Wake Me Up When September Ends

September has always been one of those unpleasant months. When I was a kid, of course, it meant the end of summer and the start of school. Once you get older and "summer" starts to lose it's meaning (especially in L.A.--who knows what season it is out here?), it still has very little personality. Like many across the country, I've spent September of 2009 in an unsuccessful search for employment, so the month has been even duller than usual.

There's a lot of depression that goes with unemployment, especially in a country where the good ole Protestant Work Ethic (harder workers must be better people) is still so entrenched. I can't speak for everyone, but it has definitely helped me to keep reminding myself that who I am isn't necessarily tied to what I do (or don't do) for money. I've been writing a lot (not on this blog, obviously, but I'm working to remedy that) and even if I haven't seen a cent for all the work, it still goes a long way to stave off the fears and depression that go along with having to worry about where my next meal is coming from.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to be making money right now, at writing or anything else. But it helps to get away from thinking that the merit of an activity is tied into the financial reward. Unemployment is a scary thing, poverty is a terrifying thing, but neither one has to steal the things that matter.

October is going to be another tough month for sure; there's a very real possibility that I might go from simply unemployed to homeless and unemployed. It's happening to so many people my age who piled up the student loans thinking for sure there would be something out there for them, only to find themselves with piles of debt and no job prospects. Poverty takes an awful lot from us, but what I keep telling myself, and what I would tell any of the millions of people struggling though a similar situation, is that it doesn't have to take away who you are. It's a tired old cliche, but the important things in life don't come included in a paycheck.

So I will keep writing and keep searching and keep hoping. September's over at last. It can't get any worse, can it?

Roving Bands of Historians...

Friedrich's 'The Wanderer Above the Mists'--This painting also works great in posts about finding yourself or moving to a new town. Try it.

Now is not the best time to be looking for a job. But things could always be worse. I had a history professor in college who specialized in the Great Depression (actually I believe he specialized in the writings of upper class post Civil War Southerners and their reaction to losing the war) but the point is he knew a lot about the Great Depression.

Among other things, he told us students that during the 30’s, “roving bands of unemployed historians” would travel from town to town in search of work. The thing is, there’s not much employment for wandering historians even in the best of times, so I’m a little confused about what these roving academics were searching for.

The Great Depression is an evocative era on its own, and we’ve all seen the dingy black and white photographs that capture the desperation. But nothing quite sells the idea of “things are terrible” more than a bunch of spectacled experts on Charlemagne or the Ming Dynasty moving in nomadic camps across the country in search of a place to ply their trade. It makes the skin crawl.

So even though things look bad right now, it is best to keep in mind those “roving bands of unemployed historians” and be grateful that these days unemployed historians are generally confined to their parent’s homes. Besides, it helps take the mind off my professor’s other favorite quote about the Great Depression, a line from William Butler Yeats' poem “The Second Coming”: “Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold.” That’s no fun.