Edgewalking

An Edgewalker, according to a book by that name just written by Judi Neale, is defined this way:

They're the first people to volunteer to head up a new business unit, lead a cross-company initiative, or take on an overseas assignment. They're the glass half-full folks, who are constantly thinking "out of the box," forging alliances with colleagues in other departments, seeking out new solutions to old problems, and anticipating challenges on the horizon. And in today's increasingly diverse workplaces, they are often people who have pursued unusual educational and career paths, traveled widely, and speak more than one language. Judi Neal has a term for these people: Edgewalkers. Literally, an Edgewalker is someone who walks between two worlds.

I haven't read the book yet and can't request it from the library because the city employees are on strike, but I will when they come back. It seems to me that the author is focused on the business world but I'm more interested in how these people behave in society. I used to call them 'deviant bees'. I feel that I am one; either a deviant bee or an Edgewalker. I really like the term Edgewalker though. (Find out if you are an Edgewalker by completing Judi's questionnaire)

I see them as the people who walk the edge between the known and the unknown in any community. You could be one in your profession, in your community, your family - in any group really, where the known is trying to grow into the unknown. My friend Julie has always been great at trying out new things that are available on the market. I admire that trait in her and wish I had it. I tend to wait until it has been around for a while, until I get used to seeing it around and someone else has tried it, and then I decide that maybe I'd like to have one.

I think I walk the edge in other spheres. My sphere is the spiritual/emotional. Sometimes I feel that I'm so avant-guard that what I'm looking at doesn't even have words to describe it yet. I like being in that weird territory, even though it isn't always comfortable. I'm willing to risk people not understanding me, or even ostracizing me in some situations. It's worth it. It's where I live. It's home somehow.

I don't imagine that true Edgewalkers try to be what they are. It just happens because of the way they look at the world. I don't even imagine that you could recruit people to be a part of that group. You either came wired that way at birth or you didn't.

All this relates back to what I want to do with my career next. I'm trying to define what I do and how I do it - because how can you get someone to do it with you if you can't say, concisely, what it is and what it can accomplish. but more on that in another blog.

Speaking of blogs, there is a group in the US called BlogHer. These are women bloggers, blogging about everything under the sun. I came across one yesterday and I'll link you to it here. She's talking about what she refers to as the 'S-word' in business. 'S' being spirituality. She carefully defines it as 'not religion' and says that businesses would do well to acknowledge that it is important to a number of employees, and even customers. I'll paraphrase but my take on it is that they will ignore it at their peril.

When I was in the business world in the 80s, and even in the 90s, if you mentioned anything spiritual, you immediately and automatically lost credibility. Many of the issues I work with are related to what we see as spirituality, although I don't think they are truly limited to that area. It's just a catch-all label for a bunch of things we're not yet comfortable talking about in the world of work. Business ethics and personal integrity, values, fears about illness and incapacitation, death, birth, marriage, friendship, self worth and meaning; I think all of these are very much related to our spiritual outlook in life. They may also relate to our religious beliefs and practices but not only to those.

This 'S' area, for lack of a better term, is what interests me. How does it affect how we work and what we work on, with whom and how well? I don't think human beings work optimally without meaning, and meaning is derived from many things. Just wanting more money in order to buy more security and more material things seems a mean and limiting expectation of what motivates us.

I'm hoping that we're going to get fed up with being on the often fear-ridden material treadmill and seek something with richer meaning. I hope that we demand more of our jobs and our relationships at work. Given how much time we spend there and how influential our work environments are on our lives, I hope that we can do better than we have been doing. I suspect that there are a growing number of people who do, or we wouldn't have so many home-based businesses, children being home-schooled, or even people retiring early in order to do something that holds more meaning for them.

I celebrate walking on the edge, in whatever capacity we do it. I found a post card which I gave to my mother years ago. It said:

If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.

Loneliness

Spencer and I drove through the Fraser Valley yesterday to visit a used book store in Chilliwack. We didn't go just for that purpose but it was a good destination for a leisurely drive through the countryside.

The area is at the far eastern end of the Fraser Valley, in the lea of the mountains, and is some of the prime farmland still left these days. We went out on the highway and then returned on the back roads. It was a more round-about way but it was nearing the end of the day and the sky was really pretty and we weren't in a hurry. (see the two pics below) The highway is so sterile and we wanted to check out a few farms that had little artisan or produce shops attached to them. It turned out that they were all closed but we found them and made note of where they are and their hours of operation for next time.

Just about the only place that was open was the book shop. we checked that ahead of time. The shop is run by a father and daughter team with the mother in the background. I think she does the books. I found out about them because the mother was in an course I taught in the entrepreneurial program at BCIT a few years ago. I would gauge that she was in her sixties. The book shop also operates on the Internet and you can order books from them which they will mail to you. (As I have done) Mary had suggested I drop in and check the place out. It took me a few years! I wasn't sure she would remember me but she did, and my name too.

I found a few books that I needed and then we headed off to find some lunch. There were some really nice looking little cafes around the corner but they were closed on a Sunday and so we followed Mary's suggestion and found a bigger place a little further from the store -n a brand new, sterile mall. No worries though because the food was fine.

After lunch we wandered back to the store again and as we were poking about in some of the store windows an elderly woman passed us using her Zimmer frame. She stopped in front of me, apologized for eavesdropping, but said she would anyway, and exclaimed about the love there was between Spencer and I. She said she used to have it with her husband and that he had died a few years ago. I said that she must find it hard and she said she was so lonely. She said that you can't replace that sort of feeling and that she had noticed it with us.

Since we weren't strolling along arm-in-arm but were talking about what one of the empty shops might have been before it closed, I think she must have been picking up the fact that Spencer and I were having a nice afternoon and that we like one another. She probably had a wonderful friendship with her husband and misses it. After talking with us for a few more minutes, she went off on her way and so did we.

I was left thinking about what she said. It's not every day that someone comes up to me like that and certainly not to tell me about the love she feels between me and the person I'm with, when that person isn't my significant other. On reflection, I'm positive that happy camaraderie has an energy and that when you're alone and lonely you are particularly sensitive to it. It feels like everyone else in the world has it but you - like young lovers in the springtime.

I'm also reminded of how many lonely people there are in our communities. Holiday weekends seem particularly poignant. Families, families everywhere and they all look happy even if they're not. Insiders and outsiders, belongers and 'others'. How do you get 'in' if you're 'out'?

The fact is that even if the animals went two-by-two into the ark, we don't go two-by-two off the planet, or even across it. Really good relationships are rare treasures and we should recognize and celebrate them as such. Marriages often don't last, families having falling outs and friendships are often imperfect and fleeting. But some of them are gems.

Even the ones that are long gone leave a residue, a sweet aftertaste. I was remembering the other day about a girl with whom I went to summer camp when I was 12. She befriended me when I was being bullied by a girl in my tent who turned all the other girls against me. I don't remember her name but I remember the feel of her, sitting beside me on the bus on the way home.

I think the antidote to loneliness is appreciation. It's even more important than having things in common. When someone appreciates you, you feel seen and valued. You matter. You shine. We need genuine appreciation like we need vitamins.

This is a corn field with an interesting sky.



And a blueberry field a little later.