job
Went to my first group breathwork session last night, after a bunch of self guided/follow-along with audio sessions. Sort of knew what to expect going in, but ultimately just resolved to “go with it” and “surrender” to whatever happens.
These bullshit hippie phrases. Jason says “oh boy. LA has ENTERED YOU.” And that is… fair and true and real and I’m fine with it. Vibes, or whatever. LA is a place where everyone has largely made peace with the fact that most of its expertise is completely self-claimed, made up, and ephemeral — that everyone is just throwing shit at the wall hoping something sticks. I wish the rest of the world, especially SF, would own up to it.
But yeah, so here I am. I moved from SF where I’d been listening to a whole bunch of hippie shit podcasts, and then when I settled here and realized I was living four blocks from everyone who I knew from these hippie shit podcasts. That felt like something. Started going to classes with them, and vibed. That felt like something. Was looking for something to do that was IN my body, for my body, and out of the blue options present themselves. That felt like something.
The last couple months have been about figuring out that I need to be honest with myself. With my Self. I’m making peace with the fact that my job, the day to day UX and management of it all will not, cannot, has not fulfilled me in the way that drawing and design did. It’s quietly devastating that the people I spend 40 hours a week with do not know that I have like… a rich history with art and design. Not knowing what brings me joy. That their perception of me is colored almost solely with one crayon: tech management. A factotum. How did I fuuUUuuucKKinnnGG get here? Doesn’t the rest of my life, everything before whatever I’m doing now, count for something? How do I keep that fresh?
Spent time with Brandon, my tarot teacher, talking about the year ahead, as it pertained to What I Do. Two of Wands, 9 of Swords (reversed). Always the fucking 9 of Swords when it comes to work, followed closely by the 5 of Wands. My stalker cards. I laughed out loud. Spent the last two weeks thinking about it a lot. Last night, before we got to the studio to do breathwork, Ryan, our teacher, told us the theme of the night’s session would be “Your life is your curriculum.” And… that felt like something. So yeah, spent the session in the dark just really being open with myself about what I want. What I’m supposed to be doing. What’s important.
In the past I’ve done 15 minutes or so of breathwork, last night I did 30 minutes straight, followed by 20 minutes of come down. Some big moments in there, very, very intense.
Weird moments of clarity: your fucked up teeth are fine, and you have to decide between being embarrassed and swallowing your smile or choosing to laugh, openly — both literally, and figuratively. You need to have a practice that ties you to tradition, rich inheritance, a lineage.
I felt reaffirmed over and over again that the stuff I’ve been focusing on in my off time: drawing, drawing, drawing was important, and worth while. That there is there there.
My oh my, a month gone by. And what do I have to show for it? Surprisingly… a lot. Since my last little rant, I’ve invested a lot of time into more creative endeavors, and while little is visible above the surface, I’ve accomplished a lot: a dozen or so drawings, some wood carvings, a linocut or two, and too many preliminary sketches to count, all pointing to something…new. Spiritual developments, an adjective that makes truly everyone uncomfortable, abound, as does growth across almost all areas of my life and it’s both too much and desperately needed. Be careful what you ask for.
Maybe the biggest development, a new job, a major change at work. After a year laboring under one of the most aggressive, bellicose managers in my life, I suddenly find him terminated, swiftly and cleanly, his desk vacated in the first hour of work last Tuesday, and just as decisively I have filled his role. Everyone asks if I knew it was happening, everyone wants to know what I knew when, as if this was some sort of covert military coup. I knew it was happening 45 working minutes before it did. Was I “in” on it?? Well, the week prior I had spent all my free time putting together my portfolio in what I felt was a for-sure career change in the very near feature: indeed, I had several calls scheduled.
But god, how long has it been a problem that I needed to be addressed? For me it was 7 days into my position, 18 months ago, a very real Arrested Development “I’ve made a huge mistake” moment. 18 months of just dreading every meeting, every one-on-one, every review. A year and a half of everyone on our team sitting scattered across the office, anywhere but the desks in our team area.
So it’s a welcome change, but one that comes with a LOT of new challenges. This is the second time this has happened to me, where I am the proverbial greener grass on the other side of a grisly fence. Last time, I built my dream team and in a short year found myself walking away from them after a shit show of corporate machinations, turn over and broken promises. A year doing the job of the man I replaced, and never having his title or pay conferred to me. A year of treading water, trying to make head way but ultimately failing my team and myself. A dead spot on my resume with nothing to account for my time.
With any luck that experience prevents a replay here, but who knows? So many of us had a foot or two out the door, and that inertia is very difficult to reverse.
However, I’m excited, and I know the team is too, and hopefully that buoys us through the change.
At home, a routine finally manifests. My coffee rotation is a know commodity. Go Get Em Tiger knows my order, while Maru studiously does not: their faces a rehearsed tabula rasa with every regular who enters — they’ve never seen me in my life.
Nearly every day in Los Feliz begins gray and cool, just the way I like it, and by noon I’ve been forced to change into the shortest shorts, so often taking videocalls in a nice shirt and next to nothing below the waist, beads of sweat rolling down my back: the air conditioner is too loud to run while on call.
Last Friday, renewed with a sense of purpose after a team meeting and fully assuming the mantle of team manager, I got back from San Francisco and decided that the current set up of living room was not only all wrong, but actively preventing me from doing anything productive. I pulled everything into the kitchen, and rearranged the whole thing. The end result is 1,000,000% better, according to everyone who walks in: me, and John. The space feels activated, welcoming, and wide open. We love it.