The lake was blissful. Until the cops showed up.
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Somewhere between the unicorn float and the flashing lights, I made a decision. I didn’t expect to end a blissful lake day by calling the cops, but there weren’t many other options. A few summers ago, my Dad and I took The Niblings (my niece and nephew, for the new folks) to a popular lake in a nearby state park. Gorgeous lake views, a clean swim area, new floats for the kids shaped like fantasy creatures. (Word Nerd Fact: Did you know that Brits call swim floats “lilos” cause you lie on them and float around? It’s a way better way of saying “swim float”, don’t you think‽) ANYWAY… After we’d had our fill of picnic subs and lake store ice cream, we packed everything up and made our way to the car. The kids were tired. We all were. It was a wonderful day, but we were ready to get home and recover from a day of relaxing.. That wasn’t going to happen anytime soon though. Someone had blocked us in, tandem-parked behind our spot, ignoring the clear one-car setup with cement barriers. The exhausted niblings howled. I nearly joined them. Instead, I went into solution mode, leaving them in the car (and AC!) with my Dad and trying to find a park ranger. The ranger shrugged. “This sucks, and we want to help, but there’s not much we can do. There are hundreds of people, we don’t know whose car this is. The only options are calling the police to file a report so it gets towed, or going up and down the lakefront and asking every single person.” It ended up that the police/towing option was likely going to be the fastest way to get our car out. So I made the call, and within about 15 minutes two police cars pulled up beside us. At least the niblings were getting a show now! Wearily, the park rangers and I explained the situation, not sure what to do. In all the years all of them had been working at this location, this had never happened on their watch. As we weighed the options (like whether a tow truck could even fit) a crowd started to gather. I guess even parked police cars attract a crowd? Suddenly, a woman shoved her way into our conversation. “Hi, this is my car. Is there a problem?” Yeah, lady. There’s a fucking problem. You blocked me in and I can’t get my people home and taken care of. But I didn’t say that. Instead, I let the police officer explain that she had blocked me in because the spaces aren’t tandem. Obviously. If her hair had been longer, she would have tossed it over her shoulder with the nonchalant uncaringness of Marie Antoinette at a food festival. “Oh, I didn’t know. I’ll just move it." I know, you are thinking that NOW I finally unleashed the demon that lives inside. I wanted to…but something in me wanted to believe the good in her. That she really just didn’t realize how her actions affected the people around her. That letting it go would make everything less uncomfortable. Or I’m a people-pleaser with a real problem. The cops asked if I wanted to press charges, but I didn’t even know what that would look like? And I just wanted to get home and get away from it all. My happy blissful lake day, impugned by all this inconvenience. It’s been a mental gymnastics routine, complete with ribbon-dancing, but I’ve chosen to remember the day as the fun I had with people I love. Which…I’m hoping is how you’ll take this email and messages going forward. I’ve loved floating along in this blissful creative lake life with you…but at some point, we’ve gotta swim to shore. I can’t keep running a business on vibes alone (me and the IRS are pretty clear on that.) Starting this week, I’ll send midweek messages that tell you about new offerings as I rebuild CYC into its next incarnation. You can absolutely opt-out of these messages by simply clicking here to indicate you don’t want any marketing notes, including discounts and offers. I’m hoping the emails will be more like this one. Some stories and observations… If you are willing to stick around through this shift with me, there are some ways you can help if you want to show support, but aren’t necessarily up for a purchase:
You haven’t tandem parked me in! But the system has. I’d love to just keep sending WILFs and writing for joy, to help you get your fill of writerly inspiration and advice, but the creative world doesn’t work that way anymore. So I’m making changes, doing it on my terms, and hoping you’ll come along. More to come, and less rambling and apologizing (I hope!) in the next few weeks. In the meantime, thanks for sticking with me up to now. If you need to opt out of “marketing emails” for your own inbox sanity, I get it. If you stick around, I won’t abuse the privilege of hanging out in your inbox. Otherwise, WILFs will keep WILFing on weekends and I’ll keep writing on Medium and LinkedIn (definitely some other spaces too…can you guess what’s coming next?) Talk soon ~ Elisa |