Mood:
sadTopic: Writing
My horoscope for today said I was going to feel as though my world was spinning completely apart, but that I should take heart in knowing that amazing change would come from facing whatever hurtles I encountered.
My weekly horoscope from The Independent Weekly said I should be careful which words I allowed to enter my ears, lest I be impregnated with the wrong thoughts.
This morning I found two pennies, several miles and hours apart, both heads down. I picked them both up and carried them in my pocket all day because when I was in Helena, Montana on June 26th, 1998 and there was a blizzard on MacDonald Pass that caused the Red Cross to come to the aid of hundreds of my fellow cross-country cyclists caught in the storm, I found two pennies, one heads up and one heads down, on the cement floor of a fairgrounds building. I had seen dozens of such pairs from the first day I climbed on my bike and headed up Snoqualmie Pass in Washington, but at that moment, I realized this pair was telling me that I choose my own luck, that rejecting a heads down penny just because I didn't like its orientation meant I was rejecting a gift from the universe simply because I didn't like the way it was presented to me.
This morning I contacted the people (in Helena, Montana) making the decision about the major writing project in which I hoped to participate, and learned that I am no longer under consideration. The person I spoke with said all the usual nice things about keeping my samples on file in case they were in need of a writer with my skills in the future--and I will make a point of following up with them over the next year--but I was apparently not sufficiently impressive this time around. Two months of research, writing, reading and preparation went into my submission, two months of imagining myself already participating in the project, two months of thinking there was no one else I could imagine writing for. As I said in my cover letter to them, their call for a researcher/writer opened a door that I immediately walked through and it closed behind me. So here I am, alone on the other side of a closed door with no clear map of how I'm supposed to do the work I've determined I must do.
My lovely, lovely friend Heather from Earth Share wrote me a note of encouragement upon hearing the news. She included a piece of wisdom she'd received from a friend, and so far I have only been able to establish that the quote is from a Japanese man named Masahide, circa 1668:
Barn burned down, now I can see the moon.
I haven't passed that along to my dad, yet, but he's been urging me to go it on my own for a long time now, and I'm sure he would approve.
