what the day brings

We are meeting again in Room 102, for another day of studying Remedies.  We're a somewhat eclectic and fluid mix.  Some people are here only occasionally, others are regulars.  We would never know each other were it not for this common experience of law school.  But having spent the last 4 years together, we've seen each other often enough to have developed some level of ease with each other.  I wouldn't call any of these people a friend, in the sense that I would share private thoughts or happenings with them.  But we are the survivors of the initial group, plus a few others and so while we are not all intimates, we do have a shared history that matters a great deal to me.

None of them are early morning people, so I'm here with my coffee and outline, hashing through more details on my own as I await the others.  I think that the core of the group is the three women who call themselves 'three peas in a pod.'  I'm an interloper, although welcomed, I am not one of them, and never will be.  I'm happy to see them enjoy each other so much, but feel no desire to do what it would take to join.  I am pretty sure I'm seen as a bit overwhelming sometimes, and of course, that's not altogether wrong.  I reminded myself of that just yesterday and promised myself that today I would remember to dial it back a notch or two.

In spite of being somewhat sterile and stark, these classrooms have become a familiar and welcoming place by now.  When I enter, I feel a sense of something like the way it feels to step into my house and slip off my shoes, drop my bags and exhale.  Not to fear, I generally keep my shoes on here.

The poster on the wall in this classroom says "You cannot discover other oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore."  Motivational posters and quotes abound, and while of course they can be overdone, I can't say this one didn't grab me this morning.  I would have preferred to know where I am going when I leave my current place, but it is not to be.  Part of me knows this opens up far more possibilities and part of me just wants to know.

momentary lapse of reason

That moment when nothing else matters but this moment-the music, the hot cup of coffee in my hand, and knowing I've done the important things today.  None of the other stuff, of course, or I'd just be exhausted.  All of that can wait.  Just this sense of ease and a momentary sense of rightness.

This feeling of contentment is so fleeting, I just had to close my eyes and savor it.  Because in the time it took to write about it, it is gone again.

hall pass

I shall miss these evenings in the law library, when virtually my sole charge is to learn what I need to know for a semester, and all else can righteously be shunted to the side for a time.  After the bar exam, I'll once again be held accountable for my end of the social bargain, and I fear I will be found wanting.

forward motion

My current count of tabs open on my internet browse is 12.  That represents 12 sites that I want to explore further, but not enough time to devote to them just now.   My garden weeps for me (or anyone, really) and the army of dust bunnies has staged a revolt in the hallway.  But tonight I'm going to watch mindless entertainment on Netflix, and I'm going to feel good about it too.  Balance, I say.  Teeter-tottering through these remaining days of law school, hanging on to the railing and trying not to look down.

what comes of dancing in the dirt

Clouds of dust are swirling round my head, and making it hard to see.  Never mind that they exist because I insist on kicking the dirt.

Someone posted a link to this article:  http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230333.  Goals vs system.  Hmmm. . . a lot like the journey matters more than arrival.  So graduation, the bar exam, even a new job-none of them are arrivals, but more plotted points on the gradient of my life.  How am I to keep this perspective in the coming months?

Things like how to dress for an interview, what to include (or exclude) from my resume, how to structure my day when all that I have relied on to keep order is now moot, these and more are moving in my head.  It's no wonder that my dreams are wild and far-ranging these days, or that I wake to anxiety knocking at the door.

I know these are good problems to have, as problems go.  Still, their potency remains.

A bend in the road, and I can't see ahead of me

No matter how we prepare, the next stage of the journey surprises.  I've been expecting the news that my job will be a casualty of the merger in process, but it was a shock anyway to get the official word.  I have about a month before the deal closes, and I am involuntarily unemployed for the first time in my life.

Given that I need to take time to study for the Bar Exam starting in late May, the timing of this could hardly be better for me personally.  Still, I have spent the last few days careening between calm acceptance, worry over the future, sadness at the loss, and excitement at the new chapter.  Round and round I go.  I'm sure this is a predictable response, but it feels quite personal when it's me experiencing it.  Because I tend to draw closed the curtain to the outside when I feel vulnerable, I've been slow to share the news, in spite of having told everyone I know over the past few months that it was coming.  I suppose I was trying to innoculate myself from the shock, but alas, I still felt it.

I've rearranged the furniture, feeling the urge to purge myself of 'things', but I know even as I do so that it's an attempt at control when I'm feeling out of control in other ways.

The good thing is that I know this will pass.  I will later look on this and reflect on the possibilities I could not see from my current vantage point.  For now, I wonder who I'll be, now that I'm no longer who I was.

Pushing the rock up the hill

Who am I?  Am I a banker?  A law student, a mom, a crazy middle-aged lady?

There's something about what we do for a living that gives us a label, a convenient mechanism for categorizing, a shorthand way to determine where this person fits in the grand scheme of things, what weight their words will carry, how much value they have.

To name something is to limit it, to corral its possibilities.  Once defined, a person faces a sisyphean task in remaking themselves, at least in the eyes of others.  Maybe to themselves as well.

fledgling foundling

Last night I dreamed of being assigned a task so complex, so multi-layered that I felt the anxiety rise within me, as each time I thought I had it in hand, the overseer pointed out yet another aspect of the process that I had not even realized existed.  I feared failure, I felt the task was insurmountable, yet I kept trying.

I woke up thinking about that dream, and its significance.  I'm not a person who ascribes particular meaning to dreams generally, but even I can see the source of this one.

I'm in my mid 50's, finishing law school with of course no idea how to be a lawyer, and simultaneously my current job appears to be going away by means of the company being acquired.  It's a blessing and a curse, of course.  It will push me out of the nest quite literally, but hey-that ground is really far down there, and I'm not sure I remember how to fly!  And I've grown accustomed to this comfort of being a SME (subject matter expert), of knowing how to do the job before me, and frankly, to a paycheck.

But I can't stay, so these days I'm inspecting my wings for rust and other signs of deterioration.

the milk of human kindness or milkweed

Yesterday as I sat at the coffee shop, I watched as a blind woman approached the door from outside, and a stranger sitting at the table beside the door got up.  I was inside, they were outside, so I could not hear the conversation, but it was clear they were discussing something related to where the woman with the cane was going.  The woman who helped her by opening the door appeared to be half of a middle-aged lesbian couple with a small dog (ubiquitous, I know).  A short time later I saw the middle aged woman give her elbow to the blind woman as they set off across the street.  I heard nothing but it seemed obvious she was walking the blind woman someplace in particular.  Her partner and the dog sat at the table and waited.

In a forgotten garden, among the weeds and trash, it seems sometimes like the weeds have taken over.  But if we look closer, there are always brave sentinels carrying on, the volunteer tomato, the tiny flowers, the chard that has reseeded itself.

As I watch events in Ukraine and almost anyplace else on the globe you want to mention, I despair.  From a macro view, we are so messed up.  But there is kindness afoot in the world as well.  I would do well to remember that.

something to celebrate

Earlier this morning I submitted my application to sit for the July Bar Exam, and now I am reading the last case in the last casebook of the last of my law school classes.  I still have a month of classes left, and a lot of studying, but the reading is done.  Weird, this feeling.  The beginning of the endings, of which there will be many.  

And of course, the endings are beginnings too.  But for now I wish to celebrate this small mountain scaled.  I shall dance and laugh to the music in my head today.