Change of Pace

It’s a far cry from a cubicle.

My office, for lack of a better word, is surrounded on three sides by load bearing walls clothed in elegantly textured wallpaper and trimmed with a rich, dark wood.  My spacious wooden desk wraps around in a large U-shape, so that I can turn from my computer and face visitors in the tiffany-blue upholstered chairs that sit between me and the low wall where a door might otherwise exist.  In fact, the absence of a door is really the only thing differentiating my office space from that of my boss’s.  Well, that, the absence of bookcases, and the predicament that my back wall has a door to a filing closet rather than an expansive window.

I am the first line of defense.

My space remains open, so that I can run interference.  While my boss rarely closes her door, she can if need be, but even that is rarely a deterrent.  So I keep an eye out.  I catch phones and guide traffic and intercept authorizations that need her signature and reports that need her approval, gathering it all up for an acceptable time and reducing her distractions so that she can achieve maximum productivity.

People invade my space.

And it’s understandable, really – expected, even – but unsettling nonetheless.  Concentration is not my only concern.  Sure, I need to be able to focus and complete projects, but I also have an intense need for my mind to wander.  Shutting people out is easy enough if you are focused on a spreadsheet, but to keep them from interrupting your daydreams, your internal processing, the dialogue compositions for the three novels you’re working on (characters always seem to speak to each other at the most inconvenient times for the author) – to shut people out when your mind is wandering is near impossible, seeing as you are not really present to stand guard.

So I escape.

At lunchtime I take my meal, a book or journal, and close myself off into a quiet conference room with a view overlooking our little downtown.  A panorama sweeping from the non-profit corridor to the capital complex, I can’t help but take a moment to breathe in the city.  Off to the northeast sits the spire of the Pentecostal megachurch.  The original building was already excessive and intimidating, sitting prominently along the freeway where the interstates converge, but it was outgrown by the congregation of denim skirts and khaki pants.  Eventually stripped of its steeple, the impotent sanctuary now cowers in the shadow of its colossal twin.  The newly crowned temple stands as a gilded judge, questioning the morals of rush-hour traffic jam victims with their braided hair and gold jewelry.

Out to the west, the river winds toward the hiking hill we affectionately call a mountain.  I allow my mind to follow the river’s snaking trail, past high-rises and corporate headquarters, around the bend and off into the horizon.  Only then can I shut out the busyness of the work day and get down to the real business of life, the primary reason I sought this position.

I need time to think.

I need to read, and get lost in other people’s life stories.  I need to write, and process my reactions to and interactions with the world.  I need to quiet my mind so that my thoughts do not overwhelm me, so that my anxiousness does not consume me, so that I am not debilitated by what should be and what has not been.  I need to listen to my characters and get them on paper so they’ll shut the hell up and let me get on to more pressing issues of solving the poverty crises or understanding God (both of which, I am fully aware, are impossible endeavors).  I only have an hour to fit it all in.

Four hours on.

Break.

Four more hours on.

Home.

I no longer take my work with me when I leave at the end of the day.  That time is reserved for friends and family and creativity.  Sure, I’m no longer helping reunite families out of the clutches of addiction forty (plus) hours a week.  My former clients have now morphed into fictional characters I can mold and maneuver through stories with unrealistically happy endings.  Maybe I have sold my soul to the man.  But I am healthy and I am sane.  There is more of me to give.  There is a rhythm to my life.

Four hours on.

Break.

Four more hours on.

Home.

Within that rhythm I have found strength to face my demons, and to detach from the demons others have placed upon my shoulders.  As often as possible, I assume my position overlooking the world, and it doesn’t look nearly as intimidating from a detached vantage point.  I know that I’m lucky.  I’ve stood on the sidewalks below with women who were tangled in the wreckage of addiction and child protective services and lies of unworthiness.  I’ve stood with them in their hopelessness, and the only way I could cope was to break away, to get myself as strong as they were so that I wouldn’t bring us both down.  I know I can’t stay away forever, and I don’t know how I’m going to reenter that world, but I know now that it will have to include a rhythm.

Four hours on.

Break.

Four more hours on.

Home.

Filed under: "Out of the Office" by barefootbohemian
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