Foodlore Library

The last few days I've been in an unemployment stupor, I must admit, of the "what am I going to do with my life" kind. I recently lost my job for the second time in a year. I'm soooo "over" working in the publishing industry. 

And after spending an uber-productive morning eating Ginger Man cookies and senselessly applying online for any job that moved (jobs in journalism now are barely moving... they are in that just-brutally-murdered and soon-to-be zombie phase), I thought I better get out of the house. I've been needing to try to trade in the pathetic cellphone I got from T'Mobile that keeps dropping friends all over and I get no reception where I live.

 It's true, I'm living in a dead zone, though not according to T-Mobile's little map. Needless to say, they wouldn't trade in the phone. So I left with my dysfunctional phone in hand to drive back to my dead zone, to check on the status of my unemployment and try to "manifest" a new career path while getting fat eating Ginger Men dipped in milk. In Oregon, people do this, talk of "manifesting" things. Like you can think of something and "poof" it just appears. I'm going to try and manifest a 2010 Westfalia wagon and a killer gig as the "editor-at-large" for Outside magazine, which I can do from my Westfalia while I spend my days surfing, rock climbing, picking berries and mushroom in the woods and growing my hair long and braiding it with all kinds of woodland creatures.

My meditation skills are still in fetal guru phase and what I think I'll really wind up with is this: it's actually what I can afford right now


Here's the real Westfalia I've been eyeing on Craigslist. I have a feeling I would buy it, go camp in some remote place and wind up stranded. I need to continue to meditate on that one.

But on the way home from my T-mobile trip, I willed myself to pull over and find some blackberries. I took the box that my T-mobile phone was supposed to be returned in, dumped out the packaging then proceeded to fill it with the most delicious dark honey of September, or blackberries.

Then I battled  blackberry brambles and won with soooo many soo-ripe-they-melt-in-your-mouth blackberries. Yum. I'd been craving the berries for a few days now and I've been in such a funk that I haven't ventured far enough to pick them.

It was good to work at getting those berries. It makes me think about work. It makes me feel a little sick about getting unemployment. I like working for my food. I like straining and sweating for it. Even the reward of a mouthful of ripe berries requires the effort of fighting thousands of sharp, prickly thorns and small-barbed leaves that cling to you.

And getting your fingers stained in the process!

We can't get out of work. Everything we want in life that's good, comes with a price. We all have to work for our food. When we stop working for it, something happens to slowly cripple us; cripple our spirits. I think this is the hardest part about being "unemployed." On some level, it doesn't feel fair to be getting a check for not working. I'm not about to feel "guilty" for it, I just want to recognize what happens inside me. I'll take the check, but I need to work too, even if that means spending a few hours picking berries or helping my neighbor Helen can tomatoes (which I'll do tomorrow.)

Today I made two pies with the berries. My house now smells like butter, blackberries and sugar. I gave one to my neighbor. And the other pie? I plan to get fat on it. It's on my counter cooling.

I want to say I've given up on looking for work, but I still look, still apply, still send out endless letters and resumes and all that bullcrap.

But I've decided every morning I will wake up, eat berry pie, meditate and try to manifest that Westfalia and perfect gig that lets me work from the beach. I'll have to try harder to perfect "manifesting" the life partner bit... for right now, Ginger Man is doing just fine. And everyday, even if I am waiting for that unemployment check, I'll do some work, some hard work, just to remind myself that even though there is a free lunch, it comes with a price.