In Search of Boundaries

“Ihad a dream last night,” our production manager once told me during our pre-Pesach crunch season. “Actually it was a nightmare. I dreamed that the magazine grids were empty, and I kept typing in the names of the articles, but they kept disappearing.”

Lots of us have experienced different iterations of her dream. This is the kind of job that defies easy boundaries. It creeps up on you wherever you are, wherever you go, invading your family time and social interactions.

Sometimes that works in our favor. I’ve found leads for stories while chatting at a wedding or taking my kids on Chol Hamoed trips (hint: the latter usually involve animals). Walking along a quiet street or waking up in the middle of the night, I’ll suddenly uncover a wisp of an idea for a clever coverline and then repeat it to myself over and over so it won’t disappear. New books will offer themes that eventually blossom into a feature. Relatives will punctuate casual schmoozes with the refrain, “Hey, that’s a good idea for the magazine!”

It’s nice to see the seemingly disconnected pieces of life link themselves together as those random encounters find their way into Mishpacha. But sometimes the thing I want most — firm boundaries between work and home — seems frustratingly elusive.