One of my favorite movies to share with Toy Soldier Boy is A Bridge Too Far. It really is a geekfest for war movie fans and armchair historians, a film loaded with tons of authentic hardware and famous people and real life locations. It's thrilling in it's delivery, long in it's storytelling and beautifully shot. Always recommended, even if it's a bit much for your average movie watcher. Maybe not your kind of Sunday popcorn flick, darlin', but catch it someday if you can.
I thought about that movie's title tonight as I was walking the track. I thought of all the phrases that could apply to my life right about now.."high water mark", "Waterloo", "one bite too many", and then I let it all go. I walked this evening to let loose some tension I picked up this afternoon while I was processing my unemployment application. At first I found myself thinking too hard about what got me to this place, but then, after a few laps realized it was a long time coming, not so much the anticlimatic outcome of my job, but this wild florish of an ending, a good, dramatic, meaningful ending that put paid to my career here in the Kitsap, wrapped up my time here in this house, and truly ended my life here in the Northwest as I knew it.
Life is undoubtedly a series of choices. Good or bad, it doesn't matter, we just make them and later on see what they were really worth. I would have never thought that something as simple as my friend the Record Head heading off to Seattle in 1988 would impact my life as it stands right now. I think of that slight relationship of ours, which was strange and not too close to begin with, and how it influenced my travel plans the summer after I graduated from Cal State, and have to wonder if it was fate staring me in the face. "Come on up" he wrote and since I had a summer to burn before grad school I took him up on it. Besides, I could attend my pal's wedding in Paradise on the way home and see Z in San Francisco as well. All the way around a grand idea.
So, I took the train up the coast and stayed at his place, a funky little apartment at the base of Queen Anne. We took in Bumbershoot, rented a car, caught a ferry to Bremerton and drove around Kitsap County, caught a lot of films, ate a lot of interesting food and generally had a very good time. I was so enamoured of the city by the time I left that I completely lost interest in everything else, even Colorado, which, for me, up to that time, anyway, was God's Country. It was the sidetrip I took to SPL, to the children's floor, that really made up my mind for me to come back after grad school. I walked up to the children's librarian and introduced myself, told her that I was going to library school that fall, that I wanted to come back and work for her someday. We both laughed about that. Funny how things turn out. Really, you have to be very, very careful what you wish for, mujuer.
It took some time but I finally escaped the orbit of SoCal with The Estranged One, ended up in Oregon and then, as luck would have it, was able to bag two interviews with two different systems up in Washington state. The first one was in Bremerton, the second one in Everett. I think it was the keen interest of the interview panel, my duck hat and my unimpeded excitement that got me the job with EPL. I have to admit was happy there. I drove a bookmobile, worked a small staff, did a lot of fingerplays and could even walk to work. But I still had it in my head to work for SPL. Ended up applying in 1996 and while it took more than six months for it to happen I finally landed "the job of my dreams". The children's librarian that I had talked to years before was now a big shot in the system, but she still remembered me. That said alot about where I landed, alot about the quality of the individual I talked to years before. I thought very highly of her from that moment on and it never really changed.
But the big city wasn't where we could afford a home, so once again a ferry and a short drive took us to South Kitsap where we found a house that we could afford on my salary. But it was far from work, a long drive and an even longer public transit commute. It took four years but finally the thrill of ferry commuting and long freeway drives came to an end. But that wasn't the end of the Washington story, for in the end it came down to quitting one job only to grab another in the county, with the county, six months later. What's funny is that we were trying to get out of town at the time, trying to get out of the state, to go back home, and then, bam! I ended up working for the same outfit that didn't want me eleven years earlier.
I had a grand boss and an interesting crew when I first started that job, but sometimes life leads you astray, takes you places that you need to go in order to grow. I took a wrong turn one day and ended up with a three year probation for being late. Hard to believe but I made it through that. What's wild, M, is that I met you in the midst of all that and was late for work only once. It would of been, should of been, enough for me to stay on and do what I was doing, but I threw the dice one last time, applied for a job that closer to home, a few blocks from home, not so much because I was itching to be a librarian again but because I figured I could impress you with my drive, with a better salary, with the title that I had bought and paid for so many years before. I applied so I could work along side you, and then, once I got the job, well, that's where it all started. The end of our story and as far as I'm concerned the end of my time here in the county.
You know, life is filled with bookends. Not so much endings, or even beginnings, but brackets of sorts. You start somewhere and end somewhere, sure, but it's the action that takes place in the middle of the tale that determines how good the story really is. Applying for that branch job seemed like a good idea at the time, but no sooner than I started your talks began at home and our story pretty much ended. We had our own sort of Waterloo the night of the 28th of April. Not you against me, but you and I against time, fate and God. Nothing was the same after that.
I think of a particular instance, the first day on the job, the 2nd of May, the moment where you handed me a box of truffles and a homemade card and I have to wonder if I knew right then and there that we would go no further on our journey than that. I think of that day and know that I was supposed to see my friend in Seattle that one summer long ago just so I could land in that little town, be there in that moment, standing there before you, just two friends in the stacks, in a little branch where everything, very soon, would go up in a cloud of dust.
Waterloo. A bridge too far. That librarian I met on that trip years before ended up becoming my uber boss. That library that didn't want me in the beginning didn't want me in the end, either. That trip I took to Seattle so long ago introduced me to the county that I would live in, that I would cherish, where I would find my heart and my home and you. I think of beginnings and endings and know that I had to take that trip in 1988 just so I could learn something from it, even if that lesson took twenty years to find it's way home to me.
M, I would do it all over again, do nothing differently, for if I did, I would have never learned the hard lessons that I've learned over the last four years. You are the whole reason why I am here right now, in this house, alone, writing these words, at the end of my librarian days here in the Northwest, and baby, I have no regrets. None at all.
How can I when the price I paid for loving and losing you was the hardest and best lesson of my life?
Your WHMB
I thought about that movie's title tonight as I was walking the track. I thought of all the phrases that could apply to my life right about now.."high water mark", "Waterloo", "one bite too many", and then I let it all go. I walked this evening to let loose some tension I picked up this afternoon while I was processing my unemployment application. At first I found myself thinking too hard about what got me to this place, but then, after a few laps realized it was a long time coming, not so much the anticlimatic outcome of my job, but this wild florish of an ending, a good, dramatic, meaningful ending that put paid to my career here in the Kitsap, wrapped up my time here in this house, and truly ended my life here in the Northwest as I knew it.
Life is undoubtedly a series of choices. Good or bad, it doesn't matter, we just make them and later on see what they were really worth. I would have never thought that something as simple as my friend the Record Head heading off to Seattle in 1988 would impact my life as it stands right now. I think of that slight relationship of ours, which was strange and not too close to begin with, and how it influenced my travel plans the summer after I graduated from Cal State, and have to wonder if it was fate staring me in the face. "Come on up" he wrote and since I had a summer to burn before grad school I took him up on it. Besides, I could attend my pal's wedding in Paradise on the way home and see Z in San Francisco as well. All the way around a grand idea.
So, I took the train up the coast and stayed at his place, a funky little apartment at the base of Queen Anne. We took in Bumbershoot, rented a car, caught a ferry to Bremerton and drove around Kitsap County, caught a lot of films, ate a lot of interesting food and generally had a very good time. I was so enamoured of the city by the time I left that I completely lost interest in everything else, even Colorado, which, for me, up to that time, anyway, was God's Country. It was the sidetrip I took to SPL, to the children's floor, that really made up my mind for me to come back after grad school. I walked up to the children's librarian and introduced myself, told her that I was going to library school that fall, that I wanted to come back and work for her someday. We both laughed about that. Funny how things turn out. Really, you have to be very, very careful what you wish for, mujuer.
It took some time but I finally escaped the orbit of SoCal with The Estranged One, ended up in Oregon and then, as luck would have it, was able to bag two interviews with two different systems up in Washington state. The first one was in Bremerton, the second one in Everett. I think it was the keen interest of the interview panel, my duck hat and my unimpeded excitement that got me the job with EPL. I have to admit was happy there. I drove a bookmobile, worked a small staff, did a lot of fingerplays and could even walk to work. But I still had it in my head to work for SPL. Ended up applying in 1996 and while it took more than six months for it to happen I finally landed "the job of my dreams". The children's librarian that I had talked to years before was now a big shot in the system, but she still remembered me. That said alot about where I landed, alot about the quality of the individual I talked to years before. I thought very highly of her from that moment on and it never really changed.
But the big city wasn't where we could afford a home, so once again a ferry and a short drive took us to South Kitsap where we found a house that we could afford on my salary. But it was far from work, a long drive and an even longer public transit commute. It took four years but finally the thrill of ferry commuting and long freeway drives came to an end. But that wasn't the end of the Washington story, for in the end it came down to quitting one job only to grab another in the county, with the county, six months later. What's funny is that we were trying to get out of town at the time, trying to get out of the state, to go back home, and then, bam! I ended up working for the same outfit that didn't want me eleven years earlier.
I had a grand boss and an interesting crew when I first started that job, but sometimes life leads you astray, takes you places that you need to go in order to grow. I took a wrong turn one day and ended up with a three year probation for being late. Hard to believe but I made it through that. What's wild, M, is that I met you in the midst of all that and was late for work only once. It would of been, should of been, enough for me to stay on and do what I was doing, but I threw the dice one last time, applied for a job that closer to home, a few blocks from home, not so much because I was itching to be a librarian again but because I figured I could impress you with my drive, with a better salary, with the title that I had bought and paid for so many years before. I applied so I could work along side you, and then, once I got the job, well, that's where it all started. The end of our story and as far as I'm concerned the end of my time here in the county.
You know, life is filled with bookends. Not so much endings, or even beginnings, but brackets of sorts. You start somewhere and end somewhere, sure, but it's the action that takes place in the middle of the tale that determines how good the story really is. Applying for that branch job seemed like a good idea at the time, but no sooner than I started your talks began at home and our story pretty much ended. We had our own sort of Waterloo the night of the 28th of April. Not you against me, but you and I against time, fate and God. Nothing was the same after that.
I think of a particular instance, the first day on the job, the 2nd of May, the moment where you handed me a box of truffles and a homemade card and I have to wonder if I knew right then and there that we would go no further on our journey than that. I think of that day and know that I was supposed to see my friend in Seattle that one summer long ago just so I could land in that little town, be there in that moment, standing there before you, just two friends in the stacks, in a little branch where everything, very soon, would go up in a cloud of dust.
Waterloo. A bridge too far. That librarian I met on that trip years before ended up becoming my uber boss. That library that didn't want me in the beginning didn't want me in the end, either. That trip I took to Seattle so long ago introduced me to the county that I would live in, that I would cherish, where I would find my heart and my home and you. I think of beginnings and endings and know that I had to take that trip in 1988 just so I could learn something from it, even if that lesson took twenty years to find it's way home to me.
M, I would do it all over again, do nothing differently, for if I did, I would have never learned the hard lessons that I've learned over the last four years. You are the whole reason why I am here right now, in this house, alone, writing these words, at the end of my librarian days here in the Northwest, and baby, I have no regrets. None at all.
How can I when the price I paid for loving and losing you was the hardest and best lesson of my life?
Your WHMB
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