I finally have an “in” with the artsy community in my area, and it’s lovely.
The guys I hung out with last night are anything but the pretentious artsy-fartsy a*holes I remember from D.C. Now, I miss me some Washington because we have a whopping two art museums in my new world and I’d give my left ass cheek for a visit to a bona fide Smithsonian.
But life in Florida is different in general — slower, more casual, definitely boozier — and my new friends live in the Keys, where “slow” life is pretty much in “damn near stop” mode.
And I love it.
Everyone was so authentic, in an otherwise-plastic community. I have long called this “South New York,” where northeasterners (from Jersey to eastern Canada) migrate and share their hurry-up-already attitudes and complaints about everything. I look forward to the end of snowbird season. I’m no longer one of them. There is nothing in this world worth hurrying toward. Really.
Anyway, I am sort of anomaly, because I think I have been very well-trained in business. I can recite human resources policies, procedures and case laws like the prim and proper professional I was raised to be. Dress codes, performance-improvement plans and pantyhose are ingrained in my psyche.
Yet I was always a bit of a rebel. I always found ways to toe the line between what was expected of me and how I really wanted to act.
No one has ever been able to silence me, though. I thought long and hard about what an old V.P. said to me last week, that I must have had a personality transplant. It was against him and so many like him that I rebelled.
I never wanted to fit into anybody’s expectations, any more so than I had to, to keep my job. I cussed, I walked around barefoot. (I’ll get you on your “no open-toed shoes” rule!) I hung out with whomever the hell I respected, regardless of whether they could help me further my career. I didn’t shut up and smile when I had a flood of raw passion and frustration that I wanted someone, anyone to acknowledge.
I could write a book about how to “walk the line.” But I’d be the first one to burn it and accuse myself of selling out.
The artists, ah. Now there are some kindred spirits. They paint. They make interesting frames. They drink vodka. They are all friends who sail and travel the world together. They dress the way they want, they say what they want, and they are generous with strangers and friends alike.
I guess what I’m saying is that we are reared in the corporate culture to revere the CEO and vice presidents. That they worked hard and put in a few decades’ worth of work to get to where they are. And I am not saying that some of them aren’t respectable, hella cool individuals. But that’s not the side of them that is typically exposed to us.
One thing I learned, in retrospect, is that all supervisors are men. Even if they have girl parts. I don’t know why, as a subordinate, I felt I didn’t have to manage female superiors the same as the males of my past lives. That was an expensive lesson.
I thought that by being “friends” — with all of its honesty, patience and understanding — was the ticket. It’s not. Maybe to a deeper degree, sure. But in the end, managers are asexual. They all want to look good. At the end of the day, it’s their asses on the line, and there isn’t room in the closing credits for any other names.
That’s not always the case. I remember a female friend giving another female friend the advice that it’s the women who will help her along in her career, more so than the men in power. It’s something she has carried with her, and it was sound advice. It’s always been the women in my career that have opened the doors and held them open for the females like me who were rising up behind them.
But my friend is way more worldly than most. She was never threatened. We realized early on that when we teamed up, we were twice as powerful as those in front of us who were trying to hold the doors closed to prevent our entry. And yes, that inner circle included women who just couldn’t give up the territory that they’d fought so hard to claim.
In any case, it was lovely to hang with creative people who come and go as they please. In the middle of the party (circa 11 p.m.), they started painting because that’s when inspiration struck. Nobody was asking “Father, may I?” or worrying that the guy whose name is on the gallery would care that his buddies/partners were going to outshine him with their own contribution to the beauty that surrounded us.
While my own stick-figure scrawls will never gain me entry into the gallery crew, I loved it that they welcomed me as someone who gets them and appreciates their quirks as not just character, but as what makes them successful.
Imagine, doing what you love, making money at it, living where you want and spending your days creating beauty and sailing the high seas at will for inspiration or relaxation. (Or both.)
This bohemian life is calling to me. I remain with one foot solidly planted in my field. But I am hoping to plant the other foot somewhere in this colorful world to give me an outlet for the authenticity that seems to have no place anywhere else.
But god bless the goat cheese dip and fried hot dog for soaking up enough that I could get home safely.
But the first step on the road to recovery is coming clean, yes?
