On Doing Things A Different Way

the proper path isn't the only route

I recently caught up with a Foreign Service friend and her partner over excellent cocktails at the cutest lil speakeasy, OKPB, when they were back in DC for a few days in between two overseas postings. I’ve known this friend since we were both posted in Jerusalem and I recall raging on her behalf when her boyfriend, a scholar whom she met when he was studying abroad in the Holy City, got cold feet when boarding a plane to move from the United States to Jerusalem to live with her. One could say his cold feet were literal because the story goes, he made it through security, shoes in the tray in all, but then changed his mind, grabbed his shoes and ran out of the airport. He says one issue was he had thought there was one way to do what he was doing, which was becoming at academic: You get your PhD and you teach at a university in America where you climb through the ranks of academia. Ultimately he did get on a plane, he moved in with my friend in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem, which is very close to a walking trail that takes you do the most beautiful lookout of the golden yellow Dome of the Rock. He went hard on the YouTube channel he’d created, eventually topping over 1 million subscribers. More successes followed, such as leading archeological tours around the Middle East, an online lecture series, and tons of watchable yet bookish, well-produced videos.

Over more than one finely crafted cocktail, we all talked about how the way you’re “supposed” to do something can obscure the many other ways in which you can do the same thing. Or something else. Possibly something better.

After all, there are so many ways to have a career, to live a life, and don’t all the visionaries whom we look up to in our culture have stories about doing it their own way?

I’ve been thinking about this idea of doing things a different way a lot lately.

In my life, I’ve done a little of both: Gone both the proper route and paved my own road.

The Proper Way

I wanted to be a journalist ever since I was on my middle school newspaper, which is the publication - merely copy paper stapled together - that led to me being published in the teen section of the Detroit News. I went to newspaper camp in my high school summers and I majored in journalism in college. I was on my college newspaper and then I worked at the local newspaper, the Kalamazoo Gazette, up until I moved to Washington DC, practically on a whim, for an internship at a First Amendment nonprofit. From there, it was more journalism jobs, one of which involved frantically chasing around old white men (ie members of Congress) to get a canned quote for an article, the same boring quote all the outlets got, leading me ask myself “Is this really the way I should be doing this?” and also “Who cares?” Anyways, I pretty much did the journalism thing they way you were supposed to at the time (back in those Halcyon days when newspapers were a respected institution) until I got married and moved to Yemen.

But lately I’m more interested in doing it my way, to paraphrase Sinatra.

My Own Path

When I moved back to the U.S. after 12 years abroad, and especially when my marriage dissolved and along with it the contingent government jobs, I decided I’d codify my passion for interior design, start an LLC and call myself an interior designer. Never did I consider going to design school. It seemed to me a field in which I could built upon my significant lifelong interest with hands-on learning and I did - through networking, asking a ton of questions, going to interior design conferences, watching YouTube, teaching myself a 3D design and rendering program, and more.

Not that the traditional path to being an interior designer — design school, perhaps an apprenticeship with a senior designer, starting in an junior designer position at a firm — is a bad one, it just wasn’t going to be realistic for me, someone attempting to create a “portfolio” career later in life.

Every time I’ve heard an interior designer whom I admire telling their origin story, it’s a non-traditional route that made them successful and well-known. Always it has involved believing in their artistic vision, putting themselves out there, and taking big risks before they felt ready. However, in not taking the traditional path, you also don’t have those markers of success along the way: paychecks, promotions, etc. You must have faith what can be a sometimes foggy path and rely on what intuitively feels right.

I just heard Amy Poehler, in an ad on Instagram, say that she’s a proponent of doing things before you feel ready. If you wait until the perfect moment, that train is going to leave the station, she said.

So when my friend and I came up with the idea a few months ago that I host a writing salon in my Washington DC apartment, we decided I’d just do it. Not check if others were doing something similar, not wait for a year to better develop curriculum, not see if I could get hired at a writers center or a college. I set the date and announced it, then advertised it on Instagram, Facebook, and via old fashioned fliers at my local bookshops. (I’m not unqualified or anything - I actually do have an MFA, which some universities feel qualifies one to teach writing).

Last month, I wrapped up my first Writing Through Uncertain Times salon and I must say, it went even better than I could have hoped. Turns out I didn’t need to devote months to developing curriculum because what I wanted to teach and discuss where all the things I’ve read - short stories, essays, poems - over the years that I’d already stored away and ruminated over. Elena Ferrante. Elie Wiesel. Annie Ernaux. The salon was full of engaged and talented individuals and I got to combine by newfound love of teaching with my longknown love of hosting. (I served food at each session, which were hosted in my DC apartment). It was such a success I immediately scheduled the next one because momentum.

If you’re in DC, consider joining me! Or share with a DC-based friend who you think would like the structure and community of an in-person writing salon.

I’m also doing an online version of the class on Saturdays at noon, which I hope will allow folks on the West Coast and outside of the U.S. to participate.

In thinking about the idea of doing things a different way I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my outlook on dating. Soon after my separation, I came to the conclusion that online dating would not be the way I’d find a smart and sexy man with whom I have an authentic connection and immediate chemistry. I did actually join Hinge for a few days back in winter of 2024 and through my misunderstanding of everyone’s advice to not waste time texting and to meet up immediately, I went on three dates in 24 hours. I quickly saw how the rote nature of being asked “Do you have siblings” by men I’d bantered with but had no IRL chemistry with flew in the face of the authenticity I was craving. I deleted Hinge and determined that I’d meet interesting guys with whom I was attracted to in person. And it worked! I had a number of meet cutes, including one so cute (it involved the man leaping through closing Metro doors to continue talking to me) that I’ve already turned it into the opening pages of a play. Over the course of a year and a half, I didn’t ever consider going back on the apps even when I felt lonely, horny, or lonelyandhorny. Sometimes I had to remind myself to “trust the process”. The process being that I was growing increasingly comfortable and content with the new single life I was building whilst remaining utterly open and curious about new experiences and new people. I strongly suspected that would lead somewhere great. And it did. I recently had the most invigorating meet cute with a sexy man with whom I connect on all the levels and it’s going great.

To all the paths that lead you where you want to go,

Emily