Squirrel Swirl

I bought a NEW thing on Saturday at La Mexicana Groceries by the store: a clay squirrel.
I was standing in line idly gazing at the display of clay animals behind the counter. I saw the squirrel and wished my father were alive so I could buy it for him. Then it occurred to me that I could buy it for myself.

It's so nice to have money!
The squirrel was $24--not very expensive, but I don't know when I've spent that much on a thing I don't need. (And usually I get everything I want or need from the thrift store.)

These clay animals are mass produced in Mexico––but they're hand-painted, so each one's different. When I got home I realized I'd chosen colors like the rug's in BOOK's, which I shampooed that day after work:

Abby had brought in her carpet cleaner for me to use, and Amina, above, right, wanted to try it too. You can just see that her eye is crinkled because she's smiling--the shampooer was fun to use–– and satisfying to see the results, the rug was so dirty! (You can see the dark wash-water in the lower canister.)

It's satisfying overall to be at the store.
As a volunteer, it's easier to practice my Life Challenge: 
hold on loosely, but don't let go.

I really, really want to approach my school job with that attitude when I return in a couple months.
The work is a good, new stretch for me, but even if I were younger and had years of work ahead of me, I wouldn't go into education or education reform.
My heart's not in it.

Why I'm Not a Librarian

If anything, when I was younger I would/could have (but not "should have") gotten my MLS and stayed in library work.

I don't regret not becoming a professional librarian though: it would've kept me firmly in the life I was already in.
I would not have ended up being a sacristan at the Basilica;
And back in nursing homes with people with Alzheimer's;
and working in the three thrift stores--the indie Steeple People; Goodwill (barely counts, it was so corporate); and SVDP, which has been one of the great universities of my life;
and now, working with autistic students.

Hm, though actually. . . if I'd worked in the city public libraries, where I'd have wanted to be, I'd have encountered a lot of what I do at the store as libraries have become places (like the store) where people go who have nowhere else.
There's a full-time social worker on staff at the downtown library now--with an open glass office near the entrance.
I think I'd have loved working for the public library.

Why didn't I go that route?
[digs around in memory bank]
Oh! I remember how it all went …
When I was forty-one, after a dozen years at the art college library and one+ years as a proofreader, full-time, in-office at the publisher's, I was ready to launch a Life Exploration Expedition.
Geez, I almost forgot how open the future felt to me...

I'd already walked the Camino when I turned forty--the next year I quit the publisher's (I'd saved money);
kept my weekend job at the Basilica (I loved tending to the magic objects, like lighting beeswax candles on the altar);
and I signed up for training to be a body pump instructor at the YWCA. (God, I forget I was in good enough shape I would even consider that...)

In October I took a train trip out east to see friends in NYC and Boston... When I came back I went on retreat to St John's Abbey. I wanted most of all to be open to possibly—open to the winds of spirit.
About a month later, my sister and brother called me one night. Our mother had killed herself.

Boom--the door to my open future slammed shut, lights out. I’ve written about all this before, but I half-forget. “Why didn’t I…?”

After that... I canceled the YW training class. Not that I would have studied library science either, but for a long time I didn’t have energy or desire for anything. 

In a daze, I took on some at-home work for the publisher, which turned into a dozen years of contract work proofing, editing, and writing non-fiction books for kids.
I wrote for a few other places (and starting in 2007 I blogged--that was huge), but that was the bulk of it. Mostly geography books, but other stuff too.

It was good work, in its way. I learned a ton!
Coworkers always said that if you worked for this publisher for a a few years, you got the equivalent of an excellent sixth-grade education.
LOL, it's true.
I know the dates of the American Revolution (1776-1783) and what molybedum is (a metal used as an alloy to make things like aircraft).
My best book was on the history of toilets---which turned out to be a history of public health.

Eventually I walked Camino again, when I was fifty---with Marz, who moved here afterward, and that began a whole new chapter... Many adventures.

But, wow--that moment when the future looked like a fresh open field... That was nice.