For years in North Carolina and in Georgia, the background on my computers at work have been some oceanscape.  Waves lapping on a beach, the view from a sail boat, or small island.  Without fail, the first thing I do when I get a new computer at work is change the background from whatever the default it, to something ocean or island related.

I’m a little obsessed with water; ocean, river and lake front properties make me drool. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that some of my favorite cities, San Francisco, Boston, Madison, and Miami are, in one way or another, on the water.  I blame my parents for this.

The nearest beach was about a three hour drive from where I grew up in  North Carolina and we would often head to the beach spontaneously for the day, an overnight or a long luxurious weekend. Driving to the beach and letting us kids splash around for a few hours, getting a great seafood meal, and driving home the same night was an easy and inexpensive way to trick us kids into behaving and to stop us from complaining that we never went anywhere. Dad (when he was there) or mom would load us into the station wagon and head for one or the other of our favorite beach spots.

I thought about this today. I’m at work wishing to high heaven that I was somewhere else.  I looked at the background of my island paradise on my computer, tried to go to my happy place, couldn’t and got a little angry.  I got so frustrated suddenly that I HAD to; ABSOLUTELY had to, change the picture.

So I did a google search on ocean pictures and found this one and I liked it. I could feel a headache coming on, so I took some deep breaths and stared at my new backdrop.

I can almost feel the heat and the dampness of the air.  I, just when I close my eyes, can smell the salt and sand coming off the water.  If I concentrate just a little bit, I can feel the lushness of the flowers. I run my fingers through the soft grittiness and smell the heady aroma of the dirt that produces such beautiful plant life. I relax just a little as I imagine myself in one of those corona commercials.  Beer in one hand, book in the other. No need for ipods, the world is my soundtrack. Ah, the life.

Don’t think that I’m just here getting my tan on at the beach.  After a morning swim, and a short “meditation” from my beach chair; I shower, dress (in something small and flowy, because it’s hot and I’m at home) and settle in my office for the day.

Where is my office, you ask? A screened-in porch at the back of my “house” where I can see and smell the ocean and hear the sounds of the birds and the waves.

In my office, I go to my computer and I write. I’m not sure yet what I’m writing. But I am. And, somehow, I know that I’m making people happy. And I’m making me happy.

And this is my life. Someone pays me to do this.

Suddenly, I am snapped out of my reverie by a ringing phone or a irritating laugh of a co-worker in a nearby cube. I shake my head and go back to reading the 50 page bill on my desk.  The one for which I’ve been asked to prepare a fiscal analysis. This analysis, like the other analyses I’ve done over the past six months, won’t make a huge difference in the world.

I glance back at my new happy place on my computer background.  One day.My

Lately, I had a lot of time to think about water.  Here in Atlanta, it has been raining almost non-stop for about 15 days.  Yesterday, I walked in the rain for a bit and watched the path of the water flowing down the street. I often left my cube, to see how the rain was affecting traffic patterns. I observed the splashes of water on the roads, I crossed a bridge over the Chattahoochee River, I watched new reports of people drowning.

I love the way the clouds sit between the buildings.

And I started thinking that there was a blog post somewhere in all this observation. I decided to start writing and see where it all lead.

1.  Water takes the path of least resistance, downward. I watched a stream of water flow down one street, hit the curb at corner, turn left and flow down another street.  I wanted to see where it was all going, so I followed it for a bit.  It flowed for a while until it came to another, lower street where it flowed until it found a drain.

2. Water has a one-track mind; when flowing, water goes in only one direction.  In every instance that I observed a flowing body of water, all of it was moving in the same direction.

3. Water is fickle. The least bit of disturbance would cause it to redirect its path.

I love to run around with my camera. I was hoping for a view of the interstate, but it was raining too hard.

4.  Water always finds a way to get where it wants to go. No matter what obstacles are in water’s way, it will go around, through or under them all to continue on it’s journey.

5.  Water has a “mind” of its own.  No matter how many time we whined that we wished it would stop raining, it didn’t stop. No matter how many people cried for their homes and families to be spared the destructive power of the flood, they weren’t. Poor neighborhoods and rich neighborhoods (and everyone in between) was affected by the storm.

I was going to go through and relate each of these water thoughts to life, the job search, being a twenty-something, learning, perseverance, crowd-sourcing or any number of things. Then I decided not to.

What do theye things mean to you? To flow or not.

I’ve been looking for my passion.  I’ve been looking for it for a long time.  I, like a lot of 20-somethings around me have been spending our young adulthood trying to figure out what the hell we are supposed to do, or figuring out how to get from a place of “I know what I want to do” to a place of “I’m doing what I’m supposed to do”.

 I’m still in the “Hell if I know, but I’m working on it” category.  But I think a lot about it. 

Tuesday mornings are the time that I work on my Master’s Thesis, and right now I’m reading for my literature review.  Today I picked up Richard Florida’s Cities and the Creative Class.  (In my thesis, I have to prove that cities are important- and that the best cities are the cool cities. I KNOW, viscerally, that this is true. I just have to prove that the eggheads agree with me)

 In the introduction of the book, Florida talks about his background, his childhood, his experiences, and how they shaped his future research and the catalog of books he’s written. He talked about how visiting his father’s factory job influenced him to be interested in technological advancement and how the closing of that plant caused him to be interested in economic growth.

 I had only read a few pages at that point but I had to stop and think.  What, if anything, in my childhood, has shaped my interests, research, and just maybe, my passions?

 I’ve been thinking about this, in one way or another, since this summer.  My friend, L , and I would spend hours at work talking about MPA classes and what each of us has learned at school, our work styles (she’s into details, and I’m into the big picture) , and how these things could be merged into a career somehow. The conversations would, invariably, return to the things that we enjoyed as a child and wouldn’t it be cool if we could do that for a living?

 Our conclusion surprised the both of us, and I would often leave the conversation trying to figure out how the hell we’ve ended up where we are. Neither of us are your average government bureaucrats.

She’s an interior designer at heart- and truly, the girl designed everything. She is the posterchild for form meeting function. She’s so good at it. 

As for me, I’ve recently rediscoved writing. Apparently, I have been writing for as long as I remember. My sister, while she was cleaning my old room this summer, found chapters of a book I started to write in middle school. She found stacks of poems and journals. The little bi-atch read my old diaries-with my mother, no less.  Then they called to laugh at me, and read me passages. (gotta love my family)

Additionally, or maybe most importantly,  I have been OBSESSED with houses and neighborhoods and architecture for forever.  

 For a while, I too wanted to be an interior designer. But I knew that every house would reeflect my style and not the style of the client. (I knew that was bad)  I want every house to feel like home (my home, lol).  

I remember, during church, I would find myself drawing log cabins (how many windows should be on the front?) and designing streets (I hate cul de sacs), neighborhoods (lots of people should live together) and whole cities (I love skylines) . But they were just silly doodles, right? They didn’t mean anything, right?

 Silly, silly me. 

My experiences

We moved around a lot as a kid, and some of the places we lived were great for a young girl obsessed with living spaces.  Once we lived in Raleigh for a few months, and we have a 3 story townhouse. It was beautiful.  It has winding staircases, cathedral ceilings, a finished basement with arcade games, a huge patio, bedrooms for everyone, and lots of stuff that I can’t remember, but that I loved.

 And once we lived in Georgia, and we had an awesome neighborhood.  There were always lots of people outside, kids everywhere, and everyone was so friendly.  I still remember what our phone number was.  I was 3-4 and my mother made me memorize it. 

For the majority of my childhood, I lived in a not-so great house, with no neighbors (other than family) and no neighborhood to speak of.  I remember wanting, so badly to live somewhere nicer. I wanted to live somewhere not covered in dirt or kudzu. I mean, we lived in the COUNTRY. And I wanted out. I wanted to love someplace shiny, clean.  I wanted to live near the bright lights.

 I thought I wanted to live in the city, dammit.

 (As an aside, I lived in the city this summer.  If Atlanta is representative of American’s cities, I don’t want to live there either. )

 In high school, my favorite class was Civics.  I spend most of the year in class watching the Democratic primary (featuring a charming southern governor) and learning the purpose and functions of government. Government seemed like the perfect place for someone who wanted to make stuff happen. (someone like, ahem, me)

 My senior year, I fell into my first local government job. A friend of mine had the job, she was going to college, and she recommended that the agency hire me to take her place.  Since then, minus hell year that I spend in 1^st grade, I have always worked in local government.

 In college, I lived in Winston Salem. Part of the draw for Winston was that I thought it was a bigger, brighter city than Chapel Hill.  I was pissed off and confused because they lured me in with their skyline (it still makes me smile) and then I got downtown and it was not the mecca that I expected.  Instead it alternated between being a complete ghost town and a place most likely to get a. shot b. drugged c. raped d. hit on by a transvestite.

 Now, in any new place I visit, I always want to see the neighborhoods. Where do people actually live? Where do they play?  I’m inexplicably drawn to the lights of downtown. For years,  I have explored where and how other people live. I want to see the housing styles and the feel of the neighborhood. I am a huge fan of the Parade of Homes.

So, does ANY of this have to do me with finding my passion?

 Just a little bit.

 Housing. Neighborhoods. Cities. Writing. These are the things that I care about. These are the things that I have always cared about- even when I didn’t realize it.

 Here I sit, in graduate school, thinking that I should study budgeting, finance, planning and land use.  But instead, I am still obsessed with housing, neighborhoods, and cities.

 My personal dramas and experiences have definitively shaped my most priced intellectual thoughts. I can’t tell you how proud I am of the writing I’ve done this semester, regardless of  how rushed or stressed I felt while doing it. The classes that I am taking this and next semester make me so happy.  They are the reason that I came to graduate school.

 I am finally in a position to bring to fruition all the things that I wanted as a child/teen/young adult but didn’t quite know how/what to do.

 Yes, I want to take over the world. Yes, I want to be a Queen, Ruler of the Universe. And yes, I think about how accomplish these things, daily. (no, seriously, I do)

 Most importantly, however,  I really want to make the world a better place for all of us to live, work, and play.