Money bawl
I woke up with a start the other day. I sat bolt upright in bed, buried my face in my hand and sobbed, “I can’t believe it. I forgot to have a job!”
(Kids, for those of you not of my generation, this is a reference to an artist named Roy Lichtenstein and his famous 1980s print of a woman in a similar pose, except her caption reads: “I can’t believe it. I forgot to have children!” — which I also did, but that’s a column for another time.)
See, I recently turned 55, and there’s something about those double nickels that makes you stop and take stock, especially when so many friends and family members are beginning to downshift their careers. A certain someone I know gets fatigued from his three-day workweek. Others are trying to figure out how to divvy their time — winters spent skiing out west and summers on the coast, alternating between residences in Paris and Maine, deciding which foreign land to tackle next. Some are entering second, more fulfilling careers, or pulling up stakes to be closer to offspring.
And what am I doing? Looking for work.
That’s not exactly true. I have work. I’m lousy with work. I have enough work to see me through to my dying day. What I am lacking is work that pays properly.
Being self-employed in the arts in Maine has always been a challenge, but I’ve managed to scrape by, flying my freewheeling freelance flag in the face of anyone holding down a real job — especially when they start talking about their boring Roth IRAs and 401Ks. “Oh, yawn,” I’d say. “Me, I’ll be working till I drop.” I’d tap on my brain. “This is my retirement plan.” Which was hilarious when the idea of retirement was a distant city on a hill where silver foxes in Nantucket reds rode around in golf carts drinking Ensure martinis. “No thanks,” I said, “None of that for me.”
A couple years ago, when I was meeting with a financial planner, I was told I needed to do something to bolster my income or else I would have nothing more to bring to the table during the golden years than a dish of Alpo à la King. I had to explain to her that I had a job: the job of being Elizabeth Peavey. She said she understood. She told me her husband is a photographer who works very hard at his craft but realizes little income from it. Then she looked me squarely in the face and said, “So he keeps his day job. Unless you make money at something, it’s just a hobby.”
Ouch.
Of course, she was right, which is why I stopped seeing her and blithely skipped off to the beat of my own demented drummer.
Despite all odds, I have managed to eek out a nice little career for myself over the years. I am a prize-winning author of three books. My one-woman show, which I wrote, directed and performed, won the Maine Literary Award for best drama. And, though it’s already been seen by hundreds and hundreds of people, my most recent performance at the St. Lawrence last month played to an overflow crowd. I was an instructor of public speaking at USM for 20 years. I have taught creative nonfiction at UMF and countless writing workshops around the state for Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance, and have frequently been guest lecturer at the Stonecoast Writers’ Conference and its MFA program. In February, I was writer-in-residence for a week at Bay Path College in Massachusetts. I have been a contributor to Down East magazine for over 20 years, have three pieces in the July issue, and am currently shopping around a talk (titled “Out There”) that offers a behind-the-scenes look at some of my adventures. Since 1995, I have written a humor column — first for Casco Bay Weekly and now for this publication. I give lectures at schools, libraries and civic organizations across Maine. (Not to brag, but I recently proved during a talk I gave at George Stevens Academy, in Blue Hill, that I can hold the attention of 300 teens, whereas many parents I know can’t even do that with one.) I have a dedicated cadre of private editing and public-speaking clients. I am an award-winning copywriter, who still occasionally dips her pen in the trade. I have a collection of 207 coffee mugs from my multiple appearances on that show. (And, no, I didn’t kife them.)
So, I think that’s pretty good, don’t you? I mean, if I croaked tomorrow, you wouldn’t have to pad my obituary with “she enjoyed crocheting and collecting rocks with white lines in them.” Yet here I am, in the prime (according to financial analysts) of my earning years, doing the best work I’ve ever done as a writer, performer and educator, and making the salary of a part-time pool cleaner. What went wrong?
I blame Joni Mitchell.
I discovered her music in high school, and it was as though she became my Virgil, leading me out of the nine hellish rings of small-town Maine into the great heavenly “away.” The characters in her songs didn’t get up and wedge themselves into pantyhose and march off to jobs. They lolled in bed with milk and toast and honey and a bowl of oranges, too. They didn’t get married and start a family. They were too busy being free. Their hearts were full and hollow like a cactus tree. They didn’t put down roots and settle. They were lonely painters who lived in a box of paints. Hard to fit a Barcalounger and a Pack’N Play in one of those.
Well, that’s all well and good if you happen to have a recording contract with a big record label and sold-out stadium concerts and, you know, income. But I didn’t get that at the time. I was all about night flights and beach tar on my feet and being a prisoner of the white lines on the freeway (and using my parents’ credit card to finance my Boho dance).
I surrounded myself with likeminded travelers. The bulk of my employ during my twenties and early thirties was in restaurants. My cohorts and I sniggered at the working stiffs trudging into the bar at day’s end, trying to blot out the past eight hours of soul-crushing tedium. I spent my days penning my magnum opi, picking up a little cash at night. My friends and I were appalled at the thought of a measly two weeks of vacation. All we had to do was earn enough travel money and cover our shifts — then we could take off whenever we liked. I remember when the first person in my age group bought a house. All I could picture was the scene from The Wizard of Oz, the witch’s striped-stockinged feet poking out from under Dorothy’s house. That’s what jobs and marriage and homeownership looked like to me back then: being pinned by the weight of responsibility.
Even when I finally settled down and wed, at 40, and when John and I bought our first house, when I was 45, I still tra-la-la-ed the day away, earning just enough income to feel legit. Ponying up my share of the mortgage and bills was important to my Yankee pride, even though my very understanding husband, who has a very real job, said I didn’t have to. But if I couldn’t keep up my end of things, then what was I doing? Why did I get to not have a job, unlike the rest of the world? Huh?
This past year has been especially lean. As I have noted (ad nauseam) in this column, I lost my public-speaking class to budget cuts. Not that the princely adjunct salary I earned carried me, but it anchored my annual income. Also, as all my fellow writers know, the freelance market ain’t what it used to be. More and more often, people expect content to be free. Work still comes, but the gaps between gigs seem to have grown longer. And then you get in that game of perpetual catch-up.
Good God. Is being Elizabeth Peavey, indeed, only a hobby?
So, what am I to do? Get a real job? My friend Tanya refers to me as a “brother from another planet” as far as the workforce goes. The only full-time employ on my CV — 18 months as arts editor for Casco Bay Weekly — is not exactly going to get me the key to the executive washroom. Even my friend Bonnie, a real-job workforce dynamo who has helped me become more businesslike, just gives me a pitying look when I talk about launching a job search. Who would have me?
OK, maybe I shouldn’t have gone waltzing down all those red dirt roads. Maybe I should’ve had a little more forethought. Yet even though I have no idea what my future holds, I can’t see having lived my life any other way.
No regrets, Coyote.
Elizabeth Peavey is a founding member of the FWA (Feral Workers Association). For a full menu of her teaching, coaching, writing and editing services, visit her website, elizabethpeavey.com.
