My success deferment was leveraged into actuality today. That's HR-speak for saying i was canned in sixty seconds. My boss actually had the nerve to escort me to my office and demand my key and then walk me to my car, as though i were some sort of criminal, watching me like a hawk the whole time. What? She thought i would blow something up?
While I was taking my key off its ring, I realized that I had asked the universe for a job to get me through to the end of the year and that, amazingly enough, gotten it. She walked with me down the stairs, and then as I was standing in front of the door she started -- no lie -- small talking. Now, I had been as pleasant and gracious as anyone could be, no small feat under circumstances that would leave any sane person apoplectic with embarassment, and younger ones in tears. nonetheless, i held my poise, as i have done ever so often in the past several weeks.
and that's when the universe rewarded me. it always happens when you least suspect it, i suppose, but when you act on not even faith, but the faith of faith, the hope of hope. With my back against the door, about to walk out into the freedom to feel and express however i chose, she asked one last question.
Her: So do you have something fun planned for this afternoon?
me: Actually, the timing is just right, as I've decided to start Proust.
Her: puzzled, i thought maybe she didn't hear me, that perhaps my poise had failed me and my voice had shaken. But no. With the sincerity of someone trying her levelbest to seem as though she actually cares about your future: O. . . uh. . is that a school?
And then, with grace and bearing, I got softly to explain that it was not an it, but a he, one of the greatest authors of our time, though i didn't put it in those words. She scuttled, litterally scuttled, back down her corridor to the office.
As i walked into the unseasonably refreshing sunlight, my tin of teabags precariously perched in my soup bowl with its silver spoon, my coffee in my other hand no longer steaming, i thought yes. yes the universe loves me and wants me to be happy. And I laughed at long last, releasing it all, holding nothing back, wholly myself.
2 comments:
when i left the parking lot, i went directly to the public radio station and told this story to Cormac, who was wonderful to receive it, and we laughed. He told me a story about someone not knowing that the WTC was a target for a reason, not even knowing what went on in the building.
i looked at him and said, "What, they thought it would make a good target just because it was tall?" And we giggled.
He said that books were good, and reminded me of Constanca's signature: Outside a a dog, a book is man's best friend; inside a dog, it's too dark to read.
We ended up by deciding that Proust was a school in Marcel, that place where Louie Louie reigned.
Many thanks to him for being exactly there and exactly getting it.
Hope the Canada planning is going well and that we'll see you sometime soon. p&l
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