“These will be the girls’ choice, I don’t want to control everything,” Emily said, deferring to the individual taste requirements of her bridesmaids.
This sentiment, however, was short lived. It died a quick death when Emily fell in love with shoes with a three-inch sling back heel with giant silver bows. Before I could interject my objections, Zora pulled me aside.
“Drop zee fruit, Jessica.”
“Come again?”
“There is a psychological study done in Vienna with monkeys where they are given a large vase with a very skinny opening. They can get their hand into the bowl, but the fruit will never clear the small opening. Yet they try, over and over again. You, my dear girl, need to learn that lesson. Drop zee fruit.”
My opportunity to drop the fruit presented itself quickly. I relinquished any idea of changing Emily’s mind about anything when she insisted that we all would be wearing tiaras. Yes, we were all on our way to becoming pink princesses wearing crowns. This proliferation of girls as princesses was no doubt born out of the Disney marketing department that had co-opted every childhood girl character and transformed them into princesses. Even little Dora the intrepid explorer became Princess Dora in later episodes. Like the original Dora, I was the last holdout in this trend.
And that was not the only trend I had apparently missed out on while sitting behind my desk at work. There seemed to be this emboldened bar culture, where men and women met at bars and actually talked to one another. I was inexperienced on this front as well, and totally unprepared when a nice looking guy started up a conversation with me, bringing me out of my past recriminations into my present dilemma. He was as overdressed as I was. But, he, at least, had made an effort by taking off his tie to make his expensive suit appear more casual. My Tory Burch pants were a bold pattern coupled with a tasteful complimentary tunic. It was kind of like a suit, I supposed, and a bold contrast to the denim and T-shirt clad crowd hanging out at the bar.
“How do you know the bride?” he asked.
“From work,” I answered, adopting the attitude of a cagey witness protection character I had seen in a Lifetime movie.
“You work in fashion, right?”
“Right.” My lie twofold: not only didn’t I work in fashion, but I didn’t work at all, for that matter.
“I always can tell a fashion girl. I’m an energy trader.”
It figured, because he was coming on to me with enough energy to see the entire city through its next power emergency.
“What is that exactly?” I asked, dipping a tentative toe into the conversational waters.
“I’m on the floor at the exchange, buying energy stocks.”
“Sounds interesting. So what do you think about global warming?
“I’m a fan. I mean, who wants to be cold all the time?”
I had little time to ponder this before I spotted Emily who had hopped on top of the bar and began gyrating to the rhythm of Donna Summer’s Bad Girls, the ultimate good girl who had had too much to drink theme song. She seemed to be okay with one guy dancing around her, but when his friend who was also wearing denim with a flannel “grunge” inspired shirt, the mood suddenly shifted. Emily went from carefree bachelorette to Bambi caught in a car’s headlights. Like a good mama deer, I hopped onto the bar to rescue my fawn. I looked down and saw a sea of faces looking up at us, wondering what was going to happen next. Maybe a re-creation of Magic Mike right here on this bartop.
Despite her drunken state, Emily had the presence of mind at that point to know that this little dance exhibition of hers had gone too far, and she now wanted nothing more than to come down from the bar. The crowd booed, anxious to see how this show would end. I moved past one of the flannel-shirted guys and put my arms gently around Emily, guiding her down from the bar like the mother of a child misbehaving on the playground. “Come on now, honey, one step at a time, easy does it.” I reached for her hand.
But the boys would not go quietly.
“What are you, her mother?” one yelled at me and tried to grab Emily in the process.
Emily squealed. He and I started an awkward tug of war, with Emily as the rope. I pushed. He pulled. And before you could say Stanley Cup playoffs, it got worse, much worse. Emily lost her grip on both of us and tripped directly over the waitress who was serving potato skins and beer pitchers to a group of Islanders fans seated at the bar. Beer and appetizers flew everywhere. A snagged hand caused Emily’s condom necklace to break, sending gold foil squares flying through the air and scattering all over the floor as they rained down.
Fortunately, my energy trader friend quickly came to our rescue, Sir Galahad in a designer suit. I helped Emily to her feet as she tried to give the flannel-shirted dancing guys a piece of her mind.
“Okay Pearl Jam, why not try to find a girl who’s not getting married next time?” He interjected. Despite his convoluted syntax, I thought the dudes got the point of what he was trying to say.
Everyone now looked over at the commotion, many of them pulled away from the game on TV with the prospect of seeing a real life fight. Let’s face it, most people just watch hockey for the fights anyway. But these guys didn’t look like they had ever been in a fight before.
“Make me, banker boy,” said one of the men.
“I will,” the energy trader said with the simple confidence of a Marvel superhero facing down a bad guy.
As he lunged forward to swing, he slipped. Instead of landing a punch, he fell at the feet of two men, who decided that wrestling was more their sport of choice. They piled on top of the energy trader. And then my memory of events gets a little blurry; somehow, the three guys, in the process of wrestling, knocked into Emily, two bridesmaids, and me. We took a slow motion domino fall to the floor. After several unsuccessful attempts, I got up and reached down to help Emily, who was dazed but unharmed. Like a soldier on a reconnaissance mission, I rounded up my slippery troops, who were struggling to get up amidst the beer and condoms.
I had Emily by the arm and another bridesmaid by the shirt collar as we headed for the door, where Maggie was yelling, “Go, go, go.” She had taken charge of the other girls and was rushing them into the limo. We all piled back into the back of the limo as I removed a beer-soaked condom off my Tory Burch pants. I wondered if my dry cleaner was going to be able to get this stain out, and also what I was going to tell her about how I got the stain. I looked over at Maggie, who shook her head. I braced myself for more criticism, but instead she said, to my surprise, “Nice work, fancy pants.” I couldn’t believe how my chest swelled with pride at the thought of this compliment from Maggie. I didn’t have many friends. Scratch that, make that any friends. Maybe Maggie could help fill that gap. Stranger things had happened in my life.
In life, you are only one Google search away from finding what you need. A key word search for “entrepreneur, support retreat” provided an immediate answer to my employment malaise. Determined to continue my path to self-enlightenment, I signed up for “Finding your entrepreneurial spirit outside the cubicle,” after being enticed by the advertisement.
Learn about yourself in this natural hideaway, where the trappings of corporate life will melt away. Find out what you need to succeed on your own in this soul-searching intensive workshop, which includes group sharing, individual storytelling, and light refreshments. At weekend’s end, you will have the skills you need to get to the next level. Congratulations! You just signed up for the first day of the rest of your life. *Dress comfortably and bring bug spray.
The weekend promised group sharing around the campfire, nature walks to determine your animal spirit, and shamanistic-inspired healing circles, all of which would help participants live the life they imagined. After all, Thoreau went out to the woods, why shouldn’t I? My idea of camping, however, was a Courtyard by Marriot, a hotel that, for inexplicable reasons, does not have room service. In my previous life, th
e Ritz Carlton was reserved for authors while Courtyard by Marriott was reserved for publicists.
I learned this the hard way in Nashville, Tennessee, after attending the Southern Bookseller Association annual trade show several years back. After the show closed, I was looking forward to room service atop a fluffy, comfy hotel bed. Much to my surprise, the phone in my room had no room service button. In disbelief, I phoned the front desk for a replacement phone. When they reassured me the phone was working, I grew impatient.
“It must be an old phone, there’s no room service button.”
“We don’t have room service.”
“There must be some sort of mistake.”
“No mistake, no button, no room service.”
“No way.”
Roughing it was not a style I particularly enjoyed, but pushing through discomfort was, I believed, essential to my growth. The Zen Buddhists explain life as a struggle; once we push through the gift of discomfort, the true learning can begin. Struggling had now become part of my everyday existence, and if roughing it at a campground in the middle of New Jersey would provide my soul with a much-needed corporate detox, then let the healing begin, I said to myself.
But first, of course, I had to decide what to wear. A quick trip to Paragon Sports yielded new comfortable attire: cargo pants, a canteen, hiking boots, and a wide brimmed hat. I also purchased an extra-large bottle of OFF! Deep Woods (as the brochure suggested).
In the newly remodeled New Jersey Transit waiting area, the other Eastern Mountain Sports-clad New Yorkers broadcast sartorially that they were headed for the same destination I was. June Swann, our spiritual leader, corralled the troops by waving a large and somewhat noisy rain stick with a striped Hermes scarf tied onto the end. This method was usually reserved for rounding up retirees on a trip to the Vatican, but it worked just as well here in Penn Station, where we were looking for direction anywhere we could get it.
Our conspicuous rain stick-holder was a tall, tanned woman who had most likely not seen the inside off an office in many years. June was one of those people who is so comfortable with herself and her looks that she made you automatically start checking your hair, your teeth, and your newly purchased Paragon outfit for anything amiss or out of place. Her Tevas shoes and cargo pants were worn and well tested. Mine were brand new. She had been out in the woods. I was a novice. Not even one hour into my spiritual journey and already my Dolomite hiking boots were causing me painful blisters. If Zen enlightenment was measured in foot pain, then I was well on my way to the Promised Land.
The Promised Land, in our case, could be reached by a minivan. After taking an Artist’s Way class at the Hoboken Adult School, I had taken up journal writing as a way to awaken my deeper passions. Now, the peaceful ride to the country would provide a picturesque backdrop to my winsome (I hoped) prose. I felt exactly as I imagined Henry David Thoreau had, heading out to Walden Pond, with the exception of my Au Bon Pain to-go box, which included a Black Forest ham-and-brie wrap, a mini chocolate croissant, and a triple-berry smoothie, iPod, designer hiking clothes, fellow travelers similarly kitted-out, and electricity. Other than that, you could hardly tell the transcendental philosopher and me apart.
Outplacement proved to be a gateway drug to the endless world of self-improvement that I had sampled over the weeks since my forced retirement. For instance, there was Iyengar yoga for downsized employees at the Integral Center in Manhattan, which involved repeating the same postures over and over again and which proved to be the exact definition of insanity. The course was devised to break down the bad habits adopted in the workplace and to bring the participants to base awareness. There was a common theme between Iyengar and the corporate workplace: in the end, both had left me feeling uncomfortable and battered.
Then there was an attraction circle event led by a dainty blonde from California who promised that whatever you focused on would come to you. Unfortunately, the law of attraction did not account for the greed of the average human being, as many of the people in the group were greedily trying to attract Rob Lowe- or David Beckham-like creatures to sweep in and rescue them (and I have to confess that I include some men who were in the group here as well). Many simply chanted “Oprah, Oprah, Oprah,” to earn a spot on her couch as an expert guest without actually going through the hard work of being an expert in anything. The law of attraction might be better called the law of entitlement.
Next was a women’s group focused on empowering women entrepreneurs, designed for women and only women to help one another. The website boasted the unique nature of women, uniquely qualifying them to help one another. Unfortunately, the inherent competitiveness and need for popularity that is also inherent in some women did not make for the most nurturing environment. The group was run like a high school caste system where only the “in” crowd would have successful businesses. At one of the meetings, the two women owners needed to step out of the room to have a heated discussion about who had primary ownership of the company.
It was impossible to think that there were problems lying beneath the smiling façades of these dressed-to-be-hip ladies who had been featured in Fortune magazine’s entrepreneur issue. But something was lurking deeper within them. Just days after their magazine photo shoot, these two had ended up in court fighting over copyrights and intellectual property.
My attention was directed to the bevy of choices offered by life coaches. Life coaching is a great new way to go to therapy without the stigma of traditional therapy. A life coach plants himself or herself in your psyche with a coach’s whistle providing backup for all of life’s messy business. “Good for you holding the door for that elderly person,” or “nice lunch choice, low cholesterol and healthy veggies,” or “yup, that guy cut you off, all right.”
However, what life coaches really do is encourage you to move forward, not to look back at root causes. This is in direct opposition to what all the psychiatrists on the Upper West Side have been doing for decades. They want you to go back, far back to discover that your family is really the problem of all your insanity. Made sense to me. I mention this because “Let Go of Tolerances and Negative People” was an interesting event taught by a newly certified Life Coach named Linda Best. Her seminar also included two drinks, one appetizer, and a $25 coupon for life coaching sessions, and took place in the East 30s at, of all places, a karaoke bar. Fortunately, only a few singers briefly interrupted the seminar with their renditions of “Islands in the Stream” by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton and “Dude Looks Like a Lady” by Aerosmith, which was held during the bar’s downtime. During the latter part of the event, Linda spoke to us while dodging plates of buffalo wings and Mai Tais.
After two Mai Tais, most of the participants were ready to sign up for whatever life coaching services Linda was offering. I, on the other hand, headed over to the karaoke bar to enjoy a stunning rendition of Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian” sung by a 300-pound German tourist named Klaus. Linda may have been one step away from making balloon animals, but she sure knew how to throw a counseling session.
Upon review, as I sat in the minivan, this weekend was the next logical step in my evolution, a pastoral setting with fewer people and more exclusivity. Even though my fellow minivanners and I dressed the part, it was unclear if any of us would be able to change more than our outfits over the course of one weekend. At the minimum, we all hoped to erase that shell-shocked look that revealed our feelings of displacement after being given the corporate heave-ho.
Seated next to me was a peppy woman in her mid-50s.
“Nice to meet you. Molly Jarvis,” she said to me with a hefty handshake.
Molly was one of those people whom you had to call by first and last name, sort of like a suburban James Bond. Molly had a Midwestern accent that was immediately distinguishable when she began telling me about her job history, which began in the Twin Cities and ended up “out there to Long Island,” as she put it, m
aking it seem like she was describing a remote farming community. She had managed to ride the retail bumps of being a store manager for Target until a shiny new Walmart opened on the Sunrise Highway and put her store in the Carle Place (store number 2748) shopping center out of business.
Molly talked for most of the ride, until we hit traffic near Fort Lee, a New Jersey town legendary for traffic that backs up for miles near the entry to the George Washington Bridge. All that stopping and starting by the minivan driver lulled the portly store manager into slumber, for which I was mercifully thankful. With her head resting on my shoulder—I didn’t dare jostle her less she wake up and resume talking to me all over again—I looked at the window and began to wonder if the road to fulfillment really did have to cross Route 4 in New Jersey.
We finally arrive at the camp, which was located on a rustic patch of the Palisades International Parkway, where Native Americans once lived and George Washington’s troops did battle. Molly had researched the background of the camp and let me know that the family that had purchased the property in the early 1970s had run a very successful campground business until the early 1990s, when money troubles forced them to close.
As we arrive at the camp, we heard the sound of bagpipes coming from a large elevated cabin. This was likely where the campers had their big meals and meetings. The family, in an effort to recoup money, was renting the space out to whomever would pay. An elderly Scottish dance troop featuring mature men and women in kilts dancing to music played by an equally aged band had paid the $250 hall rental fee. Moving past the prancing highlanders, we were led to our accommodations, a series of small wood cabins designed to look like teepees. Molly, my unprompted tour guide, let me know that “wee people” had once inhabited the little teepees.
Best Friend for Hire Page 11