I notice that whenever I'm catching up with people, they ask those questions. That's the general information that seems to stick with people who don't know me too well. Over the last week, I met up with a bunch of people I hadn't seen in years, and those were the two main identifiers they had about me. Not bad, as far as it goes.
Still writing?
When you're chatting with someone you don't know too well, professional life is a life-saver. How's work? Though I've noticed a lot of people, when you ask them, seem to drop a bit. They're not interested in talking about work, I've noticed. Or, even worse perhaps, have nothing much to say about work. They don't find it interesting enough to carry along tidbits and when in company, seem to prefer being known by anything but their work.
I feel I'm quite lucky not to be in that boat. I love being known as a writer, even if half the time people struggle to follow or care about what I'm writing. At least I'm passionate about what I'm doing, which is a hell of a lot more than most people can say.
It's hard, talking about writing like it's work because people generally build a fairly negative dialogue around their work. It's always the boss who's a dick or the long hours or the commute or the pay or the assholes they have to deal with, if they're in more people-y professions.
I frequently get people asking me about my hours or wishing me an easy week re work. Sometimes, I go along with it. It's easier than saying I make my own hours and that while work isn't always easy, it's so freaking exciting and satisfying to me. Because then, they get this idea that it's not actual work.
How could it be work if I make my own hours and enjoy such fluidity in my material. What I work on today is seldom what I'm working on a week from now.
The work lies beyond that, I explain (though not often. I don't like to complain.). It lies in holding that fluidity in myself, in finding comfort in the not knowing, the volatility of artistic life and expression. It can be intensely satisfying, but only once you swim out past the uneasiness, the fear, the feeling like you're out in the rain, getting soaked to the bone.
Exploring Split pre-opening-drinks, looking up flights someplace else.
Still traveling?
People assume I have money when they learn how much I travel. I don't. (I'm open to donations though, if anyone out there feels like supporting my next sojourn, hit me up xD) They do that mainly because they judge by their own city breaks or narrow holiday experiences that include expensive touristy passes and tickets to all sorts of things and restaurants and fancy hotels. I've said it many times, travel isn't excessively expensive if you budget well and don't have over-the-top expectations, which I don't.
The great wealth that allows me to travel is the loose schedule I mentioned above which would mean a loss of money for people employed in a traditional job.
"You're so lucky". I am in many, many ways. But it's not blind luck. I don't think luck just randomly falls on your shoulders. I think it's in part determined by willingness to explore. To test your boundaries and gradually expand the slice of Universe you inhabit.
You can't settle yourself in a traditional, 9-to-5, overly consumerist, white-picket-fence life and expect Fate to drop the "so lucky" card on your shoulders and whisk you away to Panama tomorrow. It does not happen that way. You make your own luck.
I'm lucky to have a family and social net that loves and supports me in my quirky explorations. I'm lucky to have had some financial breaks where I did. But I also make my own luck (to turn to a cliche expression) and the many ways in which I am lucky now are the result of ten years of exploration and fluidity in how I traverse this life. For which I am grateful. But of which I am also proud.
So here I am. Still traveling. Still writing. And hope to be for many moons to come.
