Category: Gratitude

So long, Surely Joy

Julie Fanselow

It’s been six months since I last posted here. I’ve known for nearly that long that I’d be putting this blog to bed. It’s time to write a few words about why.

“Putting this to bed” is a term I probably learned in my first weeks of journalism school when I worked on the copy desk at The Post, Ohio University’s student newspaper. Every night Sunday through Thursday, we’d write the last headlines, give everything one more look after the layout guys completed their work, pile into a car, and take the pages — safe in a big flat box — to the printing plant. After that, we’d often pile into a booth at a late-night diner. We’d do it again the next day, yet in the news cycles of the 1980s, each day had an ending: a chance to say, OK, that’s done.

Endings are a lot blurrier these days. It’s been months since I’ve felt compelled to write here. But how do I know when I am done? How does anyone know when anything is finished?

The easiest answer is that I am practicing something I’ll be doing for the rest of my life, and especially my professional life: letting go. For a very long time, work was a big source of meaning for me. Now it’s not. For decades, I have processed things by “writing out loud” about them. Now I’m more likely to do so while walking alone or talking with friends, and often while traveling — my greatest source of meaning and revelation.

As I wrote last summer when I turned 60, I likely have a third of my life ahead of me. I want to spend a steadily decreasing amount of it looking at a screen of any kind. I also know that the media landscape I grew up in no longer exists and I have little taste for the frenetic new one; I have no desire to build a platform, launch a podcast, or even spend much time on social media.

With my good health and modest means, it will be wise and necessary for me to keep working most of this decade. But I have already arrived at a place where being content is more precious to me than producing content. My part-time job in guest services is the work I love the most, yet I’ll have no trouble completely giving up a paycheck of any kind when I know the time is right. Meanwhile, I will keep doing good work, but steadily less of it, as I continue on the glide path toward that time.

And so it is — and it has been — time to put this blog to bed. In this complicated world, may we all embrace and enjoy closure when we find it, without regrets and in the spirit of curiosity. That goes for love, for work, and ultimately for life itself.

New eyes

Julie Fanselow

Hello, friends. Although I haven’t been writing much, I’ve been living plenty. Today’s post comes to you from a tiny room in a rambling 115-year-old inn on Vashon Island, and I have a feeling I’m going to ramble a bit, too, but that’s OK.

Until Monday, I’d never been to Vashon, even though it is a 20-minute ferry ride from West Seattle, and plenty of people commute from here — remotely or twice a day on the ferry. It remains mostly rural, and it is graced by many parks and laced by miles of trails. I’ve already hiked many of them on this brief visit, about 15 miles over the past two days, mostly through forests but also along the shores of Puget Sound.

My new apartment in Seattle is great. It has the quiet I crave, but it has little natural light and no views at all. So as long as I live there, and I hope it will be a few years, I will have even more incentive than usual to go outside — not that I need much incentive. That’s why, when I saw the forecast for plenty of sun and little rain for a few days early this week, I decided to make a quick trip somewhere I could spend most of the daylight hours outdoors. Vashon has not disappointed me.

How I wound up in the Marjesira Inn is a mystery, but it’s clear I was meant to come here. I went to Airbnb and looked at a little beach shack I rented on the Washington coast last February, but it wasn’t available. I zoomed out, saw a $45 listing, and landed on Vashon Island. Why not? As I said, I’ve never been here. The reviews and the price point made it clear that the Marjesira isn’t for everyone: It’s a funky blend of hostel and rooming house. You’re sharing a kitchen and bathrooms. You hear your neighbors. But it’s a magical spot steeped in history, and I’m sure I’ll be back.

In my last post, I mentioned the Free Will Astrology horoscope I found on my last trip, during my January stay in Astoria, Oregon. “You will receive substantial assistance from life whenever you work on the intention to clarify and define the specific longings that are most essential to you,” Rob Brezsny wrote. A quiet place to live was my most specific longing, and now I have that. But my longest-lived longing is my desire to travel — and I travel frequently because it helps me keep my eyes and perspective fresh. At sunrise this morning, alone in the inn’s front room, I spotted a book, Pronoia is the Antidote to Paranoia: How the Whole World is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings by … Rob Brezsny.

Sharing a bit of conversation with Marjesira’s caretaker this morning as we made our breakfasts, I mentioned how, although I am a dedicated minimalist, I was enjoying the century’s worth of accumulated stuff packed into this old inn. As always, travel was helping me see with new eyes.

As we talked, Jacqui was braiding her hair — something she hadn’t done in a while, she said, but she was on her way to a school visit as a wilderness educator and she wanted to feel like a kid again. She wanted to see the world through their eyes.

The world is in a world of hurt right now, big time, and there’s one man who certainly is not conspiring to shower it with blessings. Travel is a tonic unless it’s a forced march, and my heart is with the refugees streaming out of Ukraine toward an uncertain future. It’s hard for any of us to know what is going to happen next: with this unnecessary war, with the climate, with the pandemic, or with baseball. (Sorry, I know that the breakdown in the sport’s contractual talks are far from a key global concern, but my part-time job at the ballyard is a big part of my income and my social life.)

Yet I do know this, and I mainly know it because I travel: The world is a beautiful place, my stay here is finite, I am here for the adventure, and I am bound by the beauty. This gorgeous song from Jane Siberry pops up in my head every so often when I am feeling especially deep gratitude for the world. Enjoy — and to those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, happy almost-spring.


A few housekeeping notes: Two recent posts have disappeared off the main feed here at Surely Joy. It’s a mystery, but you can find them here, if you missed them:

Presenting my word for 2022

Pandemic postcard #56: Better days

As always, thank you for reading Surely Joy.

Moving on, yet again

Julie Fanselow

I opened the door to my new place last spring and heard a noise I hadn’t heard when I looked at the apartment. Maybe it’s the bathroom fan upstairs, the property manager said. But it wasn’t; it was my brand-new refrigerator, and I’d soon learn that it runs loudly and long, more than half of every hour. This wouldn’t be a problem in a big house, but in a studio apartment with my bed about 10 feet away, it wasn’t good. This was especially dispiriting since I’d just moved from an apartment I really liked for two years until the rattle and hum of a new generator at the nearby light rail construction project kicked in to keep me awake at night.

The fridge was the only serious noise issue for a while, until new folks moved into the apartment above mine last summer. Whether due to work schedules or insomnia, they were often up all night. After being jolted awake by the agitator of a washing machine at 3 a.m. a few times within a week — their laundry stack was right above my bed — I wrote a note asking them not to do laundry in the wee hours. Happily, they stopped, but even their normal walking-around noises in the cheaply built structure were enough to interfere with a good night’s rest.

With my lease expiring in early March and a rent increase coming, I decided late last year to see if I could find a new place. I realized that come 2022, I’d be eligible to apply for an “affordable” apartment in a 61+ community since I turn that age this year. I visited one a few blocks from me, where they offered a big discount and a free month. The apartment was far from perfect in its layout, but it seemed quiet, and its well-below-market price was a steal. I got the extensive paperwork together just before Christmas so the manager could submit the application right after the holidays.

It was a mirage. By the last week of January, my application seemed mired in a black hole of bureaucracy, and I was nearing the date when I need to give notice at my current apartment, so I started looking elsewhere. After losing out on one apartment I liked, I knew I’d need to act quickly if I saw another one I wanted. (To prevent discrimination, Seattle has a law that a landlord must rent to the first qualified tenant who applies.)

I also decided to look beyond Craigslist to see what might be flying under the radar. That’s how, on a neighborhood walk last Thursday, I saw a building I hadn’t noticed before, with a sign out front for a local property management company. There was no indication an apartment was becoming available, but I checked the company’s website on Friday morning and saw a listing for a one-bedroom unit at a good price. I immediately asked for a showing, I liked what I saw, I went online to apply Friday night, and by Tuesday morning, I heard that it was mine.

My seventh kitchen in a decade.

Things happen — or they don’t — for a reason. Although the idea of a cheap-apartment-for-life at the senior place was enticing, I was born restless. I definitely hope to spend at least two years, maybe even three, at this new address. But after that, with the pandemic firmly behind us, perhaps I’ll finally pursue my long-held dream of putting what little I own in a small storage unit and traveling for a year or two.

Although I’m not an astrology buff, I spotted my January horoscope from the cheeky Free Will Astrology column. “You will receive substantial assistance from life whenever you work on the intention to clarify and define the specific longings that are most essential to you,” it said. For now, my biggest longing is to end a year of sleep deprivation. “Peace and tranquility,” my dad used to say whenever my brother and I asked him what he wanted for his birthday or for Christmas. We’d laugh and laugh, but now I get it — and hopefully, I’ll have it.