Callithump! isn’t dead, but it has been in “maintenance mode” for a few months now. It’s kind of a long story why we’ve been so unproductive, but I’ll try to keep it interesting. Skip to the very last line to the short answer as to why Callithump! has been so absent lately if you’ve got a short attention span. Otherwise, keep reading!
It all started a while back with a broken leg and no insurance. In the space of a blizzardy afternoon we went from keeping our heads above water financially to being five figures in debt. So we left our lovely creative community in Belfast, put our plans of careers in art & education on hold, and moved to southern Maine to go work in the corporate world.
Corporate life is seductive. The pay was better than I’d ever made before, and the health benefits were phenomenal. I was also constantly surrounded by people who were really into being in the corporate world. This was their career track, and they were really committed to getting ahead. For a while it caught me. I started thinking about all the things that long term financial stability could bring. Nicer cars, a nice house, kids… It’s not that you can’t have those things without financial stability, but it’s a whole lot more stressful. I started thinking, “I can do this for five years. I can put my other plans and dreams on hold. We can pay off our debt and buy all the things we’ve had to do without…”
It didn’t work. Sitting in front of a computer screen inside a beige cubicle under fluorescent lights from 9 to 5 every day I could feel my soul going numb. Corporate logic started getting under my skin. For example, having a window in your office is determined by your pay grade. So if your cubicle was near a window, it had to have extra-high partitions so you couldn’t see it since only management was allowed to look out windows. But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that it started making sense. I started understanding and accepting the necessity of such rules. The worst thing was that it started changing Jess and my relationship. We started conforming to traditional gender roles. I was the breadwinning husband, putting food on the table, Jess was the dutiful housewife, cooking and cleaning and doing laundry. I’d get home tired and cranky, with no energy to do anything but watch TV for a few hours and then go to sleep.
Let me just clarify something important here. I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining about a bad employer. My employer probably has one of the best corporate cultures of any company, and I was privileged to work with an amazing number of talented, intelligent and truly good people. The things that were good there outnumbered the things that bothered me 10 to 1. It was good to the point that I actually considered getting therapy to help me adjust to the corporate environment! It’s like that cliché break-up line, “It’s not you, it’s me.” I’m just not the kind of person who can be happy working in a corporate environment.
These problems will hardly seem like problems to most people. In some ways I’m complaining about being gainfully employed. I was living a life that was anathema to me. The majority of my waking hours were spent helping people with money make more money. We dreamed of a life of creativity, adventure, exploration and making a difference in the world. We got cubicles and television and gender roles we’d never intended.
So we made a change. We’re playing a hunch that there might be more paths out there than “starving artist” and “desk jockey.” We bought a house in Bangor, Maine. It’s actually cheaper than renting! Buying a house in Bangor vs. buying in the southern part of the state means for half what we’d spend on a “I guess we can live with this” house, we got to buy a house we love! Now we have room to build the creative spaces we’ve been lacking in the apartments we’d been renting. We’ve gone back to school, Jess to get her MFA and me to finish my PhD. I’m teaching classes again.
I don’t know where exactly all this is leading us, but I know that sometimes you have to make the space for good things to happen. We’re not “there” yet, and we’re not even sure what that destination is. However, we’ve created possibilities for wonder, excitement, creativity and learning that we haven’t had in ages.
This change, however, has come with a price. Looking for a house, buying a house, moving, working two jobs while I wrap up my commitments to my corporate employer, commuting 400+ miles a week, taking classes… Unfortunately, Callithump! has had to move to the back burner, along with most of the rest of my life! However, I think Callithump! will revive soon in its new environment, in ways that will eclipse all previous work.
The challenges didn’t end with the move, though. Just as things were starting to settle, this happened:
Yeah, that’s me in the hospital, giving a big thumbs up because I was awake after a surgery that might have killed me! It wasn’t an unexpected surgery. My friend Peter was going to die without a new liver, and I was a match. People keep telling me what a nice thing I did, but you know, I just feel lucky. Having someone you care about die is on one of the worst things in the world. Having someone you care about die, while you’re left wondering if there was something you could have done that would made a difference is worse. The pain of donating a liver is minor in comparison. However, it was a big pain, nonetheless! To be a donor you have to go through a tremendous number of tests. MRI, EKG, CAT scans, I’ve had them all now, as well as a colonoscopy, at least a pint’s worth of blood tests and even psychiatric exams. Before the surgery I was going to Lahey almost every week from the end of December to the end of February. Then I was in the hospital for a week after, and I’m still operating at diminished capacity a month after. It’ll be another two months before I’m back at 100%. It’s worth it, though. Peter is alive and doing better every day!
It’s been a long trial for sure, but now that we’re getting through it, I have to say, it’s really awesome to be the LeClairs right now! Our lives are filled with more inspiration and excitement than they’ve ever been before. We’re making new friends and reconnecting with old ones. One of our big stresses is that we feel like there are so many possibilities here that we can only take advantage of a fraction of what our new lives have to offer. That’s sort of like stressing out about having so much money you couldn’t possibly spend it! This happened while we were thoroughly overwhelmed with all the other things in our lives. What will it be like when we’re done with all this other stress, and can devote all our energies to our new lives?
So anyway, the short answer to why I haven’t been posting is I’ve been really, really busy!
