Clean Slate, Blank Mind!

Here it is a Friday, and I find as I go about my business that I am wished, "Have a nice weekend!" Just another reminder of how out of step I am with the rest of the world...

This time of being "between" jobs has its own challenges. Being out of step with the rest of the world is not necessarily one of them, at least not for me, since I learned long ago that I am one of those who follows a "different drummer!" Instead the challenges have to do with how each day is its own. Let me explain what I mean.

When I was working, my day was planned before I got there. Before I even got out of bed, there were places to go and people to see. And I would!

Now, each day is its own "clean slate." I greet the morning, thank God for the day, and set out into the sea of it (I sometimes call it the "Let's See Sea!") with a scant sense of things that need to be done, and an even less clear sense of destination or direction. Whereas before, others would to some great degree arrange my day for me, now I am totally responsible for arranging it myself.

This makes living each day a bit of a challenge, since like most folks, I find at least some routines comforting. Getting up by a certain hour, having breakfast, lunch, dinner, putting myself down to bed again-- all used to occur "on schedule," in a more or less routinized kind of way. Now, these little benchmarks for where I am and what I am doing as the sun courses across the sky, all can occur in a much more random fashion-- or really not at all! Whatever "routine" there is, it is up to me to make!

And it isn't just that this messes with my previously adapted sense of "being in the right place at the right time." It is also that the kind of energy required of me these days is quite different from what was required of me before. When I was working, I liked the adrenaline rush of having more to do than could be done in a given day. Now that I am on my own, a different sort of energy is required. I still always have more to do than could be done-- but I also seem to have no particular deadline for doing it... The urgency is gone. The weight of "need" that drives accomplishment is lifted. And the scrutiny! I have only myself to report to! Especially now with Daniel having fled the "nest" to establish himself in SF, I have no one in particular to cook-- or clean the kitchen--for.

What I'm trying to say is: Having a clean slate is its own state, has its own discomforts, its own advantages-- and may not lead to a clean house!

Ah, and then there is the realization that not only are each of my days clean slates, but at the moment, the rest of my vocational life is as well...

I remember when I was first writing my dissertation. I had all of these ideas in my head, all of these notes from my research surrounding me, and all of these good intentions of bringing things all together into some sort of coherent form. And yet, initially, I would sit looking at the blank piece of paper in the typewriter (this will tell you something about my age! HA!), and my mind would be as blank as that page! Sometimes clean slates lead to blank minds... It happened to me. Very uncomfortable feeling, I can tell you...

Well, at this point in my life my future is unclear, and the slate is as clean as it can be (given the residues of my past), and there are days when I stare at it and its prospects-- and my mind goes blank... It just does...

I am blessed, though, for having been through several creative processes before, and I am telling myself that I am immersed in yet another one at the moment! I tell myself to be more comfortable with the awkwardness of this time, to adjust to the feelings of being at sea, unmoored, not easily fitting in. I remember times past like this, and how God took the seeming nothing of the time and made... well, whatever it was God would make of me!

I am grateful when my mind is blank that God's mind is not! Creatio ex nihilo is God's forte, how God works! Let God be at work with my "nothingness" now...