At some point during childhood, a well-meaning adult asks, “So, what do you want to be when you grow up? What I like about this question is that it embraces the idea that work is an expression of who you are as well as who you want to be. Yet that question takes an odd turn when you become an adult. “What do you do for a living?” is what we typically ask each other. Gone is the inquiry about what you aspire to “be.” This shift in emphasis from “being” to “doing” focuses you solely on the external activities and behaviors that you perform for your work, rather than on your intrinsic values, strengths, and motivations.
(from Inner Compass, mindful magazine, December 2016
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Yachats. It’s pronounced yah -hots, and it is the name of yet another gem of a town on the Oregon coast. The name comes from…different sources argue over the origin. It is likely a term of the Siletz or other indigenous peoples, [1] and has something to do with “dark water by the foot of the mountain,” which may refer to the estuary where the Yachats River enters the Pacific Ocean, the remarkable view of which I have from the apartment I’m renting for a week.
If I have the privilege of needing/recognizing/taking a control-alt-delete [2] sabbatical, it might as well be here.
Also, I just like having an excuse to say Yachats.
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My mini-sabbatical was originally scheduled for December 8-16. Then on Tuesday of this week MH pointed out the latest weather forecast: a winter storm, carrying snow but more problematically freezing rain, was scheduled to hit the coast and the Portland Metro area on the 8th, which would make traveling over the Coast Range dicey….so maybe you might want to consider leaving a day earlier? [3]
Negligent moiself hadn’t re-checked the forecast since…since when the storm wasn’t expected to hit until Friday (today), so all of a sudden on Tuesday it was do everything in one day (packing-wise, for a weeks+ getaway, plus getting the car ready for winter storm contingencies [4] I was planning on doing ion Tuesday and Wednesday, plus adding on figuring out a different, less-likely-to-have-icy-roads route, plus practice putting on the tire chains on the car I’d be driving, [5] plus finding a place to stay somewhere near the place I’d already reserved but which wasn’t expecting me until the next day….
Plus…then checking messages at the end of all this planning – early Tuesday evening, about 12 hours before I’d be leaving, and discovered sad news…which meant that three days after I return from my think-about-what-the-hell-to-do-in-Act-3-of-your-life getaway trip I will be flying down to the Bay Area to attend the memorial service for a beloved friend, mentor and former employer of mine, who had recently finished his own Act 3.
Anyway and so, I am here.
Yachats. Say it like you mean it.
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As per my post of October 28:
Long Story Short: I have a significant birthday coming up in few weeks, and have had a significant Act 3 Career & Life Crisis ® going on for a few…years. I shared some recent downturns regarding such things [6]with friend SCM who, wise counselor that she is, offered this wise counsel:
It’s obvious you need a control-alt-delete from life right now….She advised I take a trip, to…anywhere. “… you need a break from real life.” I’d been thinking along similar lines – a meditative kind of vacation, not a trip involving lots of activities, which is what I’d usually want. I need to go alone, to have contemplative opportunity away from distractions, from the familiarity of work, routine, home and family…the kind of trip where you are forced to chill, where my main activity would be a combination of taking it easy, taking stock, and…dare I hope…figuring Things Out ® .
Initial plans for my getaway didn’t work out, but now, this week on the Oregon Coast seems fitting. Blustery (almost) winter weather should be good for contemplative ventures, right?
Unless….
Unless it becomes yet another entry in my To Do list. Eight days away is not likely to provide the magic AHA!!! answers to years of career/life balance questions, and I don’t want the pressure to find solutions [7] to Life’s Really Big Questions ® to diminish what this trip may turn out to be: a week’s vacation, composed of simple pleasures (I get to sleep in/not get up to feed cats/read for pleasure/hike every day/see some ocean spray stuff and pretend it was whales spouting….)
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Department Of The Sacrifices We Make
One casualty of my mini-sabbatical, is the cancellation, this year, of my annual Ladies Lefse Party — an event I’ve been hosting for ( is it over twenty-five years?) a long time, as mentioned here and here and here and…. You get the idea.
I will still have to find time, in the brief space between returning from this trip and then going down to the Bay Area for the afore-mentioned memorial service for He Whom I Am Not Quite Ready To Talk About In This Space, to make lefse for our family’s Christmas eve dinner, lest there be rioting among the troops. [8]
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Department Of What’s The Fucking Point
If I were a young(er) person looking for civic involvement motivation, after the two recent presidential electoral debacles (George W Bush and now the PuJu [9]) which resulted in someone losing the popular vote yet attaining the presidency due to our country’s antediluvian and bigoted Electoral College system…why would I even bother? How dare we, as USA citizens, criticize one goddamn thing about any other county’s elections?
As longtime friend and journalist SH put it on Facebook, re the vote count as of 12/2/16:
So now the margin is 2.5 million votes that don’t count for squat, because 80,000 votes in three states mattered more. But I guess Trump did better than W, who won because 537 Floridians mattered more than 540,000 of their fellow Americans.
Pretty effed up….
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Department Of I’m Wondering If You’ve Noticed…
…that there are hardly any pictures in this week’s blog post.
Analyze the significance; ponder; discuss; yawn; dismiss.
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Department Of U-Turn Segues
It was a very nice hotel I stayed in – the last minute/extra night lodging I had to find due to starting my trip a day earlier than planned. Still, I wondered about the hotel’s welcome info in their Guest Information folder which was on the coffee table in my room. In the folder’s introductory, “who we are” paragraph, the owners touted their commitment to caring for their guests’ needs and running a responsible business. I so enjoyed the typo contained therein I decided not to bring it to the front desk clerk’s attention, lest the folder be corrected, which would rob future guests of the opportunity to derive similar enjoyment :
While we are completely committed to making your stay the best possible, we are committed to an unprecedented level of stainability.
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May all your stains be precedent-setting ;
May you notice when something is missing;
May you find out whatever is the fucking point;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
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[1] That is, those before the whale watchers took over.
[2] Innumerable thanks to SCM for that metaphor.
[3] I loved the way he phrased it: “I’m not trying to get rid of you, but…”
[4] Nothing like a Canadian friend nagging – I mean of course carefully advising – you in this regard.
[5] It had been years since we needed to do this. Guess what? Time passes, and putting on chains still sucks.
[6] The abridged/mostly censored synopsis, for you Reader’s Digest Fans: holy FSM it’s a cliché to feel this way and I know it’s “just a number” but it’s a big one I’m facing and HOW THE FUCK DID I GET HERE?…And if he (MH)even attempts to throw my a surprise 60th birthday party I swear I will take out my bow and arrow and use his ass for target practice.
[7] Whether to Life’s really Big Questions or what to do with moiself
[8] H and son K and MH would miss it; daughter Belle, not so much; the kitties just keep shedding, no matter what.
[9] My son has chastised me for the immaturity he sees in my using the moniker PuJu (as in Putin Junior) rather than using the soon-to-be-president’s name.
