For the past couple years, I've found myself again and again in a reverie about a sabbatical. I need a period of time in which I find myself doing something really different. But I also see myself to be locked into some patterns that make it very hard to imagine large chunks of time spent differently.

It's the strangest thing. I do my work, and people are almost always warm and appreciative. And yet, I'm not positively affected by their support and kindness. I believe what they say, but it doesn't seem to make much difference. So for the last couple years, I've been increasingly driving to meetings with a combination of exhaustion and boredom.

A while back, I decided to take notes about my work. Some conclusions:

1. The client usually tells me of my value and contribution, but I don't feel it or get satisfaction from it. I arrive home from work and feel that time has been lost from other more fun things that I might be doing.

2. I find myself thinking the same way, and saying the same things. For the job at hand, it's good thinking, and the right stuff to say. But it feels really old...

3. Looking back, I can hardly remember those assignments where I know that I worked closely and intensely with people with whom felt great connection. Many of those relationships - and the rewarding senses of connection - have faded away. The work is forgotten.

I've started to turn down work. At this point 10 potential clients are on the "sorry" list. I can't bring myself to take the work.

Clearly, these are mid-life issues, and when I look in on myself I can easily remind myself of all the forms of my good fortune. "Why not accept and embrace exactly the life you have?" Ah, my Buddhist conflict! And here a double bind: My current, existential dissatisfactions are made doubly worse by the part of me that then sees these thoughts as completely illegitimate. Compulsions! Defilements! Cravings!

I do have to work. I have to support four people. But I've saved some money and have a very light load of higher paying work coming throughout the spring. Three days a month of work and I can make it through October. I could really have a lot of open time if I want it.

A quasi-sabbatical would mean a very different daily experience. I can't yet figure out what that might be, and what I really need is the time to simply hang around and see what emerges. But my ideas are as follows:

A. I'm going to substantially enhance my guitar playing.

1. Woodshedding on my own: I want to read music better and know tonal centers. I want to have the improvisational tools I need to read any chart. I need to comp really well.

2. Playing music with others: I want to have musical experiences with people who are at roughly the same level of ability as I am. But I don't really know what that means. There are so many people out there playing so many kinds of music.

3. Taking lessons, learning from others: I don't quite know what to do about this. There are so many options

But here are a couple samples of me playing with Paul in my office:

Clip #1 Jazz Guitar Example #1

Clip #2 Jazz Guitar Example #2


B. Travel: What am I going to do?

After all these international trips, I'm totally ambivalent about being anywhere other than sitting in the desert. All foreign trips have me thinking "been there..." Every time I bring to my mind the image of a foreign country, and me traveling through it, I have a lot of misgivings.

Maybe there are other purposes. My only leading thought was inspiration via, say, going to Brazil and listening to music at night, practicing during the day. That would be cool.

(I've just been back in a reverie about Brazil... In fact, I got in a reverie once before, as I drove out of Arches and imagined getting some bossa nova instruction in Brazil. Reflecting on this, I don't think it is about instruction as much as listening, going out, and practicing. But it's such a production to put it all together, and then there I am using up my time doing something I've done again and again. Not new. Not risking. And not even practicing my Spanish. Rio is really far away. It requires three flights minimum from Seattle.

And then, there is a solar eclipse in Ghana next year!!!

C. I want to think about this business I am in.

What is it that I do? Should I keep doing it? What new ways can I help my clients? I think I need to really hunker down and read and think and write.

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In thinking about a sabbatical, I will have a terrifically difficult time saying no to all my friends who want to get together, and to clients who call and warmly ask if I am available. My of these clients themselves are quasi friends, and I feel all sorts of obligations.

But it really is time to make a break. A couple years ago, I tried to do it - I remember sitting with Glenn and telling him how I was going to be gone a couple months, blah, blah.... In fact, I can think of a number of discussions. But it always sort of peters out as opportunities arise.

Maybe it's that I want to feel a sense of risk-taking.

But now I really know it is going to happen. Through October, which allows a trip back to Nepal.
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Sophie (14), Jack (7) On the Amtrak from Vancouver.