Tag: solitude

Flying Over I-95 N. With Radar O’Reilly.

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sky-clouds,aerial

I’m 39,800 feet up and heading home. I receive a text message from my Assistant.

“7:30 am tomorrow. Meeting just hit your calendar.”

“OK”

It was 3 years ago. I had slogged through a conga line of candidate interviews – job hoppers, unexplainable gaps on resumes, typos, gum snappers…and…poor chemistry.

She stepped into my office.  I scanned her resume. Professional presentation. No typos. Higher education. Limited job hopping.  OK, so what’s the catch?

It was late afternoon. We walked through her work experience, why she was looking to leave her current role, how she’d found me.  Her responses were polite and brief, no extra words. Two introverts suffocating the silence. Do I bring this out in all candidates? Is it me?

I pivot to my concerns. Continue reading “Flying Over I-95 N. With Radar O’Reilly.” →

It’s been a long day

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I am not a person to say the words out loud

I think them strongly, or let them hunger from the page:

know it from there, from my silence, from somewhere other

than my tongue

the quiet love

the silent rage

—  Keri Hulme, from “Against the Small Evil Voices,” in Strands.

Notes:

 

Walking Cross-Town. With Marrow.

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It’s 6:38 pm and I’m rushing across town to catch the 7:12 at Grand Central.

It’s 6:38 pm. I note the coincidence – I boarded the 6:38 am morning train, must be some significance in that. Or absolutely none at all and you are delirious.

The thought evaporates like mist and the mind shifts to The Feet.  Still 75 minutes from home. The skin has been scraped raw off both heels from new shoes – I wince with each step. How about a few shots of Novocain Doc, hit me. Inject a few blasts in the forehead and let it slow drip, down the bloodstream, relieve the weight from the shoulders and back, and let it settle in my feet, just camp out right there.

The day ended with a semi-social event. Whatever marrow is left, is being sucked out of this introvert’s bones.  A career development event for twenty high potentials. I step in the restroom a few minutes before the session, splash cold water on my face, and look. There’s me in the mirror.  Thinning hair, and this is kind. Gray. Bags under the eyes, a raccoon  Shoulders slumped. Suit rumbled. And they’re looking for some secret sauce from you?  Try, please, try, not to repeat yourself. Try not to curse. Try not to be too authentic.   Continue reading “Walking Cross-Town. With Marrow.” →

Saturday Morning

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in-the-snow-donata-wenders-photography

…it is winter here.
Look how white everything is,
how quiet, how snowed-in.
I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly
As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands…

To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.
How free it is, you have no idea how free——
The peacefulness is so big it dazes you,
And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets…

~ Sylvia Plath, from Tulips in Collected Poems

Notes: Poem Source – Poetry Foundation,  Photo: Donata Wenders (in the snow)

 

 

I come here for silence

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Filmed in the Canadian and Greenlandic High Arctic