In Transit to Cold Spring, NY — Today I take the Metro-North train upstate to Cold Spring to visit and spend Labor Day weekend with friends. The ride is a little more than one hour. I’ll take an Iris Murdoch book and a journal for moments to read and moments to capture.
It is fitting that this trip takes place on a weekend when I (like so many) equate this weekend as the crossover point to the fall season. Fall isn’t here but you can see it in the wider culture. I take this weekend to renew myself. It’s the season to do that. It’s a season of change and for serious commitments. School starts again. Commitments are renewed. Nature prepares for the season ahead. And in November, Americans get to elect a president for change.
This Labor Day means something new. I get to decide where next to put my labors. I have joined the many Americans looking for a job. If this process were easy, there would be no anxiety. The anxiety comes when what you’re asking for is a kind of labor that is suitable and fulfilling and that pays what you think you are worth. I want to facilitate staff development and career development for employees in organizations. My search efforts are apportioned between the jobs I want and the jobs I’m willing to do to bring in income.
Two weeks ago, I marched into a neighborhood deli with a “Help Wanted” sign hung up to apply for a weekend job. The owner was working and was looking for someone to make sandwiches during the weekend. I said I could do that. He took my number and has yet to call.
So this weekend, I appreciate all those who have jobs and who support the economy. And I hope that my search to find labor will be borne of love for this time in my life and love for the kind of job I want to do. To hope isn’t easy but that is the strength required. One hopes through the struggles.
“Hope is a combination of doubt and presumption,
but also their transformation.” — Alfred Ederheim
photo by DaylandS. Some rights reserved
http://flickr.com/photos/dayland/collections/
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