Annual Phases

The way I schedule my work these days is starting to fall into cyclical phases that shift at various points throughout the year. Most notably, the phases lead up to some sort of major event that I am working on and then my life drastically shifts or changes once it is complete. My Fall Phase as I like to call it, which also translates as my Working From Home phase is all in preparation for the World AIDS Day benefit I coordinate for Africa AIDS Response. During that time my home becomes my office and my time becomes my own to schedule, although it is hardly free from obligations. Many meetings and deadlines take place and this year I needed to create boundaries to separate my work from everyday life, because when the computer is in the living room and using your own cell phone for work, it’s hard to not work all the time in bits and pieces.

With my Fall Phase this year I noticed I stopped blogging. Not that I’m some sort of blogging maniac, but I do enjoy it as a means of staying connected with others. Now that I’m in my First of Year phase, I’m back at an office full time and being a normal working girl. Ah ha! Blogging kills time at the office! I stopped this fall because I was working so hard on my computer at home all the time; sitting down to write on it for the sake of writing no longer appealed to me. In fact, the last thing I wanted to do was stare at that little white box that lights up. But today is Friday and it’s my first week back in the office since September and I’m trying to look like I’m being productive. Clickity-clack on the keyboard and all is well.

This is typically my least interesting phase during the year because my job at Western States Center usually starts off pretty slow. The weather is crummy and winter doldrums set in. Somehow I’ve managed to add another commitment to my schedule this winter and now have a supplemental part-time gig planning yet another fundraising auction event for yet another nonprofit – Quest Center. With their event in April, the build up will culminate just in time for Western States Center to get really busy planning for their August conference.

I’m on the fence about doing my “Work from Home” phase again this fall for AAR, but I will say it leads to the best phase, which is from early December through the first week of January where I don’t work at all. This year I returned to the town of Sayulita, Mexico with my friend Jenna in hopes of a relaxing 8-day vacation. Since I was there last the town has experienced a huge growth, mainly from gringos with money building homes. I successfully surfed a few times while there but that left me bruised, sore and beat up for the week (By the way, E.george, I meant to send you a postcard from Sayulita saying you must surf there before you die).

It was overall a great trip although as it approached the idea of a random sunny vacation started feeling weird to me. It’s hard to put into words, but part of it is the idea of being a random American going to a place for a week, spending a bunch of money to have all my needs met and then going back to my life all of a sudden felt unappealing, if not meaningless. It was different when I went a few years ago because you can’t deny the glory of 13 friends all getting together who haven’t seen each other in years. That was a big part of the purpose of that trip, but when Jenna and I got on the plane I started questioning ours.

Jenna is a newer friend and I really haven’t traveled with anyone that I wasn’t romantically involved with, so one fear was that after one day in Mexico we’d have nothing more to talk about. The list of anxiety and fears went on, and then I reasoned that I worked my ass off on the World AIDS Day benefit, so even if I was bored out of my skull in this sunny paradise, I should savor those moments and just read, sit in a hammock and eat ceviche. It is what it is, and I had a plane ticket to Mexico.

What happened, though, was that Jenna and I traveled great together. We found a reasonable little bungalow for the week and stayed put. Evenings were spent killing time watching kids play in the Plaza and I got caught up on a lot of lost sleep. All my stress from my world in Portland was temporarily absent and the weather and water was perfect every day. We befriended a local man named Hector who took us all over in his van- to beaches we’d never otherwise know about, and surrounding towns that hadn’t been completely inundated with gringo development (although almost everywhere had the beginnings of it). We spent evenings dining on good food and having great, yet often intense conversations and debates. It turns out Hector comes to Cannon Beach, Oregon for the summers to teach surfing lessons, so we seem to have found a friend for life.

Following that trip I went home to Maryland for nine days over the holidays. It was supposed to be for 13 with a side-trip to NY, but I cut it short. I missed my sweetie and was done being away from my real home in Oregon. There seems to be so much promise for this year. I must say, I’m feeling pretty damn happy.