In which I tell you about the things I thought.

This morning – where “morning” equals 12:30pm, which is when I got up – I informed the universe at large that I needed some answers to yesterday’s questions, and then I didn’t really do anything very focused about it. I was going to meditate, but didn’t. I watched part of Darshan: The Embrace and was reminded that there are gradations, that even past basic satisfaction some things are much better uses of a life than others, but beyond that basic concept I remained at a loss as to what to do with mine.

I bumbled around feeling blue because I didn’t get that job, and I looked at my finances and began to resign myself to the idea that if I don’t happen across a $500 windfall in the next few weeks I really and truly might not be able to see Amma’s U.S. tour this year.

That thought makes me want to cry. I’ve never once missed a summer tour since I met Her, though some years I had to drive pretty far, get a hug, and leave immediately. One year I got darshan and then slept in the parking lot because I couldn’t afford a motel. This year, though, the closest tour stop is five hours away over the Cascade mountains, and I don’t have a car. I’m not insured on my brother’s truck and it needs tires anyway, so taking it is sort of out of the question.

What I really wanted to do this year was go to the Chicago programs and see everybody, which seems selfishly ambitious but, really, the math is interesting: flying to Seattle and back from here costs $200, flying to Chicago and back from Pasco is about $200 more, and the Seattle program has a retreat fee associated with it that pretty much eats up that difference.

Perhaps I’ll end up with a bus ticket to Seattle and one night in the program hotel. A single program – especially if it’s Devi Bhava – is better than nothing. We’ll see.

At some point this afternoon, I think while I was making a cup of tea, it occurred to me that the very best, most wonderful life I can even imagine living would be as a member of a band that was essentially a cross between Stormy Heaven and Santa Fe & The Fat City Horns doing extremely intelligent, musical, funky music that just happened to have devotional lyrics. Yeah, hanging with awesome musician/seeker people, traveling a lot, eating groovy food, meditating, laughing, grooving, and taking random yoga classes in different places while on tour: that’s my ideal life.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how to create that reality. Not to kill the dream but I’ve already been in two bands that tried to do that, and, well, neither band still exists. I doubt that the audience to support that lifestyle even exists: people want sexy music more than evolutionary music, when it comes down to numbers. And before y’all holler at me for being too critical, I’m not closing doors: I’m just admitting I have no idea how to open that particular one.

Later in the afternoon, vaguely I thought about writing for a living. Not out of any burning passion to do so but because so many people swear that that’s what I should do. I’m certain I could crank out quite a volume of words if I did it full time, I just don’t know how to outline a book or even really to write in a format longer than a typical blog post. I don’t know where book ideas come from, really. It occurred to me that I need someone to write my outlines for me; I could probably crank out a book in a few months if I just knew what to write about and it didn’t require any heavy research!

I happen to follow a couple of sci-fi writers on Twitter. One seems to be solvent; another is poorer than I am. Both have several books out, and both write for a living. So. Yeah. I already know that being a good singer, even a really good singer, isn’t enough to make a living at it, so I have to assume that being a really good writer would be equally lucrative, which is to say: not very. Like music, ninety percent of the money goes to the top ten percent. Everyone else does it for love.

Which brings me back to my personal trifecta: get a real job, go back to school, or pursue some as-yet-unthought-of third option like joining an ashram.

I don’t know. I just don’t know. They say you need to follow your joy, but I’m so freakin’ mellow that I’m not that sure what my ‘joy’ is. I know what I don’t like, but I could be pretty comfortable doing any number of things. I’m too pragmatic to invent an ideal life and then be able to keep a straight face while looking for it; I know that most people aren’t deep, smart, rich, or beautiful, and that the vast majority of us just get to be common. And a common American life these days is to have a day job and some debt and a nagging suspicion that you took a wrong turn somewhere, tempered by rare transcendent moments on the weekends or in times of loss or during that one week per year that you go on your spiritual retreat.

What’s remarkable, really, is how lucky I am. I’m poor and jobless, yes, but I’m also incredibly comfortable: I’m not homeless, thank God. I have this cushy room, and family around to keep an eye on me, and a 7Mbps feed, and the mildest, sweetest weather in the world. I have an embarrassment of free time and I read, nap, walk, play, drink, eat, and pursue my interests on my own schedule. I’m a woman of leisure. The only problem is that I’m on the dole, and that the dole will end eventually.

I have no savings, so I don’t know how I could afford to move without a job lined up beforehand, and since I’m essentially a call center drone (and an old one, at that) it’s not like I possess the kind of skill that companies hire long distance for. I want to move to a city, kind of, but not only am I concerned about my hire-ability (I’m a big fish in a small pond in this town and yet I’m consistently clocking in at “runner up”) I don’t think I’m willing to leave Bindu behind or move her in her dotage and subject her to ten-hour days alone in an apartment while I work and commute…

Ah, hell. A day of thinking about it has gotten me two things: an idea of what my ‘joy’ would be (and the feeling that that’s a nifty daydream, but nothing more), and the idea that what I really need is to become a more desirable employment candidate. I have mad experience, yes, but only in a very specific industry, one that is changing so rapidly – devolving into resellers, monopolies, and outsourcing – that my experience isn’t really terribly relevant to anybody.

I might just take a year and do this. I’m probably eligible for grants, and I think if I do it I can stay on the dole for the duration, which would have the benefit of saving me from a terrible part-time job. After all, no matter what, I’ll always have debt.