those with strong shoulders and biceps like cannon balls. But for a puny pencil pusher like myself, having an indoor job is definitely a plus.

Still, there are days — days like these lovely, limpid, last days of summer — when indoor work seems a shadowy stand-in for the real thing.