Life, still

It’s a funny thing, when you plan and plan. Things happen. Gods laugh. By now I’ve learned to enjoy the ride, or at least appreciate it. Today I welcome you to my next chapter, my Plan C [or is it D? E?].

Back in January, I started to get a funny feeling about my day job. Sick-to-my-stomach funny. I asked a few hard questions of the People in the Know and discovered times were, indeed, a-changin’. It didn’t much matter our family had packed and moved after my last job also ended in a strangely similar fashion. [Curse of death? Agent of change? I’m beginning to wonder if I smell.] My sneaky suspicions were confirmed in early April, thus securing our family’s coveted position in the annals of People Who Move A Lot.

After wondering if I’m good enough [and smart enough and if ANYone really likes me], I’m pretty sure I am. I’m quite confident, in fact. It’s a good thing, because the alternative answer had me in bed during the day and drinking far too much red wine at night. The hopeful me knew better. The hopeful me, biding time until the pity party was over, was hatching a plan.

Dad and me, 1975

The answer has been here all along, you see. It’s under my skin and in the way I see the world.  The answer has been a part of my life since my father looked at his little girl, took a picture, and followed his bliss. Almost thirty-five years later, it’s what he does. It’s who he is.

Grandma, Aunt Mary, Dad and Aunt Debbie - 1959

It existed even before that, when his father’s view of the world was shaped by a country recovering from a war, of a growing family and by a rapidly changing world-view. He did what he knew he must: he took pictures.

So confronted with yet another change, another disappointment, another missed target, I had a little come-to-Jesus with myself and I did what makes anyone feel better, I did what has been done for ages. I made a list.  On that list, I noted the absolutes of my next steps: I needed fulfillment, I needed to be able to be there for my kids, I needed to create. I needed to make money.

To those of you who know me, please resist the urge to smack me the next time you see me with a big, “Duh!”

This nugget of hope grew over the days and got me out of bed with more excitement than I’ve felt in years. Hope took root, it grew and it began to steady me against the storm raging around me. Before long, it became the only option and the one I’m ever-so-pleased to share with you today.

My day job in Seattle will end in June. Our family will pack it up, joyfully even, and head south to our beloved T-town once again. Our former home near the park awaits us, if you can believe that. All three kids will attend a local elementary school and I will follow my own brand of bliss, doing photography full time (www.jessemichener.com). This also means I’m back to blogging. I never really figured out how to blog and be a high-ranking staff person in an independent school. The blur between personal and professional has been much too hard for me to navigate. Although this site will serve as my all-in-one blog for personal and photography, the lines don’t seem so hard to keep straight.

Robert Frost’s poem about the diverged road has always been a favorite. I’m sure you’ve read it (if not, you should), so I won’t copy the whole thing here. The final stanza has haunted me these past years, years where I’ve doubted the path was the one I should be treading:

I shall be telling this with a sigh | Somewhere ages and ages hence: | Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, | I took the one less traveled by, | And that has made all the difference.

Can you see the road ahead? The one to the left? Yeah, that’s the one. I’m going to take it.

What a fine, fine day.

-Jesse