Yesterday I was trolling the internet for job listings and came across a position in Central Oregon that looked good. It's a hybrid job for a small city in a part of the state that is picturesque and because of it's connection to the great outdoors is far and away from most things that I know that help keep me jazzed about living. But in times like these I know that I'll apply and see where my resume lands. They just might bite.
It's funny to think that I'm once again looking out of state for work. I suppose years ago I realized that the Puget Sound region was going to be my high water mark, that I could only go so far north. Sure, I gave thought to Vancouver BC, but only because of their liberal marijuana laws and universal health care. But there is something about the high desert that still appeals, that still calls my name whenever I venture over the Cascades. That Central Oregon position I found is out of Prineville, which is connected by a state highway to Nampa, which is right up the road from the kids. I think, if I apply myself to this job, that I could be happy once again, in my life and in my work.
Happiness. We thought differently about happiness. I don't think you placed much creedence in happiness. I think I did and that was a major difference between us.
Maybe it wasn't so much the idea of happiness, M, but the fleetingness of it, the basing of a relationship on it. I don't think either one of us saw alot of that in households there for awhile, at least when it came to our partners. We both found happiness in other things, some of them the same, like our children or shopping, but that wasn't enough to carry us. You had God, I had my profession, and that was that. We both found ways to get out of the house, to that place in the sun where laughter flowed and where work gave meaning in our lives. And for awhile, too, we found it in each other. That we're both seeking it out elsewhere these days is just life.
I have to tell you that I found a library opening in Arizona as well. Librarian in a federal branch, the Grand Canyon of all places. What is it about these cosmic library connections that trace their way back to you? Delta, of all places. Pueblo, yet another Colorado option. I thought I left both the world of libraries and you behind when I dropped that last library job of mine. I thought for awhile I would be heading east to work for the Department of Transportation in Idaho, become a vehicle inspector, all that, truly really reinvent myself. But no, instead I am falling back on my old skill set, on my education, on what I know best.
We both know how to work the business, you still do as far as I can tell. Library work was a mutual love, a shared happiness. We worked together in the stacks, toured SPL on a kinda busman's holiday, bought higher meaning into it with volunteer work, attended WALE conference, the whole shebang. I thought enough of it to want to give up what I can see now as being a more meaningful job and go back to being a paid professional, not only to cut down my commute but to be able to look at you from across the floor from the comfort of a reference desk. Never mind it took years to find meaning in that job once you left, that I only found meaning in it days before that trumped up investigation got underway.
I suppose that part of it sours me to the profession. I suppose that, too, I am gunshy about finding myself in a position to explain myself to someone someday about why, really and truly, I found myself out of a job. Was it because I fed someone onetime? Or was it because of a woman I met once in the business of living, that I met once in the stacks and across the paging floor, a woman that turned the business of serving the public into something I hadn't expereinced in a long time, and that was happiness in my lot, in my job, in my life.
But I finding that I am happy now without it, or that I can find happiness without you or the profession. I find in serving people, in giving of myself, and that in itself is where I find want to serve from. So I am finding my way back to the profession because I know what my mission is, and also because I know what it is about it that gives me pleasure, that makes me happy. I am going back to serve, to work alongside folks who care about the mission, to work with folks who are alot like we were once, folks who saw that happiness can be found in giving, in hard work, by sweating it out side by side in a mutually agreed upon mission.
I am applying to places all over the country now M, not to get away from the Puget Sound and you, but to truly find myself. San Diego, San Francisco, Prineville, Pueblo, wherever. I'll find my way back to the business, not just the library business, but the business of living.
It's been four years since Longhair Warrior gave us the tour of the backend of SPL's Central library, four years since I bought you ginko socks and late night ferry crossings and cheesecake eaten side by side. Maybe I needed not only that shared experience but the intervening four years to see what I truly needed to see, and that is that happiness counts for alot. We were happy then, and it had a lot to do with the job. I'll find that again, my love, even if it's thousands of miles away from the place where I found my heart. Was this all bridge too far? No, just the right woman at the wrong time, the right job in the wrong place.
Always, your WHMB
It's funny to think that I'm once again looking out of state for work. I suppose years ago I realized that the Puget Sound region was going to be my high water mark, that I could only go so far north. Sure, I gave thought to Vancouver BC, but only because of their liberal marijuana laws and universal health care. But there is something about the high desert that still appeals, that still calls my name whenever I venture over the Cascades. That Central Oregon position I found is out of Prineville, which is connected by a state highway to Nampa, which is right up the road from the kids. I think, if I apply myself to this job, that I could be happy once again, in my life and in my work.
Happiness. We thought differently about happiness. I don't think you placed much creedence in happiness. I think I did and that was a major difference between us.
Maybe it wasn't so much the idea of happiness, M, but the fleetingness of it, the basing of a relationship on it. I don't think either one of us saw alot of that in households there for awhile, at least when it came to our partners. We both found happiness in other things, some of them the same, like our children or shopping, but that wasn't enough to carry us. You had God, I had my profession, and that was that. We both found ways to get out of the house, to that place in the sun where laughter flowed and where work gave meaning in our lives. And for awhile, too, we found it in each other. That we're both seeking it out elsewhere these days is just life.
I have to tell you that I found a library opening in Arizona as well. Librarian in a federal branch, the Grand Canyon of all places. What is it about these cosmic library connections that trace their way back to you? Delta, of all places. Pueblo, yet another Colorado option. I thought I left both the world of libraries and you behind when I dropped that last library job of mine. I thought for awhile I would be heading east to work for the Department of Transportation in Idaho, become a vehicle inspector, all that, truly really reinvent myself. But no, instead I am falling back on my old skill set, on my education, on what I know best.
We both know how to work the business, you still do as far as I can tell. Library work was a mutual love, a shared happiness. We worked together in the stacks, toured SPL on a kinda busman's holiday, bought higher meaning into it with volunteer work, attended WALE conference, the whole shebang. I thought enough of it to want to give up what I can see now as being a more meaningful job and go back to being a paid professional, not only to cut down my commute but to be able to look at you from across the floor from the comfort of a reference desk. Never mind it took years to find meaning in that job once you left, that I only found meaning in it days before that trumped up investigation got underway.
I suppose that part of it sours me to the profession. I suppose that, too, I am gunshy about finding myself in a position to explain myself to someone someday about why, really and truly, I found myself out of a job. Was it because I fed someone onetime? Or was it because of a woman I met once in the business of living, that I met once in the stacks and across the paging floor, a woman that turned the business of serving the public into something I hadn't expereinced in a long time, and that was happiness in my lot, in my job, in my life.
But I finding that I am happy now without it, or that I can find happiness without you or the profession. I find in serving people, in giving of myself, and that in itself is where I find want to serve from. So I am finding my way back to the profession because I know what my mission is, and also because I know what it is about it that gives me pleasure, that makes me happy. I am going back to serve, to work alongside folks who care about the mission, to work with folks who are alot like we were once, folks who saw that happiness can be found in giving, in hard work, by sweating it out side by side in a mutually agreed upon mission.
I am applying to places all over the country now M, not to get away from the Puget Sound and you, but to truly find myself. San Diego, San Francisco, Prineville, Pueblo, wherever. I'll find my way back to the business, not just the library business, but the business of living.
It's been four years since Longhair Warrior gave us the tour of the backend of SPL's Central library, four years since I bought you ginko socks and late night ferry crossings and cheesecake eaten side by side. Maybe I needed not only that shared experience but the intervening four years to see what I truly needed to see, and that is that happiness counts for alot. We were happy then, and it had a lot to do with the job. I'll find that again, my love, even if it's thousands of miles away from the place where I found my heart. Was this all bridge too far? No, just the right woman at the wrong time, the right job in the wrong place.
Always, your WHMB
1 comment:
yay! glad to hear you looking at librarian positions. You are one of the finest librarians about. And that's a seven league boot vantage point, straddling the world, remember, not just in one puny little system etc
Yeah - you are World Class. let's hear it for Male Librarians. Rooooooarrrrrr.
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