A Walker in the Suburbs

It is office party season. We had one yesterday and will have a smaller one, with just my immediate colleagues, today. The office party, like the meeting, is something I didn’t have for many years, the years I was freelancing full time. It’s at parties and meetings that I most have to shake my head and pinch myself. After more than six years it still seems slightly unreal to be working with people again.

Today I write to celebrate this occupation. Not that it doesn’t have its moments, but there are days when I am immeasurably grateful to walk out the door, to leave behind the house and clutter, to go out into the world.

An incomplete project puts me in limbo. It’s not so bad after all. I grew up with dim images of limbo as a soft cottony place where unbaptized babies frolicked happily, unaware that they would never see the face of God. The teaching was, if I recall, people in limbo will never go to heaven, but neither will they go to hell. And they won’t suffer. Limbo, then, is a land beyond time and expectations. But the thing about limbo was — and is — you can’t will yourself to be there. You have to arrive accidentally.

Most of the time they are just there, the perfect place to hang a purse or scarf, and good for shrugging, too. But when I’m on deadline or feeling tense in other ways my shoulders move up, up, up until they are somewhere around my ears. They become a tension factory; the bad vibes they generate give me headaches, neck aches and numb, tingly hands.

Celia has magic fingers; she massages my aching muscles. The relief is instantaneous but short-lived. And since a teenager is unlikely to hang around the house to be her mother’s masseuse, onto the Internet I go. Try these exercises, says one site. I have and I do. Buy yourself a phone headset and a good pillow, says another. On my to-do list. I even find a community of people whose only bond is that they have tense shoulders. The site says “anonymously connect with people who share your experiences — like those who say ‘I Have Extremely Tense Shoulders All the Time.’ Read hundreds of true stories, share your own story anonymously, get feedback and comments, chat in the discussion forum, help others, meet new friends, and so much more.”

Now there’s a thought. A group of people whose only bond is their tense shoulders. It’s a “Saturday Night Live” skit or a “Seinfeld” episode. I start to chuckle. And then I start to breathe deeply. Ahhh. My shoulders feel better already.

It’s April 15, so deadlines are on my mind. Not just today’s filing deadline, but deadlines in general. My life is built around them, and has been forever, it seems. When I was a student there were tests and papers looming regularly on the horizon. Ditto for the few years after college when I was a teacher. Then I became a journalist, a business with deadlines built into its DNA.
Through the years I’ve come to think of deadlines as my friends. While I rail about them, especially as they’re drawing near, they keep me on task, they keep me honest — and they keep me sane. My major problem is taking on too many of them. But yesterday, I turned down a freelance assignment because I knew I couldn’t finish it in time. Is this wisdom? Is this folly? I’m not sure. But it’s certainly proof of the power of deadlines.

Today I woke early and blew my hair dry. Soon I will put on work clothes, drive to Metro, ride the Orange Line to Metro Center, switch to the Red Line, walk from Judiciary Square to the Law Center — and return to routine. For 17 years I worked out of our house. Whole weeks would go by when I would only wear slippers. Last week’s snow holiday was a brief return to that world. It was nice; I won’t deny it. But there is something about getting up and getting out of the house that is good for creativity. So even though I long to spend today with my books and my laptop, a walk through the woods and a cup of tea after I come back inside, I will instead shoulder my bag and head out into the world.