Hello? Anyone out there? Anyone? Anyone?
The teaching gig is over. At least until fall. And I find myself in the same predicament that I was in a few months ago. I spend (almost) all day, (almost) every day by myself. Alone. No people. Sometimes even no talking. Or very little of it.
I. am. going. nuts.
Is it really possible to kill, oh, I don’t know, say 30 minutes (or more) by staring off into space until the sun shining through the glass on your balcony door turns all fuzzy and you’re in such a daze that you think you’re finally being called home? (Look to the light…) Yes. Yes it is.
Ach. The point I’m trying to make here (fear not, there is indeed a point) is that for several months I’ve been talking about, thinking about, researching about, dreaming about, wishing about, hoping about this crazy little idea called coworking. And I’m making some progress: connections with others (people!) who are interested in the concept, connections with others (more people!) who are interested in helping get the process going, and even a lead on a prospective space.
But nothing is jelling quite yet, and that progress feels more like baby steps forward and 6-foot-tall-adult steps backward.
The problem, I think, is that my focus has been mostly on finding a space. You know, if you build it they will come. Because thus far, creating consistency has been nearly impossible due in large part to the simple question: where could a coworking group comfortably meet on a (semi) regular basis? But the reality of that focus is that when I sit down to work (yes, sometimes I actually get work done), there are no — you guessed it — people.
Now, this prospective space that I speak of is a promising prospect — it’s just moving a hellava lot slower than I would like. So in the meantime I need to find the people. I need to be with the people. People, where are you?
The good news is that I recently moved into a very rad apartment in Midtown and I have — despite some of my work-from-home issues — actually been working from home. And while working from home, here I sit at the dining room table thinking, how cool would it be if there were a few other people here working with me? Why can’t I have people here? I’m sitting here writing, and there are five empty chairs around this table — people could be sitting there, in those very chairs, working on their laptops. We’ve got wifi. There’s even a printer and a coffee maker. What more do a couple of coworkers need?
An addendum to the good news is that I also have two very rad roommates who are cool with my opening the place for coworking sessions a couple of times a month.
Now all I need is people.