Seeking Serendipity: The reinvention of me

January 24, 2014

There is obviously something wrong about finding a dove on your doorstep. Symbolically? Great, right? Peace, tranquility and even forgiveness. Realistically, there was something wrong with the dove. I had stepped over it to go into the house and kept checking on it periodically during the afternoon. The dove didn’t fly away, it didn’t move. It stayed in the same spot on the Welcome mat for hours, but it was alive.

The Welcome dove.

My brother, newly unemployed himself (as in, this week), stopped by for a visit (and to pick up some boxes for packing.) He’s got something pretty solid lined up on the horizon…just waiting for confirmation. I’m pretty confident he’ll get the position. He’s really good at what he does. (More importantly, he's a good man and a good brother too.) It will mean a move to Chicago, but his girlfriend and her son live there, so he’s anxious to move there as well. My brother is the ultimate outdoorsman, so following a quick kiss on the cheek and a brief “Hello,” I told him about the dove. We went to the back door to take a look. He gently (talking reassuringly to the little bird the whole time) picked it up in his gloved hands and tried to figure out what was wrong. It fluttered and flitted and tried to fly away but only landed close by. My brother said that something was “not right” with the dove. That much I knew. What I heard him say then was that he was going to “take care of it.” But what he really said was that he had to kill it. If he didn’t, it would slowly freeze to death and that would be awful. I left him to it.

When I came home today, I rounded the back corner of the house and was met by another 5 or 6 doves taking flight from the ground nearest the house where the snow had melted, revealing dry grass and oak leaves (perfect camouflage for a dove, by the way.) They fluttered away. (Actually quite a beautiful sound, the fluttering of wings…) Odd, I thought. Really odd, but I didn’t think about it again until…I discovered the reason. I glanced out the kitchen window, as I have found myself doing with regularity to watch the chickadees, robins, blue jays, cardinals, downy and red-headed woodpeckers, finches and doves that gather to feast on Mom’s generous offerings. I did a double take, for a brief moment. Thinking I was looking at a very well-fed robin, I quickly realized, when I saw the short, hooked beak and broad wings, that the bird I was scrutinizing was a hawk. A good-sized hawk and no doubt the reason for the injured dove and the strange behavior of the others. I watched it briefly and then saw two woodpeckers, one poised on each of the large black birdfeeders. They were dead still, motionless, not moving a feather. I’m quite certain that they saw the hawk as well and they were trying their best to blend in with the birdseed. I went to the back door, intent on chasing away the predator, but as soon as it heard the noise of the opening door, it flew…and flew and flew. Gone for now, but what better place to feast on the smaller of its feathered relatives than a proven feeding ground, bountifully supplied. Looking for symbolic meaning? Wow. In nature and in human dealings, there is always something or someone with more power, always quite willing to exercise it. And that is why I am unemployed.

Unemployed, but grateful, grateful that it happened really. I was pretty miserable in my position. I had worked so all-consumingly hard, accomplished so much, but so much had changed in the industry and in my life. It really wasn’t where I wanted to be, what I wanted to be doing. Sometimes the universe has a way of forcing us into change that we are unwilling or unlikely to make ourselves. And that is what this felt like. Things needed to change. They did and they are.

I have almost 30 years experience in visual journalism. Successful years, recognized with awards and prizes and promotions. I made mistakes, but I learned from them…valuable lessons. My sister said the other day that I had been lucky to have all the experiences in my career that I have had. It was almost insulting. Lucky, maybe, but “I worked really hard, and gave up a lot along the way.” I told her. I intend to have more success and God willing, more “luck.”

I talk often with friends and former colleagues, hoping that a new lead will result. I guess in the language of today’s social media, it’s called networking. I was talking with an old (that is, long-time) friend last week and mentioned that the next step I was taking would be in trying to locate the appropriate headhunter because honestly, in those almost 30 years, I’ve never had to look for a job. The job always came looking for me. She mentioned a mutual friend, one I had honestly forgotten all about. But we suddenly remembered together that SHE is a headhunter. I finally made the call yesterday, after strangely blocking the need to call from my memory for days. I got a voice mail and left a message. She called me back today and I’ll call her back tomorrow. I hope that it will lead somewhere. Movement in any direction would be welcome.

I’ve been worried about Harry. I don’t want him to fall behind. I want him to have all the opportunity that I can manage to proved for him. Opportunity to grow and to learn and to experience the world. Wisconsin is a fine place to raise a family, but small towns don’t offer much of that opportunity. Mom says not to worry so much, that I grew up here and that I “turned out alright.” While I appreciate the sentiment of her statement, that was over 50 years ago! The world is an entirely different place, a very…complicated...different place.

Brownies and Girl Scouts. (I'm the one on the right.)

My sister (on the right), brother and I.

I tried to take advantage of our time together, between losing my job and leaving the northeast. I kept him in school so that his routine would seem somewhat consistent, while I stayed home and got our lives organized; as organized as it could be, without a solid plan for the future.

Encouraged by friends and colleagues to make the most of our new found time together, we went to a Safari Park and Zoo, we went to new beaches, we drove 2 hours to see 6,000 butterflies, we took a trip to Maine, we rode carousels, and we went on a whale watch.

The beach.

What Harry called "the butterfly patch."

Maine.

The carousel.

That big fish is simply amazing. Seeing the fin surface, the slow motion of the arc out of the water and back in. And then the most wonderful part – the tail, breaking the water and slapping the surface. As that large mammal dives deep searching for waves of plankton, the tail leaves a sort of water “crop circle” on the surface, still and flat with no movement. It really is amazing!

Too busy lifting Harry above the crowd to see,
this is the only photo of a Humpback whale we have.

Harry was SO excited…almost as excited as I was, to see that beautiful Humpback whale surface. After we saw it for the first time Harry asked, “Do you think it’ll do it again, Mommy?” “If we are lucky,” I told him. And we were. He talked about it, describing our adventure on the boat, out from the harbor into the ocean, to everyone: his teachers, his little friends at school, the firemen at the station behind the school on one of our daily after-school visits. Over…and over…and over, again, he talked about the whale. We even devised a game to play on top of the bed on Saturday mornings where a “diver” – me, dons goggles and fins and goes out in search of a Humpback whale – Harry. Harry would lie on his belly and raise himself up, then down, with his arms. Then kicking his feet to the ceiling, he would “slap” his tail into the water. This game replaced our Saturday morning pillow fights for a few weeks. Both, a great way to start a lazy weekend.

Out to sea, finally on a whale watch.

Harry had gone to the Aquarium with his Nanny (who had previously worked there) so many times in his few years on the earth, that everyone knew him there. They greeted him excitedly; “It’s Harry!” as he came through the doors, they took him behind the scenes to see the penguins or to talk to the divers in the giant fish tank, all very special. And he learned about the fish and the seals and the jellies, and he touched the Manta Rays and the Sharks. He fed the Giant Sea Turtle.

The Jellies.

We also loved going to the harbor on Sunday mornings and watching the boats and ships and ferries come in. Boston is a great city for walking and we walked everywhere. We always stumbled into something out for a walk to the Common, the Public Garden or along the Greenway: Chinese New Year parades and festivals in Chinatown; the very heavily Irish, Irish St. Patrick’s Day parade and celebrations; and the festivals of the Saints in the Italian North End. All right in our very own neighborhood. And we rode the train. And rode the train. And rode the train, and rode the train. As is the case for many boys his age, Harry LOVES trains, all kinds of trains. Harry and I were a fixture at South Station some Saturday mornings watching the Amtrak, Acela and area commuter trains come and go.

Riding the commuter train.

I’ve tried to satisfy his craving for trains here in Wisconsin, too. The Mid-Continent Railway Museum in North Freedom is only a short 30 minutes or so from Mom’s house and we’ve made the trek several times, to see “the biggest train you’ve ever seen.” We visited the first two times, while on vacation here. Now as temporary residents, we have visited a few times more. We rode the Santa train around the holidays, a nice 55 minutes out on the track, into the woods and back to the station. A very dour Santa came through the cars with elves and gave all the children a bag of candy, but Santa didn’t mutter a single “Ho, Ho, Ho,” a little disappointing. Not to Harry, of course. Santa wasn’t the thing. He was on a train!

Mid-Continent Railway.

The biggest train you've ever seen.

There’s also the Great Northern Railway, a much smaller train, but also a ride into the woods, a turnaround and back. We even took an Amtrak train for 20 minutes from here to Portage. But first we had to drive Mom’s car to Portage, take Mom back in our 4Runner, park at the station, ride the train, get off, drive back to the originating station and pick up our truck before going home. That was not without its challenges, since the train was delayed at our pick-up point for a little over two hours. But Harry LOVED it. I have to admit, riding a train is a lot of fun. Grandma loves it too.

I am comforted, a bit, to know that Harry is actually learning a great deal here in Wisconsin too. Life experience is a great educator. He knows how to collect eggs from the chickens, feed the deer, ride a tractor, and what crops are planted and grown by the farmers around here, where black walnuts come from and that sometimes turkeys get eaten at Thanksgiving. And of course, he LOVES the outdoors and revels in the fresh air. If he’s like his Mommy, his love of knowledge will only be nurtured by our time here and he’ll end up knowing a little bit about a lot of things.