November Rain

November rain washed away my guilt
November rain washed away my pain
November rain - so tired I felt
November rain was not just any rain

      -- Amy Phillips

My new place is beginning to take, I think.  It is home, I feel.  My old place was prodigious.  My new place is commodious.  The old place beefy.  The new place ethereal.  The old place solitary. The new place intimate.

I am not sure why there is a drive among us to aggrandize and to make a splash.  It is hard upkeep.  It is folly.  Smaller is better, I have learned.  Simply should trump complicated.  Uncluttered, complexed.  Plain, hard.

I tend to think that the same emotion drives us and our law practices treacherously into high rise buildings, with their travertine, their marble, their mahogany, glass and gold.  It is an attempt to make our law practices, which are abstract, appear tangible.  To make that which is ghostly, incarnate.  We want what we do to be tactile, as law is not.  We wish our practice to feel afferent.  We desire it to be apparent to our sensory cells.  We want to feel ample, and material, and solid and of substance that may be perceptible, discernible and beheld by others.

It is all deceitful, really.  It is knavish.  Delusory.  Mainly it is expensive, exhausting, and ruinous if not to our pocketbook, then to our soul.

The other night, however, I came to find the difference in the rain of November.

My old house was so big, and the roof so high, that the water from the rain would  coalesce and would come crashing to the ground.  More waterfall than dribble.  More pour down than spray.  More faucet than rain.

But here, anew, the first real rain of November came on strong this last Saturday.  I opened the windows and turned off the air and slept like I use to as a child.

Little thunder.  No lightening.  The rain fell in peaceful sheets.  Cooling the air.  Moistening  my breath.  Clearing my mind.  Cleaning my mood.

As it rained through the night, I slept like a child -- better than I have in years.

In the morning, when I awoke, the old rain was dripping softly from the trees.  The birds were chirping.  You could hear the squirrels scurrying about.  And, for a short time anyway, all was right in the World.

I was on my own terms.  Even if not a Sunday, I would not have to rush to make it to the office on time.  I could lay where I was and enjoy the simple elegance for a moment longer.  I could relax a bit more.  When ready, I could simply make my way across the small house to another room and ease into my work.

Keeping a office and a home is like maintaining two households with two families, each competing for your time, treasure and talent.  It can ruin all that for which you work.  It can destroy your peace of mind -- your spirit.

Like the poem, the November rain washed away my guilt.  It washed away my pain.  It left me settled and relaxed and in control or my World.

And, is this not what a work/life balance or a work/life blending is all about?  Is it not where you want to be?  Comfortable and at peace!

Comments

[Susan Cartier Liebel]

This is beautiful. Thank you.