So, this is a rather long story if you care to indulge yourself in epic failures I’ve had, that somehow changed my life for the better.

I landed a job once at a time when I needed it most, though my entire life as I knew it was going to hell. A place I had always dreamt about working, New York City.

The job started out in Long Island, Central Islip for those of you who know that part of the world, but since the showroom was in Manhattan, I was able to convince my boss that I could get more done working out of the city rather than the manufacturing plant in Islip. I was thus spared the daily ride in to Penn Station on the Long Island Railroad, plus the indignity of living in Central Islip.

The job was more money than I had ever made, but my expenses were as well. I was paying a lawyer for a divorce, my shrink for my sanity, my son was in a private school in Connecticut and I was slowly going bankrupt from it all. So I needed that job just to hang on to my crumbling life. As circumstances would have it, my boss was a complete shit head of the most manipulative, evil, diabolical kind. A truly dangerous fellow who liked trapping his employees into personal loans for cars, and their children’s college debt, vacation home mortgages and the like and then holding their feet to the fire knowing they could not quit on him. He would then proceed to humiliate and verbally abuse them publicly in the workplace, knowing they were trapped. I had a fellow working with me, dear Julian, who warned me from the start to never, ever, take a thing from him and I heeded his warning. Came a day, when the entire sales and creative team was at the big conference table to review sales from market week, and the shit started hitting the fan – big time. Mr. Evil started at one end of the table ( I was at the very end) and one poor schmuck at a time, he berated their work and them personally till I was almost white faced watching their humiliation. He was however, making his way quickly towards me, and I realized my father would be turning in his grave knowing I was working for such a despicable man. I had had enough of being manipulated in my marriage, saw the ugly connection of putting up with crap and the long term harm it had done me, and suddenly my therapy kicked in and I knew I had to make a call. I slowly put all my files into my briefcase, stood up calmly and faced him down at the opposite end of the big oval conference table and said exactly that –

“If my father knew I was working for such a horrible person he would turn in his grave. I quit.”

As I marched out of the room, watching the looks of horror on my fellow coworker’s faces, he screamed at me, “You will never work here again!”

No problem, I was gone. It was time to go. And I felt like a bird let out of a cage as I marched down 5th Avenue free from tyranny – until I got to Washington Square, when it dawned on me that I was now living in one of the most expensive cities in the world… without a job.

Well, long story short, things got bad and things got worse. Within 2 months I crashed and burned both physically and emotionally and landed back in Buffalo, filing for bankruptcy, living with my mother, completely incoherent and on lots of Prozac. That’s how things can go when you make grown up decisions. I just knew no amount of money was going to be worth that paycheck, no matter how much I was loving being in New York City, and I surely was loving it.

But the most wonderful thing happened … I started to get better fairly quickly after I let go of the nightmare that had become my life. I crept slowly and painfully back into the working world, one sweet little low paying job after another, eventually without pharmaceuticals, and a newfound strength and freedom. Where I landed about 5 years later is sort of a fairy tale ending, but it just goes to show … you should know when it’s time to go!

(featured image – oil on canvas, THE ESCAPE ARTIST, by Catherine Massaro)

I got stalled out big time over the last few weeks.

“Hey…it happens”, says my friend Jay. I rather enjoyed being given permission to have down time and stare down that big rock in my path for a while. By the end of the second week , we had become friends and here I sit, happy to be back in the saddle.
That big rock represents the ‘time out’ we should allow ourselves to muse, ponder, assimilate, reflect and slow down. We are all compelled to push forward, make stuff happen, engage! Sometimes the bigger the rock, the better the reflective time.
I feel relaxed and centered again, rather pleased that I did not get caught up in negative thoughts about what a slacker I was, or that I had lost my creative mojo.

After all, creativity is not on a time clock – nor should it be.

( photograph by Catherine Massaro)

Do you have a map somewhere on your wall? A world map? A map of the country you live in?
I have both, and I look at them often, both to see where I’ve been, and where I’m going next. Maps are for dreamers I think. After all, they are nothing but an abstract creation of a concrete world, and when I am looking at my maps, I’m dreaming about where the next visit, adventure or experience might take me. My map is covered with pushpins and strings that connect and crisscross across the country in a crazy nonsensical pattern that somehow illustrate my love of travel and a certain wanderlust. It illustrates my wide and varied friendships and those I never want out of my life for too long, while it also shows all those I miss and want to see in person again and again. There never seems to be enough time or money to get to all those people and places, but that does not stop me from traveling on.

Maps remind us there is a big world out there that’s ours for the taking. Everyone loves a map, but what good is a map if you don’t go somewhere new, and turn that abstract flat world into a 3 dimensional life experience? Maps are flat, but your life does not have to be that way – take a trip, big or small and give your life some dimension.

(featured image canvas collage SEE AMERICA 1ST by Catherine Massaro)

Tomorrow I’m off on a little trip taking my very favorite form of transportation – the train. I have a long standing love affair with the train, having been stricken at one time in my life with a terrible fear of flying incident. It was a situational phobia, brought on by the death of my father. It took me 2 years to get over it and almost cost me my job before I got a handle on it. Fear & phobias are close companions.

Anyway, back to the train, which even more than a road trip, allows you to watch the landscape go by at your leisure without the worry of the guy passing you on the right, or the tailgater moron. You can read, muse, sketch, and in a word, relax without the stress of airplane aggravation and sardine confinement of same. Not to mention, getting up and moving around whenever you want – freedom.

On this particular train, the route provides the added benefit of the ‘tour’ guide conductor who provides a running commentary on your trip from the Sierra Nevadas into the Sonoma Valley – a delightful geography and history lesson as you glide through the western countryside. Be it planes, trains or automobiles…

GEOGRAPHY IS BEST LEARNED WHEN IT IS LIVED

Just returned from a trip back East. Family, friends and business all jumbled into one great experience. It occurred to me that in the past, it was important to ‘shop’ for things to bring back from trips, and while I still love looking at new and different things, now my focus has shifted to sharing what I am seeing and experiencing via my iPhone or camera. I am not alone in this for certain, we are all ‘sharing’ more with this great technology.
Maybe what is happening is a collective movement to invest more in experiences than in things.

What a wonderful world it would be…