Listen to Scratching the Record Episode Six | Publicist and Museology Student Flerine Cruz Williams

Growing up, Flerine thought of herself like Harriet the Spy: observing the world around her, taking notes, and pouring over her findings to uncover mysteries. In her 10+ year career, those skills have served Flerine extremely well. She is an accomplished publicist across the food and tourism industries. She is a talented singer. No matter what she’s doing, Flerine is using her voice in a powerful way. Law school is the long-term vision, she says. Flerine has a mission to advocate for communities in art and musem law. That vision has led Flerine to her current educational endeavor: earning a Master’s in Mueology from John Hopkins University.

In this episode, Flerine shares her process for navigating a new chapter in life, why it’s important to slow down and take notes, and how to embrace the twists and turns of a non-linear path.

Read an excerpt from our conversation below and listen to the entire episode here:

What about this season of life do you feel like is familiar, you're pulling threads from the past, and in what ways do you feel like it's stretching you or you're you challenging you in different ways?

Oh, wow. Well, I'm going to go real micro. I have a paper due today.

Thank you all the more.

Yeah. I have a paper due today, and I always have family as top priority, and family for me is priority over everything. It's prior priority over absolutely everything. So I never feel like family is stretching me. I do feel that time is something I've learned to really micromanage when I have to strategically map out when I don't have to. And what I mean by strategically map out is I like to have a zoomed out vision of what time looks like. That way I can have a big picture sense of what's possible. And then when I zoom in on zoom in, then I can actually get to the tactical. So that's kind of abstract. Let me kind of break it down a little bit. Yeah. When I zoom out, I'm looking at a quarter of the year, I'm looking at a half of the year, or I'm looking at the overall year. And then when I zoom in, if I'm looking at the overall year, I zoom in on the quarter. If I zoom in a little bit more, then I zoom in on the month, zooming in a little bit more. I zoom in on the week and so forth the day.

I've been able to really visually use sort of my art skills to sketch out what time looks like, and when I sketch what time looks like either by color code or by shape, I'm able to identify the different selves that have to be active when they do, and the different selves that have to be a producer or a consumer when they do. Wow. That way I can really maximize time to be apparent, to be an employee, to be a wife, a citizen, an artist, to be a student. We all carry a lot of different roles. I myself am also a daughter who is helping elders, but we can't be all those things all at the same time every day, every single day. So really being able to understand and reconceptualize time allows me, and I hope will allow others to see that you can be a priority and other areas in your life can be a priority. You just have to be in control of it, and you have to manage it accordingly.

Wow. I wish we had this conversation when I started grad school. The level of intention that you are approaching your time and your energy to make these things, to give of yourself in these different areas is really inspiring. I'm just taking a moment to pause.

Oh, thank you. I received your feedback for real, because I really don't believe in having to overproduce and be a continuous running engine. So when you know, look at my, my stat card or my resume or my bio or whatever have you, it may seem like, oh my gosh, you are just doing the most girl, and I'm really just intentional about when those seasons of which selves are activated.

I'm so grateful to you for sharing that wisdom, because this can be useful for so many people. It's just thinking about your time in that way and just the way that work and school throws these things at us, and we're going to figure out which ones to catch when.

Yeah. I really think we don't have to be everything all at once. Oh, man. I'm thinking about that movie, everything Everywhere, all at once, but oh,

Yeah.

Let me just sit with that a minute.