One who flew the coop
Who pops up today with a prominent refer in Romanesko? My old pal Patti McCracken, international journalism teacher extraordinare, who’s written a first-person of her experiences for the OpEd page in today’s Christian Science Monitor.
I worked with Patti for a couple of years at the Chicago Tribune. She was a graphics coordinator — assistant graphics editor, the title was; I was an artist. I enjoyed working with her.
Those were troubled times, though. Her stay in the department was even shorter then mine. Patti writes:
Getting that Chicago job was the opportunity I had, for so long, envisioned for myself. The sudden offer to go there, and the money that came with it, seemed to be the “law of attraction” that had come into my life and set itself up as a constitution.
But the same quickened energy that propelled me to Chicago stirred up later to propel me out. My editor showed personal behaviors that were bullying and deceitful. My boyfriend appeared full of angst and pain that I simply could not will away. My resplendent downtown loft was quietly poisoning me with a gas leak that took the life of my joyful dog. And for a final bruising, my landlord’s divorce-minded wife was forging my signature on documents, trying her own deceitful means to take my home away from me.
In this typhoon of grief and confusion, I allowed violent forces to slam my life shut and propel me onward. It was time to go.
…So I quit my job; quit my cool, downtown loft apartment; quit my cool boyfriend; sold my car; put my furniture in storage; hugged my friends; packed a duffel bag as tight and as full as I could; and moved to Europe with little money and fewer job prospects.
Since then I have wandered through and worked in 20 countries across Europe, Asia, and North Africa, acquiring, along the way, a London Black Cab in England; a Jack Russell terrier in Tbilisi, Georgia; and a home within myself that I cannot explain.
Patti’s an excellent writer. Definitely check this one out, if you can. The CSM even provided a little cartoon illustration of Patti, flying away from the coop on newfound wings:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0521/p09s01-coop.html
And she’s a prolific blogger. Bookmark this page:
http://www.pattimcc.blogspot.com/
…And here’s her archive posts:
http://www.pattimccracken.blogspot.com/
