The Pits and Pieces

  This week I commuted into the office after about two years. Before COVID, I was already working from home three days a week, into the office for two. Around November of 2021, I returned to the office briefly a few times before reverting to solely work-from-home. But this past Wednesday – a commute back to the cubicle farm. And what a shock to my system it was. The drive to the train station in the still dark early morning, the crowded commuter train, the even more crowded subway platform and subway car. Commuters’ habits haven’t changed much: everyone eyes down on their phone, people blocking the doors on subways, backpacks bumping into you and all, without exception, looking as if they would rather be anywhere other than where they were. I took a walk at lunchtime and was surprised at the changes in the area – a new IKEA store, cranes, buildings demolished, restaurants closed, others opened, the smell of cannabis wafting everywhere. At the end of the day, I walked (lugging laptop)

  This is my sewing kit. Yes, it is, laugh if you must. Inside an old ice-cream container sits: one pin cushion, a soft tape measure, a few spools of thread, some random buttons, a packet of needles (unopened), and those iron-on hemming strips. I believe the pin cushion belonged to my mother. I’m not sure how it made its way to me. I don’t sew. A full five years or more after I moved here, while searching for a flexible measuring tape, I realized this sewing kit was still sitting in a cardboard box in my storage locker. It dawned on me . . . yeah, once upon a time I think I had a sewing kit. As you’ve deduced, my sewing skills are non-existent. My mother once had a sewing machine (the kind you cranked by hand) and attempted to teach me and my sister to use it, but I quickly abandoned the idea. Same for embroidery and knitting. I had one piece of embroidery that I dragged along with me for a few grades when we had ‘sewing class’ in school (restricted to the girls while the boys played

  Hello October. Fall is the season of change, of letting go. * This past week I had lunch with a friend who recently left a job where she was overworked and underpaid. She is close to me in age stuck it out in this job for a few years. But, as she just acknowledged to herself and me, she allowed the situation, allowed them to take advantage of her, didn’t stand up enough, and got sucked into believing she was indispensable, giving her ego a boost, but not her paycheck. As with so many conversations I have with older women these days, at this stage in life, we increasingly ask ourselves if this is how we want to spend our days. And these questions often bring a shift, a change, a movement towards that which fills our heart with joy. Sometimes the questions don’t have easy answers as we delve into why we remain in a situation, be it a job or partnership or friendship or living situation.   The obvious answer may not be the true answer; the obvious answer may be one that we have