Being Thankful: A Year in the Trenches

Many of you who follow my blog know that I have been out of work since March of this year. It has been a year …! I could fill in those dots with so many words – some good, some bad, some happy, some painful. I can certainly say it has been an experience; one that has taught me much about myself, my profession, and my aspirations for the future.

Losing a job that you liked and where you felt you were making a contribution is difficult. Being let go is something that happened to others. I never thought it would happen to me. In the immediate days afterward, I was numb, shocked, angry, confused. Fortunately, I had good support from my family and from colleagues across the world – some who I know well, and others who I’ve met only a few times.

Over the past nine months I have had a great deal of time to reflect, learn, and hopefully grow personally and professionally. Here are a few things I learned and am continuing to learn.

•  I really do love the library profession and am not ready to retire or ride off into the sunset. I remain fully engaged with the profession and still feel that I have much to contribute.
•  My sense of self-worth, personally and professionally, is not based on what others think of me.
•  Having spent all of my life, since age 5, within the rhythm of the school year, this year has been odd. I miss the academic schedule. It is my inner biorhythm.
• I have always thought of myself as a life-long learner, and fortunately, even with a different schedule, I find that I still learn something new almost every day.
•  More than ever I am committed to being a global citizen. I want everyone to move past the nationalist, racist, homophobic, and xenophobic rhetoric and embrace the world and its people. We really do need each other.
• For years I have been a huge audiobook fan, and, with extra time, I find that I am listening to even more – 135 books since March. (Thank you, Los Angeles Public Library). 
•  While there is a lot of public bashing of higher education today, I think that this is a wonderful, although challenging time to be in higher education. As a first-generation college student, whose parents did not get to attend high school, I can testify that an education makes a difference in your outlook, your ability to think, your ability to be a global citizen, and of course it helps the job prospects too. I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to earn four degrees and spend my entire career so far in higher education.
• Colleagues in the library and information spaces are wonderful and caring individuals who not only are supportive of each other but are committed to social justice and those who are marginalized by society.

As we head into the Thanksgiving season, it is time to reflect on the things that I am thankful for.

•  A mother who introduced me to libraries
•  A 95-year-old father, Canadian Second World War veteran; still going strong
•  A wife who received a liver transplant on January 1, 2018, and is still here with us. Also thankful for organ donors, especially the donor for my wife.
•  Seven adult children; all doing reasonably well.
•  A sister and brother-in-law who have had my back during this year.
• A large network of library colleagues and friends who have been very, very supportive and encouraging during this year.
• The opportunity to be reflective, to write, and grow during a personally difficult time.
• A profession that I believe makes a positive difference for millions of people in this country and around the world.

 With such a year, it might, to some, seem odd for me to post on being thankful. Being thankful is both hopeful and cathartic; it expresses where I have been and where I hope to go. One of the points I talk about in any “job talk/interview presentation” is the phrase “living the story”.  This comes from the idea that we all tell stories to ourselves and these stories either constrain us or liberate us. For me, “living the story”, is a liberating one that expresses the desired future story, that we tell ourselves over and over until it becomes our true story.

The title of this post is intentional and references both my own experience as well as the end of the Great War (World War I) whose 100^th anniversary we celebrated this year. While my experience in no way compares to the hell of the trenches, each person, sometimes in life, is likely to experience their own “trench” or ”dark night of the soul”. One method of dealing with difficult times is to write, and for me, this blog was one way to express myself and to nurture my professional identity which had been attacked. For others, especially during World War I, poetry was a common form of expression; a way to express anger, sorrow, and hope.

I first discovered the “war poets” about ten years ago and was impressed by the way these poets, mainly British, always active soldiers, used poetry to deal with the hell of war and also to protest the prosecution of the war.  While these poets never gained the fame of men like Walt Whitman or Robert Frost, they did have critical acclaim in their time and helped many make sense of the war, or allowed people to express their anger and frustration. One of the most noted war poets was Siegfried Sassoon, a British Officer, whose poetry became a focal point of dissent against the continuation of the war.

Sassoon’s poem, “Storm and Sunlight” (below) is an expression of both horror and hope. 

In barns we crouch, and under stacks of straw,

Harking the storm that rides a hurtling legion

Up the arched sky, and speeds quick heels of panic

With growling thunder loosed in fork and clap

That echoes crashing thro’ the slumbrous vault.

The whispering woodlands darken: vulture Gloom

Stoops, menacing the skeltering flocks of Light,

Where the gaunt shepherd shakes his gleaming staff

And foots with angry tidings down the slope.

Drip, drip; the rain steals in through soaking thatch

By cob-webbed rafters to the dusty floor.

Drums shatter in the tumult; wrathful Chaos

Points pealing din to the zenith, then resolves

Terror in wonderment with rich collapse.

II

Now from drenched eaves a swallow darts to skim

The crystal stillness of an air unveiled

To tremulous blue. Raise your bowed heads, and let

Your horns adore the sky, ye patient kine!

Haste, flashing brooks! Small, chuckling rills, rejoice!

Be open-eyed for Heaven, ye pools of peace!

Shine, rain-bow hills! Dream on, fair glimpsèd vale

In haze of drifting gold! And all sweet birds,

Sing out your raptures to the radiant leaves!

And ye, close huddling Men, come forth to stand

A moment simple in the gaze of God

That sweeps along your pastures! Breathe his might!

Lift your blind faces to be filled with day,

And share his benediction with the flowers.

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During this Thanksgiving season, I challenge myself, and my readers to be thankful. I challenge you to write, create, sing, pray, drink coffee, celebrate yourself, your family, your colleagues, your profession, your contribution to the world.