Lemonae Life

When I first found out I was unemployed, I had grand plans to keep myself busy by putting together a to-do list for myself every day. That last about four days before I scrapped it for a carefree, see-how-I-feel schedule. It worked for a while, mostly because it was so God damn hot here in New York that there wasn’t a heck of a lot that I wanted to do. Watching television, searching for jobs, and reading at the neighborhood cafe was really all I seemed to have energy to do. The thought of walking around in 90 degree heat with 70% humidity was just too much for me, so I found myself staying pretty local throughout the day. There were some odd trips here and there, coupled with a few attempts at regular gym attendance and a handful of job interviews (which so far haven’t led anywhere, but I’m hopeful).

Then there was the whole “bed bug” incident, which has eaten up much of my days, now that I have to vacuum all the time and keep things clean. Add that with some late mornings and YouTube marathons of Star Trek: Voyager and 19 Kids and Counting, and I have slowly but surely seen myself enter the phase of life known as The Funk.

In two days, it will be September. Around the country, thousands of kids are returning to school and hitting the books, expanding their minds and preparing themselves to become better members of society. I haven’t had a “first day of school” in four years, although I’ve had two “first days of work” which are fun, and exciting in that “I’m getting paid!” kind of way. After nearly 50 days of unemployment, I have decided that I need to shrug off my lackadaisical attitude and get down to business. Summer vacation is over and it’s time to get to work.

Here’s my plan:

• Wake up at a reasonable hour. No more 10 a.m. wake-up calls.
• Schedule activities that involve me interacting with people: taking classes, having lunch with friends, volunteering.
• Write. I keep saying that I want to do more writing, and yet I haven’t produced very much in the last month. Even if I don’t have any place to publish an article, I plan to start writing articles just to keep my skills fresh.
• Read. There is so much in life that I don’t know yet and sitting around watching YouTube videos isn’t helping. Although it’s too late for me to finish 101 books by my 1,001 day deadline, I plan to assign myself books and a deadline to finish them. No more taking three weeks to finish a 300 page novel. I would have failed every class I took in college if I had done that.
• Network. I was all gung-ho with networking when I was first laid off, but I’ve slowly fallen off the bandwagon. I need to get back out there and make contacts with people, and continue to follow up after the event.

I’m also trying to take my apartment catastrophe in stride and hopefully putting a silver lining on it by doing some “fall cleaning” and reorganizing. Life is too short to be weighed down by meaningless junk from  yesteryear. I don’t have a new backpack and sweet new sneakers to buy, but that doesn’t mean I can’t pursue knowledge with a new zeal. Maybe I’ll buy myself a new school planner. Just for kicks.

There is this cafe a few blocks from my apartment that I like to visit in the afternoons, after I have spent a few hours working on freelance or looking for a job or working out at the gym. At that point, I have to get out of my apartment. I walk one block east, and then up another four or maybe five blocks to the cafe on the corner. It’s small, but beautifully decorated with heavy, ornate chairs upholstered in tapestry. There is a television that continuously plays Breakfast at Tiffany’s, with closed captioning. Outside, there are four small tables, two on each side of the entrance, with enormous wicker chairs that are surprisingly comfortable. The two waitresses who work there sound like they are from Russia, or maybe Ukraine. I can never tell. I always order the same thing: an iced coffee with skim milk. Lately, I’ve been skipping lunch because I wake up too late for it to make sense to eat so close together, so by mid-afternoon, I am hungry, so sometimes I order a salad or maybe pasta. The first few times I went it was so humid outside that I sat inside, and tried to ignore Audrey Hepburn getting arrested for helping Sally Tomato and getting ditched by the Brazilian.

The humidity has died down a bit, though not quite to where I would be comfortable. But I have taken to sitting outside, on the low but wide wicker chairs, where I can peer out from behind my book and watch people stroll up and down the avenue. It’s really the most fun I have all day, watching mothers with their strollers, and young women with their dogs, and gay men in fabulous clothes. Sometimes I’ll see an old couple holding hands. Most of the time I see teenagers, on summer vacation, walking around with their Louis Vuitton or Coach purses, wearing rompers or sheer tees and short shorts. I usually wonder who the hell let them out of the house looking like that.

I’ve been reading Bel Canto, by Anne Patchett, for the last couple of weeks. I’m almost finished with it. It’s not very long or difficult to read, but the problem with reading outside at a cafe on a busy street is that there are a lot of things to distract you. Progress has been slow. I thought I was going to finish this afternoon. I read for a long time this afternoon, and I was on my second iced coffee that I never finished, because it had been sitting for so long it was starting to get a little diluted from all the iced cubes they put in. At the table next to me was another girl. She was wearing a blue floral dress and reading “I Can Read You Like a Book.” I couldn’t read her like a book, though she seemed nice enough.

A little while later a man asks her if he can sit down in the chair across from her. She says, “Sure.” He sits down and the three of us are silent for awhile. The man is older, maybe fifty or sixty years old. I can’t really tell and I’m a poor judge of age. It’s especially difficult in the city. He is wearing a non-descript t-shirt and faded jeans. He has on sandals. He has piercing light gray eyes. I had never seen eyes that color before. After a few minutes, he starts to talk about how today – the weather, the street – reminds him of the song, “What a Day for a Daydream.” He starts to sing it, and then hums the rest when he forgets the words. Then he starts to talk to this girl about the song, about the songwriter, John Sebastian. He starts to talk about music, about how he is a musician. He talks to the girl about other things, and I am trying to figure out if she knows him because he is talking to her about himself as if he doesn’t know her, and yet, I rarely meet a New Yorker who just starts to talk to someone.

I am only half-listening at this point. I am trying to finish my book. But I can’t help but listen. He talks to her about living in the neighborhood. He talks to her about being a musician and what he is planning to do with his career. He talks about how he is going to Vegas to work with a friend of his and how they are going to compose music for commercials. He says that he wants to start living his life, pursuing his vision, pursuing his passion. At this point, I start to listen a little more closely. The man, who is clearly twice my age, shares with people he has just met about his hopes and his dreams. How he wants to live abundantly and to only do things that fit the vision he has for his life. He sounds like so many of the twentysomethings I know that I have a hard time believing he is as old as he is. But he says, “Adults are just grown-up kids” and I think how true that feels.

He talks fast. He is definitely a New Yorker. He rambles on and on and I start to think how he is verbalizing more than I could write in twelve blog posts. It is one of those conversations that once it’s over, I am sad that I didn’t have a tape recorder with me.

He talks to us about vision, focus, passion and abundance of life. He tells us about his friend who has a manila folder where he keeps Post-It notes of different things he wants to accomplish in his life, that he has a vision for what he wants. The man asks us if we have a vision for our life, where we want to be in the next six months. The girl and I shake our heads. I am unemployed. I don’t know what I’m doing tomorrow. He asks me if I am thinking about the vision for my life, and I say yes. “Good,” he says.

I listen to him for an hour. Part way through, the other girl gets up and leaves and we say good-bye to her. He keeps talking to me about his life, his past. He had a heart attack four years ago and lost weight through diet and yoga. He is a big fan of yoga. He talks to us about his career, his family, friends that he reconnects with on Facebook. He talks about vision for his life, how he is pursuing new goals and new dreams. He is moving to a new apartment, moving to a place that is the right fit for him. He talks about his therapy, about issues he is working on, things like love and finances and dreams. I learn more about him than I have about anyone in such a short period of time. There is a sense of urgency in his voice, not to waste decades of time like he has on things that are unimportant or fruitless. There is no filter and there are no transitions. There are only stories and ideas and memories. It is like listening to someone read their blog to me. I don’t say much. I know that I am not supposed to talk. I am supposed to listen. I am having an Encounter.

We talk a little bit about work, and he asks me if I could do anything, what would it be? I tell him that I want to do something in patient advocacy, but I don’t know where to start or if that position even exists. He looks at me and tells me about his friend who was supposed to get a stem cell transplant, but she ended up dying. He chokes up while telling me about her. He tells me that she had such a passion for life and he says that I should pursue being a patient advocate. That I should go to a hospital and just ask what I could do. I think to myself there’s no way that would work, but he is insistent.

He tells me that every morning my mantra should be “Yes.”

I try not to cry because I don’t want to have to explain that this is everything I need to hear. So I just smile and I nod and I say, “Okay.” He tells me that I should pursue patient advocacy, that he can see it in my face. I wonder if it’s really that easy to be so transparent. He is authentic and honest. He doesn’t have to be and yet, he is. He is not espousing truths because he thinks he will get pageviews or comments or a blog award. He is just sharing what he thinks to someone who will listen. Later, when I go to pay the bill, I ask one of the waitresses if he comes there often, and she says that he does come but he usually doesn’t order anything. “He just likes to talk to people and bother them,” she laughs. If that’s being bothered, then he can feel free to annoy the hell out of me.

The reason he is sitting at the cafe is because he is waiting for his laundry at the laundromat. He says that he should probably get up and go, and so he leaves, and I say good-bye. As he leaves, I write down something he said earlier that I don’t want to forget. That I never, ever want to forget. I write it down on the last page of Bel Canto.

“Your vision is the most important thing that you have.”