The first full week of school, here and gone. It was also the first Friends of the Reach steering committee meeting. In my evaluation, I was told I was too abrupt, cold, distant, too high-handed with them. They are volunteers, so they must be appreciated.
Once upon a time, far away on an island, I used to bake for people. I used to be quite good at it, and it is amazing what a well turned scone will do to even the toughest temperament. I generally felt like I was held in minimal esteem by some of the more outspoken members of the committee, and my learning curve did nothing but frustrate them. So it's true, I had not felt particularly appreciative toward them. At the heart though, they were disappointed in my work, and that's on me for not doing it well enough, and not communicating well enough.
Plus, there are new members- members who are lovely and kind.
So I baked. Do I feel like a man in my position, especially one with more years on him would have been hammered on an eval for being abrupt, or cold? Does it help that I am a small female who looks almost a decade younger than she is, and is the youngest one in the room to begin with? Nope.
Soft power tactics. Is it a cop out? Maybe. Will it be effective? Probably not.
Did it put me in a better frame of mind, allowing me to view the committee as family coming into my house?
Yes.
Last year at the Kennedy Center Conference, Michael Kaiser talked about how non-profit institutions function best if they feel like a good family, if they feel like home to members, donors, employees, artists. If there's a warmth to to the place.
Since I am the entirety of the paid staff of the Reach, that warmth has to irradiate from me.
I have been away from that far off island for 19 months physically, but spiritually it has been closer to four years. That's when I stopped baking. No time to pass the time, you see.
When I cracked the spine of my preferred baking book, the scone page was covered with cooking grit, and Sunkist stickers. Hello, old friend. When I tried to cut the butter into the dry ingredients, I nearly killed Dave; the potential energy of the cutter wires finally overcame the nut holding the tool together, and the nut shot off like a bullet from a gun. Dave eventually found it in the dining room.
My preferred scone is orange-cranberry. The cranberries were easy to come by: I still had two ziplock bags full of them in the freezer from the last time Dave and I had gone picking on the island. The beautiful truth about cranberries is that they freeze marvelously. They'd spent untold hours in the back of three freezers as we made the move from house, to house, to house, and yet they were still in prime shape.
As I worked, I worried that I had lost my touch for baking, that the outcome of my effort would be more akin to stones than scones. Busted pastry cutter or not, it all worked out. The scones were decidedly edible.
I confess, I have no proper way to measure the effect on the committee. I felt better through the meeting, it was easier to listen and be open to their opinions, concerns, criticisms, etc. Additionally, my soul is a little lighter for having created something of substance, of reconnecting to a way of life I enjoyed, though it was long ago and far away. They put me at ease. There was a thank you gift on the table to remind me that gratitude is a good habit of life to get into.
On Monday (or more likely Tuesday), I will sit down for a meeting with the principal who says he has some feedback about the meeting that he thinks I will find useful.
Feedback. So crucial to the artistic process, but such a tricky thing. I have to be constantly willing to take it from anyone and everyone. Each of the members of this committee cares deeply about the Reach, about the community, about the kids. When they speak, they speak from a shiny place of hope and dreams, and they are articulating how the Reach should feel like home. Each has a particular angle, a particular care, wants to make sure I am catering enough to everyone.
I honestly don't know that I can.
Strike that- given enough time in the position, I could build the necessary relationships and programs, I could grow. I honestly believe I have the potential. I do know I do not have that kind of time, and that they have no patience for bromides about how a major empire was not built in a day. If feedback were fertilizer, we'd be in business; except that it's not been particularly measured, or balanced.
This whole journal is an attempt to recover from root burn.
The best feedback leaves you feeling energized, joyful, ready to run in an improved direction. How much of that is there going around, I wonder? I took the meeting in stride at the time. But yesterday I spent most of my time on the boat with Dave planning an escape from the job and the committee. I want to be able to focus, and have control over the shape of my work, the timeline, and feedback... this is to say I would rather be creating- written pieces, and digital storytelling.
Honestly, I think I wake up every day more and more certain that I would be better off spending time working for myself, because I have a much better idea of what my optimal growing conditions are than the committee who loves the Reach. They are forever committing themselves to the growth of the Reach, while not being very smart about the growth of the person whose job it is to bring the programs to fruition. It's like looking at a rose bush you just put in the ground and telling it "bloom damn you, and you need to throw multiple blooms at the same time, they need to be different colors, and all fragrant." Then when it is throwing energy into leaves and stalks, dismissing it for not being a rose bush. Oh, the impatient and highly involved gardeners.
The sad truth is that the Director is the Reach, that's how the job is designed.
Am I a rose? Yes. I certainly am. Am I the right variety for this job? Likely not. I am too slow growing, and don't grow well when given too much attention.
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