What Do You Do?

The last time someone asked me that question, I almost replied, “nothing.” Compared to everyone else at the museum gathering, this felt like an honest answer.

“Sally,” an ivy-league educated real estate broker started out as an archaeologist, studying and cataloguing pre-Columbian textiles. In the course of her work, she obtained hundreds of pieces of priceless handicrafts – several of which are on display in her 6,500 square foot mansion. After that she married and had a child, and while raising him in New York invested heavily in real estate. From her divorce she took away millions of dollars and opened an art gallery in Miami which she sold for a tidy sum just before the economic collapse of 2007/2008. Sally remarried, this time to a charming con man from north Georgia who would have bankrupted her had she not kept her New York properties within her brokerage business. Fortunately, by the time she had figured out his true nature, the real estate market had recovered and she lives comfortably on the money left over from the divorce. Now she spends her free time maintaining five acres of beautifully manicured gardens, hosting lively dinner parties, traveling, and buying and selling art.

“Kimberly” has a Ph.D. in art history and encyclopedic knowledge of fine arts and furnishings. She made a small fortune buying and selling antiques and artifacts at Sotheby’s and Christie’s while her husband served in the U. S. Army. Now she volunteers for numerous art organizations in Athens, GA, generating new memberships and participating in various fund-raising activities.

“Andrew,” is a financial planner who stopped working when his life partner, Jonah, died of non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. He hails from an old Charleston family which still owns the plantation, minus a few thousand acres, along with priceless pieces of Americana which the remaining heirs cannot afford to insure but refuse to part with. Andrew’s ability as a raconteur makes him highly sought out on the social scene.

Doctors, lawyers, and Indian chiefs along with artists, poets, architects, designers, and published authors complete the population. My husband fits right in. He’s educated, articulate, cultured, interesting, and interested in everything. He is an attorney for a Tampa-based business which keeps him quite busy and keeps us from spending our savings.

So, what do I say when someone asks the dreaded question? In the 1970s, I was a full-time student. In the 80s I worked as a consultant automating offices and putting people on the internet before there was an internet. In the 90s, I became a mother and stopped collecting a paycheck. During those years I was a community activist and tireless school volunteer. In 2005, my husband took a job in Florida and we pulled up stakes and moved. In 2007 we bought a pony for our youngest but he quickly became mine. When she went off to college in 2011, I decided to devote myself to writing the novel that lived inside me: the one about women’s friendships, the healing power of horses, and the essence of love. The pony had chronic problems which I believed I could heal with the right intervention, so I had an endless supply of material with which to create stories.

Corporate dishonesty happened and my husband lost his job. Meanwhile his father began his lengthy departure from life, we sold our Florida house at a huge loss (flushing the profit from selling the DC house and then some), and relocated to a small University town in north Georgia. Shortly thereafter, in late 2014, my husband’s father died and his mother, in her unique way, fell apart. I did too, but it took a while for me to realize it.

When our youngest graduated from college and the eldest relocated to Los Angeles, I thought I would have the time and energy to write. So I joined an on-line writing group and began submitting chapters of my book for critiques. Things were going well and I had completed the story map. When people asked me “What do you do?” I loved being able to say, “I’m writing a novel.”

Something happened in the course of editing my work-in-progress, however, and I stopped being able or even wanting to write. I got into therapy and upped my medication, but the inertia would not lift. My horse continued to cycle in and out of soundness with various injuries and ailments, but eventually he and I made a breakthrough and the chronic pain went away. We finally became a team-in-training together, each of us improving individually and as a pair. And yet, I felt no joy and still could not write a single word. I felt like a fraud for calling myself a writer, and so I stopped.

My husband, perhaps sensing that I was in trouble, “volunteered” me for a museum fund-raiser committee. Even though I didn’t want to do it, and would have been much happier binging on Netflix, I put on a happy face and went to the first meeting. I was intimidated by how accomplished and interesting everyone else was, but I had experience with silent auctions and fund-raising so I decided to pretend that I belonged.

As work on the silent auction progressed, we received invitations to social gatherings and began meeting people and making friends in our new home town. I fought hard against my wish to hole up in my writing room and lose myself by critiquing the writing of my on-line “friends”. I would try to foreclose on the dreaded question by asking it first and then keeping the interviewee talking about him- or herself, but more often than not someone would beat me to it.

“Nothing,” is what I must not say, even though that often feels true. Usually, I’ll manage to stumble over some version of “readin’, writin’, and ridin’,” and put on my happy face. The fact that I have such difficulty with this simple question is, I have come to understand, more of a symptom than a problem. I am questioning whether I have what it takes to be a writer. Am I able to develop a theme and create a story around it? Can I force myself to do the hard work of plotting and outlining a better novel than the one languishing on my computer’s hard drive? The answer to these questions is “Yes, but…” I need to start believing in myself again.

Unrecognized Genius

My most brilliant insights occur when I am walking my two unruly mutts. I solve the world’s most pressing crises, make peace with our inevitable doom, and develop compelling arguments which, if anyone would take the time to ponder, would convince him or her think as I think, vote as I vote, and do better than I do, thereby saving humanity from ourselves.

The minute I get home -- after unleashing the dogs, checking Facebook and email on my iphone, making a cup of coffee, starting a load of laundry, and trying to remember the phone calls I need to make – I go upstairs to my little office and turn on my computer, open a blank document, and…

The hidden surface of my desk reminds me that I have unpaid bills to review, financial statements to file, file folders to create, overfilled file folders to clean out, documents to shred, and catalogs to look through before tossing them. Moreover, I know that hidden underneath and in between each envelope and piece of paper is an accumulation of dust which must be cleaned off with a moist rag so I do not experience allergy-induced asthma. Before doing these things, I check Facebook again, just in case someone has liked one of my postings.

And then it is time for lunch (which I consider to be a complete and unavoidable waste of time). By the time I have finished making a sandwich and/or salad, eaten, and tidied up, I have no interest in returning to my office, so off I go to the barn where my half-ton time-and-money-eater awaits.

After taking 90 minutes to groom and tack up my pony, we are ready to ride but then a weather system rolls in, so I decide to make lemons out of lemonade and give him a bath because I am here and need a plausible excuse for not writing. Toby cleans up beautifully. I stare at him full of love and amazement that such a creature exists for as long as I can without feeling ridiculous. The rain will continue for another hour or two, turning the pastures into mud puddles. All evidence of his bath will disappear overnight when he goes out to graze and I will wonder if I am cursed, like Sisyphus, or simply nuts.

In God's House

When I woke up this morning, I didn't know I would be invited into God’s house.  My plan for the day was to work on my novel after walking the dogs, taking an exercise class, eating lunch, and working with my horse.  It was 8:00 pm when I sat down at the computer, but the book would have to wait a bit longer.  I had something more important to write down.

It was about 2:00 pm when I arrived at the barn.  Before fetching Toby, my horse, from the pasture, I retrieved his saddle, pads, and bridle from the tack room; pulled my grooming kit and his leg wraps out of my tack trunk, and put two horse treats into my jacket pocket.  Despite an unseasonable chill, the day was beautiful and I was looking forward to a fast gallop in the jump field.

Footsteps in the apartment above the barn told me that the owners were home, and perhaps had company.  As I was about to head out to the pasture, a parade of people emerged from the apartment and I said, “Looks like you’re having a party!”

The group included Katie and Paul, the farm’s owners; their adult daughter, Alison; Francisco, their farm manager; Emilio, Francisco’s brother-in-law; Lara, an immigration attorney; and Jim, her husband.  Katie said, “We’re going to the chapel, would you like to come?”

The eight of us piled into two four-wheelers and bounced and bumped our way to a secret place which Katie had shown me a few weeks back.  On that occasion, she had told me about the loss of a grandson, a baby, born severely disabled whose life had brought their entire family closer together.  During the time leading to the baby’s death, Katie had expressed a wish to find a place on the farm where she could go and pray.  Francisco overheard this and, in his spare time across several weeks, created a chapel nestled in a narrow and protected clearing.  First, he constructed a cross out of rough hewn boards.  Next, by carefully spacing and balancing bricks from the ruins of an old house that had once stood on the property, Francisco created a porous, semi-circular wall around the cross.  In the center, he left an opening where he placed a triangular piece of wood on which he had written the baby’s name.  Finally, he built six benches from pieces of wood and small logs he had found while tending the 80-acre property.  One day when Katie was especially distressed about her sick grandson, Francisco asked her to ride out into the back pastures with him.  He took her by the hand into a thicket and there it was: a peaceful and private place to pray.  They sat a while. She cried and he comforted her.  Not long after, the little boy died and this is where the family gathered to give thanks for his short life which had given them so much.

I met this family several months ago when my husband and I were planning our move to north Georgia.  I needed to find a place to bring my horse and this farm was the answer to my prayers.  Not only was the place beautiful and well maintained, the people were as warm and thoughtful as they could be.  When Toby moved in five months ago, I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming.  After years of less than perfect stabling arrangements, I could not believe my good fortune that there was a stall available at this beautiful farm owned by such lovely people. 

The farm was so perfect that Toby settled in much faster than I had anticipated and we were soon enjoying the facilities as well as the back country obstacle field.  On my birthday, we all hacked to the farm next door to participate in a horse show.  I was in heaven. 

Heaven is a fragile thing, however.  The next morning when I arrived at the barn, everyone was in a frenzy.  Francisco had been picked up by Immigration Control Enforcement and was in jail awaiting deportation.  Katie and Paul learned of his arrest when Francisco’s wife called them in the early morning, weeping hysterically.  There were thirty horses to feed, fifteen to turn out, stalls to muck, and water buckets and troughs to clean and fill. The enormity of Francisco’s role on the farm came into painfully clear focus as the owners struggled to do his job.  Even worse was the grief over having this sweet and loving man ripped from their lives.

Katie, Paul, Alison and her husband could have shaken their heads and cursed the government, but instead they worked the phones until they found one of the most influential immigration attorneys practicing in the United States.  “Whatever it takes,” they told her, “we will do to get Francisco back.  Not only do we need and love him, his wife and three children depend on him.”  I do not know how much this family spent out of pocket to pay Lara the attorney, to support Francisco’s family, and to pay the salaries of the several people who attempted to do the work this one man had done so efficiently.  It was more than most people earn in two years, a lot more.  He was family, his family was family, and his arrest was a great injustice and a painful example of what is wrong with America’s confused immigration policies.

In August, family asked me if I would be willing to attend a hearing at the Atlanta Immigration Court. The judge had a smug attitude and made a few vaguely sexist remarks to Francisco’s attorney. The attorney asked the judge to approve a bond hearing for Francisco.  After making a show of developing a rapport with our group, the judge decided to adjourn for two weeks. 

During the two hours we were in the courtroom, Francisco was brought into a waiting room so we could visit him via a television screen.  He was wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, no shoes, and his hands were cuffed.  Katie and Alison broke down in tears, as did Francisco when they spoke to him through a microphone.  This whole situation affected me deeply, and I wanted desperately to help.  The only thing I could think of to do was to write to a US senator who happens to know my husband’s family quite well.  It wasn't much, but the family appreciated it. 

For reasons we will never know, the second part of the hearing was canceled and the case was transferred to another judge.  Eventually, a bond hearing was scheduled and we all made the trek back to Atlanta.  Katie and Paul pledged a $50,000 bond to secure Francisco’s release.  The attorney for the Justice Department had no objection and the judge granted the request.  We were all crying and hugging each other.  Francisco’s wife was there and we all hugged her.  Three days later, Francisco was home and the barn, once more, felt like heaven. 

True friendships happen over shared values and experiences.  Katie and I have become close as a result of Francisco’s imprisonment, so when she asked if I would like to join the group at the chapel, I happily said yes.

The four-wheelers went silent and the eight of us entered the narrow opening to the hidden chapel.  It is a deeply silent and still place where birds sing and leaves rustle in the breeze.  We all sat and I felt a warm presence envelop me. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in.  Paul said a prayer of thanks to God for returning Francisco, for Lara’s help, for family, and friendship.  The tears began leaking from my eyes.  Francisco expressed his deep gratitude to everyone for helping him and his family during his three months in jail.  Katie spoke of the beauty and serenity of the chapel that Francisco had made for her, and a leaf fell on her head.  “It’s a sign,” I said.

Copyright 2014 Teresa Friedlander all rights reserved

A Perfect Day

It seems unlikely that in the middle of packing up our house in anticipation of a relocation to Athens, Georgia, this may that a day could be perfect.  And yet, today was.  Perfect.  Blue skies, a light breeze, and bird songs welcomed me to the barn where Toby was peacefully chewing his hay.  He subtly acknowledged me as I picked his hooves and brushed his coat, so shiny and soft.  The mane had gone rogue and flopped over on the left side, but didn't fight about being combed over.  And then there was his crowning glory:  that tail, so long and thick.

Despite having no time for him, I decided to give myself a break and work him a little so I saddled him and waited till he had finished most of the hay before putting on the bridle.  As I mounted up, it occurred to me that he and I didn't need to work, so we took a long leisurely walk to the end of the road and back.  He is so relaxed now that I don't have to have much of a grip on the reins; we walked and I talked and together we thanked God for the miracle of today.  That just happened.

All Is Not Lost

After our first buyer walked away on day nine of the 10-day contingency period, we worried that another buyer would not come along and that we would be stuck in Florida where C. cannot practice law without taking the Bar Exam.  Florida is one of only a handful of states that does does not allow a lawyer in good standing with his or her home Bar Association, to apply for Bar membership without the exam.  What this means for us is moving out of state so that C. can practice law without risking disbarment. 

Fortunately, another buyer came along who seems serious about completing the purchase transaction.  We are guardedly optimistic and knocking on every wood surface we encounter.  Assuming all goes according to plan (touche bois) we will be homeless for a time, figuratively speaking.  Sadly this means that our children will not have a home to return to this summer:  one will remain in her current apartment and the other will in all likelihood move to LA.

So now the fun part begins:  looking for a house in another state.  Georgia is a logical choice for us because we both have family in Atlanta as well as numerous friends, and the Georgia Bar welcomes lawyers from other Bar Associations (assuming no felonies or other serious problems).  Based on a meeting with our financial adviser yesterday, we should not buy anything over $100K if we want to continue to live comfortably.  This assumes we never earn another nickel, which is not likely to happen, but you never know.  I'm trying to launch a writing career and like aspiring writers everywhere am not finding much in the way of paid work.  Unfortunately, every house we like in Atlanta is well over $600K and already under contract, so we're not sure we can afford much more than a mobile home.  Recession's over, I guess.

Meanwhile, my poor husband is doing battle with the vile HR Monster which prefers its victims to be younger and less qualified (cheaper) than he is.  C. spends countless hours filling out online applications and sending résumés to computers which don't give a damn about anything other than his age and years of experience.  A man of C.'s intelligence, creativity, and experience needs to work and if the HR Monster would get out of the way, there are many jobs he could do happily and easily.  But that is the problem:  in a world ruled by HR Monsters, no one is supposed to be happy and no one's job is supposed to be easy.

The good news is that we are having a lot of fun sharing the office and hanging out together.  The dogs are happier, too.  If we can find a house that we like in a location that works for us and that allows us to work, we might just stay afloat for a few more decades.  Otherwise, we plan to go out in style and with our boots on!

The HR Monster

Once upon a time, most employers had a department called "Personnel", the function of which was to manage the records and paychecks of employees.  Hiring and firing was left to the people actually supervising the work.  During the 70s, possibly as a result of workplace discrimination, "Personnel" evolved into "Human Resources" and a monster was unleashed by corporate America.

The United States government, out of necessity, has long had its own monster known as the Office of Personnel Management, or OPM.  It is a big bureaucracy which manages to fill thousands of job vacancies every week either by outside hires or promoting from within.  As big and as impersonal as it is, OPM pretty much leaves the hiring decisions to managers as long as the candidates pass the Civil Service Test and meet posted job criteria.  OPM is much too big to concern itself with the details of hiring decisions.  In the private sector, however, personnel directors often insinuate themselves into organizations in ways that could suggest arrogance.  Over time, the HR Monster has grown into a gate-keeping function with power that challenges the highest echelons of top management.  In the trenches, hiring managers and job seekers both must surmount the HR Monster's formidable obstacles and traps at every step before they can schedule the initial interview.


One of the ways the HR Monster wields its power is by turning a two-week hiring process into something that stretches across months.  When it finally announces an open position, existing employees in most organizations have the first opportunity to apply for the job.  Once the carefully-screened internal applicants have been processed and rejected by the hiring manager, the HR Monster, in its own time, will begin the more costly process of opening the job the public at large.  This is where the hiring manager's political skills are truly tested, because the HR Monster needs to feel loved and feared, but mostly revered. 

For job applicants, the HR Monster requires a trial by fire known as the on-line job application.  In the pre-HR era, an applicant submitted a résumé along with a cover letter and the hiring manager contacted the applicant directly to set up the interview.  This led to many "misunderstandings" and bad hires and so eventually, the HR Monster created a way to apply a bit of science to candidate screening that would improve the quality of job applicants and facilitate decision-making.  Filling out a job application on paper was bad enough because it meant digging through boxes of files and piles of old records in order to fill in the dates of employment and education, as well as compensation, as accurately as possible.  Once the process went on the internet, it became a form of torture.  HR data entry screens require very precise answers ($24,095 as opposed to $24K; mm/dd/yy as opposed to mm/yy or simply yyyy) and certification that the responses submitted are 100% accurate.  Another soul-killing problem is session time-outs.  If the applicant takes too long to answer a question (because she is looking in the attic for employment records from the dark ages) the session will time-out and delete everything she has entered thus far.  And, forget about including volunteer work (such as serving on an officially sanctioned citizen committee) for which there was no compensation because the salary must be greater than zero and the answer must be truthful!

Résumés allow job applicants to circumvent de facto age-discrimination because one can eliminate dates altogether.  On-line job applications, on the other hand, shout one's age out loud and clear.  So, if an applicant is 60 and looking for five or six years of employment to finish his or her career, the job will be offered to a younger, less qualified person because the fully qualified older worker would be "bored".  The euphemism coined by the HR Monster for rejecting older applicants is that they are "over-qualified".  

So what's an over-qualified older worker supposed to do?  Flip burgers, I guess.

Selling the Farm

C.'s first reaction to being laid off was a mix of emotions: feeling free from having to work for a company that treats its employees so badly (Stalinist tactics keep everyone afraid of pointing out bad management practices), scared about the future, nervous about telling the children and his parents, but mostly numb.  C.'s work would have to be outsourced at a cost of at least $650 per hour, given his level of expertise.  Moreover, these service providers would require more hours to do the same work.  The Company's top management apparently had not considered this in their lust for cost cutting but that is for them to explain to their stockholders.

The first thing we did was get on the phone with our financial adviser who reassured us that we had plenty of savings as long as we could lower our monthly cash outlay.  Easier said than done until the children graduated college and started supporting themselves.  He encouraged us not to sell our home because we had the financing structured in a way that our housing costs were extremely low especially considering the quality of our living situation.  C. and I decided to take our time to let the reality of our situation sink in before making any major changes.

As the weeks turned into months and we approached the holidays, we began thinking about how we wanted to live and concluded that Florida was not home given that the children live out of state and that we had not found many kindred spirits with whom we could break bread.  We bought a book entitled "Where to Retire" and began thinking seriously about a new location.  Given how the internet has made it possible to work from anywhere, we decided to focus on the Atlanta/Athens, Georgia region because we both have family and friends up there.

In October, we met with a realtor who gave us a to-do list to get the house ready for selling and decided that we would list it in January, allowing us to give the girls one last Christmas in their Florida home.  I had already been quite busy in the yard because 2013/2014 was going to be my year for gardening.  I was going to put in a vegetable bed and upgrade the foundation plantings as well as create some new garden beds with succulents and agaves.  I purchased two composting bins and began keeping a container in the kitchen for coffee grounds, vegetable waste, and eggshells.  It had taken me almost ten years to rediscover my gardening mojo and my imagination was on fire.  As the yard began taking shape, I remembered how we had finished remodeling, decorating, and landscaping our two previous houses only to turn around and sell them. 

We enjoyed a lovely Christmas and New Year's with the children and did a major purge of unwanted, unused, and unnecessary items.  It was painful at times, but mostly it felt liberating.  One week after the children had returned to their respective schools, the "for sale" sign went up and within three days we had a contract and a second offer which we decided not to pursue since we were in final  negotiations with the first buyers.  As shocking as the job loss was, the quick sale and accelerated move-out schedule were worse.  Suddenly, we faced the prospect of being homeless until we found a new place to live.  We were simultaneously euphoric at having sold the home so quickly and panicked at how to keep it together with two big dogs while house and job hunting.

After we had a fully executed contract, I began packing for the move with the assumption that we would temporarily store most of our possessions until we found a new home.  I bought boxes, bubble wrap, huge rolls of packing tape and a dispenser, and turned the guest room into my workroom.  I started with the two sets of china C.'s parents had gifted to our daughters.  Then I wrapped and boxed photo albums as well as glasses and serving pieces that we only used at holiday times.  I had accumulated an impressive stack of boxes when my husband came in the room with a look on his face that suggested someone had died.  "Who died?" I asked, with a pit in my stomach.  "Our sales contract.  The buyers figured out they can't afford it after tying the property up for nine days and costing us that other buyer."  Because I was expecting a funeral, the loss of the sale was not too upsetting.  "Shit," I said.  "Shit."

Putting the house back on the market meant moving all of those heavy boxes into the guest closet and returning the house to its show-ready state.  And then, the winter of 2014 shut down the airports which send the sun-seekers to Florida.  Until some lucky person buys this beautiful home on 3-plus acres of tranquil Florida countryside, my full time job is housecleaning; which is OK except, 2013/2014 was also supposed to be my year for writing.  I recite the Serenity Prayer several times every day and ride my horse as often as possible.