Taking time to breath the fresh, crisp, autumn air

Weeks like this make me very grateful for the permanent people and values in my life. The turmoil in the markets, the fear in the faces of white collar workers, the buzz around the halls of mergers and layoffs. It gets to you. Or least it gets to me. Living in NYC and being so close to the heart of it all is at times sobering and at other times just desensitizing. I admit I get sucked into checking cnn.com and nytimes.com at least 100 times a day. And yet the news is such that there is nothing I can really do anyway so why continue to read depressing, fear driven headline hour after hour?

Last night I sat in Bryant Park with a friend who I miss so much. We have been through some bad points in each of our lives together and grown closer through it all. I think we spoke at least once a day, four years ago, and now we are checking our calendars to find time for a 30 minute phone conversation to catch up. Sometimes life seems to get in the way of living. Though seemingly not frequent enough, evenings like last night where we watched the sun set over the park and we conversed, advised, laughed, and shared until there was little less than a few street lamps to guide us out of the park was one of the better nights I can remember in awhile. A night of connecting and restoring the spirit and knowing what it means to truly have a friend.

Tonight I facilitated the women's group at the community center. Some nights it can feel more like a burden than a help when you literally sit in silence as the group stares at one another in a loss for words. This evening, two women from Gilda's Club came to our group to share information about GC and the services they offer. First I must say - WOW - the list of services available is beyond impressive and the community that they bring to those who need it the most is such an admirable mission. Beyond the sheer importance of such an organization in the community, the reality of cancer is sobering. To have known many who lost their lives to the disease and to be privileged to know a few who are survivors, it is experiences like these past two nights that bring life to a more grounded position.

In the end, does it matter where I work or how many hours I put in each day? In the end will it matter whether the bed was made everyday before I dash off to work? In the end does anyone notice whether the Board agenda had a typo? No. In reality, and in the end, it is moments like a cherished conversation with a dear friend and a community you know you can feel at home in that will be the lasting impression on your world.

Family

I spent the weekend with the 'rents. It was a terrific weekend. Nothing special to note but one of those weekends that gets me thinking on the long drive home about how lucky I am. With the whirlwind of life cycling around--there is always something or many somethings going on in my world--there is always the constant of family. I am defined in so many ways by my family and our relationships. This weekend I spent time with Mom doing what we do best--shopping. Always looking for a bargain. It gives us time to talk and explore and just enjoy some hours together. And today, my Dad was a huge help to me. We jointly washed my car and waxed it. Every little detail of it. I was reminded again of the little things in life. I guess they aren't really that little but in the scheme of things they can be so easily overlooked. Having two parents still married, still in love, still alive and healthy, and still so active in my life is something I cannot even capture with words. I am so blessed and so lucky to have the greatest family in the world.

Words that just get the hair on your neck to stand up

I am leading the search process for the new Executive Director position at a local LGBT center. We have had some qualified candidates on the slate and are painstakingly interviewing, cutting, interviewing, cutting, interviewing...you get it. So one candidate looks on paper to be over qualified skill wise and one wonders what would be the motive to interview for a small non-profit when you have a large scale government job. Not my position to judge this candidate's motivation but it does cross your mind. How could it not?

I digress. Some have argued in favor of finding an LGBT person to head up the LGBT center believing that only someone in the community can speak on behalf of the community. I don't subscribe to this 100% but I do agree that the chosen applicant must be able to adequately represent the community even if not "part" of it by orientation identity.

This particular candidate tonight kept using the words "sexual persuasion" "lifestyle" "sexual life choice" "alternative lifestyle". I admit I have heard one gay identified co-worker use some of these terms in his general language and he sees no problem with it. I, however, was struck repeatedly, with each utterance of these terms in such a way that I couldn't focus on the answer to the question but just dwelled on the language being used. It is so opposite of how I see my life and my identity. I don't see how you can speak about the LGBT community and feel that you are qualified to represent us when you don't get the distinctions between choice/persuasion/lifestyle and the fact that we just ARE. We exist as we do. A choice is what color shirt to wear today. It could be a choice as to how out you want to be. A lifestyle is my choice to eat out in NYC restaurants for most of my meals rather than cooking at home. Orientation is something different altogether. It is the core of your direction. The compass guiding your life. I never made a choice to be a lesbian - it is just me and being part of the LGBT community is something I can never separate myself from.

Elder care

I have spent so many years of my life studying topics....topics like work life balance, elder care, performance management. In grad school, I could zip through the articles, make a few highlights, remember the authors names and the exact findings disclosed in the two column results section. It all seemed so cut and dry back then. Words on the paper, research in a scholarly journal. There were no faces to the case studies. For whatever reason, it never really occurred to me that one day, these journal articles would be my life.

Well here I am. Struggling daily with work life balance. I have little of it. I work a lot. Even when I am not at work, I work. I find I wake up even dreaming about work lately. All the more unusual since I've never been one to remember my dreams at all and to now not only remember them but to recall they are all work related is a bit frightening to me. My red badge of courage in my mind was always my work ethic and the more I worked, the harder I worked, the better person I could prove I was. I am trying diligently to break the cycle in my head and recognize I might be the better person for leaving at 5pm some evening and going home to walk in the park and just enjoy my own thoughts.

And tonight, I did just that. Left work early and took care of me. What a great relief and then I heard from my parents that grandpa is again in the hospital. Suddenly the elder care issues that never really crossed my mind nor faced my family are front and center. Grandpa had a knee replacement early this year and it went from bad to worse very quickly. He now has been in and out of the hospital multiple times per week and is facing leg amputation if the current treatment plan does not play out as hoped. Scary! Here's a healthy mid 80s man whose life is suddenly upside down and his mobility has been stolen. And, here is the family dealing with those elder care issues that seemed so distant from mind for all those years I read the articles and thought about corporate programs that could help with the issues their employees faced. I recognize now it isn't a corporate program to fix this--it's real people, real lives and sometimes real scary. We have to deal with the emotional aspect of all of this and recognize the toll it takes on each family member. I never read that in a journal article.

I guess the real lesson learned is that education doesn't always come from an article--it might just come from life around you.

Life is a blank slate

Am I finally taking the plunge? Joining the world of bloggers - I'll admit I am not usually among the first to try out new fads. It took me forever to finally create a Facebook profile. I've been a lurker out there in cyberspace reading many others' blogs and feeling a part of their lives from a distant place. Maybe those of you who know me, and even those of you who don't, will now get to experience pieces and parts of my life through this blank slate.

You might wonder how I chose my blog name. As the thorough researcher that I am, I googled "blog names" and "how to pick a blog name" to get some ideas. I tend to do that...research everything first, decide later. I hope that's what makes me good at what I do and I hope that doesn't frustrate too many of you who await an answer from me and find it might take longer to get than desired.

"blank slate"... To me it means the chance to write my own story. To create my day, every day. To make choices, hopefully good ones that lead me down successful paths. To try something new and share it. To give to others and to the world each day in hopes of paying it forward for all the giving I've been a recipient of through the years.

This is my blank slate, my tabula rasa. Let's see how the pages fill up as life's journey continues.