And Now For Something Completely Different
I am not usually at a loss for words. Anyone who’s met me
knows I typically have something to say. I’m also usually the one asking
questions – insatiably curious about how couples met each other, what people do
for a living, how they fell in love, why they stay together, what gets them
jazzed about life.
But Ron’s inquiry stumped me.
“What do you love to write? What’s
your niche?”
The four of us were chatting over dinner in the
unimaginatively named eatery The Restaurant aboard the Viking expedition ship
Polaris, somewhere off the coast of Antarctica. It was a bucket-list trip of a
lifetime over Christmas and New Year’s. Phil and I had fallen in with a small
group of extraordinary travelers during a pre-cruise extension in Iguazu Falls,
Argentina. Christine and I clicked right away, sharing intimacies and laughter
like sisters or long-time besties with surprising ease. She and Ron had been
together for 22 years, and interactions between them crackled with a lively tension
that came off as romantic fire rather than familiar contempt.
They heard through others in our little group that I had
lost my job shortly before the trip. I explained the circumstances plainly
under Ron’s intense gaze:
I had been a full-time freelance
writer, successfully supporting myself as my own boss, for four years. When the
marketing agency that provided the lion’s share of my work converted to
in-house content creation, I felt desperate enough to accept a full-time
position on their staff. For 10 and a half months, I put in 8-to-5 hours and tolerated
a cohort of colleagues in their early 20s to mid-30s. I did my best to balance
fitting into the buzzy culture and maintaining a sense of self, with dubious
results. As my assignments dwindled, I struggled to justify my eight hours a
day. Everyone there reassured me that this was simply “low tide,” and work
would pick up in the new year. One week before Thanksgiving, right after my
team’s 8:15 am daily huddle, my team lead told me that “management has decided
to eliminate your position, effective immediately.” I was told I’d be eligible
for unemployment insurance and COBRA before being escorted from the office.
This short-hand version of my situation led to expressions
of sympathy and empathy – which quickly (and humanely) turned to explorations
of my acumen and experience as a writer.
Which Ron eventually fine-tuned to lock in on the Big
Question I’d been struggling with internally since that fateful Thursday in
November:
“What do you love to write? What’s your niche?”
My knee-jerk reaction mirrored the self-promotion I’d
learned to detest in my job search. “I can write about anything!” I listed all
the industries I’d written ad copy for at the agency and as a freelance SEO
writer. Commercial lighting, flight schools, custom home building, interior
design, rubber manufacturing, hair salon rentals.
Ron batted away those superficial answers with the barely
contained impatience of a shrewd businessman.
“Sure, but what do you LOVE to write?” He took a pull off
his Old Fashioned. “What gets you excited about writing?”
I thought back to my time as an editorial assistant at
AkronLife magazine. My chief task was interviewing people -- business owners,
chefs, police officers, government workers – then writing articles that
illuminated their position in our community, humanized our institutions, helped
readers feel connected to their neighbors. It was challenging, often exhausting
work, but it exhilarated me.
My thoughts traveled further back, to my grad school days of
interviewing immigrants for my thesis. I taught English For Speakers of Other
Languages at the International Institute and got to know a group of septuagenarian
Karen folks from Bhutan. I interviewed the founder of Asia Services In Akron, a
nonprofit aimed at helping Asians and Pacific Islanders access resources for
building a life in the U.S. From fellow university students to partners of
friends to total strangers I found online or through acquaintances, I dedicated
my time to meeting, befriending and learning the stories of everyone I
encountered who had an origin story rooted somewhere else. And I’d never been
happier.
“People,” I finally said after a sip of wine and moment of reflection. “I love getting to know people, then bringing them to life on the page, telling their story to help others connect to our shared humanity. Profiles of people are my favorite thing to write!”
Christine responded, “Do what you love, and the money will
follow.”
I know it’s an overused adage, but those words shot through
to my core.
I spent the decade after grad school chasing dollars,
feeling lucky to write product descriptions and ad copy while many of my
colleagues took jobs in retail or academia to make ends meet. I told myself how
privileged I was to at least be working in the field I had studied.
Wasn’t that enough? How dare I want to get paid for “real” writing!
This trip had been planned and paid for long before I lost
my job. The two weeks between getting laid off and our departure were fraught
with anxiety and stress – navigating the endless bureaucracy of the state’s
unemployment office, trying to obtain healthcare coverage I could afford
outside an employer, feeling paralyzed and unable to start any kind of new project
because I would be out of the country for the final three weeks of the year.
To retain a sense of sanity, I made lists, packed and carefully
repacked for a journey through disparate climates, patiently waited on hold for
a representative to help me with the inevitable questions that come up while
filing claims with a government agency designed to intercept fraud among the
poorest of the poor.
I also cried a lot, ate comfort food and drank too much. I
finally let loose a rant to my boyfriend about how angry I was at the marketing
agency for their self-serving timing – for dimming the brightness of this long-awaited
vacation with a dark cloud of uncertainty over my future.
The venting helped. I developed a strategy.
I took care to pack a blank, spiral-bound notebook, two
blue-ink pens and a list of user names and passwords for websites I would need
to access onboard the ship. Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services. Ohio
Means Jobs. Social Security. LinkedIn. My plan was to apply for open positions
and file weekly claims once onboard the Polaris, as if I were doing so from
home, and keep detailed notes about my progress.
I was also determined to use this vacation to reactivate the
daily writing habit I’d let slide under the guise of workaday stress.
Every day of our travels, I filled page after page with
observations: Surprisingly French architecture in Buenos Aires. Exotic flora
and fauna in Iguazu Falls. The immensity of the cataracts. The quirky and interesting
personalities of our fellow travelers. The way icebergs looked solidly white and
imposing above the ocean’s surface yet glistened a delicate, ethereal blue
below the waves.
The further south we went -- away from cities and traffic and
land masses and reliable WiFi -- the more distant and weightless my worries became.
Eventually, we reached a latitude where my state’s
department of unemployment site consistently came up as a 404. Job search sites
required multi-factor authorizations that timed out before I could jump through
all the hoops on infuriatingly slow or spotty connections. I was finally locked
out of almost all my accounts because of the foreign IP addresses I had to use via
the ship’s Business Center computers.
With a slow, deep breath, I let it go. I said aloud to
myself as I rebooted the public computer to erase my session, “Okay, that’s it. I’ve
done all I could.”
I think it took this total physical disconnect from
everything – media, society, family, civilization – to free me from the tyranny
of habitual thought.
There, in one of the harshest climates on earth, in the
company of newfound friends who saw my situation with crystal clarity, I gained
an entirely new perspective.
That dinner conversation with Ron and Christine felt hauntingly
similar to one I had had with a guy I dated briefly a few years ago. His
off-hand comment of “I don’t need a job -- I need a source of income” opened my
mind to the idea of freelancing. Not as a side hustle or supplement to a job
but as a full-time source of independence.
Ron's comments gained comparable weight as he went on to say he believes this is the right time to tell
stories about immigration. The current controversy around the topic, the
rhetoric of the incoming administration, the polarization of political opinions
– all that buzz creates an opportunity to showcase the myriad realities
immigrants face on their journey toward U.S. citizenship. To present to an interested
audience the kind of writing I get most excited about.
That perspective had not occurred to me. Ron’s argument resonated
with me in a way nothing had in a long, long time.
I finally realized that getting laid off from a job I
disliked right before embarking on this trip was actually a gift. It cleared my
mind of clutter and opened my consciousness to novel ideas. It allowed me to look into
myself deeply and suss out some unconventional truths.
I don’t care about unemployment benefits.
I don’t care about my social media presence.
I don’t care about marketing or advertising.
I care about people. I want to tell stories about people –
their hardships and joys, their families and choices, their fears, hopes,
worries and struggles. Their inconsistencies and contradictions and conflicting
desires.
I want to help people connect their lives to the lives of
others, to understand better our commonalities and respect our differences.
Beause of this amazing trip and the bold interjections of strangers-turned-friends,
I’m excited again about building my life as I want it to be – free from
conventional constraints, focused on authentic passion, and on my own terms.
Thanks, Ron and Christine!
Let’s hope this works.
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