eyes wide open :: you can't fix someone else

my throwback impulse is passive aggressive. someone who i thought was a friend, a very good friend, in fact, recently proved not to be so. for reasons apparently beyond my comprehension. when she began ghosting me, i went through all of the stages - worry - was she ok? did something happen to her? was she ill? taken by pirates? kidnapped by drug lords? i even texted another of her friends to ask if they had heard from her. then there was guilt - i spent quite a lot of time feeling vaguely guilty that i had done something that i wasn't aware of, but i sincerely couldn't think of what it might be. we parted on a good note - with a very fun, laughter-filled photoshoot. that couldn't be it. but eventually i realized, it really truly wasn't about me. it was her. i finally received a cryptic and disingenuous email that only bewildered me more. and then it dawned on me, that akin to a breakup, i just needed to get the few things i'd left at her place, and get the hell out. and when i stopped by, she was super weird, claiming to be on her deathbed ill, offering a lame excuse that sounded like a tired lie and then posting instagram pictures of a dinner with another mutual friend the next day. (damn you social media.) and while i still don't understand it, i have arrived at the place where i no longer want to. whatever her flaky, vague, dishonest motivations are, they actually have nothing to do with me. they are hers alone. and i hereby release both her and myself. and it's like a weight has lifted from my shoulders. you can't fix other people. and you can never be inside of who they are. and frankly, you probably don't even want to be.

surfacing

when i was informed nearly a year ago that my wonderful job was going away, i was given a couple of disingenuous excuses. they assured me that it was nothing i had done, i had performed at a high level, it was just a new course that was being charted because "LEGO isn't ready for co-creation." this despite countless articles by business journals and sites to the contrary (i link to just one of dozens). the other thing i was told is that my position was being converted to a marketing job and that i just didn't really fit with that because, "you're not commercial." i ran through my cv in my head, stumbling over decidedly commercially-minded companies like microsoft and maersk along the way and felt bewildered. i numbly accepted that news, because what else could i do. i was in a state of shock.

i had sensed that there was a reorg in the air in the weeks leading up to that fateful day, but i hadn't at all seen it coming that there would be no place for me in that reorg. it left me feeling not only sorrowful that my wonderful job had disappeared for reasons that seemed lame at best, but also that i had lost my ability to read people and situations and quickly understand them. and it has, i admit, knocked me off balance for nearly a year.

over the past year, on three occasions, i've been in the final pool for a new position with our favorite maker of plastic bricks and on every occasion, i came in first runner-up. it felt like i was beating my head against a (plastic) brick wall. the only feedback i've received on any of those losing propositions was that i was "too intimidating." a piece of information that is so far from how i feel on the inside, that i didn't know what to do with it, other than stir it up with the other oblique statements i had been given and try to make sense of it. that proved impossible, so what i did is that i gave up and started looking for jobs outside of LEGO.

one month ago, i applied for a very interesting-sounding marketing content position with one of the oldest shipowners in denmark. as you know, i'm a bit of a ship geek from previous jobs in the industry, and i'd long missed that world. just a few days after i sent my application, i was invited for an interview for a different position than the one i'd applied for - one which had been advertised earlier, but which i'd missed. i gratefully accepted and it went well and i was invited for the second round last week. and lo and behold, i was offered the job yesterday. and guess what? it's a marketing job. so i guess it turns out that i am commercial after all.

a delightful and quick process (getting hired into LEGO took more than six months from application to contract) goes a long way towards healing the wounds caused by those disingenuous excuses about my co-creation job. it makes me feel that i can once again trust my inner voice, read situations and that i am once again seen and valued for who i am and for my experience. it makes me sad to admit that the way i was treated by LEGO made me doubt all those things and feel strangely invisible. this was compounded by running into that duplicitous manager the other day and having him nearly refuse to shake my hand in greeting, even tho' he was shaking the hands of everyone else i was standing and talking to. i actually had a nightmare about that the night before last. but now, those nightmares can be put behind me.

i will still love the ingenuity and cleverness of the plastic brick and i am happy to have had the year i had as LEGO's co-creation manager and my immediate boss there was probably the best boss i've ever had, but i am also happy to be putting it all behind and returning to the world of shipping.

it helps a little bit that the new job is in copenhagen, so i'll get to return to the real world, at least during the week, a bit as well.

noted.

i had a revelation today.  i was driving along and i saw the sun shining on a little pond and it was absolutely glorious. and i realized there, in the face of that beauty and light and stillness and the silhouettes of the trees, that i cannot take responsibility for fighting against all of the stupidity in the world. or even some of it. i cannot help it if people are petty and power-hungry and purposefully obstinate. i cannot help it if they lack creativity and vision and are unable to appreciate those things in others. i cannot make them open to new ideas if they are closed. i cannot make them other than who they are.

imagine if we took all of the energy we use trying to resist the stupidity of the world and directed it towards something positive. that thought, like this moment of sunlight on a little lake, takes my breath away.

in for a tune-up

do you ever feel out of alignment? unfocused? out of sync? 

if so, i suggest that you go get a quilt (it's ok if your bunnies have chewed a few holes in it),
spread it in a shady spot (but not too shady) on the lawn,
fetch a couple of pillows and a good book
and maybe a tall glass of iced tea.
talk the cat into curling up at your side (oddly enough, he'll do this for cookies).

now proceed to spend the entire afternoon right there.
and don't feel guilty about it for a second. 

i guarantee you'll feel like a new person.

what might seem like wasted time to an outside observer is likely to be the best time you'll spend all week.

you'll be rejuvenated, realigned, refocused and totally in sync.

so what are you waiting for?

there's no place like...

as i was packing up the bookshelves in the blue room, i took a moment to arrange these blocks against the beloved blue background. they're letterpress blocks from my dad's letterpress (why didn't i learn how to operate that when i had the chance?). i think they once assembled to spell the name of some or other horse that i had, and i've carried them around the world with me more than once. they're precious and i wouldn't want to be without them, even if they are occasionally jumbled into a box and not used.

moving brings on such mixed feelings. i'm excited and looking forward to the new house and all that we're going to do it to transform it into the house we'd like it to be. i'm going to love having our own lake and a lawn big enough to play football on (not that i want to do that, but knowing that i could is a good thing). space for a horse and chickens and maybe a truffling pig or two, oh and lambs. i'm so looking forward to all of that.

but i've loved this house too and we did so much to it to make it our own and give it our character and leave our mark on it. when we moved in, it was like stepping into a 70s time warp, even the garden looked like some evergreen-covered churchyard, full of low bushes that even looked totally seventies. we leave it transformed and we will miss it.

but as i said when i posted this picture on flickr the other day, we are not our house and we are able to make a home wherever we go. because the things that make a home are all of the things, packed with memory and meaning, that we take with us. even if it is a royal pain packing them all up.

making it mine

my head was feeling heavy, but then strangely, everything began to seem clear. all of the struggle i've been having with the "creativity issue." i speed-wrote 4 pages in my journal about it. about my frustrations. about my love of pretty paper. and yarn. but of my inability to actually really DO anything with either one. there is something appealing simply about the acquisition, but that's not really what's been blocking the creativity. i think i've been blocking it myself...(imagine that).

what i failed to recognize (or admit) is that there is some part of me that craves order. although i am currently living in a torn-apart house (building project) and many of my belongings are in boxes, i don't really like chaos. i make lists, for god's sake, of course i like order, why didn't i see this before? (husband said i wasn't ready.) i actually really like having a frame within which i work..and create, as it turns out. which i suppose is why knitting is appealing--that's VERY organized--i just need some help from an experienced knitter (or two) to get rolling on that and it will come.

but, my painting class has been a bit of a source of frustration to me, since i feel i can't adequately let go when i'm there. it was worst the first week. i've done a bit better since then. but last week, one of the other people in the course told me that i just needed to "slip hestene løs." basically, i just need to let go of whatever it is i'm clinging to...and that seems to be the frames. those blank canvases stretch before me in a WAY too wide-open, intimidating manner. the possibilities are limitless and some core part of me wants limits. i would like someone to say, today, we paint fish. and then i could contentedly paint fish like crazy. fantasy fish. colorful fish. fish that don't exist in nature. fish like you've never seen. but to stand there and say, "hey, self, what do you fancy painting today?" that's totally paralyzing.

same with the scrapping. i adore the supplies. the pretty paper makes my heart sing and my molecules align. but to imagine cutting it, or worse yet...ripping it! no, don't make me do that. it's because it's not mine--metaphorically speaking, it's mine, i've paid for it (tho' most of it was on massive sale or bought with the very low dollar--and i can show you the money i saved, husband, don't worry).

what i've been good at, creatively-speaking, is taking someone else's idea and making it mine. like when i painted the wooden stools for our little bitty apartment on elmelundevej. i took the shapes from the matisse paper cut-out poster hanging in the living room. i chose my own colors, i made custom stencils and i painted colorful, wonderful stools. it was a creative act, but not a wholly original act. and that was OK!!!

or when i painted 63 little viking ships around our dining room on baldersgade. they were lovely. and they were an adaptation of a little ship from my big world of art coffee table book. again, an original twist on something that i didn't originate. but totally creative. and wholly mine in the end.

so, what i need to do is find MY interpretation of scrapbooking. what attracts me are the supplies (have i mentioned that i love those pretty papers?), the notion of preserving memories (that whole nature of memory thing has been a preoccupation of mine for years...it's there in the choices of what i read and i would have written my dissertation on it had i gotten around to writing one), and actually, the camaraderie that seems to surround it (even if it's only in cyberspace). but why it's been so hard is that it hasn't felt like MINE. i'm trying to do someone else's thing. i need to stop that and do MY thing.

same with the painting. tho', i've made a modicum of progress there. i've at least been experimenting with color and brush strokes and not trying paint a picture per se. what i need to do there is take the prettiest of my pretty papers, glue them to the damn canvas (preferably after having the heart to rip them a bit) and then paint off of them. try to dig into what it is that makes my molecules align and hum in perfect pitch (which i swear happens with the best of those pretty papers--basic grey biology, i mean you) and try to create it MYSELF on the canvas. combine the things that have been preoccupying me and make them mine.

i can do this. all it took was recognizing what it was i needed to do and letting go of all the angst. excuse me while i go make a list now of the things i need to bring to painting class tomorrow...