Home Again, Home Again

So we’re back home, going from the gentle grace of a New Zealand summer to an all-out battle between Atlanta’s dying winter and newborn spring. Peachtree Street shrieks with gale-force winds, tornados swirl in the skies overhead, and no one seems to know how to dress anymore. Sweaters? Shorts? Coats? Shirt sleeves? Your choice doesn’t matter. Whatever you pulled out of the closet this morning will be inappropriate fifteen minutes from now.

After two and a half weeks away, I’m a different person. I’m … deflated. Depressurized. Less intense. More mellow. And, probably as a result, things here at home seem hard-edged, flinty, a bit too sharp around the edges.

This is particularly true at work, where everyone seems wound up, compressed, compulsive. Frantic energy fills the air. Requests stream in, divorced from any context or definition or statement of priority. A storm of distraction rages all around us: emails, text messages, more emails, reports, more emails, reminders, requests, self-imposed deadlines, and even more email. Simple conversations are torn apart by repeated interruptions. Everyone wants everything now, now, NOW!, and the entire staff seems just on the verge of gnawing on each other.

What’s sobering about all this: they haven’t changed.

It’s like this all the time.

The fact that I didn’t see this before means I’ve been so immersed in this way of working that I couldn’t see how strange and unsettling it is. Weirdness had become a way of life.

So … what to do? Equalize the pressure by spinning around and around and around ? Dash around until I’m moving as fast as the others are? Or struggle to maintain balance, keep the frenzy at arm’s length, and remain above the fray?

Some thinking to do. But, for now —

— just breathe.