Pearl River      I’m not sure whether work-life balance is still a thing?  It probably is, but it’s not something that I think – or really know – much about.  Recently, it came up in something I read, so I wondered what kind of balance I might find on a random day; yesterday for example.

A major theme, somewhere between work and life, was the weather.  A fierce cold wave has swept from the East Coast of the United States down to the South where I live.  Days ago, following an annual meeting of our organizers, many were stranded as roads crew icy and flights were cancelled.  None of that was exactly personal except when it comes to the amount of attention and worry that below freezing temperatures bring to water pipes.  In the fall, I had spent time and effort insulating pipes and well houses at the camp and cabin where we often go in Mississippi and Arkansas.  Now with plummeting temperatures I drove to the camp to stand vigil against the freeze.  So far so good, but honesty forces me to admit that a good part of my day was spent going back and forth on my phone and computer to check the weather everywhere, hoping that our preparations were adequate and how back the temperatures might be falling, even while admitting my powerlessness.

I maintain my daily predawn walk, listening to an audiobook along the way. Though no longer accompanied by my now departed dog, who had enforced some of the discipline in the routine, I sometimes unconsciously head for her water and food bowls, before mounting the steps to the door.  I read three papers online, as part of my work, while eating my breakfast and catching the scores for the Pelicans, which counts as life.  I figure out and finish the blog, after reading the excellent commentaries in the New York Review of Books about the political and social situation in Venezuela from both a Latin American and British-infused perspective, and wonder how anyone could have supported Machado, the far-right opposition leader, to be forcibly inserted as president without an election and after begging for an inexcusable American invasion and kidnapping.  I ponder once again how you win a peace prize while calling for war?  Once again, something I can do little about, even while trying to figure out if I could.

I answer emails, discuss progress with the union staff and their plans for the month, chat about structural and personnel issues with one of ACORN’s affiliate head organizers, review some bargaining proposals, check account deposits, correspond with a radio engineer about translator applications, realizing that it’s an area where I’m clueless about our interests, and check the weather some more, while walking to the dock on the bayou and wondering how it can be so warm, even while expecting the cold.  An old comrade and friend calls out of the blue to tell me of another comrade’s death, and then we bemoan the lack of organizing among benefit recipients compared to when we began as organizers and how hard it is to raise money.  I answer an email from another boon companion about the schedule of events for our daughter’s upcoming wedding.

I drive into town to the Hancock County Planning and Permits department to make sure we had done everything necessary to clean up at last weekend’s meeting space.  They had heard no complaints, but when I tried to book for the next one, I was told to wait until June to do so.  I got gas and bought a 4-shot decaf espresso for mi companera, even while shaking my head as I got back in the truck that it cost more than seven dollars.  Once back, I worked awhile on prep for an upcoming directors’ call, answered more emails, scheduled a radio interview about protests, and read 50-pages to prep for one on diversity.  While eating a microwave dinner, I finished the current Harpers and New Yorker, then sent an article on the student rebellion in Bangladesh from the London Review of Books to a documentary maker and friend who was scheduled to travel there.  Later that evening, we watched three more episodes of “Yellowstone” in the fifth season, and both promised to remember to cancel the subscription to Peacock for February.

Was this a typical day?  Maybe, yes, maybe, no?  Is there such a thing?  Did work and life balance somehow?  It all seemed to work out.  I’m still not the one to ask, but it seems the real story on work-life balance is that we do what we have to do, when we have to do it.  It’s all one gumbo mixed together.  There’s no way to segregate or wall off one from the other.  I do what has to be done.  Don’t we all?