I have loved music all my life, and learned to play piano as a teenager. When I got my McDonald’s paycheck I would walk over to the music store to buys some albums. I made $3.75 an hour and the cassettes cost $10. I touched them, lifting them up to see the names of the songs and taking a good long look at the album art.

I knew some of the artists, and there were more I hadn’t heard. My one radio station I was permitted to listen to didn’t play them all. That music store was a Christian bookstore. I walked past the Precious Moments figurines and the bible study books to get to the music section. I would usually buy two cassettes and sometimes splurge on a third.

On the way out, I would tear open the plastic cover to put it in my Walkman right away. The tunes! I’d listen to each album, then drill down on the one I liked best and play it on repeat for days. The second album would get it’s turn after I’d sucked the marrow out of the first.

I sat on the brown carpet in my room, opening up the album insert. The lyrics were included in a long fold-out from the cassette case. The lyrics, the songwriters and the producers were read again and again.

And the city at the end was Nashville. The clues left for me to follow went there. My young heart imagined what it was like, and how I might sing my heart out there.

It’s been a long time since I judged Amy Grant for being too worldly, but I landed in the Nashville airport last week. That dream came true at last.

Sort of.

Not as a singer, but as a writer. I had dreamed of writing as well, but I knew it was too big a dream. I had no idea what to do for that one.

Music dreams had a city with a name.

A lot has changed. I’ve learned so many things.

But I haven’t stopped dreaming. People lined up to buy my book, I signed my name on the dream made real.

I finally finished the powerpoint presentation. Even as I say that, I wonder if I am using an outdated phrase.

I used to feel confident about what I know, and unconcerned about what other people called it. But this presentation was really hard to create. I was increasingly convinced that I was the problem.

A Greek chorus was singing that I didn’t have skills anymore. What once was now is not. The chorus yowls that the world has moved on and I have no place in anymore.

Every problem was bigger than me, and anything could get me off track.

Desperate, I used every trick to get to done. And I did.

Which leads me to today. I have to write MORE. I maintain the wonderblog, which is made up of this Weekly Wonder.

More writing? I have to face the shrieks of the chorus again.

WHY do I do this?

I wonder.

Oh.

I started this blog to write about wonder. It was fun to name it the Wonder blog! The phrase itself has a superhero cape.

But really, the blog has been about curiosity, exploration and investigation.

Wonder.

The word feels spacious. Open, not shrunken.

Not scary. Wonder is peaceful excitement.

There is room for me. I can move into it and through it.

Caterwauling chorus must be left behind.

I wasn’t thinking about it as I worked through that scary powerpoint. I’d put enough reps in that it came through the onslaught.

I practice wonder, and am dedicated to the discipline.

The Artemis 2 astronauts made it back. They executed the mission and went further than anyone has ever gone before.

As I recall, the NASA missions are well thought out. There is a checklist, and a plan for every situation.

Still

Back here on earth, people were holding their breath waiting for the astronauts to land safely. Sure, there are checklists and all the situations had been considered. But we’ve seen those plans go wrong before. And remember, they were going to see what no one had ever seen before.

The astronauts are back safe and we are all breathing again.

I never left, but my life right now seems like I’m bouncing around on the dark side of the moon.

I am in a new place I’ve never been before

It’s been more than 8 months since I had a job. That’s disturbing and different.

I’ve been trying but failing.

I also put my energy into publishing this book I had on hold.

Stupid cancer kept me from finishing it. A month ago I launched it. And people are loving it. I am getting appreciation and validation. I’m so grateful.

Unlike NASA, I didn’t have a plan for this. I didn’t expect success. What does this require from me?

The book itself is full of systems, checklists and ways to organize. That’s my specialty.

Except I am not doing any of these things. I am on the far side of the room trying to pick up all the green cheese.

What am I doing?

I don’t know anything. I am scrambling and distracted and I don’t know the territory.

Except I did get here. That has to count for something.

Back to the fundamentals. I have collected some trusty tools and tricks.

I can concentrate on what I know. The new stuff needs to wait for a minute.

I’m figuring it out. I’ll get home safe. Keep Breathing.

Holidays are rich in tradition and the dinner is a part of that. I was looking forward to using my grandmother’s pie crust recipe this Easter. It felt special to be connected to her, even long after she has been gone.

Family recipes are part of holiday gatherings all over the world. A reliable crowd pleaser makes history. It’s not so easy to achieve: family can be very vocal in their displeasure. They will let you know if something isn’t right, especially the little kids. A favorite dish is part of the tradition, and people remember it and look forward to it

Some people guard their recipes as a secret and never share the secret. People who hoard their expertise often use it to as proof of their worth:

“No one else could do it like me”

It’s true. The individual has their unique way of doing it. The dish would come out different because each person will do the recipe with their style.

My grandmother shared her recipe freely. Of course, there are things she knew to finesse, like the temperature of the shortening, how fast to stir and the thickness of the crust, etcetera. I am getting more experience with it and learning what to watch for.

I’ve worked with people who hoarded their knowledge in a similar way. I’d be trying to figure out how to manage a project and be working out the next steps.

I’ve had guys tell me tell me that projects are done by feel, and the only way to get it right is through experience.  

Which gave them the perfect excuse to hoard their knowledge. I couldn’t call their methods “best practices” because they were held behind closed doors. No one else was allowed to practice them. Then the cherished stories of the disasters. If I were working through a disaster, these withholding PMs would nod and tell me about their worst disaster. They anticipated that I would have a disaster and seemed that is was going to happen to me.

I moved away from those people, and made a point of collecting what I learned into a book, the AV Project Manager Handbook I want everyone to know what I learned. I would hope people could take what I learned, make it better and teach me something new. That’s the tradition I like to keep.

The voice mail went “My nae is Troy McClure—I am a best selling author and holder of several patents. I will be calling you on Wednesday at 9 Am to discuss a project manager position with the Department of Excellent at my University.”

What kind of fool was this? Who talks like that? And he didn’t even ask if I was free at the time.

I wanted to hear what would happen on Wednesday at 9 AM.

I answered, ready to hear what this was. Yes, he was real. He did have a job opening. And after a few more minutes—most of which were spent talking about himself—he asked me for a second interview.

I didn’t actually meet him.

But I had a second interview with the people at the university, and they were tougher. I even had to do an impromptu presentation on a topic of their choice. Like homework.

But I was in!

The best selling author had gotten me excited about the work. I was ready to get down to it.

He called me on the phone every morning to dump his vision of the work on my head.

I was all in! I swam thought it to find the tasks I could work on.

I wanted to get going on it. We had a department to grow—a Department of Excellence.

No one else was in the department. Just me, because the other people were still to be hired. I did what I could fish out from the daily phone dump with the Best Selling Author.

By the first week I proudly showed what I had done. Look!

No pause, but the dump on this call now included a request that I stay in my lane.

Then he paused “I am going to love you.”

How wonderful! I was making progress.

If only I could make sense of the lane he wanted me to stay in. I was doing what he said needed done. I must just need to do it harder.

After two weeks, another person arrived in the department. I shared what I’d been hearing from the daily phone dumps. She was as lost as I was. And then the next person arrived. She was not informed, but she was more guarded. Probably she wanted to wait and see for herself.

So after the fourth week, the Best Selling Author stopped speaking to me.

And  the guarded women did too.

I went from being totally along for two weeks in this department to working with two—no, three, if I included the absent Best Selling Author—people who wouldn’t speak to me

Hm.

Was this growing pains? What this a challenge I had to work through?

Reluctantly, I went and talked to HR. They were as vague as HR is required to me.

Walkign back to my desk in the ice cold department of excellence, I decided I was going to make them fire me if that was their intent. I was the innocent victim here.

But those two women in the office with me. How could I unfreeze things?

I formed an irresistible strategy.  In the morning I walked up to the ice queen’s desk.

I stood and said:

“Why did the pirates go to the Caribbean?”

She glued her eyes to her screen.

I stayed.

I waited.

She looked up at me, despite her strong aversion, and said:

“Why?”

“Because the wanted some ARRR and ARRR”

I gave her a huge smile.

The other women laughed. Ice queen was on her back foot. Her snarls were out of place now.

So for that mornin I could repeat the punchline and make a place for myself on the battle ground.

6 weeks after I started, I was asked to go to a meeting at the other side of the campus. It was an 8 minute walk. The person who gave me the second interview was there, along with HR. Sign this, and clear your desk. You are done.

It is usual for fired employees to get escorted off my security. They knew the security gaurds had become my friends, so the university official said he would walk me.

8 minutes of a walk to my desk. Then to my car.

I said nothing. He did try to make conversation to make nice. Silence is loud.

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the #3!!  is water?”

From “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace

I am good at persuading myself into accepting a circumstance. I can do such a thorough job that all other possibilities vanish.

Those fish didn’t see what they were swimming in.

I know the difficulty of leaping into the unknown. There are reasons to stay put.

The hero’s journey studied by Campbell begins the comfortable home. The hero doesn’t become a hero until he is forced into the unknown.

It’s human nature to cling to the familiar. It comes from my animal roots. Stay safe. Stay still.

Then something happens to eject me.

It could be an external disaster. Or it could be something inside me.

The hero has to go on the journey.

That’s bad enough, but with all that long practice of ignoring anything I don’t see. I can’t see what I’m walking into.

I blinded myself.

Shaking and scared I set out to find what I barely believe exists.

Clawing at the mud in my eyes, hoping my vision is still there.

I tamped down the hope and fear of what existed for so long. Time to face it.

Hope and doubt eating their tails.

Faith gets back on her feet, looking through the cracks to where the light gets in.

I’m going to fall. I will surely fail.

But it’s not fatal, as long as I get up once more often than I fall.

I need something and I am going to chase after it. I don’t entirely know what it is, but that is no reason to give up. I won’t let it stop me.

Ran into an old friend this weekend; I hadn’t seen her in a while. I assumed she was too busy with clever important things, and I’d left her alone.

Turns she’d been unwell. I was sorry I hadn’t made an effort to see her—if only I’d realized!

She shrugged and confessed that she’d been keeping it hidden.

Ah.

I kept a lot of things tamped down during the cancer battle. I know Brene Brown sings the praises of vulnerability and no doubt she is right. But how many parts have to be exposed and vulnerable at once?

My Sensei taught me to avoid the fight if you can. If I see a situation in distance, I should use Run Fu and get out of there.

But if I am in it, be all it. Every move I can made, every strike, every dodge, be 100 percent in. That includes blocking and defending, and when the fight is on all things narrow down to the next action.

After cooperating with the doctor’s medical attacks, I wasn’t sure what else I could do. I chose to keep putting my face out there. I felt as though I didn’t have a right to struggle in public, like I ought to be embarrassed and hide my weakness. I fought it by showing up so that I “may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand”

There was cringe factor. There was learning to be ok with what that day brought me.

With the fight over, the world has expanded. My wounds are healing, and this warrior is returning to regular life. What just happened in these last three years?

I’ll admit I’m jumpy after the long fight, but I did pick and finish a project from before. I published my book, and remembered that part of me.

Last time I wrote a book I didn’t know how to talk about it. I didn’t have the courage to be all in. I’ve learned a lot, and the world has made space for me.

The fighter I’ve become has also learned to make space for myself. Whether and elbow or a knee, or an introduction to a stranger that I’d like to meet.

I’ve said it before, unemployment is like being marooned on a desert island. The days are long.

I’ve taken to lighting candles so I can see evidence of time passing by the candle wax level lowering.

When my daughter was a newborn, time passed slowly too. I began counting each feeding as its own day—making each 24 hour day with a feeding every three hours equivalent to 8 days.

Staring into the unfocussed eyes of my newborn, I looked for a sign that I was a person. Yes, I was sleep deprived, injured and post-partum insane. And I was sure I didn’t matter at all to this new baby. Any  person—even a machine–could have done what I was doing. These were not difficult or personalized.

She couldn’t tell who I was. I was not significant or distinctive.

I didn’t matter.

As I say that, I know it is not true.

You, my reader, recognize the absurdity.

“Of course you matter!”

As mother of a newborn then

and now as a long and even longer suffering jobseeker, I am ensnared by this favorite folly

This conviction that no one notices me, that my best hope is to be ignored so that I can keep my seat at the table. As long as I don’t draw attention I won’t be asked to leave.

A month or so in I was playing with her and talking to my tiny baby, she smiled

AT ME

For the first time I felt connected to her. I was recognized.

Achilles had his heel; I have my weak spot that throbs. I’ve learned many people have a wound like this, that I return to again and again.

Last week, after my most recent job rejection, I attended an expo. Feeling isolated, insignificant and worse,  I found a friend and scraped together a set elevator speech as I prepared to ask for a job.

I’d been working on a book for my industry, The AV Project Manager Handbook. I brought a pre- publication proof as a conversation starter.

At the event, I met person after person that I’d known for years. Seemed that I personally knew half the attendees at the event. Then the people who I didn’t know yet saw my book and were thrilled to meet me and learn about this useful book.

I’d fallen for my old trap, believing that I’m nothing.

I may not have a job or a position YET, but it’s coming. Things take time to grow. That’s a certain text.

I’m not proud to say I’ve felt this way, but telling the story of my shame let’s a little sunlight in. And if anyone else sees their own folly as I share mine, perhaps we both can lift ourselves inot the light.

Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,

Or what’s a heaven for?

Robert Browning

I’ve had three years of learning to live with impairment. Those were years of breaking old habits and picking up new ones.

Like a teenager that can’t drive, I narrowed my horizons significantly.

Three years to break habits of a lifetime.

Is that how it works?

I think what I did is make new habits. Habits of distracting myself as I marked time.

Last week I said I didn’t recognize myself I remembered the person I used to be, doing the things TODAY that I once did years ago.

Times do change. That kid gets a license and starts to see what’s out there.

Or things that were once required get simpler.

Or new distractions dominate my view.

Where’s my jetpack? Wasn’t it all supposed to be done by robots now?

I’ve picked up a book “indistractible” which discusses how to focus again.

Those little jokes and funny memes are the snack food of the mind.

I’m grown and I know how much I will can’t resist certain snacks, and I won’t even let them in the house.

These new habits are starting to smell the same.

My life was different four years ago. A lot changed.

The world changed too.

Same song

Second verse

A little bit louder and a little bit worse

Indistractible points out that our time spent on these entertaining mindsnacks is a way of avoiding boredom, also known as pain.

During the cancer treatments I fostered distraction from pain.

Here on the other side, I shake my head like a dog out of the bath.

I don’t want to avoid pain.

There is reward on the other side.

In principle, anyway.

It is up to me to work the principles out in practice.

Practices from the cancer years are still useful now:

What can I reach for? What is possible today?

“Are there no more worlds that i might conquer?”

This is not my first rodeo.

I do remember the first, though.

The day I held my first book–really a real book with a cover and pages—with

Written by Murphy

on the cover in 2006. I felt as if my life were complete in a way I never expected it to be.

That day, 18 year ago, when I took the 4 hour PMP test to get officially certified. I wanted it so bad. I studying and grindinfg it out.

Walking into the grim Pearson testing center to sit in a cadaver-colored cubicle to choose the right answer

A? B? C? D?

I barely recognize the memory of that woman.

Was it really me?

It was me. Sp was everything that came after.

Yesterday I finished a grind and got another cert.

I’m worn slick,

I remember that first cert, it was a lot harder. I had high hopes for what I could achieve with it.

I remember I wanted it to prove it to myself.

Memory is a shaky thing.

Today, I want the cert to prove it to other people.

I know I know. I am ten toes down confident. Others seem to need a proof.

Now I can concentrate on putting my book up for sale. My fifth book Which is most definitely for other people.

There is a theme. Those are significant things that I’m accomplishing to impress other people.

That’s good and I’m glad I did it.

What’s next? I’d really like to do something significant for myself. That’s over the edge of the known world.