my (f)unemployment era
Hi!!
How are you? If you’re in Seattle, I hope you’re staying cozy and warm indoors now that the rain is back. We are in the throes of winter, y’all. We were so lucky to have the dry/cold weather the past couple of weeks!!
Today I wanted to share a fun little post on how I spent my unemployed two weeks earlier in January. It was a dream not having a single thing to worry about, work-wise, but even more so, I’m 100% grateful and aware of the privilege to be able to do so. My main priorities during my funemployment era were to: 1) get outside and out of my neighborhood, 2) reconnect with friends I definitely neglected for the past year (sorry and thank you for understanding 🫶🏻), 3) investigate opportunities to do more activism, organizing, and volunteering, and last but certainly not least, 4) recharge and recover.
Being that it was the start of the new year, I know that myself, along with many others, feel a sense of a refresh/new beginning, so that was definitely helpful in guiding me to really lean into my two weeks of funemployment. At the same time, one of my friends started a book club for The Artist’s Way. I don’t usually like to participate in book clubs because I love having the agency to read what I want, whenever I want, but this book is different because it’s a guide of sorts, and something you work through over 10+ weeks. What better way to recover my artist than with a group of other artists?! It’s been an eye-opening experience so far and truly something I look forward to each week.
Otherwise, I’ve been dedicating time to researching what organizing is being done in Seattle right now. It’s been challenging to find a central group of resources and people, but I was fortunate to have reached out to an old friend who has connections to that space (thank you, Initiative 135 for reconnecting us! Y’all, vote YES by 2/14!!). Reaching out in general to old friends has been so invigorating: in part to see how they’ve changed, what their visions are now these days, etc.
The rest of my time has been spent doing lots of reading (of course), urban hiking, drawing on my lil iPad, and overall relaxing and getting lots of rest. It was heaven, I have to say. Enjoy the photo diary…
Feeling v v grateful for this new chapter of my life – cheers to a new-ish beginning!!
Jen x