Mourning Parking.

what is this.

Following is a brief vignette - a description of a scene which I half-observed, and half-participated in. Next up is a lightweight essay in which I will explore a handful of microcosms of broader behaviors and patterns which we are able to observe both within this scene, and in our shared world at large.

story.

"Woo!" she cheered, elfishly, into her mirror.

She'd finally done it! In her fifteen years of gleeful glazing at the grocery, she'd often arrived early.

But she'd never been there before four, before.

This morning was made for her!

She was going to make so many donuts. She was going to get out early on this perfect Saturday. Even if her kids were too busy to visit again, she was going to have energy for Pepper, the petite pupper, and she was going to read a bit of her new book.

She'd gotten a good night's rest, and even woke for her alarm on the scecond try - another personal best! On top of all of that, today&aspos;s weather was going to be flawless! She was ecstatic!

"Goddamn it!" shouted her equally-early coworker, less enthused.

"What's the matter?" she asked, her voice carrying slightly less of that charming chime she was known for.

"Boss gave me the key, but no code. We can't get in!" he replied as he jangled toward his truck.

"Oh, my! That's no good!" she chirped. "Can you call someone?"

"It's no use. Aside from Boss, Joss and Ross are the only ones who know the code. Boss took Saturday off, Ross has been MIA for weeks, and Joss refuses work contact outside her shift. She's not in until six. You've been here fifteen years, you know it's always like this. I'm going to get some sleep. You'd do well to do the same."

"Oh, that's okay... I think I'll sta-"

Her coworker starts his truck and pulls away.

"-just in case." and she turns and walks back to her truck, head hanging.

He had been right. She wasn't young. She had been through it. Seen how things were. She wasn't dumb, either - just courageously kind, if only through spite. She knew that this wasn't her forever home, and had never intended to be here this long.

But she hadn't only seen herself and others around her trading their freedom and their dreams for survival and other men's schemes. She had seen far too many could-have-been-good days soured like spoiled milk following small spills. She had also learned to see a little light peeping at the edges of this seemingly endless in-between.

Somehow, she had managed to find hope in that hometown grocery community.

And here came her other coworker, anyway. Surely, she would save the day. The Elf waved as she hopped down out of her truck and walked up to the green Chevy Cruze that had pulled into the lot nearby.

The driver rolled down the window.

Ahh! A man. Is he ho-

"-I'm a wanderer. Well, I'm from here, but I'm in a wandering phase. I'm not sleeping here or anything." he presciently over-explained.

"Oh, I- I don't care about that. I thought you were my coworker."

The wanderer smiled softly, and The Elf continued, loosely explaining what had just unfurled.

Following a brief conversation about the unfairness of her predicament, the wanderer gave The Elf such a kind compliment about her energy that, although she could no longer recall his words, she did remember feeling validated and seen in her defiant kindness all day.

essay.

Intro.

In this damn near rudderless world, we often find ourselves beholden to certain overarching currents which envelop us.

To begin, let us ask ourselves some questions, and do our best to hold these with us as we continue:

• What can we learn about freedom and traditional work?
• What thoughts does this trigger regarding resilience?
• Where did The Elf's unpaid efforts go?
• What sort of emotional journey did The Elf endure, and what will be the effect of that on the rest of her week?
• What sort of person tends to find themself in positions like this? Do you see any parallels in your life?

Upon dissection of The Elf's vignette, I am able to observe, at once - within both our key-clanking Goblin and our sugar sweet Elf - past and future fragments of a fractured, mirrored self. What about you?

What do you see when you dig real deep?

Resilience and Freedom.

A friend of mine recently expressed, in her way, resentment at having received so many compliments on her resilience. She also expressed that this resentment stems from her possession of two deeply human desires:

• One for connection
• The other for comfort

It was her position that all these compliments on her resilience had felt more like comments on her ability to take a hit when the only contact she'd wanted to take was something like a hug, at best.

I can't blame her for holding her position. It seems to me a common enough sentiment. We all wish for peace and comfort from time to time. It is a normal and natural thing to do, in this chaotic planet of constant static. Human beings and elfs alike are most able to express our best selves when our nervous systems are operating within a bandwidth of stability and relative calm. That much is certain.

What is less clear is how we can arrive at that stable bandwidth when this turbulent world bats us back and forth like a small ship in a sea storm that was somehow designed by a cat.

We can and we should wish for a gentler world. Aiming for peace is the only way for us to achieve it, after all, and there is no reason why this world shouldn't be a kinder place than it is. We humans are Earth's Game Masters. Collective survival is a non-zero-sum game in a world of abundance. That is, when there is enough to go around, everyone can win.

Now, flip that coin.

Our current world isn't kinder, and isn't gentler than it is. Yet, still, we must live here. Previous generations of Earth's Game Masters, doing the best they could with what they had at the time, misunderstood survival as a zero-sum game (there must be a winner AND a loser, with the loser fully losing and the winner fully winning). In a world of scarcity, it often is. Or seems so.

This tells me that until a strong majority of our species can heal its collective survival wounds, things will continue on in turbulence. How do we prepare ourselves for that? How do survive this continued reality?

In a world of scarcity, resilience is worth galaxies more than gold.

Resilience - which constantly buys us additional attempts at surviving, winning, and thriving - is the life raft which will float us home after our wishes have washed themselves down Earth's River of Chaos. The Elf carried her resilience much in the same way as so many others do today: quietly, her smile a dam holding back tears.

The Elf deserves her freedom. She put forth effort, she hustled, and still, for no fault of her own, she saw no reward. That isn't right. Her resilience surely carried her through the remainder of her Lost Saturday. She no doubt showed up to work smiling the next day - if at 6 AM instead of 4.

She will never complain. I will do so for her.

closing thoughts.

Similar stories abound in workplaces all around.

How many would-be da Vincis, Einsteins, Hypatias of Alexandria, and Julia Childs in the making are out their pouring their souls instead into spaces where their bossess won't honor their waiting?

What do you suppose The Elf baked when she made it home?