Accepting (Embracing?) Fate

Yesterday, I fell asleep on the couch mid-afternoon.  Which is, on the one hand, one of the glories of the freelance/job search life. Your hours are yours to structure.  As long as you fulfill your obligations, work-wise and family-wise, whether you nap in the afternoon is really up to you.  Nonetheless, I awoke beating myself up for the lost hours.
 
At midnight last night when my middle school daughter and I finished her math homework, it suddenly became clear. My nap was fate. The only (and I love my kids, but the ONLY) reason I was able to stay up until midnight with my daughter was that I had taken that nap.
 
Tonight (having not taken a nap), I left a CMA program without staying to network, and ended up walking out the door with a person I hadn't seen in some time--we had a brief but great conversation, one that never would have occurred had I forced myself to stay longer.
 
Often, one of the hardest things to do is step back and accept things that happen.  I'm not saying that everything always happens for a reason, but I do know that the results of things unplanned often end up better than anything I could plan.
 
This has been a year of rolling with more punches than ever before, and I would like to think I've come out stronger for it. So, if once in a while I feel the need for a nap or an early exit, I'm going for it.  Hey, you never know what fate will give you in exchange!

Worth It

I read yesterday that in a few weeks, the children's network Sprout will begin airing animated music videos created by Laurie Berkner and Little Airplane, a company long known for its innovative approaches to preschool television.
 
What struck me about this particular news was how it pulled together so many pieces of my experience. Two years ago, when I participated in Little Airplane's Academy "How to Make a Great Preschool Series," not only did I meet many people from Little Airplane, I also met several producers from Sprout and an up and coming producer who worked with Laurie Berkner (and who introduced me to the Children's Media Association, whose events I have been attending faithfully ever since). In two years, a collaboration whose beginnings I essentially witnessed has come to fruition.  I can't help but be excited for all of the people involved (not to mention the preschoolers who will enjoy the shows).
 
At the same time, I can't help but think about the path I have taken in the two years since that weekend at the Academy.  I am not employed in children's media, but I have learned a tremendous amount about it through my involvement with CMA.  I wrote a series of stories for preschoolers which, though not even published, may someday lead to some books or a show or an app.  And I have realized that in children's media, or perhaps in any number of things that you create, it takes a long time to make a start, a long time to make a change, a long time to make a difference.  It takes patience, and persistence, and an unwavering belief that the end result is possible.
 
I am so happy for all the people who have created "Sing It, Laurie." They clearly had that unwavering belief, and they remind me that things that are worth it take time. And that often, taking the time is well worth it.

Structural Changes

A year and a half ago (or two years, depending on the time you start counting), when it became clear One Life to Live was dying, our ideas of renovating our apartment pretty much died too.  No pass-through kitchen, no carving out better spaces for my kids, no putting protective walls around my husband's desk, no built-in shelving for our various collections.
 
Now, it turns out, One Life to Live is not dead after all.  And, since I will be joining the show in Stamford in less than two weeks (yes, I will be ADing there), there is now an urgency to get as much done at home as I can, before every hour of my energy starts going into this new venture.
 
Am I saying I am renovating our apartment? Heavens, no. We all know that takes way longer than two weeks.  Why, then, the talk of what we would have done?  Well, I realized today that if I was to accomplish all the things on my to-do list, I was going to have to work on a few things at the same time.  So, in order to watch Emmy submission DVDs while making eggplant Parmesan, I turned my dining table into the pass through kitchen counter I never built. Instead of holing up in our narrow, closed off kitchen, unable to do anything but cook, I was suddenly able to accomplish two things at once. A "structural change" in the absence of a structural change.
 
I have a feeling my traveling to Stamford will require a great many of these "structural changes." While we won't be moving or anything that extreme, we--all of us--will need to do things a little bit differently to make it work.
 
Today's experience, which really just required an open mind and a willingness to carry a few ingredients to the table, was, oddly, a rather eye-opening one. Often we think major structural changes are required to fix the difficulties in our lives. Sometimes, that's true. But sometimes, a few minor tweaks and a slightly different approach are all the "structural change" that we need.
 
So, in the next two weeks, I will be working on some of those different approaches, and I feel sure that the "structural changes" will continue for a long time before we ever get around to hiring a contractor.  Perhaps by that time, we will have made so many adjustments to our own structures that not much demolition will be required.

Different Worlds

This morning, as the first scenes of the new All My Children were being shot in Stamford, CT, I was delivering Purim treat boxes to homebound elderly people in my neighborhood.  I say this not to put myself forward as a do-gooder--I wasn't actually that good at it (it's hard not to be awkward making conversation with strangers)--but because I was struck by how these so completely different scenarios could be going on simultaneously and how for me, one would not have been possible without the absence of the other.  A year and a half ago, I was so busy working on a soap that doubt I would have said yes to delivering treat boxes or even have been in a position to be asked.
 
Sometimes it is only the absence of what is familiar that allows us to explore the unfamiliar--to put ourselves in those awkward places like making conversation with strangers.
 
So, while the absence of what was familiar for so long has undoubtedly made this a difficult year for me, I cannot help but be grateful to have been introduced to different worlds. Worlds I never would have visited, were it not for my familiar day to day fictional world having been taken away for a while. Who knew I could be such a world traveler?

What I Learned Without Trying

My son, who has been trying to help me with a topic for today's blog, keeps launching into songs and riffs I didn't even know he knew.  Which has made me start thinking about all the things I have tried to learn, and all the things I have learned without trying.  I mean, we all spend a large part of our lives taking classes and going for training, watching tutorials and reading how-to books.  But how many of the things we know well did we learn that way?
 
For me, the "learned without trying" skills far outnumber the ones I have learned from books and classes.  I know how to AD because I have watched some of the best, and I have watched how my work affects the other members of my team. I have learned to edit by seeing what I like--what makes me cringe and what makes me cry, getting notes from producers and then trusting my gut.  I know how to parent, at least some days, by listening to my kids, and I know how to write because, well, because of all of the above, plus a good start from my high school English teachers.
 
The point here is, while we can try to take every course that's out there, try to prepare for every possible scenario, and try to prep our kids for every test they have, so many of the things we learn, as children and as grownups--often the most important things--come not from what we try to learn, but from our just being open to and observant of the world and people around us.  So the next time I ask my son what he learned today, perhaps I will be thinking about something he observed out the school bus window.  And the next time I beat myself up about all the classes I haven't taken and the books I haven't read, I'll remember the number of things I've learned every day--without even trying.

Late Showers

A new habit has begun at my apartment.  We finish dinner and clear the table, then I announce that I'll be taking a shower, sometimes my second of the day.
 
I have been a morning shower person for as long as I can remember.  A hot shower, after all, is part of a wake up routine, right?  Part of getting ready to face the day.
 
What I have discovered these past few weeks is that, while morning showers and evening ones include essentially the same elements, they are actually (and undeniably) fundamentally different events.
 
The morning shower is part of a process--the process of waking oneself up, of preparing to face the world for the day. It is essentially something done FOR other people--so they get the awake you, the hair washed you, the shower fresh smelling you.
 
The evening shower, on the other hand, is really just for yourself. (I suppose that if you work at a smelly job, it's for your family too, but that's not what I'm talking about here.) It's not about getting ready for something or about putting your best self forward.  It's about enjoying the hot water just because it's hot, enjoying the moments alone after a day of constantly meeting other people's needs, enjoying the feeling of washing off one day to move toward another.  It doesn't necessarily replace the morning shower (though it helps on a day you oversleep!). Rather, it is kind of like an end of day gift to yourself for a job well done.
 
I'm sure there was a time when I would have said that taking two showers in a day surely meant a person had too much time on her hands. And maybe I should be busier.  Maybe soon, I will be far too busy even to think about such a luxury.
 
Or maybe, just maybe, with a little extra time, I have stumbled onto something great, something that, like this blog, I will hang on to doing, even if the clock says there's not enough time.  Just one of those choices that, thank goodness, a little free time enables us to see.

A-Head Hunter

A few days ago, I had coffee with a headhunter.  Not because I am being headhunted--there aren't many headhunters recruiting people who do the assortment of things that I do (though there have been many times over the past year when I've really wished there were!).
 
This particular headhunter happens to be a friend, so it was mostly just a friends reconnecting coffee, but people often do what they do for a reason, so, not surprisingly, my friend the headhunter had some good ideas about my ongoing search to define (redefine?) myself and my work.
 
First, she took the kibosh off of putting your college graduation year on your resume. As she put it, isn't an employer going to know, either from your resume or from meeting you that you're not 22?
 
Next, she cut to the chase, and made me do so too. Apparently no one really cares about the 10 jobs you had before your most recent one.  Go figure.  Then feel free to take a lot of things off--the white space will feel good!
 
And, probably most important, she reminded me that social media is only really effective if you make it that way.  It's not enough to write a blog and post it to sites. That, and anything else worthwhile, needs shouting from the rooftops, with things like messages to LinkedIn connections, active seeking of followers, and links on Twitter.
 
And so, this week, a friendly coffee turned out to include some very good actionable advice, which I have already begun to take.  There may not be many headhunters for what I do, but that doesn't mean I can't or won't be found.  It just mean I need to do more of the hunting--and the gathering--on my own.