My post-graduate education at the Tides Motel

What's the deal with current college graduates? They seem filled with ideas about what they want to do. I, on the other hand, graduated with a design-your-own major, which amounted to a lot of biology classes mixed with a K-12 "emergency" (their term, not mine) California teaching credential. And little desire to teach.  Or to ever play genetic god with a fruit fly again.

I didn't know the who-what-when-where-why of life after graduation. I suppose perhaps there are worse places to have landed than the parental home overlooking the ocean in Laguna Beach. I'm asking no sympathy for that, mind you. But in what would later prove to be an unimaginably strange yet fortuitous move, I ended up as a maid in what is now the Tides Motel in Laguna.  

My adventures with wiping hairs out of sinks, vacuuming toenail clippings, and placing the paper sash around the clean toilet only lasted a few months until I decided to run off to Europe on the money I'd made at the motel. But it's not a bad thing to a.) be humbled upon entering the work force, b.) be reminded that there is no job that is ever ever ever beneath you, and c.) learn to appreciate the work of women who don't know you or love you but are ready and willing to clean up after you.

There hasn't been a motel or hotel room I've stayed in since the summer of '76 where I haven't thought about my stint as a maid. In every hotel room, I carefully wipe out the sink. I never leave toenail clippings. All used towels placed in one pile. No diet coke cans or candy wrappers left on the bedside table. I secretly imagine the maids saying to themselves, "What a thoughtful guest!  I hope she'll come back soon!" (This is similar to how I imagine the Macy's saleswoman's reaction upon seeing how neatly I've hung up the bathing suits I've just tried on - the influence of two summers working at the Wet Seal on Balboa Island during high school.)

What am I hoping for as my daughters and nieces and nephews and their friends look for their next job? I hope they find a job where they can learn something about life. I hope that they take away lessons that will feed them forever. Like never leaving your toenail clippings for someone else to vacuum up.

Daughter Emily sent me the following questions from a book called, Rules of the Red Rubber Ball: Find and Sustain your Life's Work and they seem like perfect questions to ponder whether young or old.  Here they are.  I'm not answering them here and now.  But maybe later.  I have to ponder....

What would you do for free?

What activities enthrall you?

What in life do you find irresistible, a source of inspiration, a reason to get out of bed?

What dreams do you chase?

What topics do you love to discuss and ponder?

What's your primal source of joy?