The Nature of Work

I needed to drink words. Not headlines, or articles, or updates. Actual words printed on paper held in my hands. Words of a time and place that happened before. If I could just get my hands on good enough words the ink might leech up my thumbs and quench my brain.

Fiction had yet to hit the spot. And my reliable philosophy tomes dug wells so deep I risked drowning. It was A Year in Provence that finally did it. Mayle gives such vivid detail of life you can feel the rocks beneath your feet and smell the rosemary infused stews. His work a tonic for the edginess and thirst I’ve not been able to shake.

The other day at work I brushed fingers with at least four different people. My reaction straddled two instincts - the Canadian training of politeness and professionalism, and my body wanting to recoil. My mouth mumbled, “Sorry” and my brain screamed “DANGER!”

None of this is natural.

It took thirty seven years but I now know what my face smells like. Having to wear a mask all day does that. Lips and nose and chubby cheeks all squish together the scent of all other life extinguished completely.

I don’t think it’s helping my resting bitch face, a term others have given me. A friend calls it my “utter disdain for the word” face. He’s not wrong.

Complaining about being employed while entire industries have come to a standstill is an obnoxious privilege. The part of me that reads Buddhist philosophy and strives for empathy should be grateful.

And yet.

It isn’t having to take breaks alone in my car. Nor is it wearing a mask and gloves all day. Or returning home to immediately shower and wash my clothes. Although it’s definitely all of that. As well as the ricochet ballet it takes to walk through the store around staff and customers. All day long a running commentary “Is this how I get it? Was that safe? Did I touch x, y, z?” An endless cycle of rubber, disinfectant, step back, step back further. Don’t touch, don’t speak, watch out, be safe.

And just when you’re too exhausted to move a tiny voice says “I hope you didn’t bring it home with you.”

Fear is sucking my brain dry.

But complaining would be selfish. When so many have died, and so many have jobs infinitely more dangerous than mine. They are the ones doing something important. They are saving lives.

Maybe it would be different if I thought my job was actually essential. If I were doing my part to help the community. If there was any way I was earning the noble title of “frontline worker”.

But the truth is I’m not helping anyone in the least.

For the past two decades I’ve defended working in the arts. When photography started to be undercut by social media and digital camera wielding amateurs I was outraged. Many a rant was spent on the importance of photography, writing, film, music, theatre… these are the essential parts of life! The pieces that distinguish us from the other members of the animal kingdom.

And the Universe said, “Oh yeah? Prove it.”

Nothing in my five years of photography school prepared me to work during a pandemic. How to create when stuck at home? Absolutely. Years in a darkroom and a semester of Cindy Sherman and Uta Barth made me confident I could work in isolation. But with the public?

Because that’s the secret of pursuing a creative career. At some point money gets involved. We all dream of endless resources to pursue our art. The aching soul that begs “please just let me make something” is impossible to silence. But without money it’s a struggle to feed.

I started working in a lab when I was seventeen. Over years of work, school, and creating, I. have developed a Liam Neeson-esque particular set of skills. But unlike Liam mine are not life and death. My skills are at best a luxury item.

If my ability to photoshop an image could do anything to change the global pandemic and subsequent economic collapse I would stay up around the clock and have the Adobe logo tattooed on my chest.

For three weeks the same idea has popped into my head and I have yet to be able to crack it.

“The Nature of Work”

That’s all. That’s the phrase my mind keeps flipping over. But I can’t get any further with it.

The nature of work.

At the core of my being I have always held the belief that the work we do matters. What each of us contribute to our communities and society as a whole are the essential parts of being human. That everyone is given a purpose and a gift they can use to help the collective whole.

“That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse”

Right now the nature of my work is not contributing a verse. It isn't even humming a tune.

But it must be done.

So I go to work and play my part. Grateful to have a job but terrified to do it. Polite and helpful on the outside and screaming “You’re too close! Wear a mask! Why are you shopping? Don’t you know this is a crisis?” inside my head.

And all the while I keep hearing “the Nature of Work” whispered like a puzzle I should be solving. But the pieces are stranded on islands in my brain. If I could just drink in enough ink maybe a path would form. But for now I am left to paddle in circles.

“O me, O life?”

The play goes on.