Fortieth anniversary

Earlier today I checked quickly, and yes—sure enough—I posted something ten years ago today, on the occasion of Wife's and my thirtieth anniversary. 

Now it's ten years later. Our fortieth. And since we are still legally married, I suppose that technically it counts as an anniversary. But this time around I haven't heard anything from her.

Ironically, I even sent her something, though I didn't look at the calendar when I ordered it, and so didn't think of it as an anniversary present. But I called her a couple weeks ago. (Well, it was on July 30, a day after this post.) I was still puzzling over the way that the job offer had dropped into my lap, and I wanted to ask if she had worked magic for it without telling me. (I was thinking of this story here.) She said no, but we talked for a while longer. Then she did a Tarot reading for me on the phone, and told me that I was confronted with two paths and would have to make a choice between them. (Gosh, thanks.)

But after I hung up the phone, I remembered that I had thought more than once that she might like John Michael Greer's The Witch of Criswell. It's a mystery novel, it's about the occult, and the heroine is a young adult. (Does that make it a YA novel?) Wife likes all three of those. So I went online and ordered her a copy … without, as I say, looking at the calendar.

When I got the order confirmation, they estimated delivery on August 12. Only then did I do a double-take, and chuckle.

I sent her a text message to let her know it was coming. She ignored the text message until I followed up with a hand-written letter via snail-mail. I also asked her to let me know when it arrived.

I haven't heard anything from her today, but the online service sent me an email announcing that the book had been delivered. Maybe she'll send me a text tomorrow, or maybe I'll have to send a hand-written letter to get her to acknowledge it. I'm not sure why she won't reply unless shoved. Maybe it's a problem with her phone, but I'm inclined to guess that she has just become so self-absorbed that it never occurs to her to reply to the messages she gets.

(Sigh.)

Yes, I know I'm making uncharitable assumptions about her. At this point I'm pretty sure I have a history of that.

You'd think after all this time it wouldn't be so easy for her to trigger me, wouldn't you? I would. But I guess I'm wrong. 

               

"I find out what I really want …," 3

A while ago, I wrote you about the possibility of a new job that had appeared on my horizon. I interviewed via MS Teams with the recruiter and the hiring manager, and then with the two senior employees in the department. The company made plans for me to fly there at the end of this week, to meet everyone in person and look around at the city. (You remember that this job is about 400 miles away from where I live today.)

Then this morning I sent an email to the recruiter and the hiring manager, saying that I'm really not prepared to move that far away, so I'd like to withdraw my application. I thanked them for their time, and said I was sad to miss meeting them in person. But it wouldn't be fair to let them pay for my travel if I knew I wasn't going to take the job. They were very understanding, and the hiring manager even added, "Wish you the very best in all your future endeavors. You never know, our paths may cross again." 

I had been tending in this direction for a while, and in fact I wrote the email last night. (But then slept before sending it.) What I was not prepared for was how much relief I felt after I clicked Send. Normally I think that words like "it washed over me" are just picturesque and a little over the top. But that's exactly how it felt.

"I find out what I really want by seeing what I do. That's what we all do, if we're honest about it. We have our feelings, we make our decisions, but in the end we look back on our lives and see how sometimes we ignored our feelings, while most of our decisions were actually rationalizations because we had already decided in our secret hearts before we ever recognized it consciously." (Ender to Miro, Children of the Mind, chapter 3, by Orson Scott Card.)

The Red Shoes

A week ago, I visited Mother. We talked all weekend, as usual. Partly we talked about this potential job that I've been mulling, because I wanted to assess how tough it would be on her if I moved 400 miles away to take it. Her answer was basically what Brother had said: it would be sad to have me farther away, but not devastating. (And, knowing my Mother, it would have to be pretty damned devastating before she would ever admit it.)

But somewhere along the line she mentioned casually that "The Red Shoes" (1948) had been Father's favorite movie, back when he was alive. Whenever it came on the Late Show on television, he made sure to see it; and then he would talk about it long after. She said she thought it was deeply meaningful for him.

It must have been. But what does that tell me about him, that I didn't already know? Is there anything?

Well, maybe. Of course he was an actor, not a dancer. And he was dedicated to his craft. Even if he was playing forgettable roles in silly, summer stock shows he approached them with professionalism: to portray the character the best way he could, and to give the audience more than they had paid for. I remember the theater critic who wrote for the local paper when I was in high school used to roast the local theater company for failing to bring out the subtleties of "Charlie's Aunt" or "The Mousetrap" … and he always qualified his scathing remarks by saying, "… except for [Mr. Tanatu], who delivers, as always, the solid, polished performances we have come to expect from him."

He loved the fine arts. In a sense it's funny to say that, because I don't remember him going out to art galleries a lot. And while my parents had a large collection of LPs [that means "long-playing vinyl records to be played at at 33⅓ revolutions per minute," for those unfamiliar with the term] it seems like they played a lot of music when I was a baby or young child, and not so much when I was older. It is as if their music-playing dropped off sharply when they reached their mid-thirties. (Maybe there were external factors involved, because of things going on in their lives. I can only guess.) But I know that he thought of himself and described himself as someone who loved the fine arts, so I'll give him credit for that here. (That self-understanding also caused him problems in other ways, as I discuss in this post here.)

Answer to Kimberly

Last Saturday, I left a question for Kimberly Steele about this job that has come up through my former employer, BehemothCo.

Kimberly, bless her, responded here rather than just deleting my question.

I replied to her answer: briefly here in a comment on her blog, and at greater length in a post here on mine.

So far, so good.

And then, in a burst of generosity not to be imagined, Kimberly replied to my blogpost in a comment here, which runs as follows.

Kimberly Steele here, thanks for sharing this. It seems to me your Tarot are telling you the same things as my Ogham. From what I can tell, you sincerely want to take the job and you want to move away, but both your Tarot and my Ogham are saying you would come to regret it. If you need to take the job and relocate because it is your heart's desire, then go ahead. Sometimes we can only learn certain lessons the hard way.

You also have other choices -- one is taking a local job or joining a local volunteer group or other Meetup for structure. You could also look into living and working in someplace that is not related to this job. The point is you have options even if you feel emotionally blinded to them right now.

Pause with me for a minute to appreciate what this comment means to me.